Melanie Raabe - The Trap

There was…Britta. She was lying on her back, her eyes wide open, an incredulous expression on her face. At first, Sophie thought her sister had had a bad fall and needed to be helped to her feet. She took a step toward her. Then she saw the blood and stopped again, her body rigid. The living room was a black-and-white stage set. No air, no sound, no color. Only this horrific still life: Britta’s fair hair, her dark dress, the pale carpet, shards of glass, an overturned tumbler, white flowers, a black high-heeled sandal slipped off a foot, and blood, also black, spreading out around Britta’s torso.

Sophie gasped and at once the music was back. All you need is love, la-da-da-da-da. There was color again, too, and all Sophie saw was deep, gleaming red.

While Sophie was trying to process this picture, she became aware of something moving in the corner of the room. She turned her head in panic and saw that it was only the curtains at the terrace door fluttering in the breeze. But then she saw the shadow. He stood quite still by the door, like an animal lying in wait, almost invisible. He looked at Sophie.

Then he vanished.

I stare at Norbert, who still has his finger on the bell.

“About time,” he says and pushes past me without a word of greeting. A first breath of winter comes in at the door with him. I want to say something but don’t get that far.

“Have you gone completely mad?” Norbert snarls at me. Bukowski jumps up at him. He adores my publisher. That isn’t saying a lot because Bukowski likes everyone. Norbert is fuming, but he softens for a moment to ruffle the dog’s coat before turning to face me again, the furrow back between his eyebrows. If I’m honest, I’m bloody glad to see him, furious or not. Norbert may flare up easily, but he’s also the kindest person I know. He simply gets hot under the collar about everything: politics, which is getting more and more stupid; publishing, which is getting more and more corrupt; and his authors, who are getting greedier and greedier. Everyone knows Norbert’s outbursts and his heated tirades, which, when his blood is really boiling, he lards with juicy expressions from his beloved France: putain! or merde! or sometimes, if it’s really bad, both at once.

“What’s going on?” I ask, when I’ve begun to recover from the late-night intrusion. “I thought you were in the south of France.”

He snorts.

“What’s going on ? That’s what I’m here to ask you!”

I really and truly have no idea why Norbert is so furious. We’ve been working together for years. We’re friends. What have I done? Or is there something I’ve forgotten to do? Has my work on the thriller made me overlook something important? My mind is blank.

“Come on in first,” I say. “I mean, properly in.” I lead the way to the kitchen.

I switch on the coffee machine, pour Norbert a glass of water and put it down in front of him. He has taken a seat at the kitchen table, but he gets up again when I turn to face him, too cross to keep still.

“Well?” I ask.

“Well?” Norbert echoes, in a tone that makes Bukowski back away in confusion. “My author, Linda Conrads, who’s had my support as a publisher for over a decade, has taken it upon herself to abandon the marvelous literary novels she’s been writing with pleasing regularity for years, and to piss off her readers and critics (not to mention me) by making her next book a blood-and-guts thriller. No consultation, no nothing. As if that weren’t enough, Her Ladyship has to rush off and tell the press, without once talking it over with her publisher. Because she is obviously of the opinion that I am not just the head of a pretty big, pretty lucrative business with a pretty large number of employees, who works his balls off day after day, not least for her and her books, but that I am, above all else, one thing: her very own printing press. Putain bordel de merde !”

Norbert’s face has assumed a deep-red hue. He picks up the glass and takes a sip. He’s about to say something else, but changes his mind and drains his glass instead, making angry glugging noises.

I don’t know what to say. I hadn’t for a moment thought Norbert might cause me any trouble, but I realize he’s capable of causing me immense trouble if he wants to. Getting my book published and seeing that it receives the usual press is a fundamental part of my plan. No book, no interview. Damn it, I don’t have the time or energy to quarrel with Norbert, or go looking for a new publisher. I have other problems. Of course, any publisher would give his right arm to have me: I’m successful and I’m sure the new genre isn’t going to scare off my fans. A few of them, maybe, but for those who give up on me, there’ll be others. Anyway, that’s not the point; I don’t care in the slightest how many books I sell, as long as Lenzen takes the bait. But I can’t say that to Norbert — that it’s not merely a book at stake here.

I don’t want an argument, least of all with one of my only friends. My brain is working overtime as I consider whether to let Norbert in on my secret. It would be wonderful to have his support.

“All right, I’ll repeat my first question,” Norbert says, putting his glass down on the table and jolting me out of my thoughts.

“Have you gone completely mad?”

I think to myself how much I’d like an accomplice, someone I can trust. I think to myself that in a crisis, a genuine, full-blown crisis, there’s no one I’d rather have at my side than Norbert.

“Well?” he asks impatiently.

Fuck it, I’m going to tell him. I pull myself together and take a deep breath.

“Norbert…”

“Don’t say anything yet,” he hisses, raising a hand to silence me. “I’ve forgotten something.”

He dashes out of the room. Bewildered, I hear him open the front door and vanish into the night. A few seconds later, he reappears with a bottle of wine.

“For you,” he says, putting the bottle on the kitchen table. He still looks grumpy.

Norbert almost always brings me wine from the south of France when he comes to visit — the best rosé I know. But, then, he’s not usually cross with me.

Norbert notices my confused expression.

“Just because you behave like a silly cow doesn’t mean I’m going to let you go thirsty,” he says, giving me a see-how-nice-I-am-to-you look. I suppress a smile, but at the same time I feel like crying. I think how incredible it would be to have Norbert on board — he’d believe me; he might even understand me. But it’s too dangerous; I can’t drag him into all this. Damn it. What am I to do?

The coffee machine interrupts my thoughts with its gurgling, and I pour us both a cup.

“Don’t think you’re let off the hook,” Norbert says. “You owe me an explanation.”

I sit down. Norbert settles opposite and I grope around for a plausible story.

“How is it you’ve already spoken to the others in-house and not to me?”

“Because I wanted to talk to you in person when you got back from your holiday instead of writing you a silly email,” I say.

“Only you spoiled my plans. I didn’t even know you were back!”

It’s the truth. Norbert gives me a piercing look.

“And why a thriller?” he asks. “Seriously!”

I hesitate, then decide to stick as close as possible to the truth — but without giving too much away.

“Do you have brothers and sisters, Norbert?”

“No,” he says. “I’m an only child. My wife says it shows.” I almost laugh. Then I grow serious again.

“I had a sister. Her name was Anna.” Norbert frowns.

“Had?” he asks.

“Anna is dead. She was murdered.”

“Oh God,” says Norbert. “When did that happen?”