The Lie

by Petra Hammesfahr

  She wasn’t tensed up now, just in a daze from Nadia’s promise of a future free of care. A large, airy apartment and a good job with Philip Hardenberg. And if she was earning enough at Alfo Investment to pay for a nanny, she’d also be able to afford a car. And drive out to the old folks’ home every Sunday in her own car with her own child. Suddenly Dieter’s pompous announcement of the birth of his and Ramie’s child didn’t seem so over-the-top after all. “In a time when hope has all but vanished, we are delighted to have brought a ray of sunshine into the world.” Again the tears welled up, she couldn’t do anything about it. But she would do almost anything to bring her child into the world. And perhaps that was the only reason: to bring a spark of hope into her own life.

  It would have been madness to reject Nadia’s offer - and unforgivable stupidity to trust everything she’d said. There were some contradictions in what she’d told her. Right at the beginning she’d claimed she’d got to know her lover only recently, but when she’d talked about the crisis in her marriage and her excessive drinking, she’d spoken of an acquaintance who had fortunately appeared. That must have been two years ago. And Nadia had kept insisting her friend was married. Most married men wore a wedding ring. Philip Hardenberg had not had one when he’d helped her up from the floor in the telephone box. She could still see that in her mind’s eye.

  She drove to her flat, immersed in thought. She picked up her toothbrush - she could hide it in the guest bathroom so Michael didn’t see it. Then she took a shower, brought her armpits, legs and all the rest into line with the original, made herself up and put on a trouser suit with the hooded jacket on top.

  She put the wallet with her documents in the cupboard. The envelope with the computer printouts, the note of Jacques’s telephone number and the copy of the tape, as well as her key holder, she put in the boot of the car. Even if Nadia or Hardenberg didn’t have a key to her new lock, it was better to be safe than sorry.

  Her first call was at the bank, where she plugged the hole in her mother’s nest egg at one fell swoop. The rest of the five thousand she paid into her own account. She had enough in her purse for the hairdresser, where she also had her fingernails brought up to scratch and left a generous tip. When she’d finished there, she had ten euros left, but she assumed she wasn’t going to need any cash during the next few days. She intended to stock up for the weekend from Nadia’s larder.

  Even after she’d been to the hairdresser’s, she didn’t head straight for the autobahn. She wanted to be as sure as possible. If Philip Hardenberg really was going to rent a flat on the outskirts of town from Behringer’s, then nice Herr Reincke would surely be willing to tell her as soon as it happened.

  A few minutes after two she drove into the underground garage at Gerler House. Only the Porsche and the green Golf were parked in the spaces reserved for Alfo Investment. The dark-blue Mercedes wasn’t there. From that she deduced that Philip Hardenberg wouldn’t be there. And if the green Golf belonged to Helga Barthel - it was a risk, but it was worth trying. Perhaps she could get some information about Markus Zurkeulen from Helga which would be a sight more credible than anything Nadia told her.

  It was Nadia she saw looking out at her from the mirror in the lift. She took a deep breath and pressed the button for the seventh floor. The plate on the door of Alfo Investment was as discreet as the one in the lift. Below it was a bell-push.

  She pressed it. When she heard the buzzer and the click of the door opening, she threw back her shoulders, tucked her hair in behind her ears and went in. The lobby was smaller than reception at Behringer’s - and empty apart from the carpet and a large pot plant in a tub. There were four doors, of which one was open, leading into a brightly lighted office. A plump, red-haired woman was sitting at the desk. She was playing cards on a PC and had her back to the lobby. She turned round. She would have been in her late forties, wore glasses and produced a friendly smile, which was immediately replaced by a look of astonishment. Before she could say anything, the woman took off her glasses and said in puzzled tones, “I thought you were in Geneva.”

  Helga Barthel? She didn’t dare risk addressing the woman by name and just said, “I’m on my way. I just popped in to…”

  “Get the laptop,” the red-haired woman said with a sigh as she stood up. “I wondered why it was in Philip’s room. I assume things were pretty fraught this morning. What was it all about?”

  She just said, “Zurkeulen,” and waited to see how the woman reacted to the name.

  The woman rolled her eyes and gave a sigh of exasperation. “That guy’s beginning to get on my nerves. He shouldn’t get so worked up about a mere two hundred thousand. Others lost everything when the new market collapsed in 2001. Philip explained all that to him again yesterday afternoon.”

  As she finished, the woman went out of her room and across the lobby to a padded door. She followed slowly and asked, in as casual voice as possible, “Where’s Philip just now?”

  “If you hurry, you might just catch him,” the woman said, continuing to speak from the other office. “He’s gone down to Behringer’s about a flat. He said it wouldn’t take a minute. I hope he’s right, he has to be in Düsseldorf at five.” The woman returned with Nadia’s computer bag and a small leather holder. “You’d left your office key here too.”

  She took them both and left, throwing a “See you” over her shoulder.

  “When?” the woman called out as she disappeared.

  “Tomorrow,” she said, closing the door behind her. She slipped the leather holder into Nadia’s handbag, hurried to the lift and went down to the underground garage. There was no point any more in going to see Reincke, she thought. It looked as if this time her distrust of Nadia had been unfounded. Presumably even a woman like Nadia had some kind of conscience. Or Philip Hardenberg had one and had made Nadia see reason.

  On the autobahn her heart and stomach were already quivering with anticipation. As she turned into Marienweg everything swam before her eyes for a moment. The Koglers’ front garden was empty. The old Ford Fiesta was standing in the Blastings’ drive again, it probably belonged to a cleaning woman. Behind Eleanor Ravatzky’s wrought-iron gate a boy of about ten was romping around on the lawn with the shaggy dog. There was a van with the name of a garden centre parked in the road outside Niedenhoff’s house. A man in blue overalls was raking the last of the leaves off the lawn. With him was a man with dark hair, presumably Niedenhoff. He waved as she drove past. She returned his wave and drove the Alfa into the garage. The laptop, the envelope and the imitation-leather holder with the keys to her flat she left in the boot.

  From the moment she went into the hall and switched off the alarm, it was like coming home. She went up to the study. She did feel a little shabby when she opened the desk drawer where she’d found the Dictaphone in September. It was still there. However, the revealing tape and been recorded over and the singed and smeared letter to Jacques, mon chéri, had disappeared from the cupboard in the television room. Well, if Michael had become suspicious Nadia would have had to clear some things away.

  The handset on the table had been disconnected, the answerphone switched on. She rang the shop from the bedroom and told Frau Schädlich her mother hadn’t come round from the anaesthetic yet. That meant she wouldn’t be able to get back to the shop that day.

  “That’s what I thought would happen,” said Frau Schädlich. “Do you think you’ll be able to come in tomorrow? You know what it’s like on Fridays.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ll definitely come in tomorrow.”

  Then she went down to the larder to get herself a late lunch. In a fit of nostalgia she decided on pork escalope with mushrooms, onions, asparagus and green beans. Standing in the kitchen, she almost expected Joachim Kogler to appear. He didn’t, of course. The aromas rising from the frying pan made her realize how hungry she was and she wolfed the meal down, treating herself to a huge helping of chocolate-chip ice cream from the freezer for dessert and follo
wing it up with a strong coffee. Shortly before five the kitchen was clean and tidy again.

  As she cleaned her teeth, she wondered whether to ring the lab and ask Michael when he was coming home. Just the thought of seeing him again gave her palpitations. If she had a rough idea of when to expect him, she could prepare herself better, she thought, so she went back upstairs and dialled through to extension thirty-eight.

  The phone rang twice, then it was picked up and a fraught female voice immediately launched into a moan: “Where have you been? The shredder’s running at two hundred and twenty. I need you here. At once.”

  “Good afternoon,” she said in friendly tones. “Nadia Trenkler here. I’d like to speak to my husband.”

  “So would I,” the woman replied. “But he’s still in a meeting.”

  “Perhaps you could tell me whether he’s likely to be back late this evening.”

  “Later than late. We’ve got huge problems with one of the subjects. He’ll have to deal with it himself.”

  “Aha,” she said, “thanks. At least I know what the situation is.”

  It sounded as if something technical had broken down or was about to give up the ghost again. She’d have expected to see a shredder on a trailer from a garden centre, like the one outside Niedenhoff’s house, but then, who knew what they got up to in laboratories?

  She replaced the receiver, went downstairs, tinkled away on the piano for a while and wandered round the works of art, trying to identify the Beckmann. The signatures on most of the pictures were illegible. Only on the black-and-gold monstrosity over the three-piece suite she thought she could decipher the name Georg Maiwald. She remembered Michael saying something about supporting young artists and he’d used the word “daubs”. He seemed to have the same taste in art as she did - and not only in art.

  It was already dark outside when she fetched a towel and went down into the basement. At the back of her mind was Nadia’s comment that he was in a league of his own in the pool. Of course she didn’t intend to find out for herself, certainly not that evening. Perhaps later on, after she’d had the child - and some swimming lessons. She got undressed and sat on the edge of the pool, dangling her legs in the water. After a while she let herself cautiously down into the water, holding on to the side with both hands until she felt her toes touch the bottom. The water came up to her throat and was unpleasantly cool. Shivering and summoning up all her courage, she let go and waved her arms around like a swimmer. She didn’t move from the spot.

  Around eight she tried ringing the lab again. No one answered. That suggested to her that Michael was on his way home, so she started preparing a further large meal and set the table in the dining room for two. Nadia had talked about things being tense between them, but on the Sunday in August, when she’d had her practice run as stand-in, he’d been perfectly agreeable after having had “one hell of a row” with Nadia.

  By nine the food was getting burned. She ate alone and decided to have soused herrings in cream sauce for dessert. Then she treated herself to another helping of the ice cream followed by an espresso. She didn’t want to be fast asleep and miss him when he came home. At ten she settled down in front of the TV, leaving the door out onto the landing open. She also had another espresso, but despite that she gradually found herself slipping down on the couch. That Thursday had been - after an almost sleepless night - a long, hectic and stressful day. Eventually she stretched out and let herself slide gently into a restful slumber.

  Eleven o’clock passed, twelve o’clock passed and the light slumber became a deep sleep. She hadn’t put the light on. The room was filled with the grey-blue flicker of the rapidly changing scenes on the screen. By now it was a gory horror film, mostly set in a nocturnal graveyard. Other sounds mingled with the panting and slurping of the monsters and the screams of their tormented victims. She registered them unconsciously, but they fitted in so well with the general background noise that they didn’t bring her back to the surface.

  The metallic click of the central locking as the alarm was switched on could have been the breaking of bones, the whirring of the shutters sounded almost the same as the shuffling of the undead, the steps on the stairs echoed those coming from the television. A movement sensor activated the landing light. Through the open door it shone on her face, disturbing her even behind closed lids. At the same time a woman on the television shrieked, begging for her life. All at once she was wide awake again, blinked blearily and saw that the light was on.

  “Michael?” she called. There was no answer. She sat up and listened. Nothing could be heard apart from the nerve-shattering noise from the TV. She switched it off. Everything was quiet. The light on the landing went off again and the room sank back into darkness. She had the sour taste of sleep in her mouth. “Michael?” she called out again.

  Again no answer. Nor were any other sounds to be heard. With a deep sigh she pushed herself up and felt her way to the door. Immediately the landing light went on again. The bedroom door was open but it was dark inside. And quiet! Everywhere was quiet. And since she didn’t know what had woken her, she came to the conclusion that she was alone in the house. There could be a thousand technical explanations for the light going on.

  She went down the stairs, saying a few words to her baby on the way, and drank half a glass of mineral water in the kitchen, to wash the sour taste out of her mouth. And then back up. Now there was a faint light coming from the bedroom.

  “Michael?” she called out again.

  There was no answer this time either. Slowly she went to the door. The light in the bedroom wasn’t on, it came from the bathroom. Damn, she thought, he’s in a huff. In a real huff.

  He was naked, cleaning his teeth at one of the washbasins. He didn’t deign even to glance at her although she stood, motionless, in the doorway for at least a minute, looking at him and trying to control the turmoil inside her. Finally he switched off his toothbrush, walked up to her and past her as if she wasn’t there, and got into bed, throwing back the cover from his half of the bed alone.

  “Why won’t you answer?” she asked.

  No reaction. He went into the dressing room. She followed him and watched as he took his clothes and alarm clock out of the wardrobe drawers. Ignoring her completely, he went back into the bedroom and took the things into the bathroom. Again she followed him. He put the alarm clock on the shelf and went back into the bedroom. Only when he got to the bed did he turn round and ask, “Why did you ring?”

  “I wanted to know when you were coming home. Didn’t they tell you?”

  He sat down on the bed. “Yes, they did. It’s just that I couldn’t believe you really meant it. I thought there must be some special reason. Perhaps the house had burned down or you’d run out of petrol.”

  It didn’t sound as if he thought Nadia was being unfaithful, more as if he were afraid she’d started drinking again. “Didn’t you manage to sort out the problem with the shredder?” she asked cautiously. “You sound as if you’re in a bad mood.”

  He gave a hoarse laugh. “Oh, you noticed? Remind me to ring the date in the diary.” Then he lay down, pulled up the blanket and said, “If you feel like a chat, call Philip, I’m too tired.”

  He quickly fell asleep. She was lying only a couple of inches away from him, but she might just as well have been on the moon. Twice she felt she couldn’t stand being so close to him like that, crept downstairs, stood there in the kitchen for a while, drank some more mineral water, swallowed a few tears as well, promised her child everything would turn out fine, then climbed back into bed beside him.

  It wasn’t until about five that she fell into a light, restless sleep. And just one hour later it was all over again. The covers were thrown back beside her, waking her up. A soft, regular buzzing was coming through the open door to the bathroom. He went in, naked as he was. The buzzing stopped. She got up as well and followed him. He was already in the shower. Through the glass door he looked like a ghost.

  Despite his f
rosty behaviour, she felt the need to touch him, if only just for a second, as a parting gesture.

  It was to be a parting - for many months. However hard Philip Hardenberg might push for her to act as stand-in during the next few weeks, Nadia wouldn’t allow it. When they had more time than yesterday, Nadia would check whether there were any give-away signs yet. And Nadia would realize that now there was a big difference, a whole cup size difference. At that moment she didn’t care if he noticed.

  Her feet took her automatically to the shower. Her hands slid the door open. He responded with an irritated look and a dismissive, “You needn’t bother, I don’t feel like morning exercises.”

  At that moment the sickness hit her, a hot wave surging up into her throat. She just managed to get to the lavatory in time. He watched, dumbfounded, through the open shower door as she went down on her knees, heaving and retching until her stomach had been emptied of the last bits of ice cream and soused herring.

  “Too much to drink again?” he asked when she finally straightened up. It sounded cold, as if the question had been asked too many times.

  She stood up, staggered over to one of the washbasins and rinsed her mouth out. Her stomach was still sending up little waves of nausea.

  “It’s no use denying it,” he said as he rubbed himself dry. “You went down twice. I did notice.”

  “I only had some water to drink,” she said.

  “Of course,” he said. “That’s why you were puking your guts out. Take an aspirin, it’s good for a hangover.”

  “I haven’t got a hangover,” she said.

  “You haven’t?” he asked in astonishment. “Then why have my soused herrings disappeared from the fridge?”