The Package

by Sebastian Fitzek

  ‘I didn’t expect you so early,’ Emma said, opening the door to Salim.

  ‘I just fell out of bed this morning,’ the delivery man laughed.

  Since she’d stopped leaving the house (even walking the dog was Philipp’s job), she had many things she needed delivered to her door. Today Salim stood there with relatively few packages. She signed for the receipt of her contact lenses; the online pharmacy had finally sent the painkillers; and the larger, lighter box probably contained the warm slippers you could put in the microwave. Finally there was her daily crate of food for which she’d set up a standing order with the online supermarket.

  Philipp was responsible for drinks and all non-perishable items such as preserves, detergents or loo paper. But it was better that vegetables, milk, fish, butter and bread didn’t hang around in his car when, as so often, he was suddenly called away and came home hours later than expected.

  Recently he hadn’t spent several days away at a time, as he did that fateful weekend. Not since the madman had rendered Emma immobile with an injection, stripped off her pyjamas and lain on top of her with all his weight.

  In the last few months Philipp had insisted on spending the nights with her. He was even prepared to cancel the Europa Meeting this weekend, even though it was the most important workshop of the year. The leading profilers throughout Europe met only once every twelve months to pool their knowledge. Two days, and a different city every year. This time it was in Germany, in a hotel in Bad Saarow beside the Scharmützelsee. A must-attend event for this sworn band of extraordinary personalities who had to spend every day engaging with the worst things that mankind was capable of – and on this occasion Philipp even had the honour of giving a lecture about his work.

  ‘I insist! If anything happens I’ll call you right away. I mean you’re practically round the corner, only an hour away,’ Emma had said this morning as she gave him a goodbye kiss, while actually wanting to scream, ‘An hour? It didn’t take that madman much longer to turn me into a psychological wreck.’

  ‘Step by step I’ve got to drag myself out of this hole,’ she’d said, hoping he’d realise that she was merely parroting hollow phrases from the psychiatry manual that she no longer believed in. Nor did she believe the final lie she sent Philipp off with: ‘I’ll cope on my own.’

  Yes, for five whole seconds as she waved to him from the kitchen window. Then she’d lost her composure and started headbutting the wall until Samson jumped up at her and stopped her from doing herself further injury.

  ‘Thanks very much,’ Emma said once she’d taken everything off the delivery man and trudged back into the hallway.

  Salim offered to carry the boxes into the kitchen (I’m not that bad yet) then slapped his forehead.

  ‘I almost forgot. Could you take this for your neighbour?’

  Salim picked up a shoebox-sized package from the floor. Emma had thought it couldn’t be for her, and she’d been right.

  ‘For my neighbour?’ Her knees began trembling as she evaluated the potential consequences of this dreadful request if she were to be so crazy as to agree to it.

  Just like the last time, when she’d kindly accepted the book delivery for the dentist, she’d sit for hours in the darkness, unable to do anything but think constantly about when it would happen. When the bell would shred the silence and announce the unwanted visitor.

  As her hands became clammier and her mouth drier, she would keep counting the minutes and later the seconds until the strange object had vanished from her house.

  But that was not the worst thought running amok in her mind when she read the name of the addressee on the sticker.

  Herr A. Palandt Teufelssee-Allee 16a 14055 Berlin

  Having the strange object in her house was one thing – she might be able to cope with that. It would change her routine and throw her emotional balance into disarray, but in itself the package wasn’t a problem.

  It was the name.

  Her pulse racing and hands getting wetter by the second, she stared at the address printed on the package and just wanted to weep.

  8

  Palandt?

  Who… the hell… is Herr A. Palandt?

  In the past she wouldn’t have given the matter a thought, but now her ignorance gave free rein to her darkest fantasies, which frightened her so much that Emma was on the verge of tears.

  Teufelssee-Allee 16a?

  Wasn’t that the left-hand side of the street, three or four houses along, just around the corner? Hadn’t old Frau Tornow lived there alone for years? Not…

  A. Palandt…?

  She knew everybody in the area, but she’d never heard his name before, and this unleashed a general feeling of helplessness inside her.

  She’d been living in this small cul-de-sac for four years now. Four years since they’d bought the far-too-expensive property, which they’d only been able to afford because Philipp had inherited some money.

  ‘You want me to take it?’ Emma asked, without touching the package.

  It was wrapped in normal brown paper and the edges reinforced with sticky tape. Two lengths of fibrous string were tied around the package, forming a cross on the front. Nothing unusual.

  Apart from the name…

  Herr A. Palandt?

  ‘Please,’ Salim said, inching his hand with the package closer to her. ‘I’ll pop a note through his door to say he can pick it up from you.’

  No, please don’t!

  ‘Why not?’ Salim asked in astonishment. She must have spoken her thoughts out loud.

  ‘Those are the regulations, you see. I have to do it. Otherwise the package isn’t insured.’

  ‘I understand, but today I’m afraid I can’t…’

  ‘Please, Frau Stein. You’d be doing me a huge favour. My shift is almost over. For a very long time, I fear.’

  For a very long time.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Emma unconsciously took a step backwards. Sensing her anxiety, Samson sat up beside her and pricked up his ears.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not getting the sack or anything like that. It’s good news for me Naya and Engin.’

  ‘Naya’s your wife, isn’t she?’ Emma said, confused.

  ‘That’s right, I showed you a picture of her once. For the moment there’s only an ultrasound thing of Engin.’

  A cold draught blew through the door, fluttering Emma’s dressing gown. She froze internally.

  ‘Your wife’s… pregnant?’

  The word weighed so heavily inside her that she could barely get it out of her mouth.

  Pregnant.

  A combination of eight letters that had a completely different meaning today from half a year ago.

  Back then, in the time before, the word represented a dream, the future, it was a symbol of joy and the very meaning of life. Today it merely described an open wound, lost happiness, and spoken softly sounded similar to ‘never’ or ‘dead’.

  Salim, who’d clearly interpreted her visible bewilderment as stunned delight, was grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘Yes, she’s in her sixth month,’ Salim laughed. ‘She’s already got a belly like this,’ he added, making the corresponding gesture with his hand. ‘It works brilliantly with the admin job. You know, office work? The pay’s better, but I’ll be sorry not to see you any more, Frau Stein. You’ve always been really nice to me.’

  All Emma could say was, ‘What wonderful news’ in a rather monotone voice, which made her feel ashamed. In the past she’d responded with enthusiasm to every baby announcement amongst her acquaintances. Even when some of her friends started asking why it was taking her so long, and whether there was a problem. She hadn’t once felt envious, let alone bitter, just because it hadn’t worked immediately for her and Philipp.

  Unlike her mother, who became really irate when others revelled in their delight at being pregnant. The unexpected miscarriage when Emma was six had changed her. And her mother never fell pregnant again.

>   What about now?

  Now was the time afterwards; now she could understand her mother’s bitterness.

  Fecund? Feck off!

  Emma had turned into a different person. A woman with a sore vagina who knew the taste of latex as well as the feeling of vibrating steel on her shaven head. A woman well aware that a single, fateful event could change or even kill off all emotions.

  Nice.

  She thought of the last thing Salim had said and something occurred to her.

  ‘Just wait a sec, please.’

  ‘No, please don’t. It’s not necessary, really,’ Salim called out after her. He knew what she had in mind when she instructed Samson to sit by the door.

  To guard the delivery man too.

  In the living room she noticed she was carrying the small package by her chest; she must have taken it from Salim after all – Christ!

  Now it’s in the house.

  Emma placed it next to her laptop on the desk, which stood in front of the window that looked onto the garden, and opened the top drawer. She rummaged around for her purse that hopefully had enough for a tip she could give Salim as a parting gift.

  The purse had slid into the corner at the very back of the drawer, which meant she had to take out some papers obstinately stuck in front of it.

  A letter from the insurance company, bills, unread get-well-soon cards, brochures for washing machines and…

  Emma froze as she saw the flyer in her hand.

  She was desperate to turn her gaze from the glossy photo.

  Bzzzzzz.

  A buzzing started up in her head. A loud buzzing. She felt the vibrations on her scalp. It immediately started itching. She wanted to scratch herself but there was as little chance of doing that as there was of freeing herself from the vice that was keeping her head in position and forcing her to stare at the flyer.

  Philipp had taken down all the mirrors in the house so that Emma didn’t have to be continually reminded of that night by looking at her ‘haircut’. All scissors and razors had been banned from the bathroom.

  But he hadn’t thought about a simple flyer that came with the paper.

  Hand-held appliance with stainless-steel blades. Only €49.90. With hair-cutting function! Save on your hairdressing bills!

  Emma heard a soft click, which always preceded the avalanche of her nightmares, right before they fell from the precipice of her soul.

  She closed her eyes. And as Emma collapsed to the floor she fell into the rats’ nest of her memories.

  9

  Most people think that sleep is death’s little brother, whereas in fact it is his arch enemy. Not sleep, but tiredness, is the vanguard of eternal darkness. It is the arrow the man in the black hood shoots unerringly at us every evening, and which sleep endeavours with all its might to pull out of us every night. Unfortunately, however, it is poisoned, and however much the flow of our dreams tries to wash the poison away, a residue always remains. The older we get, the more difficult it becomes to climb out of bed feeling recovered and rested. Like a once-clean sponge, the capillaries of our existence soak up a black ink, and the sponge becomes ever more saturated. The dream images that were once happy and colourful turn into nightmarish distortions until sleep finally loses its battle against tiredness and one day, exhausted, we pass over into a dreamless oblivion.

  Emma loved sleep.

  Only she didn’t like the dreams that the poison of exhaustion had transformed into horrific visions. Horrific because they were so real, and this reflected what had actually happened to her.

  As every time when she was unconscious, it began with a sound.

  Bzzzzzz.

  Not with the violent penetration, the heavy breathing in her ear or the fitful coughing that thrust waves of peppermint-smelling breath into her face while the Hairdresser pinched her nipples as he came inside his condom. She couldn’t be certain if these visions were real memories or the excruciating attempt by her brain to fill with nightmares the lost hours between the attack in the hotel and waking up at the bus stop.

  It always began with the buzzing of the razor, which grew shriller and sharper when the vibrating blades touched hair.

  Hair.

  Symbol of sexuality and fertility since the dawn of time. The reason why women in many cultures cover their heads to avoid arousing the devil inside men. The devil, who otherwise…

  … would overwhelm, rape and then scalp me…

  The Scalper, an awkward but far more accurate term for the attacker than the Hairdresser, because he didn’t style his victims’ hair, he tore their lives from their heads.

  As ever, Emma was unable to distinguish between dream and reality when she felt the cool blade on her head, paralysed as she was either by exhaustion or an anaesthetic in her bloodstream. She felt the electric blade vibrating on her forehead, and it didn’t hurt when it moved upwards and to the back of her head. It didn’t hurt and yet it felt like dying.

  Why does he do it?

  A question to which Emma thought she’d found the answer.

  The attacker had raped her and he felt ashamed. An intelligent man, well aware of what he’d done, he wasn’t trying to undo the crime, but to shift the responsibility to the victim.

  Emma hadn’t covered herself; her plainly visible, abundant locks of hair had enticed the male animal from his lair. For this she didn’t have to be punished, but made to look respectable so that no man gazing at her could possibly get wrong idea.

  That’s why he shaved my head.

  Not to humiliate me.

  But to drive out the devil that led him into temptation.

  Emma heard a crackling whenever the blades hit a crown, felt her head being turned to the side so he could get at her temples, felt a burning when the foil went in too deep and caught a bit of skin, felt a latex glove on her mouth, smelled the rubber covering her lips which would have probably opened to scream, and it dawned on her…

  … that he waited for me…

  He’d sought her out. He knew her!

  He’d been watching her beforehand. Her hair when she twisted a strand around her finger. Her locks that danced on her shoulder blade when she turned around.

  He knows me. Do I know him too?

  At the very moment she asked herself this question, Emma felt the tongue. Long, rough, full of spittle. It was licking her face. Slobbering over her nose, closed eyes and forehead. This was new.

  This had never happened before.

  Emma felt a damp pressure on her cheek, opened her eyes and saw Samson above her head.

  It took a while for her to realise that she was lying on the living-room floor beside her desk.

  She was awake. But the arrow of tiredness had buried itself deeper than before. Her body felt as if it were full of lead, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if her own weight had dragged her down into the basement, if she’d crashed straight through the parquet floor into the laundry room or into the study that Philipp had set up down there so he didn’t have to keep on going to the office at weekends.

  But of course she didn’t crash through the robust parquet; she stayed where she was, lying on the ground floor, a couple of metres away from the sizzling fireplace, its flames flickering with unusual vigour.

  They were being stirred, as if by the wind. Immediately Emma felt a breath of cold on her face, then on the whole of her body.

  A draught.

  The fire dancing in the cold draught could only mean one thing.

  The front door!

  It was open.

  10

  sorry, had to go.

  take care!

  A tiny Post-it note with little space, which was why Salim had written his farewell note in small letters.

  With clammy fingers Emma removed the yellow sticker from the wooden frame of her front door and screwed up her eyes. It had started snowing again. At the other end of the street, just before the junction, children were playing ‘It’ between the parked cars, but there was no sign o
f the delivery man or his yellow van.

  How long was I out of it?

  Emma checked her watch: 11.13.

  So she’d been unconscious for almost a quarter of an hour.

  During which the front door had been open.

  Not wide open, just a few centimetres, but still.

  She shuddered.

  What now? What should I do?

  Samson was rubbing up against her legs like a cat. It was probably his way of saying it was bloody cold, so she finally went to shut the door.

  Emma had to brace herself against it, for all of a sudden a violent gust of wind blew straight at the house, howling and hurling a few snowflakes into the hallway before the lock clicked and the room fell silent.

  She looked to her left, where the mirror that had been left in the wall unit would have shown her red cheeks had it not been covered in packing paper.

  It would have probably been fogged up by her breath too.

  With writing on it?

  Emma was briefly tempted to rip the paper from the mirror to check for hidden messages. But she’d done this so often and never found any writing on the glass. No ‘I’m back’ or ‘Your end is nigh’. And Philipp had never complained about having to repaper the mirror.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Emma told herself, unsure what she was referring to. The conversations she had with herself, which ran into the dozens per day, were making less and less sense.

  Was she sorry that she’d abandoned Salim without giving him a tip? That she was causing Philipp all this trouble? Ignoring his suggestions, avoiding being intimate with him and having refused him her body for months now? Or was she sorry that she was letting herself go? As a psychiatrist she knew, of course, that paranoia wasn’t an illness but a weakness, for which you needed therapy. If you’ve got the strength for it. And that the overreactions were a symptom of this suffering, which wouldn’t go away of its own accord, just because she ‘got a grip on herself’. Those who weren’t afflicted were often suspicious of the mentally ill. They would wonder, for example, how a world-famous actor or artist who ‘had it all’ could possibly commit suicide, in spite of their fame, wealth and endless ‘friends’. But these people knew nothing of the demons that would embed themselves, particularly into sensitive souls, then at the moment of that person’s greatest happiness whisper into their ear and reel off their shortcomings. Psychologically healthy people would tell depressives to stop being so miserable all the time, and urge paranoid individuals like her to stop making such a fuss and checking the front door every time the beams creaked. But that was a bit like asking a man with a broken shin bone to run the marathon.