• • •
“Please, Dunya. You must remember.”
“I really did think I’d gotten lucky at last. My parents practically starved so that I could study at college. They wanted my life to be better than theirs.”
“Your life isn’t over yet.”
“No, it’s over. Nothing can happen now to make up for—”
“Are your parents still alive?”
“I don’t know. I was going to bring them here later. I really believed that would happen. I promised them it would.”
“We’ll find those men, Dunya. They will be punished for what they did, and you’ll get your life back, I’ll make sure of that. You’ll see your parents.”
“You shouldn’t be giving me false hope.”
“It can only get better now, Dunya, but you must tell me everything—everything, you understand? Every tiny detail, everything that seemed strange about the hotel. Tell me about the evening before it began. Until I have something concrete to go on I can’t investigate officially. I’m doing this off the books. Officially you don’t exist. So come on, Dunya, give me something, anything.”
“Ilena and I played cards that evening. It was all the same as usual. We’d finished work, the staff hostel was lovely. We even had a little pool there. It mattered to the hotelier that we were happy, he said.”
“What was he like?”
“Nice.”
“Johannes Schönborn?”
“Yes.”
“He’s in politics these days. The hotel doesn’t belong to him anymore. He sold it four years ago.”
“Then why are we driving there now?”
“To help you remember.”
“There’s nothing, however often you ask me. I went to sleep, and when I woke up I was in that cellar. I went to sleep in the hostel and I wasn’t there when I woke up. It was the same for Ilena and Youn.”
“The other two.”
“Yes. Ilena was in the minibus with me.”
“In the minibus taking you out of Moldavia?”
“That’s right.”
“Where is she now?”
“She’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“She bled to death.”
“Why? What happened?”
“She had a baby. We were on our own—Youn and I tried to help her, but the blood wouldn’t stop.”
“In the cellar.”
“She died in my arms. Youn was holding the baby.”
“Dunya?”
“Yes?”
“Is that the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Please, you must tell me whether this is really true.”
“How often do I have to say it?”
“You are telling me that your friend had a baby and died in your arms. In a cellar somewhere, a cellar where you were all locked up.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I believe you. But you know how it sounds . . .”
“Why would I make it up? Tell me why.”
“What happened to the baby?”
“They took it away.”
“Where?”
“How would I know?”
“What about Ilena?”
“They shouted and swore, they were beside themselves. They didn’t like having blood all over the place. Or for her to have died just like that. The huntsman gave us something to knock us out, and then it went dark. I don’t know what happened to her.”
“The huntsman?”
“How many more times? I’ve told you and all the other officers before you.”
“I know, I’ve read the records, but I’d like to hear it from you. Just once more, please. This is important, Dunya.”
“He was the one who shot us with the tranquilizing darts. He hunted us down, we ran round the cellar and he shot at us. Like animals. He found it fun.”
“What about Youn?”
“I don’t know. He was still in the cellar. He’s probably dead as well. I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t he go with you?”
“He hadn’t come round yet. I shook him, I tried to drag him away with me, but he was too heavy. I couldn’t wait. I had to get out of there, the door was open, don’t you understand? I wanted him to come with me. I really did try everything. They hadn’t locked the door, it was open, and I had to go—had to run for it.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing.”
“What did you see when you reached the road? Did anyone meet you? Can you remember any building? Did anyone speak to you, did you call for help? What did you do? Please, you must remember.”
“I just ran.”
“Where to?”
“A long way away.”
“There must have been something there. A place name on a sign, a mountain with a particular shape, a shop, a factory, something that you can remember?”
“I told you, I just ran. I wanted to get away. I don’t know what was there or where I was. And then I was in that truck.”
“Had you been trying to stop cars?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where was it, Dunya? Where? We have to find Youn. You must remember something that will tell me where that damn cellar is.”
“I don’t.”
“Were there a lot of people around? Was it somewhere in the countryside?”
“There was only that stinking truck driver.”
“He wanted to help you?”
“No, he said he just wanted a bit of fun. I remember that.”
“Couldn’t he see that you needed help?”
“I don’t know.”
“He must have noticed there was something the matter with you.”
“Yes, that’s why he threw me out of his cab.”
“What did he look like?”
“I don’t know.”
“What kind of truck was it?”
“No idea.”
“Please, Dunya, give me something.”
“There’s nothing to give. He was just a sleazy man making jokes. I was dazed, I wasn’t right in the head yet, I kept tipping over. All I remember is the road, and the way he laughed. I’d gotten away after five years. Five years, do you understand? And then there was a hand on me again, on my thigh. I screamed and I didn’t stop until he opened the door and threw me out, just like that.”
“At the service station where my colleagues found you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, they brought you in from there.”
“Yes, maybe.”
“I really want to know where to look for that cellar, Dunya.”
“It was such a lovely feeling.”
“What was?”
“Being alone at last, just lying there. On the tarmac in some shitty parking lot. I was free again and none of them were there. Not a single one of them. Only me, do you understand? There was only me.”
Uma doesn’t want to eat. Nela makes a mess of the kitchen floor, spills water over it, throws her pasta across the room. It’s midday. Blum watches them. Blum leaves them alone. She knows two things. First, she must look after the children, love them, give them all the things she never had herself. Second, she must find Dunya. The woman talking on the cell phone, the woman whom Mark met so often right before his death. Blum wants to look into her eyes, she wants to see if Mark was right.
• • •
He must have picked her up, probably at the tearoom, she had got food there. They drove to the hotel and went on talking. Mark wasn’t letting go, but he had nothing to go on. No lead as to how the men managed to abduct them from their beds. Dunya had no idea. Anyone determined could have walked into the staff hostel; indeed, any tourist could have got access to their bedrooms. The front door was never locked, they had no reason to live in fear. That was why it sounded so incredible, so unlikely that someone had drugged them and taken them out of the house. Three grown adults abducted from a hotel, just like that, unnoticed. In Sölden, a famous center of winter tourism, with crowds mil
ling on the slopes, in the boutiques, and in the après-ski bars, with Tyrolean charm for sale, wood-paneled rooms where caviar and champagne are served. Blum knows what the place is like; she and Mark had been skiing there, they had drunk tequila and danced to meaningless songs. Sölden is like any other Tyrolean resort. Anyone would doubt the feasibility of abducting people from it. But Mark didn’t. And Blum doesn’t either.
• • •
Why is she getting involved in his work, why is she interested in it? She can’t help herself. She has to follow it up, she can’t just sit there pretending nothing has happened. There is a terrified woman out there. A woman who was abducted and locked up for five years, raped and abused. What Blum has heard doesn’t allow her to doubt for a minute that she must find out whether it is true. Whether Mark was on the trail of some major and dreadful crime. Why would I make up a story like that? Dunya asked. Blum wants to know. And she wants Uma to finally finish her pasta, she wants Nela to stop rubbing tomato sauce into her face.
• • •
Ilena, Youn, Dunya. And five men who kept coming back to have their fun. To hurt their captives, to cause relentless pain. As she watches her daughters, innocent and smiling, she wants to banish the thought from her mind. She doesn’t want to spend a second longer thinking about those recorded conversations, Mark’s questions, Dunya’s answers. Yet the story won’t go away and she can’t think of anything else. From Sölden to the service station near the Italian border. None of what happened will go away, it will stay in her mind all day and all night.
Blum no longer feels the pain that has been eating away at her for three whole weeks; she has almost suppressed her longing for him. That feeling has gone, leaving only Dunya. And Mark. Somehow it is as if he has come back to life and she is sharing something with him, she has discovered something he kept hidden. Mark, her husband, her love, the father of her children. He lives on in the conversations that she listens to as she drives through the city searching for Dunya—a stranger to her, a woman without a face. All that Blum knows of her is her voice and that she comes from Moldavia. Blum knows that she speaks extraordinarily good German and is homeless, living somewhere under the highway. This woman without a surname who has suddenly changed everything.
• • •
She doesn’t say a word to anyone. She has decided to keep quiet for the moment; first she wants to talk to Dunya herself. Only then will she go to Karl or Massimo and ask for help. If it’s true. If she can find Dunya. Innsbruck is not a large city, but it is difficult to find someone who doesn’t want to be found. Blum prepares for a long search; the staff at the soup kitchen can’t give her any information. No one knows a woman called Dunya, the name means nothing to the homeless people Blum speaks to. Even money can’t persuade them to tell her where to look. Dunya has left no trace. All Blum can do is search the city, the parks, under the bridges, under the highway. She drives around for hours, walks for hours, but to no avail. There is no Moldavian woman speaking almost unaccented German, no sign of her for three days.
• • •
Then, suddenly, there she is, in the supermarket. A slender woman in old clothes. She looks too beautiful, too radiant to be homeless. Dunya is carrying a bag of bottles; she wants to exchange them for money, but the machine isn’t working. The salesgirl comes and takes the bottles from her, sorts them into crates and writes out a voucher for the cash. Nothing has changed yet, Blum is still searching, she is on the point of giving up, she has searched every nook and cranny of this town, has checked every place where someone might hide. But Dunya wasn’t there. Dunya had disappeared. Now they are standing side by side.
• • •
Dunya takes the voucher from the salesgirl. Blum puts the rice noodles that she has taken off the shelf into her shopping cart and continues up the aisle. She doesn’t see Dunya shaking her head and opening her mouth, she only hears her asking the salesgirl to check her figures again. The sum is fifty cents short, she says. The salesgirl is impatient, she doesn’t want to check her sums, she is sure she got them right. But the familiar voice goes on claiming those fifty cents. Blum turns around. There’s no need to kick up such a fuss for fifty cents, says the salesgirl. But Dunya insists. Politely, but loud and clear, she demands her fifty cents and makes the salesgirl alter the figure on the voucher. It is the voice that Blum has been trying to track down for the past three days.
• • •
Blum looks at Dunya. She has imagined her differently, wounded, more damaged. From all she has heard, this woman must be devastated, there ought to be nothing left of her, not an attractive feature on her face, not a spark of hope. But her expression betrays none of what has happened to her. Briefly, Blum wonders whether the voice is really hers, but only briefly. Then she is sure, she knows it beyond any shadow of doubt. She follows her through the supermarket, making purposefully for the cash desk, where Dunya gives the cashier her voucher, takes her money, and leaves, with Blum in pursuit. Blum has abandoned her shopping cart; she mustn’t lose Dunya, she must follow her, speak to her.
• • •
Dunya crosses the parking lot quickly and reaches the bank of the River Inn. She walks along the riverside promenade, with Blum on her heels. They couldn’t be in a better place, there is almost no one else around. Blum takes a moment to get her breath back and formulate a plan. It’s happening so fast. A few moments ago, Blum had been on the point of giving up, but now she has found her quarry. She will approach Dunya when they reach the pedestrian bridge. She has until then to suppress the images flooding her mind. Suddenly she feels envy. She feels it everywhere, her heart is crying out again, the pain is back. Everything hurts. Maybe Mark had fallen in love with her. She imagines Mark and Dunya walking side by side along this promenade, sitting on a bench together, talking. Dunya pouring out her heart to him, confiding everything, showing him her innermost being. In her mind’s eye, Blum sees her naked before him. Sees him embracing this beautiful foreign woman. With every step she takes, the scenario becomes more real. Blum doesn’t want to talk to the woman anymore, Blum wants her to disappear. Go away. Walk on. Blum stops, and closes her eyes.
• • •
Why didn’t she just give the phone away? Why did she insist on listening to it all? Why does this woman have to be so beautiful? Why can’t she just talk to her and ignore the noise in her head? Why is she afraid Mark was unfaithful? Suppose he had touched Dunya? Kissed her, caressed her in her despair. Suppose Dunya had simply said yes, had accepted his understanding, his kindness, his instinctive urge to rescue. Like Blum had eight years before. Terrible things had happened to Dunya, but there was more than pity in his voice. Much more. Blum is afraid of opening her eyes, afraid of following, afraid of finding out. She does it all the same. She opens her eyes and she runs. Dunya!
• • •
“Please stop. Dunya, please. I only want to talk to you.”
“Why? What do you want? How do you know my name?”
“From Mark.”
“Get lost.”
“I’m his wife.”
“You’d better get lost.”
“Wait! Talk to me, just for a minute. Please.”
“I’ve talked enough.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know all about it. I’ve heard the recordings.”
“That bastard.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did the two of you enjoy it? Listening in on me? Did you sit back and eat popcorn? Was it a good show?”
“No.”
“He told me no one would ever hear what I said.”
“He never played it to anyone.”
“But you’re here, right?”
“I was going to delete everything on his cell. And then I stumbled on his conversations with you.”
“Go away. Don’t ever come near me again.”
“I’m Blum.”
“And I’m Dunya, now get fucking lost.”
“Mark took everything you said very seriously.”
“I don’t want you to know my story.”
“It’s too late for that now.”
“I want you to get the hell away from me.”
“He believed you. And he liked you.”
“Well, that didn’t do me any good. First he squeezes the story out of me, then he leaves me high and dry. He’s no different from the others.”
“No, he was different.”
“Then why hasn’t he come back?”
“He really would have come back, you can believe me.”
“He told me he’d take care of everything. He said he’d help me. So why didn’t he? Go on, tell me. Why not?”
“Because he’s dead.”
“What? What did you say?”
“He died four weeks ago—”
“How?”
“In an accident.”
“Please, no.”
“I think of it every minute of every day. But he’s dead and he won’t be coming back. We’re on our own. Do you understand?”
“How did it happen? How did he die?”
“He was run over.”
“What happened to the driver?”
“It was a hit-and-run. The driver hasn’t been traced. He disappeared.”
“Oh no. Please no.”
“Mark died instantly.”
“You’d better stay away from me.”
“Why?”
“I really did think it would be all right. Believe me, I didn’t want that to happen.”
“Didn’t want what to happen?”
“Didn’t want him to die.”
“It was an accident.”
“That was no accident.”
They sit at the kitchen table. Blum has cooked for Reza, Karl, the children, and Dunya. She brought the woman home with her, led her back to the parking lot, and got her into her car. Blum ignored Dunya’s protests and dismissed her objections; she wasn’t going to let the woman out of her sight. Blum wanted to know what Dunya meant when she said it was no accident. She shouted at Dunya, begging her to tell her what she knew. But Dunya merely shook her head, apologizing over and over again. She tried to escape, but Blum restrained her. Wordlessly, anxiously, they sat in the car as Blum drove to the villa. Dunya didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. I’m so sorry, she said.
Woman of the Dead Page 6