Norah watched the flames swallowing the paper.
There was a curse in those flames. There was her guilt, her pain.
There was a letter. There was burning paper.
Then there was ash.
Then nothing.
Epilogue
That night Norah slept deeply and dreamlessly and when she woke in the morning, she felt more refreshed than she’d felt for a long time. She got up, made herself an espresso and drank it standing at the window with a cigarette. Then she set to and unpacked the boxes.
Twice, tears came to her eyes when she found herself holding things Alex had given her—both times, she wiped them away, blew her nose and carried on. When she had finished, she collapsed, exhausted, on the sofa and put on the TV.
The world hadn’t improved overnight. Greed, blood, splinters of bone. Norah felt the old fury rise inside her and was reminded of something Wolfgang Balder had once said to her. I bet that if I were to take a scalpel and cut open your chest I’d find a heart that’s every bit as black as mine.
The TV showed images from a civil war zone, then cut to a devastating oil slick. Balder was right, Norah thought. However much love there was in her heart, there was also a hell of a lot of anger. Images of a killing spree flashed up onto the screen. Norah finished her coffee; it had gone cold. Maybe, she thought, it’s okay to be angry. Maybe it makes sense to be angry. Maybe I have a right to my anger.
Maybe the question isn’t what I feel, but what I do with my feelings.
She switched off the TV.
When she picked up her phone and opened her inbox, she found an email from Werner with the subject line Special Mission. At last—the information she had asked for, address and all. Norah wrote back, thanking Werner. She immediately felt quite different; now she could do something useful. She took an envelope from her desk drawer and wrote:
From a friend.
Then she got dressed and went out into the evening light.
The beauty of Vienna hit her with full force; she walked through the streets, drinking great gulps of the wintry city. The Karlskirche, the little florists, the sumptuous opera house, the horse-drawn carriages clattering past the old hotels, the cakeshop windows. And the charm, the elegance, the beauty of the people. It was as if she were seeing it all for the first time. On a sudden impulse, Norah went into a newsagent and asked for a packet of Gauloises.
‘You’re smiling like you’ve won the lottery,’ said the man who served her, a little man in an old-fashioned suit.
‘The city’s so beautiful,’ Norah replied. ‘I hadn’t noticed until now.’
‘A wise woman once wrote: We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are,’ he said, handing her the cigarettes.
Norah nodded thoughtfully. There was probably something in that.
The next cash machine was only two streets away.
What had she read? A thousand-euro fine. Norah took out five hundred euros, added the five hundred she’d brought from home, put the notes in the envelope and sealed it. Thanks to Werner and Google Maps, she found the building where Marie T. lived and rang a bell at random. When she was buzzed in, she slipped through the door, sending up a quick prayer that the names would be on the letterboxes. Her prayer was answered. She dropped the envelope in Marie T.’s letterbox and went out again.
Back in her flat, she saw how nice and homely it looked now that the boxes were gone. It had cost her a lot of strength to unpack them, with all the memories they contained, but it had been worth it. Norah collapsed on the sofa.
A second later, her phone announced the arrival of a text. Probably Max, wanting to know how—
Alex. Her heart began to beat faster. She shut her eyes for a moment, steeling herself, then clicked open the message. It was only six words long.
I love you too, damn it.
For a few minutes all Norah could do was sit and stare at the text. Then she got up and went over to the window. Her car was parked just across the road; the tank was full.
As she left the city that evening, she decided against the motorway; she’d take the country roads.
Darkness. Woods. Norah smiled.
She lit a cigarette and stepped on the accelerator.
Silence. New moon. Stars.
Before her, an empty road and behind her, the night.
Acknowledgments
So many people contribute to the making of a book. Some directly, some indirectly, some without even realising—by inspiring me or encouraging me or simply being there.
First of all I should like to thank my wonderful family. I am unbelievably lucky and I know it.
Huge thanks also go to my brilliant (and incredibly patient) publisher and editor Regina Kammerer and to all those I have been lucky enough to meet at btb and Random House over the course of the years. It is a pleasure to work with you. Thanks to my agent Georg Simader and to everyone else at Copywrite: Caterina Kirsten, Lisa Volpp, Vanessa Gutekunst, Felix Rudloff and my ‘canaries in the mine’ Laura Kampf and Ursula Waldmüller.
Two artists have accompanied me during my work on this novel. Firstly, Soap&Skin whose songs I have listened to very intensely. And secondly the incredible Karen Köhler and her unforgettable short story collection We Were Fishing for Rockets. Thank you.
Thanks, too, to all those who love literature as much as I do. Those who make books or contribute to their success by buying them, talking about them, writing about them, recommending them—and reading them. What a good thing you exist.
And…Jörn? I hope you didn’t think I’d forgotten you. The swift (I don’t need to tell you) is, as always, for you. Thank you for everything.
Melanie Raabe, February 2018
MELANIE RAABE grew up in Thuringia, Germany, and attended the Ruhr University Bochum, where she specialised in media studies and literature. After graduating, she moved to Cologne to work as a journalist by day and secretly write books by night. Her two previous novels, The Trap and The Stranger, are international bestsellers.
IMOGEN TAYLOR is a literary translator based in Berlin. Her translations include The Trap and The Stranger, also by Melanie Raabe, Sascha Arango’s The Truth and Other Lies and Dirk Kurbjuweit’s Fear.
PRAISE FOR MELANIE RAABE
THE STRANGER
‘This psychological thriller will keep you guessing until the end.’
Sydney Morning Herald
‘A classic domestic noir…Generates sustained psychological suspense that gets under the skin.’
Age
‘Another unsettling and slippery psychological thriller that keeps you guessing up to the last page.’
Readings
‘Raabe once again delivers an enjoyable, page-turning, high concept domestic noir thriller.’
PS News
‘After the initial suspense the novel cascades onto an edgy thriller and the end is sweet and innocent and left a tear in my eye.’
AU Review
THE TRAP
‘A fast, twisty read for fans of Paula Hawkins and Gillian Flynn.’
Booklist
‘Suspenseful…taut storytelling.’
Publishers Weekly
‘Intricately constructed…nicely done twists and turns.’
Kirkus Reviews
‘The fear is palpable… You’ll be engrossed every step of the way.’
Better Reading
‘The tables turn and turn again, while the reader’s trust in the narrator’s credibility is tested to the max.’
Sydney Morning Herald
‘Great plot, convincingly handled.’
New Zealand Listener
‘A mind-bending psychological thriller, a story within a story…All in all an intriguing debut novel.’
Otago Daily Times
‘Tests the limits of crime fiction.’
Sunday Times
‘Melanie Raabe’s The Trap has a terrific setup—and delivers on it.’
Seattle Times
‘This one has everyth
ing: intriguing characters, a great sense of place that grounds the action, and a devious and enthralling plot.’
Globe and Mail
‘Really riveting reads are rare; this German writer’s debut is one of them…A masterly piece of suspense.’
SA Weekend
‘Raabe leaves you unsteady, with no idea who to trust. Just when you think you’re on top of it, you discover you’re so very not, after all.’
North & South
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Copyright © 2018 by btb Verlag, a division of Verlagsgruppe Random House GmbH, Munich, Germany
Translation copyright © Imogen Taylor, 2020
The moral right of Melanie Raabe to be identified as the author and Imogen Taylor as the translator of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
Originally published in Germany under the title Der Schatten by btb Verlag, a division of Verlagsgruppe Random House GmbH, Munich, 2018.
Published by The Text Publishing Company, 2020
Book design by Text
Cover images by Walter Jarolim/EyeEm/Getty and iStock
Typeset by J&M Typesetting
ISBN: 9781922268617 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925923230 (ebook)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia
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