“Hannah,” I say as softly as I can. Without taking my eyes off the journalists, I’ve swiftly removed my coat and tossed it behind me. “Lie down flat on the back seat and cover yourself with this.”
Hannah doesn’t object and I hear the click of her seat belt. Just to be sure, I glance behind me briefly and see she has actually curled herself up into a bundle beneath my coat. I reach behind and pull the coat up where a few blonde locks are still sticking out above her head. Then I turn back, place my hands on the steering wheel and drive forward carefully. My heart is in my mouth. I’m almost expecting the mob, now only five yards away, to cluster around the car on every side. In my mind I see the woman in the light blue coat throw herself onto the hood while her colleagues shake the car doors and pound at the windows, screaming. But I’m wrong. The crowd parts and even keeps at a safe distance as I drive toward them at walking pace. I have no trouble turning into our property as my right hand takes the small remote control from the center console and activates the automatic garage door.
“Stay down, Hannah,” I say, waiting for the door to close completely behind us before I switch off the engine and find myself able to breathe normally for the first time in what must be minutes.
“It’s okay.” I give Hannah the all-clear and lift the coat from her delicate body. “We made it.”
Hannah sits up and blinks.
I open my door, get out, then help Hannah out of the car. From the boot I take the small bag they packed with things from the clinic’s clothes bank for her visit. We’ll have to go shopping, tomorrow if we can. I don’t want to see my granddaughter in other people’s shabby clothes.
From the garage we go through a heavy metal door, then up a few steps to the back of the hallway. Karin’s waiting for us there, her face as white as a sheet.
“Thank God,” she says with relief in her voice when I push Hannah into the room. An unusually dim light is evidence that Karin has lowered all the roller blinds in the house to protect us from prying eyes. Her knees clicking, she squats right beside Hannah, but keeps her eyes on me. “I tried calling your mobile about half a dozen times! How could this happen?” Her voice is shrill with anxiety. “Where are all these people from? How do they know you picked Hannah up today? What are we going to do now?”
“Just calm down,” I say, raising my hands aloft to placate her.
“Calm down? You’ve seen what’s going on outside, haven’t you?”
“I’m on the case.”
“What? We can’t even call the police to get them off our backs! Not one of them has put a foot on our property! You know the rules from when they came because of Lena. So long as they’re just hanging round in the street, there’s nothing we can do. That’s public space.” She puts her arm out and points to the front door. “They could quite happily stay there for days undisturbed!”
“Karin…” I gesture toward Hannah, still standing rigidly and silently beside her.
Karin sighs before finally turning her attention to our grandchild.
“Hello, Hannah,” she says with a smile. “I’m so happy you’re finally here.”
When Hannah fails to react, Karin looks back up at me, slightly at a loss. I’m about to say something to break the ice when Hannah turns to me. She looks disappointed.
“But Grandad, I thought we weren’t going to have a stop.”
“No, we…” I stutter. “We’re here, Hannah. We’re at home.”
Hannah pulls a face.
“But this isn’t my home, Grandad.”
JASMIN
“I’m sorry I haven’t been able to see you until this late, Frau Grass,” Dr. Hamstedt says, closing the door behind her. Our appointment was for half past eight, but I’ve been sitting waiting for her in her office for a while now. “It’s been a busy day,” she adds with a smile. The psychiatric clinic in Regensburg, run by Maria Hamstedt, is the only one in the area that specializes in children and adolescents. I don’t want to spend any longer thinking about what “busy” means in a place like this, because my mind is immediately filled with images of teenagers flailing and kicking epileptically, their arms wrapped tightly around their bodies in straitjackets. I also hear screams echoing down the clinic’s long corridors, which give me goosebumps.
Smiling back at her, I force out a “That’s okay.” But nothing’s okay. The whole situation, the thing with the letters. My little excursion to the psychiatric clinic, the venturing-back-outside, at this time of the evening too, when it’s already dark and the streetlamps cast yellow cones of light which distort everything into long, ghostly shadows. All this presses down on my chest and wrenches at my limbs as if a heavy cold were brewing.
Dr. Hamstedt gives me a brief look of suspicion before wandering around her desk to sit down.
“To be honest, I was surprised when you called me to request this meeting, Frau Grass.”
Just as it surprised Kirsten that I didn’t go on shouting and screaming, refusing to call the therapist. That instead, I was almost zealous in repeatedly calling her number, which was engaged for half a day, until I finally got her on the line and persuaded her to see me today, in spite of how busy she was.
“Especially,” Dr. Hamstedt continues, folding her hands on the desk and leaning toward me, “as you’re no longer being treated by me, but by my colleague Dr. Brenner in Schützenstrasse.”
I steal a furtive glance at the door to check that it really is closed. Because sitting out there in the corridor is Kirsten, who accompanied me here. To see—as she thinks—my therapist. But I’ve only met Dr. Hamstedt once before. For my psychological anamnesis at Cham hospital right after my escape from the cabin.
“Yes, I bet. That you were surprised, I mean,” I say in hushed tones, even though I can’t imagine Kirsten listening at the door. In any case she’s probably got her iPod earphones in or she’s buried in a magazine. Kirsten isn’t very good at doing nothing; she’s got a low threshold for boredom.
Dr. Hamstedt appears to be waiting for more, an explanation of why I’ve asked to see her rather than Dr. Brenner, and why I sounded so urgent on the phone. Earlier, on the way here, I worked everything out and rehearsed the words in my head. But suddenly they’ve all gone.
Dr. Hamstedt leans further forward.
“Do you not get on with Dr. Brenner?”
I shake my head resolutely. “No, no, it’s not that. She’s very nice. I think.”
“Are you not going to her sessions regularly?”
“Not that often, no.”
“You ought to, Frau Grass. It’s important.”
“I know. It’s just…” I pull my head back and stare at the ceiling. The frayed, brown contours of a water stain up there start fraying even more, become diffuse. Don’t howl, I urge myself. Just don’t start howling again. Not here, not now. I haven’t come here to have Maria Hamstedt poke around my wounds. I’m here because I need information. And her opinion.
“You find it difficult to talk about what happened to you,” I hear Dr. Hamstedt’s sympathetic voice say.
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you even think there’s a reason for you to feel ashamed.”
“Perhaps.”
A scratching sound makes me flinch. I turn my gaze from the ceiling to Dr. Hamstedt, who has pulled a paper tissue from a cardboard box on her desk rather too hastily and is now offering it to me. I take it and wipe my eyes before squaring my shoulders and clearing my throat.
“Thanks.”
“I’ve known Dr. Brenner for many years, Frau Grass. She’s a terribly good listener. And as far as you’re concerned, you have absolutely no reason to feel ashamed. You are a victim. That’s not something anybody chooses to be.”
“Yes, that’s what people keep telling me,” I say with a slightly daft smile, as I think of how to change the subject.
“And it’s true, Frau Grass,” Dr. Hamstedt replies, giving me an encouraging smile. “Nevertheless, if you don’t feel comfortable as Dr. Brenner’s patient, ob
viously I’d be happy to help find you another therapist.”
“No, it’s not that,” I say quickly, when I realize that she must think this is the reason for my visit. “I don’t need a new therapist. There’s something else I urgently wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh, all right then. So, how can I help you, Frau Grass? If this is about how the children’s treatment is going, please remember that medical confidentiality means I cannot discuss anything with you, seeing as you’re not a—”
I shake my head.
“I need to know whether the children are being let out.”
“Let out? Are you asking whether they leave the clinic from time to time?”
“Exactly.”
Dr. Hamstedt looks slightly confused.
“Yes, of course. As you know, we are a psychiatric institution and obviously limited in what we can do as far as general medical examinations are concerned. So the answer to your question is yes. Hannah has been to visit other doctors.”
“Hannah has been out of the clinic?”
“To see the dentist and several times to the district clinic, yes. But given the circumstances, she’s in good physical shape, in case you were worried about that.”
“Hannah has been out of the clinic,” I repeat to myself, and the picture forms in my mind of the girl spookily wandering the streets on her own, coming to my street, to the building where I live. I see her barefoot, in a white nightie with Fräulein Tinky under her arm. “I remember every detail,” she whispers. Then she adds, “Forever and ever and ever.”
“Not on her own, of course. She’s always been accompanied by a member of staff or her grandfather, who’s been going with her more often recently,” Dr. Hamstedt says, dispelling my vision as if she’d read my thoughts. “Why do you ask, Frau Grass?”
Rather than say anything, I start picking the paper tissue in my lap to pieces.
“Frau Grass?”
Hannah’s grandfather. Your father, Lena. The man shouting beside my bed in the hospital.
“Frau Grass?”
“What about on her own? I mean, do the patients have a sort of free time here when they can go out unsupervised?”
“As I said, Frau Grass, this is a psychiatric institution for minors. Obviously we can’t allow most of our inpatients to wander around outside unsupervised.”
“Not even in the grounds?”
“No, of course not,” Dr. Hamstedt says very definitely.
“And it’s not possible for someone to slip outside unnoticed?”
Dr. Hamstedt sighs and says very clearly, “No, Frau Grass, that’s absolutely impossible. May I ask what this is about?”
I’d intended to tell her about the letters. I’ve even got them on me, in my handbag, which is on the floor beside the chair. Suddenly, however, I’m no longer sure it’s a good idea. What if she reacts like Kirsten did? You’re not well. You need help. I think of the rooms where the handles can be removed with a flick of the wrist. For your own security, Frau Grass. I swallow hard; my throat feels sore. I imagine nobody would be quicker to commit me to this psychiatric clinic than its director, who’s looking at me expectantly.
“Frau Grass?”
“Erm…”
I now feel really stupid for not having combed my hair, let alone changed my tracksuit bottoms and stained, sweaty top before coming here. Everything about me must be screaming cause for concern! As if on cue, a greasy hair falls down my forehead. I hastily sweep it back.
“Listen, Frau Grass. Medical confidentiality extends to this conversation here,” Dr. Hamstedt says, and I’m receptive to her deep, velvety voice and sincere expression. “So, if there’s anything you want to get off your chest…” The rest of her sentence, her invitation, hangs in the air and I take a deep breath.
“Someone’s been sending me letters,” I begin circumspectly as I watch for the tiniest changes in Dr. Hamstedt’s facial features. For narrowed lips, raised eyebrows or a wrinkled nose. “And, well, I know this must sound silly, but I was wondering whether they might be from the children.”
“The letters?”
I nod.
“What’s in them?”
So far I can’t detect anything in her features to alarm me, so I bend down and take the two envelopes from the side pocket of my handbag.
“For Lena,” Dr. Hamstedt reads out loud, then, “Tell the truth. What does that mean, Frau Grass? And what makes you think they could be from the children?”
“Because they must hate me after everything I’ve done. They can’t do anything but hate me. Especially Jonathan.”
Now I do notice a change in Dr. Hamstedt’s features: her eyebrows, which have shot up her forehead. Fortunately I detect honest surprise in this expression rather than doubt toward me.
“Jonathan?”
I nod apprehensively.
“I hurt him very badly.”
“I don’t understand.”
I nod again, but now avoid looking at her.
“On the day I escaped from the cabin…”
JASMIN
By now I was familiar with the restrictions of daily life inside the cabin. I’d found my footing and had fallen into line as far as possible. When your husband kissed me on the lips before going to work that morning, Lena, I didn’t even retch. But then he said, “I’m going to bring a test home this evening,” and beamed.
Over time I must have merely suppressed the fact that I hadn’t had a period in quite a while. It could have been my body suffering from stress. It could have been my weight loss, which was readily apparent in my shoulders and hips that stuck out sharply. But it hadn’t crossed my mind that I could be pregnant until he said these words. I’m going to bring a test home this evening. Everything collapsed, the ground broke up, gaped open and swallowed me into a huge, jet-black hole. When he was out the door, I summoned the last of my strength to drag myself over to the sofa and on to it.
I knew from a conversation we’d had earlier that he’d always wanted three children. A little brother or sister for Hannah and Jonathan. We’d even toasted me getting pregnant as soon as possible. Every day I took the vitamin pills he gave me, which were supposed to increase fertility, and I’d nodded in agreement when he thought up names. Matthias if it was a boy, and Sara if it was a girl. Matthias, he explained, meant “gift from God,” Sara “princess.”
There was no reason to doubt that he meant all of this seriously. No, he didn’t joke. Now it was all over, everything was black, inside I was dying from the realization that I would be bearing his third child. And if the test wasn’t positive today, it would be tomorrow, next week, or in a month. It would be my fault that another child had to endure this terror. I would give birth to a prisoner, someone who would be dead as soon as they were born. I cried so bitterly that it felt as if my face was going to burst.
The children were used to me having bad days, or at least a few bad hours in which my mood would swing violently and I would scream at them or pulverize some of their illusions out of sheer rage. I’d bawled at Hannah when she tried to persuade me to go on a trip which was never going to happen anyway. I’d kicked Fräulein Tinky and hissed at Jonathan, who loved pretending he could fly, that he would never, ever in his life get on a real plane. I’d yelled, “I’m not your mama!” and yelled it even louder when they appeared to ignore me. But my cruel outbursts never lasted much longer. I usually felt ashamed immediately afterward, or at least terrified that they might tell their father, and so I would apologize.
Today I wasn’t mean, wasn’t angry—I wasn’t anything anymore. I sat on the sofa, my arms around my torso, rocking back and forth listlessly for hours on end. Both Hannah and Jonathan had made a few attempts to get through to me. They asked when lessons were going to begin. They urged me to join in with exercises at least, reminding me what could happen if you didn’t exercise your muscles regularly. They offered me something to drink and a bit of energy bar. Each of them brought me a picture they’d drawn to try to cheer me
up. But I didn’t even look at their pictures, which were just stupid, pointless scribbles. At some point I was distantly aware that Hannah was reading to Jonathan from the big book.
“Depression,” she read out in the monotone typical of her voice, “is a psychological disorder, characterized by despondency, negative thinking and lack of motivation. Joy, productivity, empathy and a general interest in life are often lacking.”
“Does that mean she doesn’t care about us anymore?” Jonathan asked.
“Idiot,” Hannah retorted. “It means she doesn’t care about anything.”
“Including us,” Jonathan noted and started making funny noises. This was probably the only reason I took notice. I’d never heard these noises before, neither from him nor from Hannah. And yet, despite their strangeness, there was also something familiar about them. They reminded me of the pain after my father died, when I locked myself in my room for days on end and cried. They reminded me of the hurtful feeling which engulfed me each time Kirsten insisted she was serious about the end of our relationship and there was no way back.
Jonathan swallowed.
I blinked my tears away. He had in fact started crying and was sobbing so intensely that his little chest rose and sank as if being given electric shocks. I looked at his pale, tender face, distorted by pain, until I could no longer bear the sight of it and I offered him my hand. Rather than take it, the boy dived on me, almost pulling me off the sofa. I was completely rigid in his clutches to begin with. I hadn’t seen either of the children cry before, ever. Maybe I’d assumed by now they weren’t capable of showing emotion, or even feeling it. Yes, there had been that day when the recirculation device had stopped working and we’d lain in the big bed together, me with my arms around both of them. “I love you, Mama,” Hannah had said. “Forever and ever and ever.” And I’d said, “I love you both too. Goodnight.” Now I can see another significance behind it, but at the time I thought she’d only said that because it made the horrific episode slightly more bearable. Mitigated the fear slightly. At least that’s why I’d done it. Sure, I had feelings for the children. But was there ever anything more than pity there? I shuddered at the thought that the children had already started feeling love for me, real love, and I hadn’t noticed or returned this love. That everything I’d ever done for them was merely part of my role. That I’d only done it because I was worried their father would punish me if I didn’t play this role properly.
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