Philip is alive.
He’s alive.
A ginger and white cat skirts the fence. It stops for a moment, throws me a glance, then decides to ignore me and disappears into the next-door garden. I wonder where its twin is—there used to be two cats, playful little things from the same litter. I never found out who they belonged to, but Philip used to like them.
I’m sitting here, trying to get my head round things, when suddenly something swells in my chest, a feeling too big for my body, too big for my narrow ribcage. I’m bursting—this is unbearable. I can’t sit here any longer, so I get up and head back to the house and go to the phone. I can’t keep it to myself any longer. I have to tell somebody—tell somebody or explode.
But as soon as I have the phone in my hand I’m stumped.
Who to call?
My first impulse is to ring Miriam. She’s my only real friend, the person I go to when I need to talk. But Miriam didn’t know Philip—we didn’t meet until after he’d gone missing. It seems wrong to call her first.
Family, I think. I should call his family first. But Philip’s father, from whom he inherited the company, died years ago, and his mother has Alzheimer’s and barely knows what’s going on around her. Like me, my husband has no brothers and sisters—I had no family at all until I met Philip and we had Leo.
My finger is still hovering over the telephone keys. I hesitate. I suddenly feel a strong urge to ring Johann. Johann Kerber is an old family friend of the Petersens, someone Philip looked up to and went to for advice, and whose shrewdness, level-headedness and fatherly counsel I relied on when Philip went missing. It was Johann who saw to all the financial and administrative details that needed dealing with, and there was a lot to sort out—Philip was, after all, the most important stakeholder in the business. Nothing will please Johann more than to hear that he’s been found alive and is on his way home. But the second I enter his number, I feel guilty. Of course Philip’s mother should hear the news before anyone else. Alzheimer’s or no, it would be wrong not to tell her first. So I leaf through my little black address book and find the number of the nursing home.
The phone rings only once before a resolute female voice answers.
‘Hello, this is Sarah Petersen,’ I say. ‘Could I speak to my mother-in-law, please?’
‘Oh, Mrs Petersen,’ the voice replies. ‘I’m sorry, but your mother-in-law isn’t in a good way today. I’m not sure it would be wise to speak to her on the phone—it’s likely to confuse her. But you could drop in if you liked. You can come and see your mother-in-law any time—there’s no need to call first.’
I feel another stab of guilt. I haven’t been to see Constanze for ages. I’ve been too wrapped up in myself and my own troubles.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I’ll drop in as soon as I can.’
I hang up and call Johann’s mobile. It rings and rings, but no one picks up. I curse under my breath and then look up Johann’s office number, which he gave me for emergencies and which I have never used.
A woman answers almost at once, friendly but businesslike.
‘Hello, this is Sarah Petersen,’ I say. ‘Is Mr Kerber there, please?’
‘Mr Kerber is away on a business trip,’ the woman replies.
‘Oh yes, of course,’ I say, remembering. He had been going to Beijing for a few days. ‘When will he be back?’
‘He’ll be back in three days. Would you like to leave a message?’
‘No, thanks,’ I say. ‘Do you know how I can get hold of him while he’s away?’
‘I can’t give you Mr Kerber’s private mobile number, I’m sorry. Perhaps you’d like to ring again when—’
‘It’s all right,’ I say. ‘I already have his mobile number. I’ll try it again later. Thank you.’
I hang up without waiting for a reply and immediately enter Johann’s mobile number again in the absurd hope that he might have switched on his phone in the few minutes I’ve spent talking to the woman at his office.
‘Come on, come on, come on,’ I mutter, but this time I get a recording of a bored voice telling me Johann is currently unavailable, and I hang up. By now I’m in a kind of frenzy. I have to speak to Johann. I curse again, think for a moment, but there’s nobody else I can ring. I decide to try Miriam’s number after all. Once more I wait impatiently for the call to go through, almost expecting it to be engaged or ring out, but then I hear a familiar voice.
‘Martin Becker speaking.’
‘Martin! Hello! It’s Sarah.’
‘Super Sarah!’ cries Martin.
He likes calling me that, as if I were some kind of superhero. For once I ignore it.
‘Can I talk to Miriam?’
‘I don’t know. Can you?’ Martin replies, and I can almost hear his crooked grin down the phone.
I usually have a lot of patience for his jokes, but today is different. I have to talk to somebody right now.
‘Is she in or not?’ I ask, making an effort to control my voice.
Martin notices that I’m not in the mood for jokes.
‘No, she’s out shopping while I keep an eye on the kids. Everything all right with you?’
‘Everything’s great,’ I say. ‘There’s something I wanted to tell her, but it will have to wait.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Martin replies.
I say goodbye and hang up. I can’t get my breath. I try Johann’s mobile one last time, but it’s engaged. I go back into the garden.
It’s even hotter than it was. A few fair-weather clouds are moving lazily across the sky and I can make out some of the animals I saw at the zoo today: a baby elephant, a tiger, a polar bear. Only seconds after stepping out of the house, I can feel the sun beating down on my head. Nothing is stirring in the neighbourhood—everyone is holed up indoors, trying to escape the sweltering heat. No screeching teenagers in the neighbours’ pools, no juddering lawnmowers, no children swinging in the cherry trees. All I hear is the gentle hum of the bees as they go about their day’s work, hovering from flower to flower, oblivious to heat and holidays.
Once again I have the sudden feeling I’m about to burst. My stomach lurches like it did at the zoo, and I lean forward, pressing my palms against my thighs. I close my eyes, count my breaths, and the nausea vanishes, leaving only a faint dizziness. I feel a strange sensation somewhere beneath my breastbone, a bubbling, hiccuping feeling in my chest, which rises higher and higher and then breaks out. I’m giggling—softly at first, but then I roar with laughter, on and on for who knows how long.
Suddenly I start, hearing a voice to my right, behind the fence that separates our garden from that of old Mrs Theis, our neighbour. Mrs Theis is well into her eighties, sprightly, outspoken and something of an eccentric. She doesn’t like children (apart from Leo) and says she’s been a great deal happier since being widowed. Nothing against her husband, she says, but some people are made for solitude and she happens to be one of them. She always has cat food in the house, although she has no cats of her own—in case a hungry stray should drop in, she says. She regularly bakes cakes, although she doesn’t like cake, simply because she likes it when the house smells of baking. I adore her.
‘Sorry to startle you, my dear,’ she says.
‘Hello, Mrs Theis,’ I say. ‘Are you well?’
‘Mustn’t complain,’ she says. She holds aloft a little basket of raspberries she has clearly just picked. ‘The gardening keeps me as right as rain!’
She hands the basket over the fence, and I take a berry and pop it in my mouth.
‘They’re as sweet as sugar!’ I say. ‘Thank you!’ I try to hand the basket back to her, but she refuses.
‘They’re for you and Leo,’ she says. ‘I know how much you both like them.’
‘That’s so kind of you,’ I say. ‘Leo will be very happy.’
Mrs Theis gives a dismissive wave and turns back to her gardening. I watch her in silence for a while. She’s like a sort of surrogate grandma to Leo—and, indeed, to m
e—but she doesn’t have much to do with the other neighbours. They think she’s crazy, and she is, but she’s harmless.
‘My husband’s coming back,’ I burst out. ‘Philip’s alive. They’ve found him!’
I couldn’t hold it in any longer—I had to tell someone. Why not dotty old Mrs Theis?
She looks up at me and frowns, as if wondering whether she’s heard right. Apparently she decides she can believe her ears.
‘How extraordinary!’ she says. ‘After all this time!’ She looks shocked at first, but then seems to decide it’s good news, and beams at me. ‘That’s lovely, my dear. I’m so pleased for you, really I am.’
‘I’ve only just heard,’ I say. ‘He’s alive. He’s coming home.’
It occurs to me that it’s the first time I’ve said it out loud. I begin to sob and soon I can’t stop. Mrs Theis only stands and stares. Maybe she doesn’t know what to say.
Finally I collect myself. ‘Excuse me,’ I say, ‘I’d better be going back in. Got a lot to do. Thanks again for the delicious raspberries.’
Inside it is cool. In the kitchen I tip half the raspberries into a little bowl, which I put in the fridge for Leo. Then I sit down on the kitchen floor and thrust the rest of the berries into my mouth, one by one.
Leo looks at me wide-eyed. The words I have just spoken are still reverberating in the air. I thought long and hard about how to tell him—where to tell him and what words to use: ‘Your father’ or ‘Dad’? ‘He’s coming home’ or ‘He’s alive’?
I tried to remember what it’s like to be eight. To climb the highest tree without fear because you don’t yet know that you’re mortal. To fiddle around with your wobbly milk teeth until they fall out, and think nothing of it. To dig tiny graves for dead birds you’ve found in the grass, make them little gravestones and hold funerals for them, serious and giggly by turns because you’ve never been to a real one. To run everywhere, all the time, just because you can.
‘Dad’s coming home,’ my son repeats, as if turning the words over and over, trying to see them from all sides and work out what to do with them.
For Leo, Philip is no more than an idea. His father is just one of the many heroes in the stories Mum tells him, sitting on the edge of his bed every evening, a fairytale prince, lost in a faraway foreign land.
Now he’s confused and I can’t blame him. I wish there were more time—time to explain everything, to let him get used to the idea gradually. But there is no time, neither for him nor for me.
Philip is coming home.
Not sometime—tomorrow.
Leo wraps his arms round me in silence. We sit there like that for a while. Poor Leo, it must all be a bit much for him. I’m about to ask him what he makes of it all and how he’s feeling when I notice that he’s breathing very slowly and steadily. I realise in astonishment that my son has fallen asleep.
I stand naked in front of the mirror, trying to see myself objectively.
The woman in the mirror is neither tall nor short. She is slim, with close-cropped hair that gives her a boyish look and makes her appear younger than she is. Her skin is tanned, her breasts small. On her left hip she has a tiny, faded-looking tattoo: a small butterfly. She looks slightly unsure of herself.
I try to work out how I’ve changed in seven years.
Am I still the woman Philip remembers?
Have I aged?
How much have I aged?
I come up with no answers. And anyway—what’s the point in worrying myself over it?
Once, not long before he went missing, Philip told me that he didn’t believe in love—that there was no way love could exist. I have no idea what we’d been talking about before that, but I remember frowning at him.
‘When we think we love someone, do we really love that person?’ Philip asked. ‘Or do we just love the feeling that person gives us?’
I rolled my eyes.
‘Of course love exists,’ I said.
He smirked, as if I’d fallen into a carefully laid trap. ‘But if love exists, how could we ever stop loving? If it’s not the feeling we love, but the actual person, how could we ever stop loving them?’
I didn’t have an answer then, but it’s a riddle I’ve often come back to since.
I tear my eyes away from the mirror and get dressed. It’s another hot day, so I slip on a loose, airy dress and a pair of light sandals with a low heel. I glance in the mirror again. In my white summery dress I look a little like a bride, only without a veil. I feel a little like a bride too—as excited as a timid young woman on the threshold of a new life, wondering what is waiting for her on the other side.
I go into the next room to see how Leo’s getting on. He’s reading a comic and seems more or less unfazed by the situation. Perhaps he hasn’t yet realised that his life is going to change dramatically today—that it won’t just be the two of us any longer.
The doorbell rings and I flinch, startled.
‘Let’s go,’ I say.
We’re gliding through town in a mercilessly air-conditioned four-wheel drive. I’m cold in my white summer dress, my teeth softly chattering. Mr Hansen from the Foreign Ministry looks just the way I imagined him: tall, slim, elegant, fifty-ish, small glasses. The driver, in his dark suit and mirrored sunglasses, is straight out of Hollywood.
We drive in silence. I had another brief talk with Hansen yesterday but gleaned little new information. Yes, Philip had been kidnapped in Colombia. No, they didn’t yet know why there hadn’t been a ransom note—maybe there was a communication failure, or the kidnapper got cold feet. Yes, of course it was being looked into—the local authorities were on the case. Yes, those responsible would be called to account. Yes, Philip was now safe. Yes, his health was satisfactory, although the experience had, of course, left its mark on him, physically and psychologically. He didn’t go into detail about the abuse Philip suffered in the remote jungle camp, perhaps because it made him uncomfortable, but it was clear that the last seven years of my husband’s life had been even worse than I’d always feared. Mr Hansen said Philip had asked about me, about our son. Had I remarried? Did Leo even remember him? Was his mother still alive?
Hansen also warned me that there were bound to be a lot of journalists and photographers at the airport. Poor Philip, I think. He always did his best to avoid the media, never liked having his photo taken or answering questions, and let the company’s publicity department handle media events and press conferences. When he disappeared, the police asked me for a photo of him, and I had trouble finding one. If my mother-in-law is to be believed, he was camera-shy even as a child. I was always glad that Philip refused to be a public figure—that there were no photos of him shaking hands with politicians and investors with a fake smile on his face, that ultimately he belonged only to me and Leo and to his work. Will that change now? Will we be besieged, taken apart, dissected?
I feel Leo’s hand seeking mine. He is staring out the window. Just the two of us. I’ve almost forgotten anything else. Maybe I should make the most of the last moments.
And then Hamburg airport suddenly rises before us like a mirage. We are there.
I sometimes have the feeling that the world is a stage set. We step onto the tarmac—goodness only knows how Hansen managed to get permission. The small private plane, carrying Philip and the team accompanying him, is going to land a short distance from the major airlines. Everyone is sweating in the sun, but I still feel cold. I run my hand through my short hair. Leo is jumping up and down excitedly at my side—he loves planes so much I think he’s forgotten why we’re actually here—and I have to smile in spite of the strain. I am grateful that we’ve been permitted to watch the plane land here, and I try to ignore the dozen or so reporters who have taken up position behind us.
In my head, I go over the words I’ve prepared, but suddenly, now that I’m here, they feel somehow wrong—fake and stilted, like lines from a monologue. But what else can I say to him? I think of my talk with Leo this morning and de
cide to follow my own advice and simply say what I feel.
It’s so good to have you back, I think.
Yes, that feels right.
It’s so good to have you back.
I repeat the words in my head, like a mantra.
‘Are you all right?’ Hansen asks and I nod.
I don’t know why everyone keeps asking me that—Mrs Theis, Miriam and Martin when I called with my news, even Leo. My husband is alive. Of course I’m all right!
We stand around in silence, not really knowing what to say.
‘There,’ says Hansen pointing up in the air.
I follow his gaze and see a plane approaching.
I take my son’s hand and we look up at the plane together.
It’s so good to have you back, I think, as the plane begins its descent.
It touches down on the airfield, shoots past us and almost stops. Then it starts to roll again, turning and moving slowly—unbearably slowly—towards us, until it comes to a standstill. I scan the little windows, looking for Philip, for his familiar face, though I know it’s silly of me. Philip’s somewhere in there and that’s all I need to know.
It’s so good to have you back, I think. It’s so good to have you back.
We stand there for what feels like forever, but even Leo doesn’t pester me or complain. He too only stares tensely.
Then the door of the aeroplane begins to open—this too happens unbearably slowly—and my heart lurches. There are people. It’s them. Philip—where’s Philip? I smooth a non-existent strand of hair behind my ear. Then there is movement at the door. I freeze completely, while around me all hell breaks loose: a storm of flashes, pushing and shoving, shouts, cameras pointing at me, photographers calling my name. I ignore it all, my hand clutching Leo’s, my eyes on the door of the plane. I’m not going to miss this—I’m not going to miss the moment when Philip steps through that door, back into my life. Nothing is happening, though, and I’m beginning to think it’s all a mistake—that something’s gone dreadfully wrong, that Philip isn’t on the plane at all, that the plane is empty, no pilots, no crew, no passengers, a ghost flight—when a small group of people suddenly emerge, one at a time, and climb down the steps to the airfield: a tall blond woman in a black tailored suit, a dark-haired man in jeans and a jacket, a man of about sixty in a grey suit, another woman, this one with short, snow-white hair, a flight attendant (and another, and another) and then a man and woman, both in pilot’s uniforms. My nerves aren’t going to last much longer. Where is Philip? I try to breathe steadily as the little group steps onto the airfield. I tell myself that I have waited seven years and can hang on for a few seconds longer, hardly noticing that the photographers and journalists’ shouts are getting louder and louder. In the eye of the storm, I am calm. I ignore the people around me and the people trooping towards us, my eyes fixed on the cabin door.
The Stranger Upstairs Page 4