Bernhard Aichner - Woman of the Dead - A Thriller

It is Reza’s blood on the table, pooling round his headless torso. Reza is dead, Reza can no longer help her. Only flesh remains. She thinks of the last thing he said. He was still embracing her, their hands had touched. Now Reza’s limbs are strewn on the floor. He has done to Reza what she did to others, he has mimicked her. Blum screams but no one can hear her from under the sticky tape. She tosses her head back and forth, trying to catch a glimpse of him, but she can’t. If he’s in the room she should be able to hear him, but silence reigns. He’s in the house, she knows it, he’s waiting for her to wake. He’s with the children, with Karl. Blum pictures what he is doing to them. She tries to break free, she can’t bear the thought, she must protect her little angels. This can’t be happening. She hears him. He is in the room. He is getting up from his chair and coming towards her.

His footsteps approach; the sound of his breathing comes closer. He is taking his time; he wants to torment her, wants to make her suffer. He stops, pausing to watch her ribcage rise and fall. He is toying with her, listening to her heart beat faster and faster, seeing her wrists twitch as her fingers try to find an escape. Blum is naked on the table, her skin and breasts exposed. How long has she been lying here, Blum wonders, how long has he been staring at her? What has he done to her while she’s been asleep? He has taken off her clothes, cut them from her body. Perhaps he has packed them up like a present. Every thought hurts now she is at his mercy, now she is no longer at the helm. The boat is drifting on a shark-infested sea.

Blum knows she is going to die. Her mind has reached a still point, she is submitting to what will happen next. She no longer tries to escape, she just lies there, staring at the ceiling, trying not to think of the children. She won’t, she can’t. The children are OK, he won’t hurt the children. There’s only the buzz of the cooling unit, the hum of the neon tubes, the white of the ceiling, and her memories. Never mind what’s coming, never mind what happens to her, she will think of the good times. She will think of Mark, his hands on her belly just before Uma was born.

‘I’m afraid, Mark.’

‘What of?’

‘Of what’s inside me.’

‘There’s nothing to fear. We’re in this together, Blum. Nothing bad will happen.’

‘But everything’s about to change.’

‘Change is good.’

‘Why?’

‘When winter is over the trees turn green.’

It does her good to think of Mark, of what he said and how he looked at her four and a half years ago. The trees turn green . And how he kissed her. Never mind what happens next. Mark is beside her, very close. Never mind what happens, he holds her in his arms.

She looks away, to the ceiling, because he is coming closer now. The broad grin looms over her, the brightly coloured plastic mouth. Only his eyes say she reacted too slowly, that the tables have been turned. Massimo is two eyes and a mask. He has won. She sees him approach, whispering softly, just loud enough for her to hear. None of this had to happen, Blum. None of it, do you understand? Everything would have been all right. We could have been together . There’s just her fear and his familiar voice as he bids her farewell, almost lovingly, as he tells her it is over. He loved her, he says, he would have done anything for her. She watches as he removes the mask and takes her face firmly in his hands. For twenty long seconds, he presses his lips on to the tape that covers her lips. Then he stabs her. Blum does not move.

Blum has spent all night here on the preparation table, not moving but breathing. Her ribcage rises and falls and her eyes are open wide. She has spent a night imagining what he might do to her, tormenting herself. She spent the afternoon with the children, ate supper with them and Reza, then she came down here, locked the door and lay down with her thoughts. She imagined the worst: Massimo twisting the knife into her, dissecting Reza. What it would be like, what he would do to her: a nightmare that will come true if she doesn’t act at once. She can’t wait any longer, she can’t risk it. She doesn’t want to find out what he knows and what he doesn’t know. She can’t give him the chance to investigate, to become suspicious of Reza. She must end it all before his lips come down on hers. Blum will have to call him and arrange a meeting. She will speak to him as soon as it is light in two hours’ time. She must keep the upper hand, strike before he can. She and Reza will move faster or else they will both die.

For hours she has been lying there with the naked body of an old woman on the preparation table beside her. She must see to the old woman first. As she pushes cotton wool into the woman’s nostrils, as she washes and blow-dries her hair, as she cleans the dirt from under her fingernails, Blum considers how she will dispatch Massimo. She doesn’t want him to die painlessly; she wants to punish and execute him. In her mind she searches for a place where she can dispose of him, because she doesn’t want him to set foot in her house again. There must be an alternative. As she stitches up the old woman’s mouth she plans Massimo’s death. She will discuss it with Reza over breakfast; together they will find a way. They will put the old woman in her coffin and wait for her family, and then they will wait for evening. Blum will read the girls a bedtime story and kiss them goodnight. She will make sure that they are safe. She’ll do anything for that. And that is why she calls Massimo’s number once it is morning. She breathes deeply in and out three times. Then she hears his voice. Friendly, eager.

‘Blum, how good to hear from you.’

‘And you.’

‘I didn’t expect you to call so soon.’

‘I said I’d like to see you.’

‘When?’

‘Well, I’d like to see you straight away, but I have work to do. And then there are the children. Shall we meet this evening? Are you free?’

‘For you, always.’

‘I’d like to be alone with you.’

‘I’m glad to hear that, Blum.’

‘But where? I wouldn’t want the children to find you in my bed.’

‘Come round to mine.’

‘But what about Ute?’

‘She’s not here.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Away.’

‘What do you mean? Away where?’

‘My wife drank two bottles of schnapps then tried to kill herself.’

‘Oh, when?’

‘A week ago.’

‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘It wouldn’t have changed anything.’

‘What happened?’

‘She cut her wrists in the bath.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘In a psychiatric hospital.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘And when is she coming home?’

‘No one knows.’

‘We can put it off, Massimo. I understand if you’d rather be alone now.’

‘No, come and see me this evening.’

‘About nine?’

‘You’re making me very happy, Blum.’

‘Kisses to you, and see you later.’

She had to grit her teeth to say those things; she hates herself for every word she said to lead him on. She throws her phone at the wall with all her might and it crashes to the floor. Then she suppresses a scream. She doesn’t want anyone to hear her; she just wants this to stop, for Massimo’s heart to stop. Good old Massimo.

She wants him to be as lively as the woman on the table in front of her. Blum has dressed her brightly, in the traditional Austrian way: a white blouse, an apron, a pearl necklace, her hair braided into a wreath. Blum has manipulated her lips into a smile. She remembers how close Mark and Massimo were. She doesn’t want him suspecting, not for a moment, that anything is wrong, that nothing more is on the agenda than a little bit of fucking in the marital bed. On the dining table, in the bathtub where Ute almost bled to death, never mind where. All he wants is to get his prick into silly little Blum. She is the ultimate conquest, his best friend’s wife. She senses how much he wants her. You’re making me very happy. The bastard.