The Shadow

by Melanie Raabe

  Sorry not to have been in touch for so long. Hope things are okay with you. I saw Alex yesterday afternoon when I was out pushing the buggy. He was with a woman, but it wasn’t you, and I suddenly realised how long it is since we last spoke. I didn’t even know you’d split up. Do hope you’re well.

  Lots of love, Francesca

  Norah read the email twice, then shut her laptop. Alex hadn’t lost much time, had he? Cue toothache. The pain was real enough now; she had to get out.

  The streets were empty, which probably had more to do with the cold and rain than the time of day. Dark, shimmering asphalt, shuttered shop fronts. A little way past the Paulanerkirche, Norah stopped and took a photo for Instagram, but discarded it as too gloomy. She passed an elderly couple—the man long and thin like an exclamation mark, the woman plump in a fur coat and hat—then a young girl in a far-too-thin leather jacket walking a far-too-large dog. Norah crossed the road, wandering aimlessly. If she got lost or walked too far, she could always hail a taxi. She fell to thinking; she always found it easiest to put her thoughts in order when she was walking. Anita’s words in the office kitchen came back to her. Had she really mentioned an Arthur Grimm, like the woman with the begging bowl?

  The face Norah had seen on the internet popped into her head—the piercing eyes, the narrow lips, the square chin. What was it that made that handsome face look so menacing? Why the ominous feeling in the pit of her stomach?

  It was strange. She was sure she didn’t know him. She had an excellent memory for names—maybe it was being a journalist—and if she had ever heard the name Arthur Grimm, it must have been a very long time ago. But something about him unnerved her.

  The traffic lights changed and Norah crossed the road. A man passed her on a bike. It had stopped raining, but the damp cold was stubborn and insidious and found its way in, however well wrapped up you were. Norah drew in her head and put her numb hands in her coat pockets. Not a soul anywhere now.

  The next street sign told her she was in the seventh district. All at once, the cold seemed unbearable. Then the tiredness kicked in. Norah walked faster, desperate to be back in the warmth. There were no taxis in sight. She took a left, then a right, meaning to retrace her steps, but soon realised she was lost. How stupid that she’d misplaced her phone. Norah stopped to think for a second, then on a sudden impulse she took a left and found herself in a street she knew. It was wide and slightly sloping; if she followed it uphill and turned right, she’d come to that lovely cafe where, in another life, she’d once had breakfast. She knew her way home from there.

  The street ahead was lined with embassies. Enormous flags—Norah recognised Brazil and Turkey—hung from the facades, billowing in the night like the sails of a ghost ship in a storm. To Norah’s left was a high wall, the rendering crumbling in places and daubed with inexpert graffiti. She wondered what was behind it. A private garden? A park? Something made her stop. Bare trees stretched to the sky on the other side of the wall. The road and pavements were deserted. Life had gone out like a lamp, people were in their beds, sleeping like the dead, but Norah had a feeling that someone was there, very close. She looked about her. There was no one in front of her or behind her, no one on the other side of the road, no one at any of the windows. It was quite quiet. But then it hadn’t been a sound that had startled Norah; it had been a smell, at once exotic and familiar, sickly sweet. She wasn’t imagining things—she was sure she wasn’t. As if in slow motion, she turned to face the wall. Someone was there, silent and unmoving, on the other side. Someone was standing very still, holding their breath, like Norah.

  A car sped past, and Norah wheeled round just in time to see a taxi disappearing out of sight. Fuck. She returned to staring at the rough rendering of the wall, as if she didn’t dare turn her back on whoever was on the other side. She stood and listened for a long time. No, there was no one there. Who knew where the smell had come from. But as Norah was about to go on her way, she heard a noise behind the wall.

  Gravel. The crunch of footsteps on gravel. There must be a path or drive on the other side. Norah’s heart was pounding. Whoever had been lurking there was walking away with slow, deliberate steps. The crunch of gravel grew softer and softer. Before long there was only a faint smell of pipe tobacco hanging in the air.

  9

  Even before she opened her eyes, Norah knew she wasn’t alone; there was heavy breathing coming from the other side of the bed. She almost groaned out loud when it came back to her—the bar, the gin and tonics, the man. She girded herself to have a look. He was lying with his back to her, a broad swimmer’s back, tanned skin; he must have been somewhere exotic—or in the solarium. His hair was light brown. She had no recollection of his face.

  Norah’s mouth tasted as if she’d been gagged with an old cleaning rag for several hours, and she knew her head would start aching if she so much as stirred. She sat up and felt the hangover kick in. She had a drink from a bottle of water next to the bed, got up, threw on an old T-shirt and staggered into the bathroom. There was a used condom in the toilet bowl. That was something. Norah flushed the chain, went into the kitchen and made two cups of coffee.

  Half an hour later she left for work, dressed for an expedition to the South Pole. It was sunny and so bitterly cold that her fingers immediately turned numb.

  Deciding to walk to Karlsplatz and get the underground from there, she set off at a brisk pace to get warm. Some of the people she passed were trying to warm themselves on takeaway coffee cups, but most of them scurried by with hunched shoulders. Several had scarves wound around their mouths and noses, making them look strangely creepy, almost faceless.

  Norah passed the Volkstheater. A big banner strung across the front of the building read: Don’t forget: if you can touch it, it can also touch you. In the underground station, she took the juddering escalator down, down into the bowels of the earth and caught her train.

  Over coffee, the man in her bed had told her he was studying sport; then it had been time for her to go to work and she’d thrown him out. She had no idea what had induced her to bring him home, but it could have been worse: he was quite cute and made no trouble about leaving. ‘You’ve got my number,’ he’d said, after giving her a sleepy kiss on the cheek and thanking her politely for the coffee, and she’d nodded, without knowing what he was talking about.

  The train wobbled along under the city and Norah gingerly felt her tooth with her tongue. She wasn’t in real pain, but she was glad to have got an appointment so quickly.

  The straps swung back and forth on either side of the carriage, performing a minimalist ballet—left, right, left, right, left, right. People stared mutely at their phones, or books, or hands, or out of the window—not that there was anything to see except underground shafts, endless-seeming streaks of black and grey. How old was the Vienna underground? What stories did it have to tell? Was there enough material for a feature? Norah reached for her phone to do a bit of spontaneous internet research, then remembered that she didn’t have it. The train stopped and she threw a panicked glance out of the window, but it was only another station. A group of teenagers got on, along with a young, heavily pregnant woman, who was holding a little boy of six or seven by the hand; the woman and the boy sat down opposite Norah. The train started up again and Norah closed her eyes. When she opened them, the little boy was staring at her.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, with an attempt at a smile. ‘You all right?’

  The boy didn’t answer or smile back—just looked at her with big eyes. She glanced at his mother who stared back blankly. Norah shrugged and was about to turn away when the boy mumbled something.

  ‘Sorry?’

  The boy said nothing.

  ‘What did you say?’ Norah asked.

  No reply.

  ‘Leave him, won’t you?’ his mother said.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Norah. ‘I’m sorry.’ She got up, glad that they were drawing into the station where she had to change trains.

&nbs
p; The dentist’s practice was in a lovely big old house with a cream stucco facade. Norah rang the bell, told the voice on the intercom her name and entered the building, then stopped when she realised that the voice hadn’t told her what floor to go to. She looked about, trying to get her bearings. Next to the letterboxes were four plaques.

  First Floor—Huber Architects

  Second Floor—Goldberg Solicitors

  Third Floor—Dr Bernhard Schlick—Dentist

  Norah was on her way to the lift when she realised what she’d just read. Impossible—she must have made a mistake. She turned back and read the fourth plaque again. Her short, sharp laugh echoed in the hallway. Something she’d read somewhere popped into her mind: Chance is the only legitimate king in the world. Wasn’t it Napoleon said that?

  Fuck you, Napoleon, she thought. This is too much to be mere chance.

  The dentist was a nice man of about fifty with short, pepper-and-salt hair, elegant glasses and slender hands. Norah usually hated going to the dentist, but this time she was far too distracted to feel distressed. All she could think about as Dr Schlick replaced the filling was the person in the rooms above.

  When she left the practice half an hour later, she ran up to the fourth floor. The door revealed nothing; there was no name anywhere, and if Norah hadn’t known better, she’d have thought she was standing outside a private flat. She rang the bell and waited. Nothing happened. She rang again, longer this time, then gave up, disappointed.

  Strange—but maybe it was for the best. She didn’t know what she’d have said if someone had come to the door. Her thoughts were racing as she walked down the stairs. Back in the hall, she stopped again in front of the plaques.

  There it was, in dark, elegant letters on a brass background:

  First Floor—Huber Architects

  Second Floor—Goldberg Solicitors

  Third Floor—Dr Bernhard Schlick—Dentist

  Fourth Floor—Dr Arthur Grimm—Engineering

  10

  Norah didn’t believe in fate or predestination; she believed people created their own luck, by their own efforts. She believed in chance, but not to this extent. Who was this Arthur fucking Grimm? Why was she confronted with his name at every turn? It was too much for her.

  Norah emailed her old friend Werner, the best investigative journalist she knew, and asked him to dig up as much as he could on any Arthur Grimms living in Vienna. She, meanwhile, would try to catch Anita on her own sometime and see if she could get something out of her. She was determined to get to the bottom of all this—though it was important not to let anyone notice her unease. It seemed unlikely that anyone was playing a joke on her, trying to provoke her into reacting—but if they were, she was going to make them wait.

  Norah spent the rest of the morning looking into the various forms of help for the homeless on offer in Vienna. When she went into the office kitchen for a glass of water, she found her colleague Luisa there with Tom, one of the freelance photographers who sometimes worked for the magazine. Norah immediately realised that she’d interrupted some kind of tryst; there was clearly something going on between them, although Luisa was married. Tom was standing at the window, fumbling cigarettes out of his pocket; Luisa was taking a smoothie out of the fridge, trying hard to act natural. Norah thought of healthy-living Alex who had weaned her off her diet of coffee, cigarettes and fast food—then felt a pang of guilt as she remembered the man she’d taken home last night. She helped herself to coffee (fuck the water) and went and stood at the window next to Tom. Thinking of Alex had left a lump in her throat and she took a big gulp of coffee to wash it down.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, as casually as she could, ‘has either of you ever noticed that strange beggar out there? Quite an old woman, quite tall, very sinister. Dark hair, piercing blue eyes. Kind of beautiful in a weird way.’

  ‘Here in Kärntner Strasse?’ Luisa asked. She took a sip of her smoothie and licked her lips. ‘Doesn’t ring any bells.’

  ‘Really? She’s pretty conspicuous. And very tall.’

  ‘What about her?’ Luisa asked. ‘Has she stolen something from you?’

  ‘God, no,’ said Norah quickly. ‘I’m just curious. She looks as if she has a few stories to tell.’

  ‘I think I know who you mean,’ said Tom, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘Stood there in the middle of the street with a begging bowl. Didn’t speak, didn’t have a sign or anything—just stood there like a statue. Seriously creepy.’

  Norah felt a rush of adrenaline.

  ‘That’s the one. Have you seen her lately?’

  Tom thought for a second, then shook his head slowly.

  ‘She wasn’t around for long. She was different from the others. Most of them have their patches, their fixed times—you get to know them, give them something now and then. But she moved on quite quickly.’

  ‘I’m surprised I didn’t notice her,’ Luisa said.

  ‘She was only around for a day or two,’ said Tom. ‘Maybe you were skiing. Yes, I think you were. It must have been round about when Norah started.’

  Luisa finished her bottle and threw it in the bin.

  ‘Almost as if you’d brought her with you,’ Tom said to Norah with a grin, and he and Luisa sloped out of the kitchen.

  Norah stared out of the window. The bright blue sky had clouded over. She poured the remains of her coffee down the drain; apart from anything else, she had heartburn. Then she went to the toilet. When she was drying her hands, she noticed that her skin was chapped from the cold and the overheated rooms. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and thought of the little boy on the underground.

  You look like Death, he had said to her.

  Back at her desk, Norah concentrated on making calls and writing emails, but after a while she couldn’t resist googling the name Arthur Grimm together with the word engineer. Then she added the address of the lovely old house where she’d been to the dentist that morning. The search yielded nothing. She ran her hand through her hair and closed the browser. She had some hard thinking to do.

  When Norah saw her colleague Anita heading for the lift that evening, she grabbed her things, threw on her coat and hurried after her. She caught up with her in front of the lift. Anita was alone—perfect.

  ‘Hello,’ said Norah.

  ‘Hi.’

  The lift arrived and the two of them got in. Norah pressed the button for the ground floor and for two or three seconds she did what people do when they’re in a lift with a near-stranger: she watched the descending numbers. Anita did the same. Then Norah rummaged in her bag, as if she were looking for her phone and said, so casually and naturally that she was surprised at herself, ‘By the way, Anita, who’s this Arthur Grimm you mentioned the other day?’

  Anita frowned.

  ‘Arthur Grimm?’ she asked. ‘Who’s that? When was this?’

  ‘Yesterday or the day before, in the kitchen. You were talking to Mario and mentioned someone called Arthur Grimm.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Anita. ‘I don’t know anyone called that. Maybe you misheard?’

  Norah nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘Yes, probably,’ she said.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ Anita said.

  Norah studied Anita’s face. Had she lied to her? There was a beep and the lift doors opened.

  ‘Just curious,’ Norah said and slipped through the doors.

  11

  It was a hectic morning. Norah had been up late the night before, researching Vienna’s homeless scene—life on the streets, winter shelters, the various charities that provided help. Then Werner had rung to say he was happy to investigate Arthur Grimm for her. Typically for him, he didn’t ask why she wanted the information. Norah smiled to herself. Werner was as thorough as a taxman and as tough as a pit bull; the Arthur Grimm matter couldn’t be in better hands. If there was anything worth finding out, Werner would find it. But by the time Norah got to bed, it was only a bare two hours until her alarm clock was due to go off.

/>   When it did, she was exhausted. The only good thing was that, for once, the flat wasn’t cold; the heating seemed to be working now. Norah peeled herself out of the sheets and crawled to the shower.

  She dressed carefully in black designer jeans, a blue blouse and red lipstick—her classic interview outfit. Blue inspired more trust than any other colour. She made herself coffee, drank it far too hot, and clattered down the stairs in her high heels, almost colliding with her old neighbour. As usual, there was no reply to her greeting. She still hadn’t worked out whether he was rude or deaf.

  A bare hour later, Norah entered the Hotel Imperial. With every step she took, the real world seemed to recede; she felt as if she were floating, light and noiseless. Her office colleagues, the strange woman with the begging bowl, her cheerless, empty flat—all that suddenly seemed miles away. She did, however, find herself thinking of Alex. Why did the interview have to be here, in the very hotel where she and Alex had stayed when they’d spent a weekend in Vienna a few years ago?

  Norah reported to reception and sat down to wait in the lobby. There was an almost solemn hush, the only sound the soft creak of the revolving door, steady and soothing as the breathing of a sleeping baby. Gold and pomp everywhere, marble and chandeliers—and through the door, the busy street was visible, but at one remove, like mute projections on a screen.

  She’d never liked the phrase ‘shut out the world’. The world was everywhere; you couldn’t shut it out. But on the two nights she and Alex had spent here, it really had felt as if they’d left the world outside when they stepped through the revolving door after an evening out and went to their room. Later they’d wandered hand in hand down the corridors, admiring the wallpaper, the marble columns, the paintings, until they’d found a small bench to sit on.

  ‘Do you think there’s a hotel ghost?’ Norah had asked.

  ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’

  Norah shrugged.

  ‘No. Do you?’

  ‘Not sure,’ said Alex. ‘But if I were a ghost, I’d definitely haunt this place.’