The Lie

by Petra Hammesfahr

  “It’s great.”

  “Good,” said Nadia, glancing at her wristwatch. “Hey, I must be off. See you.”

  Seconds later the Porsche was gone.

  Another trip to the old folks’ home was scheduled for Sunday. Even as she carried the suitcase back through the streets Susanne was wondering what she could wear. Then she was home and trying the clothes on. Her heart missed a beat when her fingers felt the thin piece of paper in one of the blazer pockets. Two hundred euros. With a handwritten note attached by a paper clip: “For the hairdresser.” And she’d assumed it was just a casual remark.

  She would certainly have been able to find a hairdresser on the Saturday morning who would have taken her without an appointment, but why spend more money than absolutely necessary? She bought a pair of sharp scissors in the supermarket and some brown tinting lotion. Using the mirror in her tiny bathroom, she first of all cut off most of what she needed to get rid of, then, bending her head as far forward as possible, managed to get a fairly straight edge at the back. Finally she applied the tinting lotion.

  At two o’clock on Sunday afternoon she was standing on the edge of the pavement with slightly straggly but dark brown hair. She could hardly wait for Johannes Herzog to arrive, for his look of astonishment and a remark such as, “You’re looking very elegant today.” She did look very elegant in the white blouse, a narrow, dark-blue skirt, a pair of court shoes and, casually draped over her left arm, the blazer which had contained such a momentarily embarrassing surprise.

  At half-past two she was still standing on the pavement. Up above, Heller was leaning out of the window pouring forth speculations as to why her toy boy had stood her up and, with obscene suggestions, volunteering to help her pass the time, even the whole afternoon if necessary, so that she wouldn’t know whether she was coming or going. She ignored him, wondering, with a mixture of irritation and concern, where Johannes could be and whether he’d had an accident. The way he drove that wasn’t impossible.

  After a further ten minutes Heller’s abuse was just too much for her. But she wasn’t going to abandon the trip to see her mother. Nadia’s money gave her other possibilities. She went to the station, took the suburban railway and did the last part by bus. From the bus stop it was only eight hundred yards to the old folks’ home.

  Agnes Runge was delighted to see her but said it would have been better if she hadn’t come. There was flu in the home, half of the inmates were ill and some had even gone into hospital. That was why Johannes Herzog’s grandmother had told him not to come. Naturally it had not occurred to Johannes to pop over to Susanne’s and tell her. But you couldn’t expect a young man to think of that. And since she didn’t have a telephone - so as not to be disturbed during her weekends, she claimed - her mother hadn’t been able to tell her either. It was easy to lie to Agnes Runge - she wanted to believe all was well with her daughter.

  On the way back to the bus stop Susanne was caught in a heavy shower and got soaked to the skin. On the Monday she felt under the weather and spent most of the day in bed, hoping that would nip any flu in the bud. Despite that, she had a cough on Tuesday. It wasn’t so bad as to cause concern, it just gave her a headache, as did any physical exertion since her skull had been fractured.

  On Wednesday the cough was worse. She bought some bronchial tea from the chemist’s, drank two cups and went to bed, sweating profusely. Her poor nourishment over the past few months was taking its toll. Sometimes she was sweating so profusely the sheets stuck to her, at others she was so cold the shivers gave her cramp in all her muscles. Every breath she took was a struggle and set off fits of coughing that made her feel as if her head were about to explode. In the evening she remembered she hadn’t checked her post, but she couldn’t face the effort of dragging herself down the stairs.

  Shortly after two in the morning she woke from a nightmare in which her mother was standing by an open grave, supported by Johannes Herzog, who was reading the inscriptions on the wreaths out to her. As the coffin was lowered, her mother asked through her tears, “Why did she never say anything?” It was a while before she realized she was lying in bed and not in her coffin.

  She had a high temperature. With difficulty she managed to stand up and stagger to the bathroom, where she soaked two towels in cold water and wrapped them round her calves. She placed a third damp towel over her head. And since the tiled floor was so lovely and cool, she spent the rest of the night wedged between the shower and the lavatory. Early in the morning she forced herself to go to the kitchen, made another cup of bronchial tea and drank it in little sips, almost coughing up her lungs as she did so.

  All was still quiet in the building, it was only just after five. Heller was presumably sleeping off the effects of the previous evening’s drink. At least at that time in the morning there was hardly any danger of him popping up and exploiting her pitiful state to abuse her in one way or the other. Really she was in no condition to bother with her post, but she had a feeling that sent her down the stairs. And, indeed, one of the familiar envelopes was in her box.

  When she got to the couch and unfolded the letter, the clear print was swimming before her eyes. “Dear Susanne,” Nadia wrote, expressing the hope that she had not used the money in the blazer pocket for experiments and reminding her of her first letter and her desire to do something for her. Then came the sentence that suddenly brought everything back into sharp focus: “I may have a job for you. It’s only as a stand-in, but we ought to discuss it.” She suggested they meet in the multi-storey car park where she’d given her the suitcase. Below were day and time: Friday, five o’clock.

  It was Friday. But it was crazy even to think about setting off for the city centre. She’d stumbled over her own feet going down the stairs and just managed to catch onto the wall to stop herself falling. When she tried to get up off the couch to make herself another cup of bronchial tea in the kitchen, the floor and walls started to sway, forcing her to flop back onto the couch.

  It was well after midday when she managed to get to her feet again, staggering so much she knocked the little table, sending it skidding across the floor. One of the legs gave way. Something fell on the floor: a thin, elongated object, thicker at one end. Her vision blurred by fever, she assumed it was a screw. It was a self-assembly table and, not having a screwdriver, she’d put it together using a butter knife. It had always been a bit wobbly. She left it where it was and dragged herself to the shower.

  The cold water washed the tint out of her hair but cleared her head sufficiently for the idea of taking a taxi to occur to her. She thought she could make it as far as the telephone kiosk. There was one close by, round the corner only fifty yards down Kettlerstrasse. Shortly after four she was standing at her wardrobe on shaky legs. She chose a pair of Nadia’s trousers, one of her blouses, the second pair of shoes and the second blazer.

  The next fit of coughing came while she was on the stairs. She was close to turning back. But she struggled on determinedly until she reached the street. The humid air made breathing a little easier. She made it as far as the telephone kiosk. Once there, however, she realized that all the effort had been in vain. The receiver had been torn off. It was lying on the metal holders for the phone books, the flex dangling. She leaned against the side of the kiosk and slowly slumped to the floor.

  More than half an hour must have gone when a dark-blue Mercedes drove past - as had countless other cars already. In contrast to the others, however, the Mercedes stopped a few yards further on, as if the driver had realized there was a woman squatting on the floor of the kiosk. The Mercedes reversed, stopped. The driver got out, rushed to the kiosk, opened the door, leaned over her and asked, his voice full of concern, “Don’t you feel well?”

  He must have been in his late forties, early fifties. Of average height and severely overweight, he was wearing an expensive suit and, on his left hand, a showy signet ring. He didn’t look like a criminal. He stretched out his right hand to help her up. There was no ri
ng on his right hand.

  “I wanted to call a taxi,” she mumbled and pointed to the torn-off receiver. “But it’s not working.” That set her coughing again.

  “That’s a nasty cold you’ve got,” the man said. “You ought to see the doctor about it.”

  “That’s where I was going,” she wheezed as he pulled her up. The man put his hand under her arm to support her.

  “I can drive you there,” he said as he helped her out of the kiosk. Hesitating, she looked at the Mercedes. It was one of those models that are out of the reach of ordinary mortals. The man gave her an understanding smile and pulled out a mobile. “I could ring for a taxi.”

  “No need,” she whispered, “I’ll go with you.”

  She let him assist her into the passenger seat. He got in behind the wheel and gave her an encouraging smile. They reached the city centre just before five. She got out, thanked him and headed for the pedestrian precinct. There were still a few minutes to go. She felt sick. In the last few days she’d had nothing but bronchial tea. She bought a cherry waffle at a snack bar and wolfed it down. After that she felt a little better. Only it didn’t last long.

  When she came to she found herself sitting on a concrete slab in a vault, with no idea how she’d got there. At first she thought she was back in the disused factory. It was several minutes before she realized it was just the multi-storey car park. The air was full of exhaust fumes. Her cough got worse. There was a pillar behind the slab of concrete. She leaned back against it and dozed off.

  Hours later someone was shaking her shoulder, a hand gave her several gentle slaps. She became aware of a voice. It sounded as if it were coming through cotton wool. “Susanne, for God’s sake wake up.” Nadia’s face, looking worried, appeared in front of her in the murky half-light and didn’t go away when she blinked as hard as she could.

  Angrily, Nadia said, “Have you gone out of your mind? You look like death warmed up. What are you doing here?”

  Her answer was to cough up the cherry waffle over the concrete floor. Nadia prattled on, something about a lorry blocking two lanes, making it impossible for her to be there on time, and something about an acquaintance who was supposed to tell Susanne. That must have been the man in the Mercedes. But he hadn’t said Nadia had sent him.

  Finally Nadia thought of helping her to her feet. Two minutes later they were sitting in the Porsche. Nadia told her off for being so irresponsible with her health. In between fits of coughing, Susanne explained why she couldn’t go to the doctor. At that Nadia gabbled some instructions, finishing with, “That’s no problem. I have private insurance.”

  However, she thought it was too risky to find a doctor in the city who took patients without an appointment. “He’d send you straight to the nearest hospital.” What they needed was a good old-fashioned country GP who had confidence in his own skill and knew from experience that there were patients who automatically resisted going into hospital. Nadia knew one like that - she’d last been to see him over a year ago. “He might be a bit offended because I haven’t been to him for so long, but we needn’t worry about that. We can regard it as a dry run.”

  Susanne paid no attention to her last remark, she was fully occupied keeping her cough under control, and the dizzy spells, and her stomach, which was rebelling against Nadia’s driving. Johannes Herzog would have been delighted with such a journey. After a couple of miles on the autobahn there was a stretch along a narrow, twisty country road, where Nadia removed any remaining doubts that her driving skills might not match Johannes’s. Still doing fifty, she roared into a small town, coming screeching to a halt a few yards past a large detached house. A sign beside the door indicated a doctor’s surgery. Dr Peter Reusch.

  Nadia took a powder compact and a folding brush out of her handbag and dabbed a little colour on Susanne’s cheeks, after which a bottle of perfume was deployed. Then Nadia took the two rings off her finger, slipped them on Susanne’s and stuck her handbag under her arm. Finally her nimble fingers tweaked Susanne’s hair into something one, with a bit of effort, might call a style, before she asked, “You can manage on your own, can’t you? It won’t work if I go with you.”

  It was unreal. In Nadia’s clothes, with Nadia’s rings on her finger and the bag under her arm containing everything that proved Nadia’s identity. A little more lipstick, eye shadow and mascara, her hair freshly dyed and cut by an expert, Nadia’s stud earrings in her ears - and the illusion would have been perfect. But her straggly hair did serve a purpose: a few strands concealed her un-pierced ears.

  And on the photo in Nadia’s passport her hair wasn’t so brown. Despite her temperature, that made her feel as if lava were swirling round inside her skull, she still had the presence of mind to check the contents of the wallet. Hidden from Nadia in the Porsche by some tall bushes beside the door, she examined her ID card, passport, driving licence and credit cards. A packet of photos, mostly Polaroids, she ignored.

  She did it for no other reason than to be prepared for all eventualities. She was convinced there would be doubts about her identity, which she’d have to counter with the ID card or passport. A woman who has to search though her handbag for her identity papers is not very convincing. Anyway, everyone should know their own address and date of birth. Private patients were bound to be asked where the bill should be sent. It was a slight shock to discover that Nadia was three years older than her. At the moment it looked the other way round.

  After she had replaced everything in the wallet and stowed that in the bag, she rang the bell. A middle-aged woman opened the door, her questioning look immediately changing to one of pure concern. “Frau Trenkler? Good heavens! Peter, come quickly,” she called back into the house.

  Peter came. He didn’t look offended. On the contrary, he seemed delighted to see a patient he thought he had lost. Frau Reusch led her to the surgery, where he washed his hands and quickly set about making his diagnosis. Her temperature was over a hundred and four, which gave rise to much shaking of the head and tut-tutting. He filled a syringe, found a suitable vein, then sounded her back, listened, got her to cough and immediately told her to stop - “My God!” While he was doing this, his wife got her file.

  All the time alarm bells were ringing inside her head. He’s a doctor, she told herself, he’ll see the fraud as soon as he takes a closer look. But the risk of being unmasked by a doctor who hadn’t seen Nadia Trenkler for a whole year was low. And she didn’t have to talk very much. It was the doctor himself who expressed the thought that she hadn’t come sooner because she hadn’t had the time and wouldn’t now have the time for a stay in hospital. Moreover he was sure, he said, that her smoking hadn’t done her lungs any good. “How many a day is it now? Thirty? Forty?”

  He didn’t bother to wait for an answer. With a note of gentle admonition in his voice, he decreed, “For the next few days we’re going to keep off the coffin nails entirely. We’re very close to pneumonia.”

  Croaking, she swore she wouldn’t touch a cigarette for the next few days, even weeks. He’d believe that when he saw it, he said, but for the next few days he was trusting her to use her common sense. Asking how her husband was, he wrote a prescription: antibiotics, something to bring her temperature down and something to stabilize her heartbeat. Finally he told her to make sure she spent the whole of the weekend in bed and let her husband pamper her good and proper. Here he wagged his finger and grinned: “But only as far as food and drink are concerned, of course.”

  Telling her to come back in a week’s time for a check-up, he accompanied her to the door and peered out into the street. He couldn’t see much, because of the bushes outside, and certainly not the Porsche. Only at that point did it occur to him to wonder how she’d got there. All she could think of was to murmur, “Michael’s waiting.”

  “Then why didn’t he come in?” Peter Reusch asked. She shrugged her shoulders and Reusch told her to give her husband his best wishes.

  The door closed and she walked slowly
down the path to the street. Her knees were wobbling by the time she reached the car. Nadia leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door, quivering with suspense. “Well?” She dropped into the seat and held out the prescription. “Great,” said Nadia, taking back the rings and handbag. Then she insisted on a detailed report.

  They drove back - at roughly the same speed. On the way Nadia stopped at an all-night chemist’s and got Susanne’s prescription. She wanted to know why she had no health insurance and reacted angrily when she heard the reason. “Why didn’t you tell me? Did you think I wouldn’t understand? What does it matter if you take a bit of money from your mother? You’re going to inherit it eventually anyway.”

  Shortly after nine the Porsche turned into Kettlerstrasse. Despite her annoyance at Susanne’s lie, Nadia had remained calm and proud of the success of the impersonation. Now she grew nervous. “Can you manage it up the stairs by yourself?”

  “Of course.” She felt better already, presumably because of the injection. Even in the car her head had gradually cleared. Nadia’s reproaches hadn’t stopped that, perhaps even helped to stimulate it. But they had reignited the fear that she wouldn’t repeat the offer she’d made in her letter.

  “Fine,” said Nadia as she stopped the Porsche in the middle of the street. “Out you get. Make sure the main door doesn’t shut and leave the door to your flat open. Then you can go straight to bed and won’t need to get up again.”

  She got out. Hardly had she closed the car door than the Porsche shot off. There was no need to prop the main door open, it hadn’t shut properly for ages anyway. It was fairly quiet in the building and she got to the third floor without encountering anyone. She left the door to her flat ajar and took the first dose of antibiotics. Only then did it occur to her that she hadn’t told Nadia which floor her flat was on.

  The tenement had five floors. There was no lift. Despite that, she thought she should go down again, to save Nadia having to check every floor, but now that her vision had cleared, the mess in the flat was all too evident. She quickly tidied up so Nadia wouldn’t think she’d given her clothes to a slattern.