Forty Hours: A breath-taking thriller

by Kathrin Lange

  She pulled back her hand, and Faris sensed a totally irrational flash of regret.

  He thought about Werner Ellwanger. Somewhere out there, he was hanging on a cross. The man who had nailed him to it now had Paul on his conscience too. And he, Faris, was just standing here, stewing in self-pity! He felt disgusted with himself.

  He wanted to move his arms off of the raining, wanted to straighten up, to keep going. None of these things happened. He felt as if he were locked inside a lead suit that enclosed every bit of him. Even breathing seemed difficult.

  Ira reached for his elbow. “Come on,” she said. “If you tell me where you live, I will take you home.”

  *

  Faris had just sat down in Ira’s compact car when his new phone rang. Glad that for at least the first part of the trip there wouldn’t be any uncomfortable silences, he answered it.

  It was his father. “Are you doing alright, my boy?”

  “Yes, Abu,” Faris replied. Although he had only been four years old when they arrived in Germany and his family spoke fluent German, he had never stopped calling his father by the Arabic word for Papa. “Did Samir get all of you out of Berlin?”

  “Me and Umi and all of your siblings, and even your nephews and nieces,” his father answered. “We are …”

  “Stop!” Faris hastily interrupted him. “Don’t tell me. I’m not sure if my phone is being tapped.”

  This made his father fall silent for a moment. “You mother wasn’t particularly thrilled that you were the only one who wasn’t leaving the city,” he finally grumbled. Something else was echoing in his words.

  It’s all your own fault. If you hadn’t become a police officer …

  To Faris’s relief, his father refrained from his usual accusation, and he ran his fingers through his hair, feeling Ira’s eyes on him.

  “I need to go now, Abu. It’s getting really late,” he said.

  “Of course. Take care of yourself. I will pray for Allah to do just that!”

  The unexpected warmth and concern that echoed in his father’s words added to the guilt that Faris already felt. “Thank you, Abu. Please tell Umi and Anisah hello for me.”

  “I will do that. As-salamu alaikum.”

  The well-meaning phrase felt like a blow. Faris had to tighten his jaw and take a deep breath before he could reply. “Wa-alaikumu s-salām, Abu.”

  *

  “Mr. Iskander?” Ira’s voice.

  He didn’t react to it.

  “Faris?” she asked. At this, he realized that they had arrived at his home. He couldn’t remember the rest of the drive.

  He forced himself to nod at Ira.

  “Everything alright?” She looked a little pale.

  “I’m okay.” He sounded weak. Breathless.

  And that was how he felt as well.

  *

  “A Japanese bookshop.” Ira gazed curiously into the shop window. Although it was by now a few minutes after midnight, the shop owner still had the light on.

  Midnight! In less than twenty-four hours, the bomb in the Olympic Stadium would go off. Faris froze mid-movement at this thought, but then realized that he couldn’t feel anything at this point.

  He couldn’t care less.

  He opened the apartment building door and gazed at Ira questioningly.

  She shifted slightly. “Is there anyone who can stay with you?” she asked. “A family member or someone?”

  Laura! shot through his mind.

  He slowly shook his head. He thought about Anisah, his big sister. She was the only one he could perhaps bear right now, but something prevented him from mentioning her. She and the rest of his family were now far away from Berlin. Oppressive feelings of doom enveloped him like a blanket.

  Ira hesitated. “To be honest, I’m not sure if it would be wise to leave you alone.”

  He wasn’t sure either. The thought of closing the door behind him and feeling the crush of the walls around him felt so unbearable that he mutely held the door open for Ira. As she passed by, she looked into his eyes.

  He glanced away.

  “Are Christian ministers always so concerned about people they hardly know?” he asked after they had entered his apartment and he had hung up his jacket.

  Her gaze was caught by the dark red burn scar that protruded from under his t-shirt sleeve. She smiled slightly. “Always!”

  He gazed at her skeptically, then invited her into his living room. He wasn’t the neatest of housekeepers, but his apartment was relatively clean. Several magazines were sitting around, in addition to an empty glass from the previous evening, which he rapidly cleared away.

  Ira sat down on his leather couch, and before he could weigh the odds of another uncomfortable silence, she pointed at the leather bracelet on his arm. “That’s pretty. Where did you get it?”

  Faris stared at it as if he were seeing it for the first time. He didn’t feel capable of talking about Laura even a little right now, so all he said was: “On a trip.”

  Ira peered at the faded letters. “That’s Arabic, isn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “What does it say?”

  “I will support you with a thousand angels, one after the other.” That was the first Quran quotation he could think of.

  If Ira doubted the claim that the two short words translated into such a long sentence, she concealed that fact well. “Nice,” she remarked. She apparently wanted to add something to that, but she didn’t seem to know quite what that was.

  Faris glanced down at his clothes. “I’ll be right back. I need to change.” One look in the hallway mirror had revealed that his clothes were torn up, thanks to his flight into the bushes. At this rate, his closet would be empty by tomorrow morning.

  He stumbled into his room, removed his holster, and pulled off his dirty t-shirt. He leaned down to take off his shoes when he suddenly felt so dizzy, he staggered. He banged his hip into his bed, and the bed legs scraped across the smooth floorboards with a loud screech.

  “Is everything okay?” Ira called from the living room.

  Faris couldn’t answer. He felt so sick he had to double over. Although he reached for something to grab onto, he found nothing within reach, and a moment later, he found himself kneeling on the floor.

  “Oh no!”

  Ira was there, but he hadn’t heard her come in. He felt her hands on his bare torso, sensed her attempts to pull him up. He helped her as much as he could. His dizziness evaporated, and only the weakness in his knees remained.

  He shook off Ira’s hands and stood up. “Sorry about that,” he murmured.

  “Lay down,” she ordered.

  “You aren’t my mother,” he protested sluggishly, but Ira didn’t soften. She steered him over to his bed.

  “Lay down, or I’ll have to force you down.”

  “I’d like to see you try!”

  She gave an ironic chuckle. “All I would have to do is give a good puff. Now do it!”

  And with that, he gave up. He collapsed onto his bed, and as he pulled off his shoes, he watched as Ira closed his curtains.

  “Are you also going to help me get my pants off?” he asked. Everything in his head was spinning.

  “You can manage that yourself.” She walked over to the door. “I’ll be right here. Just call if you need anything!”

  “Okay, Umi,” he mumbled and was already asleep by the time Ira left the room.

  *

  He instantly found himself back in a nightmare.

  He was walking along a corridor, and he knew that it was a passage in the Klersch Museum. The fact that this building no longer existed felt irrational even in this dream state, and he felt profoundly disoriented.

  His feet carried him toward an ornamented door, and he knew exactly what was waiting for him behind it. He tried to stop walking, but he couldn’t. Step by step, he drew closer to the door.

  The terror punctured his body like burning fingers. He felt his ribs, his shoulders, his head injuri
es. Everything seemed to be surrounded by dazzling flames, and as he glanced down at his body, he expected to see fire flickering through his skin.

  But there was nothing to see.

  Even the burn scar on his chest was gone. With the clarity of his own dream, he knew this despite the fact he was wearing a long-sleeved fleece shirt. The shirt he had been wearing the day of the explosion at the Klersch Museum.

  He doubled his efforts to stop his feet from moving. But it was in vain.

  He had now reached the door, and as if by an enchanted hand, it opened before him.

  “No!” he whispered.

  The people behind the door gazed at him through empty eyes. He saw Laura and Anisah. Lilly. His parents. And Paul. Paul’s face was charred black, and the heat of the explosion had solidified his eyeballs into glassy white marbles.

  Faris whimpered.

  “You should’ve been there!” Paul declared accusingly. He spoke with the caller’s distorted voice. And then he lifted his shirt which hung untucked over his waistband.

  He was wearing a suicide vest. A smile appeared on his face, the same smile that had always appeared whenever he had teased Faris about something.

  “Paul,” Faris breathed. “No!”

  Paul slowly raised his arm. He was holding the trigger, a small square box with a red button on it.

  “You can’t do that.” Faris knew he needed to speak louder if he was going to prevent Paul from pressing the button, but he simply couldn’t. All he was able to get across his lips was a toneless whisper.

  “You didn’t push the button, Faris,” Paul said. He was now speaking in his own voice. “I did!” He laughed.

  And then he pushed the red button.

  A fireball rolled toward Faris, engulfed him, and melted his skin off his bones although he felt no pain. He saw his parents burn up, Anisah. Laura. And with a tortured scream, he collapsed.

  *

  “Faris!”

  Someone was shaking him. He groped around him, because he felt like he was falling. Was he shouting? He didn’t know. With effort, he was trying to work his way back to reality. “Oh, Allah!” he groaned.

  “You were dreaming!”

  Ira was next to him. She was sitting on the edge of his bed, cradling him in her arms like a child. “Shh, calm down. It was just a dream!”

  *

  When everything was over, she couldn’t have said how it happened. She had been holding on to Faris as he flailed around in his sleep. She shook him and tried to free him from his nightmare, and her efforts were successful. But it took him a long time to find his way back to the real world. He clung to her like a drowning man, and she held him back.

  She inhaled his scent deeply, a combination of soap and sweat.

  And then it happened.

  Her mind divided itself. One part of her felt Faris’s lips on her neck, his breath brushing across her skin, and his hands under her blouse. She enjoyed the shiver that shot through both of them. Her other half observed all this from a distance and wondered what in the world she was doing here. This second half watched as Faris kissed her as he gasped and clung to her. The distant part of her psyche knew that he simply felt lust for her because he needed to forget so badly. He was damaged in the deepest part of his soul and was seeking a means to heal that wound. She knew that she was being used, but she couldn’t help enjoying what he was doing. And when he peeled off his jeans, when he stretched on top of her and penetrated her, she moaned in pleasure while also wishing to curl up in shame.

  Neither of them needed long. They climaxed at the same time, and drenched in sweat and breathing heavily, they remained lying next to each other.

  Ira turned on her side and studied Faris, who was staring at the ceiling into empty space. She wanted to say something, but for a moment, the words failed her. And so she raised her hand and ran her fingers softly across the horrible red scar that covered his right rib cage and the upper part of his bicep. “That looks pretty bad.”

  He didn’t react. He pulled an arm over his eyes and was silent. His chest rose and fell intermittently. Ira could see his abdominal muscles. She was filled with feelings of warmth and contentment, and to her own surprise, the things her distant self had just been whispering to her didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t feel bad, just calm and fulfilled.

  She wished she knew what was going on inside his head, but she didn’t risk asking the relevant questions. At some point, he sat up with a jerk.

  “I’m sorry,” he said roughly. His gaze wandered away from her half-naked body. “I …” He swung his leg off the bed. “I think …”

  She didn’t move right away, but when he remained seated and made no move to actually stand up, she touched a spot between his shoulder blades. Compared with his skin, hers was quite pale. Faris cringed under her touch as if he had been struck.

  He slowly sank back down. “Now what?”

  She looked at him. “What are you thinking?”

  He glanced at the alarm clock on his nightstand. It was past three o’clock. Despite his nightmare, he had still slept a couple of hours.

  He closed his eyes again. “I’m tired,” he mumbled wearily.

  “Then sleep!” Ira said softly, with a smile. “I’ll keep a watch on your phone.”

  *

  Alexander

  “WHY DIDN’T YOU DO IT?” The angel asked. “CRUCIFY HIM, I MEAN.”

  Alexander struggled against the feelings that raged inside him. Was this the right thing for him to do? He didn’t know. He was so incredibly tired. “I wasn’t strong enough,” he admitted. “None of the crosses I was able to build with my limited abilities were good enough. But then you came.”

  “THEN I CAME. ONE DAY, I WAS STANDING AT YOUR DOOR.”

  “Were you looking for me?”

  “YOU COULD SAY THAT.”

  Alexander felt himself smile, which made his body feel much lighter. “When I saw you, I knew that my father had been right the whole time. The Lord wanted this to happen. That was why He sent you to me. You’re His angel, right?”

  The voice in the dazzling light started to laugh, and in that laugh rang the sadness of all eternity.

  Chapter 24

  It was already midnight by the time Laura Zöller finally got her daughter Lilly to sleep. Exhausted and annoyed, she pulled the bedroom door shut behind her and cursed her husband, Christian. He had a knack for getting called in whenever Lilly was being especially demanding.

  Barefoot to keep from waking up the child, Laura glided across the oak parquet hallways to the living room. There she opened a bottle of red wine and poured herself a glass. With a sigh, she dropped into the leather couch and switched on the television.

  Several stations were running coverage about today’s bombings in Berlin. She didn’t want to hear about them, so she clicked through the channels until she found a program about a medieval manuscript someone had found several years ago. But she couldn’t concentrate on the narrator’s warm, sonorous voice.

  She suddenly found herself thinking about Faris.

  Why had he showed up here, today of all days?

  He hadn’t been around since she had told him she was pregnant, and she was basically happy about that. However, seeing him standing there today with all those terrible injuries to his face had been painful.

  With a shake of her head, she took a big sip of wine as the historian flipped through one page after the other.

  It was hard for her to admit that she had been glad to see him. When she left, she had told him that it was because he didn’t want to have children. He had no idea there was a totally different reason behind her flight to the arms of another man. She could no longer bear living in a constant state of fear – for him. His appearance today had made it more than clear how wise she had been to leave.

  With a sigh, she reached for her cell phone. After coming home, she had simply deposited it on the coffee table and not picked it up since then. Someone had called and left her a message. />
  She hesitated, then dialed her mailbox.

  The sound of Faris’s voice struck her like a blow. “Laura, it’s me. Listen, this isn’t a stalker call. It’s really important. I’d like …” And then he broke off. She could hear him breathing.

  Her stomach plummeted as if she were riding a roller coaster.

  “Mama!” Lilly’s fussy voice called from her bedroom.

  Laura sighed. “Mama’s coming right away, sweetie!” she shouted. She then listened to see if Faris had anything else to say.

  Wasn’t a stalker call, he had claimed.

  But then what was it?

  She could still hear him breathing, struggling for words, and this sound alone was so painful that she lowered the phone into her lap.

  “Mama!” Lilly practically screeched. The neighbors had already complained once about her waking up frequently during the middle of the night and making a noise. She had recently started sleeping poorly, often having nightmares, and Laura wondered why that was.

  With quiet regret and an equally soft curse on her lips, she deleted Faris’s message. Regardless of what he had said to her, she didn’t have the nerves to deal with it right now. He definitely wasn’t good for her.

  She set her wine glass down on the table. Hesitating for a moment, she turned off her phone and walked over to her daughter’s room.

  “Mama is here, sweetie. You don’t need to be afraid.”

  *

  “Look who’s here!” Pia jabbed Jenny in the side, causing her to spill her drink.

  They were standing in a disco on a side street off of Ku’damm that they had been told was especially popular. Although Jenny hadn’t felt like painting the town red that night, she at least found this place interesting.

  The people were edgy without being too edgy, and you didn’t need to feel worried about getting hit on here. The clientele was made up of normal-looking people and slightly gothic emos. The music was alright, as were the drink prices – at least, for a city like Berlin.

  Jenny licked drops from her sloshed cocktail off her fingers. “Be careful!” she growled at her friend before looking at where she was pointing.