Dear Child

by Romy Hausmann

  But now I wake with a start.

  Screaming.

  My hand reaches for the switch of the bedside light.

  Screaming. Karin’s voice.

  My body shoots upward; my circulation can barely keep pace. My feet feel for the floor.

  The screaming’s coming from downstairs. Something clatters, a chair perhaps. Dining room, I think.

  I make it to the bedroom door, my legs like jelly.

  Someone’s in the house, I think. Someone’s got Karin. A weapon, I need a weapon, but I don’t have one. All that comes to mind is the poker, which is in its stand beside the fireplace, but the fireplace is in the dining room where I suspect Karin to be.

  Stumbling across the landing, I’m briefly tempted to pop into Lena’s old room when the thought of protecting Karin is displaced by the thought of little Hannah. Nothing must happen to her.

  I hear Karin again and pause.

  “What the hell were you doing?” she shouts. And gets a soft reply: “It’s impolite not to wave back.”

  Hannah! That was Hannah replying.

  I hurry to the stairs, then down the stairs, through the hallway and into the brightly lit dining room, where Karin is holding tightly on to Hannah’s arm.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, looking around incredulously. No burglar, no struggle, just Hannah and Karin.

  “I saw them from the window!”

  When I see Hannah wince in Karin’s firm grip, I leap forward and release my wife’s clenched fingers from Hannah’s thin arm.

  “I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to go to the window. I’m sorry.”

  “Of course you are, Hannah,” I say, trying to put some distance between the two of them by holding on to Karin’s shoulders and pushing her away. “What happened?”

  “When I came downstairs for a glass of water I heard her by the roller blinds. I thought it was a burglar,” Karin says breathlessly. I take her to the dining table and lower her gently on to a chair. She’s trembling. “She says someone was throwing stones at her bedroom window.”

  “It’s true. I’m not lying,” Hannah interjects. “I couldn’t really see who it was so I came downstairs. You get a better view of outside from here.”

  “How fortunate that you only looked out of the window rather than unlocking the front door,” Karin says sarcastically, propping her elbows on the table and putting her head in her hands.

  “Is there someone outside the front door?” As if on autopilot, my body turns to the fireplace, to the poker.

  “No, there’s nobody there,” Karin interrupts me mid-movement. “Hannah must have scared him off when she gave him such a friendly wave.”

  “Oh, Karin, stop it, please,” I say, nodding toward Hannah. She looks pitiful enough as it is in her nightie from the clothes bank, which is far too big but also far too thin for the autumn weather. Her head hangs heavily and sadly on her narrow, limp shoulders.

  “Hannah,” I say, stepping over to her and struggling to bend down on my old knees. “Will you tell me what happened?”

  “Someone was standing in the garden and threw something at my window. I thought at first it had started raining. It sounded just like it, a small, gentle tinkling. But then I thought I’d better check, though all I could see was a shadow. So I went downstairs into the other room.”

  “And there was someone standing at the window?”

  She nods.

  “We waved at each other.”

  “Did you see who it was?”

  “It’s still very dark outside.”

  I stroke her arms to comfort her.

  “No need to worry. I’ll have a quick check. Go back upstairs and lie down, okay?”

  Hannah nods again and says over her shoulder to Karin, “I’m sorry. I promise I’ll never go to the window again without permission.”

  When Karin just sighs, I say in her place, “It’s all right, Hannah. You’ve done nothing wrong. Everything’s okay. Go back to bed, now. We’ll be up in a sec.”

  I keep my eyes fixed on Karin as I listen to Hannah’s cautious little footsteps. When I think she’s out of earshot, I launch into Karin: “How could you?”

  “Please!” she snarls, taking her hands from her head.

  “She might have just had a bad dream. And you get at her like that!”

  “Or it’s just as I feared.” Karin gives the tabletop a feeble thud. “One of those press vultures set up camp outside overnight.”

  “Rubbish. They all left just before nine o’clock. We heard the cars drive off. And when I went to check a little later there was nobody there. They realized there’s nothing to be had here.”

  Karin ignores my objection.

  “And then Hannah’s encouraging these people by giving them a jolly picture of her waving! I told you, Matthias! I said right at the start that I didn’t want any of that again. I don’t want to see myself in the paper every day.” Karin jumps up so abruptly that her chair almost topples over. She catches the backrest just in time and pushes the chair to the table.

  “I’m going to take a look just to be sure,” I say, turning to the fireplace and taking the poker from its stand. “If anything needs sorting out, I’ll sort it out. And you’re going to go back up to Hannah. But be friendly, Karin, okay?”

  * * *

  Outside it’s completely silent save for the birds who’ve started chirruping away in the dawn light. Poker in hand, I stand on the top of the four steps that lead down from our front door. My gaze flits across the front garden. The garden gate is shut and there’s no sign that anyone was on our property a few minutes ago. And apart from the rose bushes, there are no shrubs or trees with large trunks, behind which an intruder could hide. Even in the gray dawn light, I have a good view of our small front garden, which sits there in peace. Just as I suspected, Hannah must have had a bad dream.

  MATTHIAS

  I don’t know what’s up with Karin. It begins at breakfast. Hannah only eats a slice of bread with butter, just like yesterday evening. So what? Well, Karin thought she was giving her a treat—offering her something—when she brought a jar of Nutella from the kitchen and placed it on the dining-room table.

  “So far as I know, all children love Nutella,” she said, giving Hannah a conspiratorial wink.

  But after studying the ingredients on the jar, Hannah pushed the Nutella away.

  “You mustn’t eat too much sugar. The excessive consumption of sugar and sugary foods can lead to the following symptoms: tiredness, lack of motivation, anxiety, digestive problems, flatulence, diarrhea or constipation, nervousness, sleep and concentration disorders, as well as tooth decay.”

  Karin’s lips formed a half-baked smile, then she picked up the jar, took it back into the kitchen and stuffed it into the larder, with all the chocolate bars, bags of gummy bears and packets of biscuits she’d bought specially once we knew for sure Hannah was going to stay with us. I can understand her disappointment. She meant well. But couldn’t she have been happy with taking the jar off the table?

  No, now she starts sniffling too. I can hear it from the dining room. I’ve already braced my hands on the table to push myself up and follow her into the kitchen. But then I think better of it. Hannah is sitting opposite, looking at me. On the plate in front of her is a plain slice of bread she hasn’t touched since Karin shot off into the kitchen.

  “Just butter?” I ask.

  Hannah nods.

  I reach across the table and pull her plate over so I can butter the bread.

  “Thanks,” she says very politely when I give her back the plate.

  “Do start, Hannah. I’m just going to check on Grandma.”

  * * *

  “Can’t we just have breakfast in peace?”

  I try to whisper so Hannah won’t hear, but even at this low volume there’s an unmistakable sharpness to my tone which surprises Karin as well as myself.

  “I don’t want to live like this, Matthias,” she says, pointing vaguely upward. Unusually f
or this time of day the ceiling lamp casts a cold white light into the room. In all rooms, to be exact, for the roller blinds are still down throughout the house.

  “There aren’t half as many as yesterday, Karin,” I say, referring to the journalists who are kicking their heels pointlessly on the pavement outside. When I went to fetch the newspaper from the mailbox at half past six this morning nobody had turned up yet, and I almost thought it would stay that way. The first car finally arrived around eight o’clock.

  “Yes.” Karin laughs scornfully. “They got their photo of Hannah last night.”

  “Don’t start again, please. Nobody was here last night. Hannah had a bad dream. And you’ve seen today’s paper. There’s no picture of Hannah waving, just…” I hesitate when I realize. But I don’t want any discussion now about whether the article in the Bayerisches Tagblatt, attacking the police’s handling of the case, is justified or not. “Listen, Karin,” I say instead. “It’s not easy for me either. But all that matters at the moment is that we find out who this guy was and what he did to our girl.” My throat turns dry. “And where he took her.”

  “That’s what this is about, is it?” Karin’s eyes are still shimmering with a film of moisture, and now there’s a disconcerting, sinister note to her expression.

  “Yes, of course. What did you think?”

  “You haven’t even asked Mark if he’s met Gerd.”

  “Gerd would have told me.”

  Karin throws her hands in the air.

  “You don’t even see that!”

  “Don’t be so loud,” I hiss, peering around the corner at Hannah. She’s staring straight ahead of her as she chews thoughtfully on her bread. Fortunately she’s sitting side-on to us, which means her vacant gaze passes us by and perhaps alights on the fireplace.

  “What don’t I see?” I say, turning back to Karin.

  “Gerd doesn’t talk to you unless he absolutely has to. And today’s newspaper article gives him even more reason not to.”

  “Gerd doesn’t talk to me? Really? Then maybe there’s something wrong with my memory. I must have imagined him calling me in the middle of the night when Frau Grass was admitted to hospital.”

  “He called us, Matthias. And I’m sure he regrets that now. He didn’t want us to go to the hospital in Cham. That was your decision.”

  “No, it was our decision!”

  I shake my head wearily.

  “Why are we talking about Gerd, anyway? I was asking you why you were making such a fuss over a jar of Nutella.”

  Karin’s chin is quivering.

  “Because you claim this is about Lena. But that’s not true. Not anymore. Now it’s all about Hannah, isn’t it?”

  I can barely believe what I’m hearing. How can she have the nerve to talk like this? My Lenchen, my everything … Only the thought that this is Karin, the woman I’ve been married to for almost forty years, prevents me from turning abusive. Had it been Gerd, Giesner or Mark, I’d have grabbed them by the collar for being so offensive.

  “Hannah is all we have left,” I say instead, then in the same breath add, “and Jonathan,” to avoid giving her more ammunition in this dreadful conversation.

  But it seems that Karin refuses to accept this.

  “How do you know that?” she shouts, keeps shouting, while I say “Shh!” and peer around the corner again to see if Hannah is listening. “They still haven’t found Lena’s body! What if—?”

  “Karin. We know she’s dead,” I interrupt, when I see that Hannah’s still sitting unfazed at the table like a good girl, eating her bread.

  “But how? When Gerd called us a fortnight ago on the night of the accident, neither of us doubted that Lena might be still alive, did we?”

  “Karin, please—”

  “And you’re doing nothing to help!”

  “What?”

  “You could ask Hannah about her!”

  “I’m not a psychologist, Karin! You can’t predict what you might unleash if you—”

  “Wasn’t it you who said the so-called professionals haven’t got a clue? And yet you seem to feel you’re enough of a psychology expert to bring her home to us,” she interjects.

  “Karin, it’s all right.” I take a step toward her and take her shoulders. “I promise I’ll give Mark a call later. Gerd too. In return you’re going to join Hannah and me at the table and have breakfast with us. Okay?”

  Karin opens her mouth, but then appears to change her mind and just nods weakly. I take her hand and pull her into the dining room. But Hannah’s no longer in her chair.

  “Where is she?”

  “In the bathroom, probably,” Karin says, but I know at once that can’t be the case.

  “Hannah!” I race into the hallway.

  “I’ll look upstairs,” Karin says, scurrying up the stairs.

  The guest bathroom at the back of the hallway is empty. I close the door I just opened a second ago. Of course she didn’t go to the bathroom. It’s not Hannah’s time for the bathroom, and she wouldn’t go without asking permission first. She probably did hear Karin and me arguing and got a fright. I can’t help thinking of Lena, who also hated it when we argued. She always hid, usually in the big cupboard in the hallway. She would sit there, her knees up to her chest, waiting for us to look for her and eventually find her. It was as if she was trying to distract us from arguing. About the household goods we had difficulty paying off every month, my practice, which wasn’t going so well, parenting, the washing, which I had promised to do but forgot, and all those tiny things that blow up from time to time.

  I carefully approach the antique fir wood cupboard beneath the stairs, where Karin keeps the jackets and coats we don’t use every day. A memory …

  Found you! Finally!

  Were you worried about me, Papa?

  Terribly worried, darling!

  That’s good …

  I’m just about to open the cupboard door when Karin calls out from upstairs, “She’s in her room!” In a flash my heart returns to normal and a smile darts across my lips. I’m relieved, but slightly disappointed too. Maybe I wanted to find Hannah in the cupboard.

  Were you worried about me, Grandad?

  Terribly worried, darling!

  “Would you come up, Matthias?” Karin says.

  When my foot is on the bottom step I detect a movement from the corner of my eye: a shadow darting about behind the pane of frosted glass in the front door. I don’t think, I make straight for the door and yank it open at the very moment a woman puts a large cardboard box sealed with packing tape on our doormat.

  “Herr Beck … hello,” she stammers, clearly as flummoxed as I am, and takes a step back in shock.

  At the same time the small bunch gathered outside our gate has been stirred into a frenzy of activity. Cameras click like keys on a typewriter and questions are shot at me like missiles.

  “How’s the girl, Herr Beck?”

  “What about the boy, Herr Beck?”

  “Any news on the whereabouts of your daughter, Herr Beck?”

  “Is it true you feel let down by the police?”

  My eyes flit between the brown cardboard box by my feet, the woman who’s going unsteadily back down the steps to the front garden, and the bawling mob on the other side of the garden fence.

  “Is Hannah going to live with you permanently now, Herr Beck?”

  “Are you going to bring Jonathan back here too?”

  “Herr Beck! Herr Beck!”

  Then everything erupts, a sudden explosion of sheer despair. “Piss off!” I bellow. “Piss off, you bastards, or I’ll call the police and sue you for harassment!” I kick the heavy box on our doormat, kick it toward the woman who has now negotiated the last of the four steps and is continuing her retreat on the flat, tiled path. I know her. I recognize the red hair and light blue coat. She was here yesterday when I came back from the trauma center with Hannah. “Just leave us in peace,” I growl at her before going back inside the house and clo
sing the door noisily behind me.

  “So that’s the headline we’re going to be reading tomorrow.”

  I hear Karin’s grim voice coming from the top of the stairs. I turn my head feebly toward her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  My wife rolls her eyes.

  “You’re always saying that. By the way, Hannah has locked herself in her room. Maybe you can try.”

  “She’s—?”

  “Locked herself in. Voluntarily.”

  JASMIN

  I wake up. It’s not ten to seven and I haven’t got his voice inside my head, but I do have a hangover-like feeling, which immediately reminds me of yesterday evening. I feel beside me, where Kirsten ought to be, but then I remember she’d planned to go home this morning to feed Ignaz and then do some shopping for us. She must have already left, for I can’t hear any sounds coming from the bathroom or kitchen. Maybe it’s a good thing that I’m on my own, a sort of grace period. When she comes back we’re going to call Cham. I need to look at the facial reconstruction. I have to, of course. Especially as since yesterday evening there’s now another urgent reason why I should meet him.

  “That could be an important piece of information, Jasmin,” Dr. Hamstedt had said. “It may even help establish the identity of your abductor and his motive. It sounds very personal somehow, don’t you think?”

  “Or maybe he just read the reports in the newspaper and was having a bit of fun.”

  “Possibly. But I think you should talk to Inspector Giesner as soon as possible.”

  The very thought of it makes me want to turn over and go back to sleep. But how could I, Lena, with you staring at me from the walls a hundred times over? Encouraging me, urging me, smiling from all those photos in the countless newspaper articles I stuck up on the walls? I concede defeat and get up.