Woman of the Dead (12 page)

How unpleasant a man can be. How predictable, when nothing guides him but his instinctive drives: greed, sex, perversion. Blum has taken Schönborn by surprise, but he obliges her by taking the bottle, no questions asked. He drinks from it and grins. Filthy bastard, thinks Blum, smiling sweetly. The spirits in his mouth, the bottle in his hand, and that grin. Before two minutes have passed he is continuing yesterday’s conversation, he can’t wait, he doesn’t want to talk about anything else. First he has to make sure that nothing has changed, she hasn’t thought better of it.
Our plan stands?
he asks. Blum nods, she smiles as if by remote control, she forces herself to ignore the fact that there is something suggestive in everything he says. He doesn’t even try to hide his lust.
Will it bother you that it turns me on? You masturbating. I can’t promise you to keep myself in hand.
He laughs out loud and drinks from the bottle again. That dirty laugh; Blum really would like to bring a stone down on his head. She wishes he would keep quiet, stop talking, she doesn’t want to spend another second thinking about him taking her photograph. She doesn’t want to think about undressing in front of him so she drives slowly, taking the long way out of the city. She begins talking about Helmut Newton, the only famous photographer whose name she knows. She wants a casual conversation about photography; she wants to slow him down, she must see this through for another ten minutes. By the time they’re in the forest he’ll have lost consciousness, the GBL will pull the ground from under his feet. Just ten minutes. Blum smiles; she has almost won when he suddenly asks that question. She hadn’t thought of it. Her heart beats fast; why hadn’t she thought of it? Blum hates herself. Don’t make another mistake, she thinks. As naturally as she can, she replies; lying, without emotion, without hesitation.

‘This is a hearse, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s cool.’

‘You get used to it, believe me.’

‘Why do you drive a hearse?’

‘Do you like it?’

‘I asked, why do you drive a hearse?’

‘Because I think it’s cool too. I got it on the internet.’

‘Who buys a hearse through choice?’

‘I do. I bought it in the States. Apparently President Kennedy was driven from Dallas to Washington in this vehicle. I had to have it.’

‘You don’t have anything to do with funeral parlours, do you?’

‘What?’

‘Taking dead bodies for a nice drive?’

‘Are you crazy?’

‘Well, it’s the obvious conclusion, isn’t it?’

‘The only person going for a drive in this car is me. I’ve come straight from Sardinia. It’s really comfortable sleeping in here.’

‘I’d like to try it myself.’

‘I can’t understand why everyone is so freaked out by the dead.’

‘I’m not.’

‘It’s only a car. And you can wash a car.’

‘So it doesn’t bother you that dead bodies used to lie in it?’

‘Does it bother you?’

‘No, it’s a great car.’

Blum dismisses whatever is going through Schönborn’s mind. She drives to Igls, a suburb of Innsbruck, and waits for his head to drop back at last. But his head doesn’t drop. Schönborn goes on talking, goes on indulging in tawdry jokes, says how he’s looking forward to what is going to happen next. Blum counts the seconds, wonders whether to turn round or stop right there in the middle of Igls. The last thing she wants is to be alone with this man in the forest. She has to come to a decision; they are already on the road between Igls and Patsch, with the forest looming in on both sides. Schönborn asks where she is going to undress. He is wide awake. He is not losing consciousness, he is not dropping off to sleep, he is still very much there. Not far now, says Blum. She doesn’t know what to do, whether to risk driving on, stopping, getting out of the Cadillac. It can’t be much longer now, but all the same, images are tumbling through her head. She sees herself trying to stall, she sees him getting impatient and pushing her to the ground, getting on top of her, tearing down her trousers. Blum sees all that in her mind’s eye, but still she turns off the road. She can’t help it, she must do it, she drives along the narrow forest path and thinks of Mark. Thinks of him sitting beside her and smiling. Stroking her cheek with his dear fingers.
It will be all right
, he says. She doesn’t know yet that this time he is going to be wrong. It is not going to be all right. It is going to be far worse than she imagined.

‘It’s so good of you to come.’

‘What about the children?’

‘Asleep. Come in.’

‘How are you doing, Blum?’

‘Not so well.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I just don’t want to be alone tonight.’

‘How can I help?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You’re shivering. Please tell me how to help you.’

‘You’re here, and that helps.’

‘Please, Blum. You phoned me. I’m here, and whatever the matter is we can deal with it together.’

‘Could you hold me close?’

‘Now?’

‘Lie down on the sofa with me and just hold me close.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘That’s the only thing that will help.’

‘Like this?’

‘Yes.’

‘It will get better, you’ll see.’

‘That’s what
he
always used to say.’

‘Mark?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m here for you now.’

‘Thank you, Massimo. And Massimo?’

‘What?’

‘Could you make love to me?’

‘What?’

‘Could you?’

‘Yes.’

Massimo follows her. Blum takes his hand and leads him through the house. Past the bedroom and into Mark’s study. Massimo says nothing, he just follows her, does what she wants him to do. He watches as she undresses then stands naked in front of him. Blum wants to feel something, she wants to take her mind off Schönborn. She lies down on Mark’s sofa and tells Massimo to undress too. He hesitates; it is almost as if he doubts her, as if he isn’t sure whether Blum is joking. She draws him close, and he lies down beside her. He is quiet, careful, affectionate. Blum takes his hand and places it on her breasts. They don’t talk. Blum’s eyes are closed. She wants his mouth, his skin, his hands, everything. He is lying on her, kissing her, and she lets him. He is making Schönborn disappear for a little while, everything he has done and everything she has done. Blum embraces Massimo, holds him close, presses him to her. Blum wants her husband’s best friend to stay, to warm her, touch her everywhere, she wants him to protect and help her. But no one must know that he is here, lying beside her, holding her in his arms.

For a long time they do not say a word. Blum wants to keep her eyes closed, she doesn’t want to open them and see what she has done. She senses that he is inside her, her tongue has disappeared into his mouth. She doesn’t want to see his skin, smell him, talk to him. She can’t. Whatever she has planned in advance, she won’t follow through, won’t tell him what has happened. She wouldn’t know how to explain it to him, and she doesn’t know whether he can help her at all. His hands are tied, he has to keep the rules, there’s nothing he can do for her.
The photographer Edwin Schönborn is lying in my cellar, Massimo. Please could you get me out of this? I anaesthetised him and abducted him, and he’s lying in the preparation room. Come on, Massimo, turn a blind eye and make things all right again. I’m in a fix. Maybe I overreacted, maybe it didn’t have to turn out like this, but it’s happened now. So you must help me. You know I have children, I can’t go to prison now. So please, my dear, see to all this. Thank you, very kind of you.
No, that won’t do. Everything has changed. She will take Massimo to the door now. He will get dressed and drive home, and then she will go down to the cellar to see Schönborn. She can’t depend on anyone but herself, she will find a way out of her fix, something will occur to her. She will get the ship back on course. Never mind how good his skin feels, never mind whether she hates herself for this, she cannot waste any more time. Blum kisses him and jumps up.
You must go now
, she says. And he asks,
Can I come back?

Three hours earlier, Blum opens the door to the cool room. He is lying on the aluminium table between two coffins. She tied him up like a parcel and left him among the coffins. She was afraid he might come round before she returned; she had to hide him in case Karl or one of the children accidentally wandered in. Now Blum is alone with him.

And there he lies, the monster she has caught. She struck him down, and dragged him out of the car like a piece of meat. There’s nothing dangerous about him now. She got him into the preparation room unseen, raised him to the aluminium table without any difficulty and wheeled it into the cool room. It was child’s play. He is lying between two bodies. Two coffins and Schönborn, at five degrees. She closes the door and leaves him alone. He can wait. Until the children are asleep and she can be with him undisturbed.

But the children weren’t sleepy and wouldn’t let her go. Blum had to read aloud to them, tell them one story, then another. And just one more. While Schönborn slumbered in the refrigerator, Blum was upstairs with Uma and Nela.
Please stay, Mama. We’re scared, Mama. Stay until we’re asleep. Please.
Even though Blum was impatient to bring Schönborn round and hear what he had to say, she had to stay with the children. Nothing was more important than that. Only when they were lying side by side peacefully, fast asleep, did she return.

How green the moss was. Schönborn waited for her to undress. Everything was out of control, she was panic-stricken, she had overreacted. Blum knew she had to do something. He simply had not gone to sleep, he was full of energy, the solvent didn’t seem to affect him at all. So she would have to undress. She didn’t want to let things get that far; the game must end, she must make a decision. She wanted to see him unconscious on the ground; she would ask him questions later and insist on answers. She wanted to know who the others were. Where that cellar was. What had happened to Youn.

She couldn’t run away, so she acted quickly. When Schönborn bent down to take something out of the camera case, she struck. The stone had been there, lying on the ground beside her, and it hit Schönborn on the back of the head. The scene was just as she had pictured it, but with less blood. He didn’t fall gently asleep, he dropped to the ground with a thud. He fell over forward and collapsed almost without a sound, as if the air had been let out of the monster. He lay there motionless, and without hesitating she began to tie him up. Hands, feet, she rendered him defenceless as she trussed the pig up for roasting.

She got the stretcher out of the hearse and set it up beside him. She pushed with all her might, bracing her body against his. Blum cursed, shouted, spat at him. It was no good; Schönborn was too heavy, and she felt her strength drain away. She had thought it would be easier; in her mind it had been simple enough, but the reality was uneven ground full of roots, and ten metres away from the hearse. Blum was on the point of giving up, leaving him where he was and phoning Massimo. There were tears in her eyes. She spat at him once more, and then she managed to get him on the stretcher. She put one end of it on the loading area of the hearse, raised the other end, and then the bastard disappeared into the vehicle. She loaded him up as best she could, his limbs sprawling and hidden under a blanket. Edwin Schönborn was on his way to the Funerary Institute. Blum was sure that this was the right thing to do, that she had no other option. Basically, all was well.

She cuddles the children as they fall asleep. Looks at their contented faces before going back to him. Down the stairs, over to the cool room. Over to the door, which she slowly opens. She just stands there for a long time, staring at him. She doesn’t move, she only looks. Because she knows she has waited too long, that she ought to have come back sooner to bring him round, to get his circulation going. Blum knew as soon as she opened the cool room door that he would not have survived for over four hours at five degrees with the influence of the drug and with his head wound. He is like all the other dead bodies she has seen in her life, cold flesh, skin and bones. No heart is beating in the cool room now, there is no sign of life, all she can hear is the engine regulating the temperature. All she sees is his face, his mouth gaping open. Open, but wordless, because he is dead.

Blum doesn’t know how long she stood there as if paralysed. Perhaps half an hour, perhaps longer. Desperately, she tries to grasp the fact that she is responsible for this. For his silence, for the fact that he is dead. She calls Massimo’s number.
Please come to me
, she says.
I’ll be with you in twenty minutes
, he replies.

It’s the middle of the night and Massimo has left. There is blood everywhere. The hydroaspirator sucks and sucks. Blum has opened his stomach cavity and removes the intestines, then puts them in a blue garbage bag. Kidneys, liver, everything she finds goes into the bag. She fixes the aspirator in the cavity with a clamp. Large quantities of blood and other bodily fluids disappear through the tube into the canalisation. She opens the chest cavity with diagonal pliers, removes the heart and lungs, and empties the torso before sawing it into small pieces. She cuts through the bones with Hagen’s power saw; blood spurts and runs into the tub. She sucks out his flesh and his fat, saws off his horrible head. Without pity or hesitation she takes him apart, cuts him into pieces and packs them up, neatly and hygienically, soaked in a formalin solution. Blum is preserving him; she doesn’t want people to notice the smell.

She cleans up until dawn. In a few hours Reza will be back from Bosnia, and there will be two funeral services and two burials this afternoon. He mustn’t suspect a thing, she must leave everything the way it was before he left. Blum gets out the coffins in the cool room. The idea had suddenly occurred to her as she was lying naked beside Massimo. Blum saw it all before her eyes while Massimo caressed her. She would put Schönborn’s legs, organs and head into the coffin with the old lady. The pieces of his torso and his arms in the coffin with the man who died in a mountain-climbing accident. Edwin Schönborn, packed up and preserved, hidden under white blankets with baroque trim. It is the idea that will save her, the only way to escape prison and be there for her girls. She had to do it.