Woman of the Dead (2 page)

After three hours in the blazing sun, her skin is burning in silence. She can’t hear a thing now, no more knocking on the side of the boat. Hagen and Herta silenced for ever. Nothing is left, no past to which she must return. Blum will steer the boat now, bring it back to Trieste, she will renovate the house, build a new chapel of rest, a new preparation room, she will redevelop the whole place to the last nook and cranny. She’ll throw away everything that reminds her of those two, take it to the rubbish dump. She is twenty-four years old. Now she’ll stand up, get dressed, and radio the coastguard station, send a desperate message: her parents have disappeared without trace, just like that, while she was asleep. She will take a gulp of spirits from Hagen’s flask and wait for help. She’ll repeat her horror over the radio, she will scream and shed tears.

Forty minutes pass. Blum scans the sea for them while she waits. There is not a trace of Hagen. Or Herta. They simply disappeared in a tragic accident, two bodies with water in their lungs washed ashore or fished out of the sea.

Blum stands on deck, waving. Shouting for help when she sees the boat. A small yacht, sailed by a tourist and not the coastguard, is the first to respond to her desperate cries. Blum, trembling, tells him what has happened. The stranger comes aboard to help her, looks after her, searches the boat and scrutinises the sea around it. His voice does her good, consoles her, so do his arms as he puts them around her. Just like that, with sudden affection. His hands, the sunburn, her skin.
I went to sleep. It’s my fault, we must find them. Where are they, for God’s sake, where can they be? What have I done? We must go back and search for them, they’re not there any more. They’ve gone, they’ve simply disappeared. What if they’re dead?
She screams this out loud, tears herself away from him, strikes her own face again and again, blaming herself. It’s my fault, she cries. When he tries to hold her she strikes him too, she weeps, she tries tearing herself away. She must do everything exactly right. Everything she says and does now must convince him, there must not be a moment’s doubt in his mind. This attractive man. She lets him hold her, she is very close to him, her face on his chest, he holds her, she is breathing fast, she can smell him, she hears him. She hears his voice, whispering.
My name is Mark
, he says.
I’m a police officer, everything will be all right.

Uma jumps. Her little body flies through the air; there is a big smile on her face, she has small white teeth and happy eyes. A little girl of three; how cheerfully she lands and accepts the waiting embrace, snuggles close.
Mama, I had a dream about a bear, he growled ever so loud, he wanted to eat me up. I had to run away, Mama
. Blum hugs her, tenderly runs her fingers over the little head, touches the child’s cheek and tells her that the bear only wanted to play, it was just a dream. Nothing bad is going to happen; I’ll look after you. Blum’s daughter Uma started talking a few months ago, she is an angel with blond curls. There’s another angel too. Nela has gone back to sleep, lying contentedly in the crook of her father’s arm. The children are in their parents’ bed, first thing in the morning. It is a perfectly normal day for Blum and Mark.

Eight years ago, they touched each other for the first time. He put his arms around her on the boat. He was a wonderful man, right from the very first moment when he was there, taking care of her. Mark waited with her until the coastguard arrived, until she had answered hundreds of questions. He simply stayed by her side. Talking to the police officers on the case, he described how he had found Blum, assuring them that he did not doubt her version of the story. Everything went to show that she was telling the truth. Her sunburn, her desperation, her tears: Blum had lost her parents in a tragic accident. And Mark had found her. A cop on holiday, a criminal investigation officer and an Austrian like Blum. A bachelor with a passion for sailing. It all fitted together, they had found one another, and to this day they haven’t let each other go.

Their bodies are intertwined, skin against skin as they touch. They are very close, their mouths whisper
Good morning
before they begin playing with their children, growling playfully. Everything feels good. They lie happily beside each other, watching the little girls get out of bed and set off to visit their grandfather.
I want some cocoa, Papa. I want some salami, Mama. We’re going to see Grandpa. You two are boring
. Blum laughs. Mark holds her lovingly in his arms, he won’t let her go, she nestles close to him, purring.
I want to stay with you in this bed for ever
. Blum enjoys every day, every hour of her whole life. His fingers have danced over her for eight years, they’ve been married for six, they have been a family for five. They plunged into their love passionately, and it still intoxicates them.

‘Mark?’

‘Yes?’

‘Can’t you just stay at home?’

‘I’m afraid not, but I’ll be back. There’s a lot going on at the moment.’

‘Like what?’

‘You don’t want to know, my lovely.’

‘We could just pretend the world wasn’t there.’

‘Well, yes, we could.’

‘But?’

‘But I have to catch the villains.’

‘You don’t have to. You want to.’

‘And you want to play with your dead people. I know you. You wouldn’t last here long. In ten minutes’ time you’d be jumping up and telling me there’s something you have to do, the old lady brought in last night can’t wait any longer.’

‘Would I?’

‘Yes, you would.’

‘Two more minutes, OK?’

‘Ten if you like.’

Even on the boat, she had sensed that this man would make her happy. She knew from the way he embraced her and consoled her, even though he was a stranger. A criminal investigator in the police force, how absurd. He’d surely have been able to see through her, tear off her mask and get her imprisoned, he could have ended her new life before it had even begun. But it had turned out so differently. Blum wanted the embrace that had begun so suddenly never to end, she wanted to become acquainted with those arms, those hands. She wanted him, for the first time ever she wanted a man, for the first time she thought such a thing possible. She was ready to let him come close to her without hesitation or fear. Very close. And he wasn’t deterred by her profession, he was not afraid of the dead.

She met him again. Back in the harbour in Trieste, back in Austria. They understood one another and came together without many words. He was her friend, her protector, he was there when she buried her parents, he was there when she converted the Funerary Institute, he helped in any way he could. And after a while they shared their first kiss. They were sitting in the cool room drinking beer, tired and happy. They had been retiling the preparation room, it was late summer, they were sweating and laughing as they sat on beer crates.

‘Blum?’

‘Yes?’

‘This is the sexiest fridge I’ve ever sat in.’

‘Do you often sit in fridges?’

‘Well, I’m a cop.’

‘So cops sit in fridges?’

‘Of course.’

‘You’re crazy.’

‘No crazier than you. I mean, it was your idea to have our first beer in here.’

‘This is our fourth beer.’

‘Stop counting, Blum.’

‘It really doesn’t bother you that this place is normally filled with dead bodies?’

‘No.’

‘I spent a lot of time in this room when I was a child.’

‘With the bodies or without them?’

‘With them.’

‘Doors open or closed?’

‘Closed.’

‘Why?’

‘It was my hiding place. They didn’t come looking for me, so I often spent hours in here. I just sat and watched the dead.’

‘Pretty cold, wasn’t it, with the door closed?’

‘Not in skiing underwear, a ski suit, gloves and a hat.’

‘Sounds a bit crazy, but I believe you.’

‘You should.’

‘You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re honest with me.’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Can I trust you?’

‘Why do you ask that?’

‘Because I have to kiss you.’

‘Do you?’

‘I can’t help it, I’ve been wanting to for the last two months. I really wanted to when I saw you on the boat. I’m sorry, I really need to.’

‘So you have to trust me to kiss me?’

‘If I kiss you, I’ll want to marry you. And then it’s surely a good thing to trust each other, don’t you think?’

‘But you don’t know me.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘When I was little I played with dead bodies.’

‘And I put cats in a sack and drowned them. I put fireworks in frogs and watched them explode.’

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘I did.’

‘Why?’

‘I was curious.’

‘Me too. That’s why I have to kiss you.’

‘Don’t I get any say in it?’

‘Certainly not.’

How lovely it was. How close their faces came, their lips. How their mouths met, soft, excited, trembling. Familiar and strange and lovely. Blum and Mark in the cool room. To this day their mouths have gone on touching.

It was a two-storey Jugendstil villa in the middle of Innsbruck, its garden filled with apples. When Hagen and Herta were underground Blum tore everything old out of the house: her parents’ bedroom, the old pine-panelled living room, the kitchen. Nothing was left except the old wooden floor; she kept that and sanded it down. The work took her hours. She scrubbed and painted, and Mark helped her. He offered to, and she thanked him.
If you don’t have anything better to do. How can anyone be so friendly and kind? Are you really sure you don’t have a girlfriend?
He said no, frowning, and Blum relished it all: the fact that he kept coming back, that he had decided to take care of her. That he thought she was beautiful, and took days off for her. That he even brought his colleagues to lend a hand. Half the province’s police officers helped them to tear down the walls and clear the rubble.

The Blums’ house was gutted and refurbished, the walls were painted in new, bright colours, and the old ghosts were banished. Together with Mark, she wandered all through the house at night, smoking them out. She and Mark went from room to room, and smoke rose; the scent of juniper, cinnamon and orange peel lingered in the air. Whether Mark believed in it or not, he went with her, helping the witch with her exorcism, making an effort to feel the evil within the walls. They went from cellar to attic, flooding every corner with positive thoughts, and all that had been there before disappeared. Blum threw all thoughts of Hagen and Herta, of her old life with them, out with the rubbish. What was left was a dream house, an oasis of peace in the middle of Innsbruck, a modern Funerary Institute in the shade of the apple trees, managed by a young woman who treated both the dead and the mourners with respect. The business began to flourish. Like Blum herself.

After the kiss in the cool room, Mark moved in with her. Love suddenly filled the old villa. It was all like a dream, a fairy tale come true, just like in the books that Blum had read, the stories in which she had taken refuge. It was the happiness of others that had kept her alive, and her own longing for it. Something she had never really believed in now lies beside her. She wants everything to stay as it is, nothing to change. She says so every day, every day she asks him not to stop loving her. A kiss before they begin each new day, and then, thankful for it, she moves away from him and jumps out of bed. In the old days Blum would never for a moment have thought that happiness could fill her like this. That she would be granted little human beings and would love them. Back then she didn’t like to think of what would happen next, she simply flung herself into Mark’s embrace. She hadn’t dared to think of children. She was afraid the happiness would go away if she asked too much of it, that love would disappear overnight. Having her own children, seeing them grow up, loving them – for three years Blum dismissed the idea from her mind. She couldn’t imagine being a mother, she was afraid of repeating what she had learned. Lovelessness, coldness of heart, she didn’t want to find out whether she was another Herta or Hagen. When Mark broached the idea, fear constricted her throat, kept her quiet. She didn’t dare to try for them, not for a long time, but in the end she overcame her fears. Her wish for children was too great. But she was granted her wish twice. They were miraculous little creatures. Blum worried over every tear they shed, every fit of crying, she took care of them and touched them whenever she could, she carried them around for hours, caressed them, spoke lovingly to them. She lay awake at night looking at her angels as they slept. To this day she sometimes doubts that it can be true, that they are really here.

Uma and Nela are upstairs with Karl, Mark’s father, who is sitting reading the morning paper when the girls storm into his kitchen. He is a kindly old man who makes cocoa for the children, laughs with them, helps them to play with their building blocks, who loves them and would do anything for them. Uma is in the crook of his arm, Nela is spooning up cocoa from a pink cup. Karl tells them stories over breakfast; he is a blessing to everyone in the house. Mark and Blum brought him to live with them two years ago. He had suffered an infection from a tick bite, and then took early retirement after a stroke. He now needs help in many situations – he would never ask for that help, but he is glad of it. There are things that he forgets these days, things he can no longer remember. Mark didn’t want to leave him on his own in his little apartment, and so Blum suggested converting the unused second storey of the house. Knowing how much he meant to Mark, she wanted Karl to live with them. For a long time he had done everything for his son. Mark’s mother died young, and Karl was the only parent Mark could remember. When he woke up, when he went to sleep, Karl and only Karl was there. Karl brought the boy up on his own: two men at the breakfast table, fatherly advice when he had a spare moment. They stuck together as much as they could. Mark spent a good deal of time on his own, a little boy under the covers, but a little boy who could always trust his father to come back. Who knew that nothing bad would happen to him, that the bond between them was stronger than anything else. Mark was a loner; as a teenager he knocked around like a stray dog, but he was happy, as happy as possible, because of all the trouble that Karl took. He told Blum about his life as a motherless adolescent, about those frequent father-and-son chats in the kitchen. Karl would sit at the table with his evening glass of beer while Mark washed the dishes.