Dear Child

by Romy Hausmann

  “Matthias,” Grandma says, still taking things from the box, having a look, then sorting them into two piles on the floor. One pile for me, one for Jonathan. “That’s really nice, don’t you think? And the clothes are in such good condition … Oh, Hannah, look! This is perfect for you.” She holds up a dress; it’s white with flowers. “That’s just your dress!”

  I’m about to ask her how she knows that when she says, “And look! Toys too!”

  First she takes out an orange plastic digger with a black bucket, but then … I immediately drop my dress and put out my hand. Grandma smiles and hands me the small, red-and-white spotted bundle, then turns back to Grandad, saying again how nice the readers of the Bayerisches Tagblatt are. Meanwhile I hold Fräulein Tinky to my chest as tightly as I can.

  “I’ve missed you, little one,” I murmur, burying my nose in her soft coat.

  JASMIN

  My stomach jerks, as if I’d missed a step going downstairs. The key scraping in the lock, the door handle being pressed down several times, the resistance arching my back. Only when I hear the occasional swearing from the other side of the front door do I get up and open it. I’ve been sitting in front of the door, my back leaned against it, knees up to my chest, my bodyweight acting as a doorstop to defend the apartment against possible intruders.

  “What’s going on?” Kirsten asks when I pull her into the apartment, snatch the key from her hand and lock it twice from the inside.

  “Jassy?”

  “She was here!”

  “Who?”

  “That Maja. You know, the woman who moved into the Hildners’ apartment on the second floor. It was creepy.”

  Kirsten gives a drawn-out sigh, then takes off her coat.

  “I’m here now,” is all she says, without reacting to my behavior. She reminds me of myself. When I used to live with my mother. When I thought I was there for her even though every moment it felt as if my guts were filled with lead.

  “I coped fine while you were away,” I tell Kirsten, who’s just hanging her coat up on the rack. I don’t want to be a burden on Kirsten, like my mother was a burden on me. “Really, I did. If you’d rather go home, that’s not a problem. And I’m sure you’ve got to get back to work. Surely they need you at the club, especially now it’s the weekend.”

  “I get it, Jassy,” she mutters, then turns around to me. “So? What about Maja from the second floor?”

  I hesitate.

  “Jassy?” Kirsten strokes my cheek. “My God, you’re all hot again.” Her face takes on a serious, concerned expression. “Did you get upset?”

  I nod.

  “Maja. She came and brought me lunch.”

  I tell Kirsten about Maja’s strange behavior, her unpleasant pushiness. The moment when she said, “I’m sorry, Jasmin. I’m afraid there’s only enough lunch for one.” And how I just wanted to run away, get away from this woman. I stumbled backward out of the kitchen, while Maja put the plate of food on the table and came after me. She didn’t rush at me, she came slowly, sedately, holding her hands up to reassure me.

  “Don’t be afraid, Jasmin. I know you’ve been through a terrible time. Things nobody seems to understand. That’s right, isn’t it, Jasmin?”

  I’d made it into the hallway and had to decide. Right, into the sitting room where my mobile was and I could call for help? Or left into the bedroom where I could lock myself in?

  “It’s very lonely if nobody understands you, isn’t it?”

  Left, I decided.

  “What do you want from me, Maja? What’s this all about?”

  “I’d like to listen to you, Jasmin.”

  I crashed backward into the shoe cabinet.

  “Talking helps, Jasmin. Trust me.”

  * * *

  Kirsten shakes her head, barely able to believe what I’m saying.

  “What then?”

  “I ran into the bedroom and locked the door. She knocked a few times and tried to convince me to come out. I shouted at her to leave or I’d call the police. All she said was, ‘That won’t help you, Jasmin.’ Then I heard the front door. She’d gone.”

  “She’d gone,” Kirsten repeats in a monotone voice, narrowing her eyes. “Are you sure it all happened just like that?”

  “Of course I’m sure!” I snap, but Kirsten just raises her eyebrows. “I’m not mad,” I say more calmly. “Okay, it may have been ridiculous to think that the children wrote those letters. You were right, it must have been some nutter trying to put the wind up me. But the thing with Maja…”

  Kirsten looks up.

  “What do you mean letters? There was only one.”

  “No,” I say quietly. “A second one arrived yesterday.” I fish my handbag from the rack and take both envelopes from the side pocket to give them to Kirsten. The first one she opens contains the letter she’s already seen.

  “Tell the truth,” she reads from the second one, then raises her eyebrows and adds, “How appropriate.” She gives me back the letter and envelope. “Why didn’t you show me?”

  I say nothing.

  Kirsten laughs, slightly bitterly.

  “Do you realize just how much you’re expecting from me?”

  “I just didn’t want you to worry anymore. So I thought it might be better to discuss it with Dr. Hamstedt first. And she assured me it was absolutely impossible for the children to have written them.”

  Kirsten sighs.

  “And the reason she knows this is because she’s the children’s therapist, not yours as you told me.”

  “Yes,” I say hesitantly.

  “I went with you yesterday because I thought you were on the verge of a nervous breakdown.” Kirsten shakes her head. It’s silent for a moment before she says, “Jassy, it won’t work like this. If you don’t trust me, I can’t stay here.”

  “It’s not that. I do trust you.”

  Kirsten laughs again.

  “No, you don’t! You keep the uncomfortable things to yourself. But I’m not stupid, Jassy. Don’t underestimate me.”

  I instinctively take a step backward.

  “I remember it exactly when you disappeared. We happened to have had an argument just beforehand. You had an overnight bag on you, I haven’t forgotten that. The black one with the silver clasps. I didn’t tell the police about it when I reported you missing a couple of days later, because I wanted them to take the search for you seriously. Because I thought it might be salutary if they, the police, discovered you in some hotel room, rather than me finding you, which was what I imagined you were expecting.”

  “What are you saying, Kirsten? That I planned my disappearance?” My mouth goes dry. Go on, start worrying about me, look for me, find me, take me back home. “It certainly wasn’t my plan to be locked up in a cabin and tortured by a psychopath for four months!”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “What are you saying, Kirsten? That I’m a liar?”

  “That your penchant for drama keeps getting you into trouble, that’s what I’m saying. And that you don’t realize how ludicrous it makes you look. First you accuse two little, disturbed children of threatening you, and now it’s the neighbor from the second floor harassing you.”

  “But that’s exactly what happened! Maja was here and she harassed me. Yes, she did, she harassed me.”

  Kirsten makes an indeterminate gesture with her head. Then she hurries to the door, turns the key in the lock, yanks the door open so hard that it bashes into the cabinet and rushes out of the apartment.

  My heart misses a beat.

  “No … please … don’t go,” I stammer almost silently. The shock has stolen my tongue, and when I hear Kirsten’s footsteps clattering at short, determined intervals down the first flight of stairs, I realize it isn’t true what I thought. I can’t cope without her; I need her.

  I set off after Kirsten. With every step, the pain in my ribcage explodes in my body. I pant.

  You’re ungrateful, Lena.

  “Kirsten,
wait … I know you only mean well! I’m sorry! I’m really so sorry!”

  When I catch up with her on the second floor I realize she had no intention of leaving. She’s standing outside Maja’s apartment and she gives me a resolute nod before pressing the bell.

  “Let’s ask her what all this nonsense is about.”

  The bell rings. I can hear movement behind the door.

  “Frau Grass! Frau Thieme! I haven’t seen either of you in ages!” It’s not Maja who says this, but Frau Hildner, who never moved out of her second-floor apartment.

  JASMIN

  I can practically see the cogs setting in motion inside Kirsten’s head, turning until they’re out of control and Kirsten’s eyes open wide. Notwithstanding Frau Hildner, who’s still standing in the doorway, Kirsten turns on her heels and races back up the stairs without a word of explanation. Confused, Frau Hildner takes a step forward to see where Kirsten’s going, then draws back again and looks at me expectantly.

  “We … I…” I stammer.

  “Who is that, Mami?” a little voice in the background asks. It’s the Hildners’ young son, who appears in the doorway too and clings to his mother’s knee.

  I’m just about to ask about Maja, but without Kirsten by my side I find it embarrassing to stand here. At once I feel non compos mentis again and mentally ill. What’s Frau Hildner going to think of me if I ask her about Maja? No Maja lives here, that’s obvious. I fumble around for an explanation, something about my washing machine being broken and wondering if I might be able to use Frau Hildner’s over the coming days.

  “I just wanted to ask…”

  Frau Hildner’s face suddenly brightens.

  “Are you here because of that König woman who’s always hanging around here at the moment?”

  “That…?”

  “Go on, ask me, Frau Grass!” She almost sounds aggressive now. “Ask me if I talked to her! Of course I didn’t! Nor my husband! We’d never do that! She hasn’t got a single word out of us, even though she’s been doing her darnedest to get us to speak.” She smiles and I’m sure there’s a hint of pride in it. “She’s even offered us money, but she’s not going to buy us! You’ve really been through enough already, Frau Grass.” The pride in her smile now gives way to a touch of sympathy.

  “Mami? What are you talking about?” the son says, tugging her trouser leg.

  “Let go, Lenny. Please. Mami’s having a word with Frau Grass.”

  Lenny moans something incomprehensible before letting go of his mother and plodding back into the apartment. As she watches him go, Frau Hildner tells him to tidy up his toys.

  “I don’t understand…” I say to turn her attention back to me.

  “Yes, that König woman! She had a right tough time with us. But I expect she found another victim after that.” She grimaces. “I’m sorry. Victim isn’t a good word. Anyway…”

  * * *

  “Kirsten!” I call out a couple of minutes later, and her name echoes in the stairwell. The blood rushes to my head when I run up the stairs. “Kirsten!” I hold the banister with one hand and the other is gripping my side, my injured ribs throbbing painfully with all this exertion. “Wait!” I know exactly what’s happening two floors above me right now. I can see Kirsten mouthing ugly words of abuse, clattering around the apartment in a blind rage, as aimlessly as a headless chicken, until she remembers the Post-it on the fridge.

  And indeed, when I’m back inside the apartment, she’s tapping the number on the small, pink note into her mobile.

  “No, Kirsten, don’t!”

  I fly at her and tear the Post-it from her hand.

  “What are you doing, Jassy? Give me the number—I’m going to call that woman and ask her what the hell she thinks she’s playing at!”

  She tries to reach around me and get back the note I’m concealing in my fist behind my back.

  “Wait, Kirsten,” I pant. “I understand it all now! Just listen to me for a minute!”

  * * *

  “Frau Bar-Lev?”

  Kirsten’s eyeballs seem to bulge in their sockets and her mouth is open. Her expression gives my feelings a face, a terrified, bewildered face. And yet … didn’t I think precisely this some time ago? Frau Bar-Lev serving coffee to a reporter in her sitting room. Nibbling on a biscuit with her false teeth, casually dropping comments about the poor woman from the fourth floor, who’s way too thin, who’s stopped washing her hair and is wearing dirty clothes. You only have to look at her to see it, you can see it all. Frau Bar-Lev, who’s been given the opportunity to top up her modest pension with a little pocket money.

  “Are you saying Maja’s a journalist?”

  I nod.

  Sonja Hildner told me about the woman who, going by her description, has to be Maja. Roughly mid-thirties, dyed red hair and a slanted fringe. In search of someone suitable to talk to, she’d obviously rung bell after bell in the building, encountering the resistant Sonja Hildner before coming across the amenable Frau Bar-Lev.

  Kirsten is busy with her mobile again, but this time to look up Maja on the internet. Feverishly almost, a fever compared to which my alleged penchant for drama seems to fade into the background, I note with relief.

  “That’s her,” she says, waving her mobile in excitement. “Maja König, Bayerisches Tagblatt, Munich office. Munich, Jassy! Has she seriously come from Munich to Regensburg every day to bring you lunch? She must be completely obsessed with you!” Kirsten hands me her phone with Maja’s picture on the screen. “We should give Frau Bar-Lev a talking-to, then notify the police.”

  “According to Sonja, Frau Bar-Lev is staying with her son at the moment,” I say abstractedly as I gaze at Maja’s photo. Maja König, a woman in a white blouse with the collar turned up, smiling coquettishly into the camera. “2004: internship, 2005–08: traineeship, 2008–11: junior editor, since 2011: ‘people and current affairs editor.’” I read out the short CV below the picture.

  “Good, now let’s call the police,” Kirsten says. “Lying to people to gain access to their home must be a criminal offense. And anyway, don’t journalists have a sort of professional code of honor too?”

  “I don’t know, Kirsten. After all, she hasn’t written any articles yet. But what will happen if we get the police on her back?” I draw an invisible headline in the air with my finger: “Victim uses police to obstruct journalistic work. Does Jasmin G have something to hide?”

  “But it won’t happen like that! Surely she’s not going to—”

  “The letters!” I blurt out.

  “What?”

  “They were from Maja! Letter number one arrived on the same day that Maja first came to my door with food. She even brought it up for me, supposedly from my mailbox.” I slap my hand over my mouth. “What does she want from me?”

  “An interview, obviously!”

  “All that trouble for an interview?”

  Kirsten shrugs.

  “You haven’t got a clue what an exclusive interview with you would be worth right now. Maybe this is her attempt to break you down, to get you to give her the sensational story.” She shakes her head. “Honestly, Jassy. Let’s call Giesner.” She takes my hand. “We’ve got to anyway, you know that.”

  I nod.

  “The facial reconstruction.”

  Kirsten nods too.

  “The longer you put it off, the more difficult it’s going to be for you.”

  “No, we’re going to do something else. We’re going to call Maja. We’re going to find out what she wants.”

  “Jassy.” Kirsten sighs.

  “And then we’ll call Giesner, okay?”

  * * *

  Maja answers after the second ring.

  “Hello?” says a very friendly voice.

  “Maja? It’s Jasmin Grass here.”

  “Frau Grass! What a surprise! Is everything all right? Are you feeling better? I think I should apologize for this morning. I must have given you a fright—”

  “It’s fin
e,” I interrupt. “It wasn’t your fault. You were just trying to be nice and I overreacted. I ought to be apologizing to you.”

  Kirsten, sitting cross-legged on the sofa beside me, rolls her eyes.

  “You know I’m not in a good way at the moment.”

  “Yes,” Maja says, sounding concerned. “My offer still stands, Jasmin. If you need someone to talk to…”

  “Yes, Maja. I do need someone to talk to.”

  * * *

  “That was quick,” Kirsten says when I hang up soon afterward. “What did she say?”

  “That she’s still at work, but she can come over this evening. Around nine, half past nine.”

  “Which means right now she’s swanning into her boss’s office, bragging that she’s clinched the exclusive interview,” Kirsten says. Her grin tells me she is quite keen on my idea after all. Her plan was to call Maja and confront her, and I know she would have done this for me. She’d have been happy to act as an outlet for all the pressure of the past few days and the situation as a whole. But I didn’t want to give Maja the opportunity to hang up. Extricate herself from the matter with the push of a button. Not after she’d gone so far and even entered my apartment under false pretenses. Not after I had barely any space left in this world, and she’d infiltrated the last few square feet that gave me some inkling of protection and control. Kirsten had to understand this.

  “Probably,” I say, returning Kirsten’s grin, although I don’t really feel like it.

  Kirsten reaches for my hand.

  “And now…?”

  And now.

  I take a deep breath.

  HANNAH

  Grandad is down in the cellar, looking for the old photo albums.

  He and Grandma have been arguing again. It didn’t bother them that I was standing next to them, listening. Grandad was cross because Grandma had put the photo albums in the cellar. He doesn’t think that the pictures of my mama as a girl should be banished to some old crate, and certainly shouldn’t be in the cellar, because the cellar’s a bit damp and that might ruin the pictures. Grandma said he ought to make his phone calls like he promised he would.