Bernhard Aichner - Woman of the Dead - A Thriller

After the kiss in the cool room, Mark moved in with her. Love suddenly filled the old villa. It was all like a dream, a fairy tale come true, just like in the books that Blum had read, the stories in which she had taken refuge. It was the happiness of others that had kept her alive, and her own longing for it. Something she had never really believed in now lies beside her. She wants everything to stay as it is, nothing to change. She says so every day, every day she asks him not to stop loving her. A kiss before they begin each new day, and then, thankful for it, she moves away from him and jumps out of bed. In the old days Blum would never for a moment have thought that happiness could fill her like this. That she would be granted little human beings and would love them. Back then she didn’t like to think of what would happen next, she simply flung herself into Mark’s embrace. She hadn’t dared to think of children. She was afraid the happiness would go away if she asked too much of it, that love would disappear overnight. Having her own children, seeing them grow up, loving them – for three years Blum dismissed the idea from her mind. She couldn’t imagine being a mother, she was afraid of repeating what she had learned. Lovelessness, coldness of heart, she didn’t want to find out whether she was another Herta or Hagen. When Mark broached the idea, fear constricted her throat, kept her quiet. She didn’t dare to try for them, not for a long time, but in the end she overcame her fears. Her wish for children was too great. But she was granted her wish twice. They were miraculous little creatures. Blum worried over every tear they shed, every fit of crying, she took care of them and touched them whenever she could, she carried them around for hours, caressed them, spoke lovingly to them. She lay awake at night looking at her angels as they slept. To this day she sometimes doubts that it can be true, that they are really here.

Uma and Nela are upstairs with Karl, Mark’s father, who is sitting reading the morning paper when the girls storm into his kitchen. He is a kindly old man who makes cocoa for the children, laughs with them, helps them to play with their building blocks, who loves them and would do anything for them. Uma is in the crook of his arm, Nela is spooning up cocoa from a pink cup. Karl tells them stories over breakfast; he is a blessing to everyone in the house. Mark and Blum brought him to live with them two years ago. He had suffered an infection from a tick bite, and then took early retirement after a stroke. He now needs help in many situations – he would never ask for that help, but he is glad of it. There are things that he forgets these days, things he can no longer remember. Mark didn’t want to leave him on his own in his little apartment, and so Blum suggested converting the unused second storey of the house. Knowing how much he meant to Mark, she wanted Karl to live with them. For a long time he had done everything for his son. Mark’s mother died young, and Karl was the only parent Mark could remember. When he woke up, when he went to sleep, Karl and only Karl was there. Karl brought the boy up on his own: two men at the breakfast table, fatherly advice when he had a spare moment. They stuck together as much as they could. Mark spent a good deal of time on his own, a little boy under the covers, but a little boy who could always trust his father to come back. Who knew that nothing bad would happen to him, that the bond between them was stronger than anything else. Mark was a loner; as a teenager he knocked around like a stray dog, but he was happy, as happy as possible, because of all the trouble that Karl took. He told Blum about his life as a motherless adolescent, about those frequent father-and-son chats in the kitchen. Karl would sit at the table with his evening glass of beer while Mark washed the dishes.

‘Do you know what you want to do, Mark? After school, I mean?’

‘I’m going to join the police. Same as you. The criminal investigation department.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, boy.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘It’s not always a pleasant job.’

‘What job is?’

‘We went to pick up a young mother at her apartment today. She’d shaken her baby to death. Her sister found them and called us. The mother was sitting on the floor cradling the baby; she cried when the paramedics took the child out of her arms. She said the baby wouldn’t stop crying. She just wanted peace.’

‘We’re out of washing-up liquid.’

‘Did you understand what I was saying, Mark?’

‘That’s life, Papa.’

‘No, it isn’t, or only for people like me who decide to earn their living that way. You don’t have to see things like that, you can avoid it.’

‘But I don’t want to.’

‘You should go to university, Mark, and then the whole world’s your oyster, you can always join the police later.’

‘But I want to join right away.’

‘Why?’

‘If it’s good enough for you, then it’s good enough for me.’

‘I know your mother would have wanted you to go to university and study. Economics or medicine.’

‘But my mother isn’t here.’

‘I know.’

‘You really don’t have to worry about me.’

‘I’m so sorry, Mark.’

‘What for?’

‘Everything.’

‘You did everything right by me, everything, don’t you understand that? So now drink that beer and stop worrying.’

Twenty years later Karl is telling the children stories. Uma and Nela love him: his beard – they rub their smooth skin against it – his voice, his arms tossing them up in the air, his laughter. Karl’s life is a simple one now. There are no more crimes, no more corpses, only the children and the armchair where he spends his days. He listens to music sitting in it for hours on end or sits out on the terrace holding his face up to the sun. Mark always keeps an eye on his father, covers him up when he has fallen asleep in his chair. The children love him; their parents can see it in their faces when they come down from the top floor and repeat the stories that Grandpa has told them.

The past is forgotten, Blum’s life before Mark. She sits at the breakfast table, smiling at the way Mark holds out his coffee cup, looking at her. Smiling as she spreads butter on her bread, tells the children how bees make honey, tells them not to dawdle, they have to go to kindergarten. She is impatient but still loving as she hurries them up, asking all the same if they want another slice of bread and honey. Watching them munch and smack their lips, spreading honey all over the table, while she talks to Mark.

‘When will you be home today?’

‘Late.’

‘Difficult case?’

‘Yes.’

‘What is it?’

‘You don’t want to know, Blum.’

‘Maybe I do.’

‘The world’s a bad place; it’s enough for me to have to deal with it.’

‘My hero, my rescuer, the good conscience of the city!’

‘There’s something strange going on here.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘No.’

‘You can, you know. I can handle it.’

‘Yes, but all the same no. I have to be certain first. Right now I’m on my own with it. I could be seeing a crime where there isn’t one.’

‘Trust your instinct.’

‘That’s the problem, because that’s exactly what I am doing.’

‘You’ll get the guilty behind bars and make sure that justice is done. And I’ll see to the old man who’s been brought to the Institute.’

‘How did he die?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Maybe I do.’

All is well, there’s no rage, no anger, no sadness, nothing like that. Nothing hurts, the clients aren’t getting on her nerves this morning, the children are behaving. There’s nothing to worry her; it’s a good day. Blum enjoys this untroubled feeling, her happiness when she looks at Mark. The corners of his mouth turning up, the peace radiating from him, his strength. She feels safe, protected, Mark is her home, he is there and he won’t go away. Never mind how loud she shouts, never mind if she gets angry, never mind whether she sometimes has doubts about life and fears it. Mark will be lying beside her when she wakes. She can sense him there, always.