Dear Child: The twisty thriller that starts where others end

by Romy Hausmann

  ‘I love you,’ he moans, rolling his sticky body off of mine.

  ‘I love you too,’ I say softly, doubling up like a dying deer.

  ‘. . . Serial rib fracture on the left-hand side involving the second to fourth ribs. Subperiosteal haematoma . . .’

  Hannah

  ‘Are you saying you’re not going to tell me where you live?’

  Sister Ruth is smiling, but it’s not a proper smile, more like half of one with just the right side of her mouth.

  ‘My daughter loved to play games like this when she was small.’

  ‘Sweet tooth.’

  ‘That’s right.’ She nods, pushing her cup to one side and leaning slightly further across the table. ‘And of course those games are fun. But you know, Hannah, I’m afraid it’s not always the right time for games. Like now, when it’s really quite serious. When someone has an accident and is taken to hospital, we have to contact the relatives. That’s our duty.’

  I try not to blink when she looks at me in this very particular way. I want her to blink first, because that means she’s lost.

  ‘Sometimes, when someone’s badly injured, like your mama, we have to make important decisions.’

  The person who blinks first loses. That’s how the game works.

  ‘Decisions that the injured person can’t take for themselves at the moment. Do you understand that, Hannah?’

  Sister Ruth has lost.

  ‘Oh well.’ She sighs.

  I put my hand up to my mouth and pinch at my bottom lip so she can’t see me grinning. You should never laugh at anyone, not even if they’ve lost a blinking competition.

  ‘I just thought we might have a little chat until the police arrive.’

  The police are an executive organ of the state. Their task is to investigate punishable and illegal acts. And sometimes they come to take children away from their parents. Or parents from their children.

  ‘The police are coming?’

  ‘That’s perfectly normal. I mean, they have to work out how the accident happened in which your mama was injured. Do you know what “hit and run” means, Hannah?’

  ‘“Hit and run” describes the unlawful disappearance from the scene of an accident by a road-user after a road traffic accident which is their fault, full stop.’

  Sister Ruth nods. ‘It’s a crime the police have to investigate.’

  ‘Does the man involved get into trouble, then?’

  Sister Ruth narrows her eyes. ‘So it was a man driving the car, was it? Why do you ask, Hannah?’

  ‘Because he was nice. He sorted everything out and called the emergency services. And he gave me a coat when I felt cold while we were waiting for the ambulance. He didn’t actually leave until just before the ambulance arrived. I think he was just as frightened as Mama and me.’

  I don’t want to look at Sister Ruth anymore.

  ‘And anyway, the accident wasn’t his fault,’ I say with my mouse’s voice. Papa invented the mouse’s voice for Mama’s bad days, because he thought she would get upset if we talked too loudly. ‘Mama needs her peace and quiet,’ he would always say. ‘Mama’s not feeling so well today.’

  ‘What do you mean, Hannah?’ Sister Ruth says. She seems to know the mouse’s voice too, because she’s speaking like this now as well. ‘Whose fault was it then?’

  I have to think carefully about what I say.

  Concentrate, Hannah. You’re a big girl.

  ‘My mama sometimes does silly things by accident.’

  Sister Ruth looks surprised. Surprise is when you hear something unexpected or when something unexpected happens. It can be a nice surprise, like a present someone gives you even though it’s not your birthday. My cat Fräulein Tinky was that sort of surprise. When Papa came home and said he’d got something for me, I thought it might be a new book or a board game I could play with Jonathan. But then he showed me Fräulein Tinky. She’s been mine ever since, just mine.

  ‘Hannah?’

  I don’t want to. I want to think of Fräulein Tinky.

  ‘Have you got problems at home, Hannah?’

  Mama doesn’t really like Fräulein Tinky. She even kicked her once.

  ‘Do you have problems with your mama?’

  And she’s really clumsy, no matter what Papa says. Sometimes she can’t even light the stove without his help.

  ‘Hannah?’

  Once it was cold for more than a week at home and we froze so much we were just tired all the time. But she is my mama all the same. And when I think of her, I know that I love her. Love, it’s like happiness. A very warm feeling that makes you laugh for no real reason, even though nobody’s told a joke. The way Sister Ruth laughs when she talks about her daughter. Sweet tooth.

  ‘Please talk to me, child!’

  ‘I don’t want the police to come and take Mama away!’ I protest. That was my lion’s voice.

  Hannah

  Sometimes we play a game, my brother and I. It’s called ‘What does it feel like?’ We’ve been playing it for ages. I can’t remember exactly, but I think we’ve been playing it since Mama first told us about ‘happiness’.

  ‘Happiness is a particularly positive feeling, a state of being pleased or content, full stop.’ That’s what I read out of the thick book that knows all the answers. Jonathan nodded at first, like he always does when I read out the relevant passage. But then he narrowed his eyes and asked what it actually meant. I told him he was an idiot and he wasn’t listening properly. You always have to listen properly. Not listening is impolite. But I read it out again anyway. I mean, Jonathan is my brother, whether or not he’s an idiot. ‘Happiness is a particularly positive feeling, a state of being pleased or content.’ Then I said ‘full stop’ very slowly and very clearly, so he knew that this was the end of the passage.

  But Jonathan’s eyes were still narrowed and he said, ‘You’re the idiot. Of course I understood. I meant what does it feel like, inside you, that sort of thing.’

  ‘What does happiness feel like?’ we asked Mama. She took us in her arms and said, ‘Like this.’

  ‘Warm,’ Jonathan declared, estimating that Mama’s body temperature was slightly increased. I pressed my nose into the cool between her neck and her shoulder. She smelled of meadow. Happiness feels warm, almost like a slight fever; it has a smell and a heartbeat that goes like the second hand on the kitchen clock.

  We also discussed what a fright feels like, Jonathan and I. ‘A fright is like a slap in the face,’ Jonathan suggested.

  ‘Which comes as a surprise,’ I added.

  And we were right. That’s exactly what a fright is like. And you can see it in someone’s face too. The eyes are big from the surprise and the cheeks turn red in a flash, as if they’ve been hit by a large, hard hand.

  That’s exactly what Sister Ruth looks like right now. I screamed at her in my lion’s voice, ‘I don’t want the police to come and take Mama away!’

  ‘Hannah.’ Sister Ruth’s voice is now slightly squeaky. That must be down to the fright too. My first thought is that I have to tell Jonathan about this, we must remember it: fright = slap + surprise + squeaky voice. My second thought is that he’s at home at the moment, struggling with the carpet, then my third thought is that Sister Ruth said the police are on their way. Now I become sad, with tears.

  Sister Ruth has probably noticed that I’m feeling a bit weak at the moment and so she’s forgotten the fright I gave her. Her chair scrapes across the floor when she gets up, then she walks around the table and presses my head into her fat, soft breasts.

  ‘I know all of this is a bit much for a little girl like you. But you needn’t be afraid, Hannah. Nobody wants to do anything bad to your mama or you. Sometimes families just need a bit of help, but they don’t realise this themselves. Is it possible that your family needs help at home, Hannah?
’ She squats beside my chair and takes hold of my hands that are in my lap.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘We know how everything works. We have our own rules, you see. It’s just that Mama forgets them sometimes. But luckily she’s got us, we remind her of them.’

  ‘But still she does silly things? That’s what you said earlier, wasn’t it? That she sometimes does silly things by accident?’

  I lean forwards and make my hands into a secrets funnel. Jonathan and I invented the secrets funnel, but we’re not allowed to use it when Papa’s at home. Sister Ruth turns her head so that I can put the secrets funnel to her ear.

  ‘She wanted to kill Papa by accident,’ I whisper.

  Sister Ruth’s head spins around. Fright, I can see it quite clearly. I shake my head, grab her face and turn it back into the right position for the secrets funnel. ‘You don’t have to tell the police. Jonathan is taking care of the stains on the carpet.’

  Lena

  He wants three, he says, as he gets to work on the onion. He very calmly removes the outer layer, which sounds like a plaster being ripped from the skin. It’s a painful sound to my ears. I’m standing right beside him in the kitchen, staring at the knife in his hand. A carving knife with a thin, serrated blade, sharp enough.

  ‘Are you listening to me, Lena?’

  ‘Of course,’ answers the woman who I’m beginning to hate with every fibre in my body. He gets everything from her; he grasps his opportunities valiantly and he has already helped himself plentifully. To her body, her pride, her dignity. Yet still she smiles at him. This woman makes me sick. ‘You want three.’

  ‘I always did. What about you?’

  The woman always wanted three as well. I’ve never wanted any myself, but my opinion doesn’t count. Some days I wish I could get used to it. On others I know that it must never happen. I gather the last of my reserves, small shards of a broken will, memories and reasons, and hide them in a safe place. Like a squirrel burying supplies for the winter. I can only hope that nobody, neither he nor the feeble woman, ever discover my hiding place. The secret place where there is a sky and kitschy tablecloth weights.

  ‘Fancy a glass of wine?’ He places the knife he’s just quartered the onion with beside the wooden board and turns to me. The knife, just lying there. Half an arm’s length away, within reach. I have to force myself to take my eyes off it. To look him in the eye again with the inane grin on the lips of the feeble woman.

  ‘Yes, lovely.’

  ‘Wonderful.’ He smiles back, then takes a step towards the dining table, where the two brown paper bags with the shopping still stand unpacked. ‘Red or white? I got both because I didn’t know which you’d prefer with the spaghetti.’

  Him standing there, slightly hunched over the bags, his back half-turned to me, his right hand already in one of the bags. The knife lying beside the board, just half an arm’s length away, within reach. Now! the inner voices cry.

  ‘Lena?’ The paper bag rustles as he takes out the first bottle.

  ‘If it’s up to me, then red.’

  ‘Yes, I’d rather red too.’ Content and with bottle in hand, he turns around again. The feeble woman is holding on to the worktop for support. One finger twitches pitifully for the knife. Only a few centimetres separate the two, yet it’s an impossibility. He cooks for me. We eat together and raise our glasses of red wine to my getting pregnant as soon as possible. He wants three children. We’ll be a very happy family.

  ‘Atrial fibrillation!’

  Hannah

  Sister Ruth left the room so quickly that she almost tripped. Because she said I should sit there quietly and wait for her, I don’t move. When Sister Ruth returns with a sketch pad and some sharp pencils, she says, ‘I’ve had a great idea, Hannah.’

  I’m to draw something, okay. But I’m not sure whether it really is a great idea. The pencils are certainly lovely colours: red, yellow, blue, black, purple, orange, pink, brown and green. But they’re really sharp. I take the red pencil and carefully run my thumb over the tip – yes, really very sharp. We do drawing at home too, but with crayons. We write with crayons as well.

  ‘Why should I draw something?’

  Sister Ruth shrugs. ‘Well, first, it’ll give us something to do to fill the time until you can see your mama, but also we can say we’re really busy when the police come and ask stupid questions. What do you think?’

  ‘So what should I draw?’

  Sister Ruth shrugs again. ‘Hmm, perhaps you should just draw what happened today before you came here with your mama.’

  Without realising it, I’ve started chewing the end of the pencil. Tiny little bits of wood have chipped off and are sticking to my tongue. I lick the back of my hand to get rid of them.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I’ve thought of something better. I’m going to draw a picture for Mama, then I can give it to her afterwards.’

  ‘Okay, that’s a good idea. And have you got any idea what you might draw?’

  ‘Yes, maybe,’ I say, thinking about it. ‘Something that I know will make her happy.’

  Now Sister Ruth is excited. She tells me and I can see it in her face. Her eyes are quite round and she’s pulled her eyebrows up so high that there are lines running across her forehead. I put the red pencil to one side and take the blue one. I put it on the paper really carefully. Sharp pencils can be very dangerous. I begin by drawing Mama’s face. Sister Ruth asks why it’s blue. I click my tongue and roll my eyes. Sometimes Sister Ruth is a bit of an idiot too, like my brother. ‘Because I don’t have a white pencil. And anyway, you wouldn’t see the white pencil on the white paper,’ I explain.

  Then I draw Mama’s body wearing a beautiful long dress. It’s blue too, although it ought to be white, then her beautiful long hair in yellow, and after that the black trees with branches like fossilised monsters’ fingers, which are trying to grab hold of Mama.

  ‘That looks dangerous, Hannah,’ Sister Ruth says. ‘Tell me a bit about the picture.’

  ‘Well, this is the story of my mama and my papa and how they fell in love. Late one night, Mama was out in the woods. Can you see how beautifully her hair is shining in the moonlight?’

  ‘Yes, she really looks very pretty, Hannah. Was she out alone in the woods?’

  ‘Yes, and she was terribly scared, and that’s why she’s not laughing, can you see?’

  ‘What was she so scared about?’

  ‘She’d got lost. But then . . .’

  Now I draw my papa, stepping out from behind a tree.

  ‘Along comes Papa and finds her. This is the best part of the whole story. He’s standing there as if he’s appeared from nowhere, and he saves her.’ I redo Mama’s mouth so she’s smiling. Her smile is really fat now, like a fat, red banana. ‘And they fall in love at first sight.’

  Satisfied, I put down the red pencil I’ve just used to draw a few hearts. A red heart is a common symbol for love. I’ve drawn six red hearts for even more love.

  ‘Wow!’ Sister Ruth says. ‘It almost sounds like a fairy tale.’

  ‘No, it’s not a fairy tale, it’s a true story. Exactly as Mama always tells it.’

  Sister Ruth leans a little further across the table.

  ‘What’s your papa got there in his hand?’

  ‘That’s a cloth he’s going to tie over her eyes because he wants to surprise her. You see, she mustn’t know where they’re going to go now.’

  ‘Where are they going to go, Hannah?’

  ‘Home, of course,’ I say. ‘To the cabin.’

  Lena

  Be grateful.

  God has blessed you.

  You have a lovely home.

  You have a family.

  You’ve got everything you always wanted.

  The voice in my head is merely scratching the surface. My stomach is burning. Emptiness. Emptiness ca
n’t burn. Oh, but how it can burn, this emptiness. My jaw tenses with the strain when my trembling fingers try to take off the lid of the hot chocolate tin. It’s stuck. It’s bloody well stuck. I can feel the sweat collecting beneath my hair and making my scar sting. On the work surface beside me, next to the milk, are two cups, a red one and a blue one, both with white dots, both melamine and unbreakable. The children need to have breakfast, now. Breakfast at seven-thirty. What’s so difficult to understand about that? The children need an ordered daily routine. The children need a balanced breakfast.

  What sort of a mother are you, Lena?

  What sort of monster are you?

  Behind my back, I can hear them running riot – please, children, not so loud! The kitchen, the dining area and the sitting room all run into one another. As they chase each other through the house, their screeches fly from one corner to the next like a bouncy ball out of control – be quiet, please! Now and then, one of them leaps over the armrest of the sofa and flumps on to the cushions, making a sound like a loud, heavy sigh, again and again – I want you to stop now! The pressure inside my head is unbearable and it feels as if it’s about to burst. The lid is stuck. The fucking lid is stuck.

  ‘Mama?’

  I give a start. All of a sudden my daughter is standing beside me, pushing her chin inquisitively across the edge of the work surface. How small she is. A tiny, delicate girl with thin blonde locks and very white skin. Like a little angel. But not one of those neat, red-cheeked cherubim porcelain figures my mother collects on her dining-room dresser. More like an angel where something’s not quite right. The prototype that almost worked but not completely.

  ‘Hannah,’ I say. It sounds like a statement, totally lacking in affection.

  ‘Do you want me to help you, Mama?’ Her round, pale blue eyes show that she hasn’t taken offence at my cold tone, or merely that she doesn’t want to take offence. I nod wearily and push the hot chocolate tin towards her. She opens it in seconds with a skilful twist, and beams at me: ‘Da-da!’

  Hannah is just about to go away and play when I grab her arm, probably too tightly, seeing how small and delicate she is. I let go again at once. ‘I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?’