Strangers

by Ursula Archer

  “Frau Berrigan, how are you and Herr Porter acquainted?” König asks. I only realize who he’s talking about when Joanna answers.

  “Gavin heads up my father’s security team.”

  “In Australia?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why is he here?”

  “Because I called my father and told him I was worried my life might be in danger.”

  Pullmann leans forward and slams the palms of his hands down on the table. “And why the hell didn’t you inform the police if you were afraid for your life?”

  “I did contact the police,” Joanna calmly responds. “But it didn’t get me anywhere.”

  Pullmann snorts and waves his hand dismissively, but he leaves it at that.

  “What about Gavin, then?” I press. “What’s going to happen to him and his people? They were the ones who contacted the police. They saved our lives.”

  “We don’t know yet. They’re still being questioned at the moment. As are those other men.” König abruptly pushes back his chair and turns to his colleague. “I think we’re done for the time being.” He gets up, reaches for the folder, and rolls it up.

  “Someone’s going to take you home now. I would, however, ask that you remain available for questioning. We’re going to need to talk to you again once we’ve finished questioning the others.”

  We both nod appreciatively. As we stand up next to each other, I feel Joanna’s hand groping for mine. I take her hand and hold it tightly.

  During the drive home, we sit next to each other silently in the back seat of the police car. Maybe it’s because of the young policewoman and her colleague that we’re not talking about the things that I imagine are shaking up Joanna just as much as me. But maybe it’s also the thought of our house, the fear that maybe it can no longer be our house after everything that’s happened in the past few days, and especially in the past few hours. Maybe the place that’s always been our most private sanctuary has been ruined for us by Gabor’s men breaking in.

  As we turn onto the driveway, it’s something else entirely that I notice first, something that makes my stomach clench. The missing cockatoo.

  It’s a symbol of the last remaining secrets which stand between Joanna and me—the fact that she doesn’t remember me, her attempt to kill me, the disappearance from the house of all proof of my existence.

  We thank the officers and get out. Wait until the vehicle’s disappeared. But even then, neither of us is able to move a muscle.

  “It’s a strange feeling, isn’t it?” I ask, unable to tear my eyes away from the empty spot next to the rhododendrons.

  “Yeah. For you probably even more than for me.” She moves closer to me, puts an arm around my waist. I do the same. “All right then, let’s see what happens.”

  I couldn’t say what I expected, but as we look around the hall and then the kitchen and realize that barely anything has changed, I’m surprised. No closets have been torn open, no drawers are yanked out, and there are no items strewn over the floor. The living room, too—same as always. Then again, why would Gabor’s people have vandalized the house in the first place; they didn’t want valuables, they wanted us.

  I sag down onto the couch, phone in hand. There’s only one thing left to do today, call Ela and tell her we’re OK. We keep the conversation brief; I don’t have the strength right now to explain how the dots fit together, but I promise her I’ll get in touch again tomorrow. The whole time I’ve been on the phone, I didn’t hear a peep from Joanna. I look around but she’s nowhere to be seen. My pulse quickens immediately. I exit the living room, walk through the kitchen, and abruptly stop in the entrance to the hall. The front door is open, and Joanna is standing on the doorstep. She’s holding the key to the mailbox in one hand and an envelope in the other, and it looks as though she’s afraid to open it.

  51

  My name is on the envelope, barely legible, in hastily scribbled letters. It’s very light, almost like it’s empty. I’d prefer to feel around before I open it, to try to figure out the contents, but I don’t dare. Who knows, maybe it contains another, final attempt from Gabor to get me out of the way. Using anthrax, for example.

  Erik sees my hesitation and takes the envelope from my hand. He feels it carefully. “There’s something in it. But it’s definitely nothing explosive.”

  Before I can protest, he goes into the kitchen and gets a knife from the block. No, not just a knife—the knife.

  When he sees that I’ve followed him, he shakes his head. “Stay in the living room and shut the door behind you.”

  I’m so tired that I do it without protesting. Only once I sink down onto the couch do I realize that Erik probably sent me away to make sure I was safe.

  But our concern is unfounded. Just half a minute later, Erik comes back and lays the contents of the envelope before me on the table. It’s just a USB stick, black and slim. “We’ve often used that brand at work,” he says.

  We look at each other, nod silently. We should probably hand this stick over to the police, but not before we know what’s on it.

  Erik puts his laptop on the coffee table, opens it, and puts the stick into the USB slot.

  Five files. Three pictures in JPEG format, and an audio file. And a Word document named For Joanna.doc. I point my index finger at it. “Open that first, please.”

  Erik hesitates for a second, then opens it.

  The text is no longer than half a page. It’s full of typos, and some run-on words.

  I’m so sorry. Erik is dead and it’s partly my fault. I acepted it as collateral damage for a cause I believe in and whos aims for our country are minetoo—the means of achieving them, however, are not. I didn’t think my organization was capable of something like the attack on munich station, I didnt know about it beforehand, you have to believe me, please. But I can stil warn you, Joanna. We spoke on the phone a few hour ago, perhaps youre already in the process of hidng, I really hope you are. Probably you willnever read what I’m writing here, but I need to tell you what I knw. I didnt come by that evening because I had problems with mycomputer, but because I wanted to seewhat had gone wrong. Listen to the recording I sent then you will unnerstand. Good luck. I’m on my way out of the country. I’m really sorry.

  Bernhard Morbach

  * * *

  Erik has put his arm around my shoulders. We exchange a quick glance. “The photos first,” I say. I don’t know why, but I dread listening to the audio file. Then you’ll understand—on the one hand I want to understand, I have to, but on the other hand I’m so terribly afraid of what I might hear. What if it turns out I really was in on it with von Ritteck, Gabor, and the others, and that I just forgot about it? Just like I forgot Erik?

  * * *

  The first picture. Lots of green. Lush vegetation on the beach. Palm trees. And some distance away two figures, one of which is me, or someone who looks very similar to me. The other is a man, or rather a boy, with coffee-colored skin.

  I have no idea when or where the photo was taken.

  “The beaches at home don’t look like that,” I murmur.

  Erik looks at me. “That’s Antigua.” He opens the next photo. The boy and I are in sharper focus now: he’s laughing and pointing out to sea. I’m standing there, my hands in the pockets of my shorts, and looking at what he’s showing me.

  “Did you take these?” I ask Erik. “That would explain why you’re not in them.”

  “No.” He zooms in on the picture. “I’ve never seen that bay before, I don’t think.”

  I can feel something like a hum, a silent vibration inside me. A name. But no memory.

  On the third photo, I’m standing in the water up to my knees, and something is coming into the frame from the right, probably the bow of a boat. And a hand is reaching out toward me.

  “You did wander off by yourself that one time.” He puts a hand on my knee, and I have to pull myself together in order not to flinch away. It’s not Erik’s fault I’m feeling so wo
rked up, it’s because this picture doesn’t ring a bell at all. Antigua is a complete unknown to me; until recently I would have sworn I’ve never set foot on the island. Let alone on this beach, but there I stand, unmistakably, laughing.

  “OK. Then let’s listen to the file now.”

  Erik clicks on the file, and the audio player on his notebook opens. I lower my gaze; my heart is hammering so strongly I can actually see it rather than just feel it. I close my eyes.

  At first there’s just the sound of water rushing, nothing but that. Rising and falling. The sound of the sea. Then a crackle and a voice, coming closer midsentence. “That was fifty milligrams of scopolamine; it shouldn’t put her to sleep.” Bartsch’s voice, mixed with a dragging sound, as if someone was pulling up a chair. “Are we recording?”

  “Yes.”

  Erik takes a sharp intake of breath next to me and stops the player. “That’s Bernhard’s voice. I don’t believe it; he and Bartsch were on Antigua? At the same time as us?”

  “So it seems.” I remember what Gabor had said earlier in the warehouse. You couldn’t wait to get on the plane. “Keep playing it, please.”

  Erik clicks on the play button, and the voice returns. Bartsch. For a moment I even think I can smell his aftershave.

  “Good. It’s important to me that everything is documented.” A short pause, then he speaks again, in a different, warmer tone. “Hello, Joanna. I’m very pleased to have you on board.”

  “Yes. I’m … pleased too.”

  It’s me. Without a doubt. My voice, the soft accent, the one I always think I’ve managed to lose until I hear recordings of myself. I lean against Erik, he puts an arm around me; only now do I realize that I’m trembling.

  “So, Joanna. Are you lying comfortably? Yes? Wonderful. You’re relaxed. You feel good. Please look into the little light here.”

  “OK.”

  “Follow it with your eyes. Yes, just like that. You’re doing a great job.”

  I reach for Erik’s arm, cling onto it, because I suddenly feel as though I’m losing contact with my surroundings. As if gravity had ceased to exist, only for me.

  “You’re very calm. Everything that has been bothering you is far away. You’re focusing only on this light and my voice.”

  Erik strokes my face, carefully touching my split lip. “Don’t drift off, Jo. Look at me, are you OK?”

  I nod anxiously, tighten my grip on his arm, and the swaying feeling recedes.

  “And now listen to me closely, Joanna.” Bartsch begins to speak in a tone which is friendly, but commanding. “It’s going to be early morning, and the telephone will ring. You will hear my voice, which will say only two words. Dead light. You hang up the phone. You’re feeling good. You feel well. You will have a fulfilling, enjoyable day.

  “At five o’clock in the afternoon, you go into the kitchen. You—”

  Something interrupts him. Sounds, a loud clatter. Then voices, not speaking German, but English. Two men, and they sound a little farther away than Bartsch. There’s probably a wall between them and me, or simply a greater distance. Their voices are completely unfamiliar.

  “Ben? Where’s Ben?”

  “Get out of here, right now!”

  “But I can’t find him, is he—”

  “Forget about him. Do you understand? Forget that you ever met him, forget that he exists. And get rid of his stuff, everything. Quickly.”

  “But—”

  “It’s important! Do what I tell you! Now!”

  Another clatter. A scream of protest, then a splash, as if something had fallen into the water. Or someone.

  The whole thing only lasts ten seconds, and now the silence returns, only to be interrupted moments later by the sound of someone clearing their throat and Bartsch’s voice, very close now. “Joanna. Are you still OK?”

  “Yes. I’m fine.”

  “Please speak German to me.”

  “Ach so. Ja.”

  “Good. At five o’clock in the afternoon you go into the kitchen. You hurt yourself. You hit your head against the edge of the door, fall against it with your shoulder. You injure yourself in such a way that other people can see it. To the extent that you bleed. As if you had a fight with someone. When you hear Erik come home, pick up the longest and sharpest kitchen knife that you own. Can you see it in your mind?”

  I’ve put both hands over my mouth, and yes, I can see the knife before me, clear as day, and I can also see it plunging into Erik’s upper arm; Bartsch’s scent is suddenly there again, and I feel the urge to throw up.

  “Yes, I can,” whispers the Joanna who I once was.

  “He runs toward you, and you stab the knife first into his stomach and then into his chest. Deeply. You’re calm and sure about what you’re doing, as though you’ve done it many times before.

  “You wait five minutes, then you get out your phone and call the police. You say: I’ve killed my fiancé, but it was in self-defense.”

  A short pause. “Self-defense,” I repeat.

  “Correct. When you get back to the hotel now, say you let one of the locals show you where the frigate birds nest. Then continue with your vacation like before.”

  A soft click. Probably the light I was told to concentrate on. Then noises, footsteps, a door opening.

  “I think that went really well,” says Bernhard.

  “Yes,” responds Bartsch. “She didn’t struggle, she went off right away. It’s because of the scopolamine as well; it’s the perfect booster.”

  “OK, then I’ll turn off the recording now,” Bernhard announces, and seconds later the recording ends.

  I want to move, to turn around to Erik, but I can’t. I can only sit there and stare at the screen of the laptop.

  “They hypnotized you,” says Erik quietly. “And drugged you. My God.”

  Yes. I grasp my head, bury it in my hands. I wonder if I’ll ever get the memories saved in the recesses of my mind back.

  “Should I play it again for you?”

  I shake my head slowly, so Erik closes the player. The third photo appears beneath it once more—me in the water, the boy next to me, the bow of the boat coming in from the right, and a pale-skinned hand stretching out toward me.

  The boy. Ben. Yes, he has to be Ben.

  “They killed him,” I murmur.

  “What? Who?” Now I don’t need to turn my head around; Erik has taken my chin gently in his hand and is looking into my eyes.

  “My island guide. The one in the photo. Didn’t you hear that Bartsch got interrupted? That two men in the background were arguing?” I repeat the words, this time in English, in the way they’ve been imprinted in my subconscious. Ineradicable. “Forget about him. Do you understand? Forget that you ever met him, forget that he exists. And get rid of his stuff, everything. Quickly.”

  “But it was quiet. And unclear,” Erik interjects.

  I manage a smile. “Yes. But it was in English. My native language. They got rid of the little tour guide so as not to take any risks—and that’s why Bartsch’s plan didn’t work. Two orders that got mixed up in my head. That’s why I forgot you instead of killing you.” I close my eyes. The world sways a little, like we were on water. “And yet the plan was a really good one. I would have hurt myself and then stabbed you. One of those cases of domestic violence and self-defense. It wouldn’t have thrown any bad light on Gabor and his company.”

  Bartsch appears in my mind’s eye, buried beneath the heavy metal shelving unit and its contents. Bleeding. Dying. It’s a shame that I won’t live to see you kill him after all.

  “I’m going to go get treatment,” I declare. “I mean, now that we know what happened, it should be easier. Don’t you think?” I search for Erik’s gaze; his smile is encouraging, and he nods, but of course he can’t know if that’s really the case. No more than I can.

  “I’ll copy these files before we give the USB stick to the police,” he says, pulling the icons into a new folder. “In any case, we now know
that you got rid of my stuff, don’t we?” He gives me a lopsided grin. “I don’t suppose you have any idea where? Dump site? Storage? Some charity?”

  I shrug. “No idea, I’m sorry.”

  His grin grows wider. “Well, in any case you must have had to work really hard. More credit to you.”

  I give Erik a playful punch on the shoulder. “Well, you know me. When I do something, I do it properly.”

  He pulls the stick out of the USB slot, snaps the lid back onto it, and puts it on the coffee table. Then he turns to me and takes me into his arms. “That’s true. You always have.”

  His kiss is familiar, as is his scent. I bury my head against his shoulder. I feel like I could cry, because I’ve been robbed of almost a year with this man, all the stories, the shared memories, the first times.

  He seems to sense that my mood is shifting again. He pushes me a little way from him, and looks at me in mock accusation. “There’s something else I have to know.”

  “Yes?”

  “And I’m expecting you to tell me the truth.”

  The sight of his intensely wrinkled brow makes it hard for me to stay serious. “Let’s see.”

  “Do you still remember that guessing game we played when you thought I was a burglar?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I want to know at least one of the answers now. Tell me your middle name.”

  I shake my head decisively. “No chance.”

  “Now listen to me. We’re engaged. I have a right to know such important things.”

  I kiss him on the tip of the nose. “You have a right to guess. So get started.”

  He smiles deviously. “A name that suits you?”

  “In a certain way, yes.”

  “Hildegard,” he says, not missing a beat.

  “Another wise-ass guess like that and I’m getting the knife again.”

  “Oh. OK. No, wait. Probably some insane English fantasy name. Tiffany Amnesia or something like that. Am I right?”

  Now I really can’t help but laugh. “Not at all bad. Both of them. But still wrong. Just think about how my father made the majority of his money.”