Woman of the Dead (8 page)

Dunya takes the voucher from the salesgirl. Blum puts the rice noodles that she has taken off the shelf into her trolley and carries on up the aisle. She doesn’t see Dunya shaking her head and opening her mouth, she only hears her asking the salesgirl to check her figures again. The sum is fifty cents short, she says. The salesgirl is impatient, she doesn’t want to check her sums, she is sure she got them right. But the familiar voice goes on claiming those fifty cents. Blum turns around. There’s no need to kick up such a fuss for fifty cents, says the salesgirl. But Dunya insists. Politely, but loud and clear, she demands her fifty cents and makes the salesgirl alter the figure on the voucher. It is the voice that Blum has been trying to track down for the past three days.

Blum looks at Dunya. She has imagined her differently, wounded, more damaged. From all she has heard, this woman must be devastated, there ought to be nothing left of her, not an attractive feature on her face, not a spark of hope. But her expression betrays none of what has happened to her. Briefly, Blum wonders whether the voice is really hers, but only briefly. Then she is sure, she knows it beyond any shadow of doubt. She follows her through the supermarket, making purposefully for the cash desk, where Dunya gives the cashier her voucher, takes her money and leaves, with Blum in pursuit. Blum has abandoned her shopping trolley; she mustn’t lose Dunya, she must follow her, speak to her.

Dunya crosses the car park quickly and reaches the bank of the River Inn. She walks along the riverside promenade, with Blum on her heels. They couldn’t be in a better place, there is almost no one else around. Blum takes a moment to get her breath back and formulate a plan. It’s happening so fast. A few moments ago, Blum had been on the point of giving up, but now she has found her quarry. She will approach Dunya when they reach the pedestrian bridge. She has until then to suppress the images flooding her mind. Suddenly she feels envy. She feels it everywhere, her heart is crying out again, the pain is back. Everything hurts. Maybe Mark had fallen in love with her. She imagines Mark and Dunya walking side by side along this promenade, sitting on a bench together, talking. Dunya pouring out her heart to him, confiding everything, showing him her innermost being. In her mind’s eye, Blum sees her naked before him. Sees him embracing this beautiful foreign woman. With every step she takes, the scenario becomes more real. Blum doesn’t want to talk to the woman any more, Blum wants her to disappear. Go away. Walk on. Blum stops, and closes her eyes.

Why didn’t she just give the phone away? Why did she insist on listening to it all? Why does this woman have to be so beautiful? Why can’t she just talk to her and ignore the noise in her head? Why is she afraid Mark was unfaithful? Suppose he had touched Dunya? Kissed her, caressed her in her despair. Suppose Dunya had simply said yes; had accepted his understanding, his kindness, his instinctive urge to rescue. Like Blum had eight years before. Terrible things had happened to Dunya but there was more than pity in his voice. Much more. Blum is afraid of opening her eyes, afraid of following, afraid of finding out. She does it, all the same. She opens her eyes and she runs.
Dunya!

‘Please stop. Dunya, please. I only want to talk to you.’

‘Why? What do you want? How do you know my name?’

‘From Mark.’

‘Get lost.’

‘I’m his wife.’

‘You’d better get lost.’

‘Wait! Talk to me, just for a minute. Please.’

‘I’ve talked enough.’

‘I know.’

‘You don’t know anything.’

‘I know all about it. I’ve heard the recordings.’

‘That bastard.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Did the two of you enjoy it? Listening in on me? Did you sit back and eat popcorn? Was it a good show?’

‘No.’

‘He told me no one would ever hear what I said.’

‘He never played it to anyone.’

‘But you’re here, right?’

‘I was going to delete everything on his mobile. And then I stumbled on his conversations with you.’

‘I’d like you to go away and never come near me again.’

‘I’m Blum.’

‘And I’m Dunya, so now get lost.’

‘Mark took everything you said very seriously.’

‘I don’t want you knowing my story.’

‘It’s too late for that now.’

‘I want you to go away.’

‘He believed you. And he liked you.’

‘Well, that didn’t do me any good. First he squeezes the story out of me, then he leaves me high and dry. He’s no different from the others.’

‘No, he was different.’

‘Then why hasn’t he come back?’

‘He would have come back, you really can believe me.’

‘He told me he’d take care of everything. He said he’d help me. So why didn’t he? Go on, tell me. Why not?’

‘Because he’s dead.’

‘What? What did you say?’

‘He died four weeks ago.’

‘How?’

‘In an accident.’

‘Please, no.’

‘I think of it every minute of every day. But he’s dead and he won’t be coming back. We’re on our own. Do you understand?’

‘How did it happen? How did he die?’

‘He was run over.’

‘What happened to the driver?’

‘It was a hit and run. The driver hasn’t been traced. He disappeared.’

‘Oh no. Please no.’

‘Mark died instantly.’

‘You’d better keep away from me.’

‘Why?’

‘I really did think it would be all right. Believe me, I didn’t want that to happen.’

‘Didn’t want what to happen?’

‘Didn’t want him to die.’

‘It was an accident.’

‘That was no accident.’

They sit at the kitchen table. Blum has cooked, for Reza, Karl, the children and Dunya. She brought the woman home with her, led her back to the car park and got her into her car. Blum ignored Dunya’s protests and dismissed her objections; she wasn’t going to let the woman out of her sight. Blum wanted to know what Dunya meant when she said it was no accident. She shouted at Dunya, begging her to tell her what she knew. But Dunya merely shook her head, apologising over and over again. She tried to escape but Blum restrained her. Wordlessly, anxiously, they sat in the car as Blum drove to the villa. Dunya didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.
I’m so sorry
, she said.

Dunya seemed surprised to find that the villa and garden belonged to an undertakers’ business. Hesitantly, she shook hands with Reza and Karl, and did not move from Blum’s side. She was shaken, overwhelmed by so much hospitality, by the fact these people she didn’t know were smiling at her. As Karl opened the wine he didn’t hear Dunya asking in a whisper why Blum had done it, why she had brought her home, why she hadn’t simply looked away like all the others.

Blum was burning inside, but she tried to smile and said nothing. All she wanted was the truth. She wanted to know exactly what had happened to Mark, and she wanted to persuade Dunya to stay. In silence, she tipped spaghetti into boiling water. Dunya couldn’t hear any of what was going on inside Blum. Doubt, fury, hatred. Soundlessly, Blum was screaming for the truth.
If you’re lying, then stop. If you’re telling the truth then get out, leave us in peace, don’t put us in harm’s way. I wish you’d just say something, Dunya. Say something? I want to see what’s there. After that I’ll throw you back into the sea, I just want to know if what you say can be true. Or if you’re out of your mind. Because surely it can’t be true. No one would ever do such things to you. Dunya, tell me you were just using Mark because you were lonely, because you needed someone to listen to you and take you in his arms. Tell me that. Anything else is madness. No human being could endure it. Tell me it isn’t all true. Please
.

Blum was staring at Dunya with a forced smile. She wore that smile while the pasta cooked, minutes passing without words, only the meeting of glances and the chopping of onions. She wanted to weep, scream, fly off the handle; she wanted to switch everything off – Dunya, this day, life. Simply turn off a switch as she was dicing the tomatoes. But for the moment she needed to act as if everything were all right, as if none of it had happened. Smile, lift the corners of your mouth, and press your lips together. How she was burning, how her ideas were tumbling over one another. Because the mere idea of what the woman had been through was so inhuman.

And now they sit eating the pasta and it feels almost as though Dunya has always been there, at the large kitchen table. They don’t talk about Mark, although there is nothing Blum would have liked more, nor do they talk about the undertakers’ business. There is no talk of their dead. They just talk about the weather, the approaching autumn, about the garden that Karl and Reza will be preparing for winter. And about the children. Uma and Nela are curious, and want to know more about this stranger in their home. They have shown her everything, and willingly let her have their bedroom. Taking her hands in theirs, they have shown Dunya round the house; she is their mother’s new friend and an old acquaintance of their father. It doesn’t seem to bother them, or anyone else round the table, that she says so little. They eat and drink, an extended family at the dining table with spaghetti, salad and wine. Plenty of wine. After Blum has put the little rascals to bed, they open another bottle, and it is almost an enjoyable evening, the first time since Mark’s death that they have all come together. Wine washes the darkness away for a little while, and Karl even tells jokes. Then his eyes begin to close, and he falls asleep in his chair. Reza says goodnight and takes the old man upstairs.

Blum and Dunya are at the kitchen table, their glasses freshly filled. In another life this is where the day would be ending. But for these two it goes on, for hours if required. Blum has so many questions. Everything that Dunya said this afternoon fills the room. Now that they are alone again Blum is afraid of what Dunya was suggesting. That Mark’s death wasn’t an accident, but murder.

At the kitchen table, in the middle of the night, Dunya says so again. She believes that someone was lying in wait for Mark. Waiting for him to come out of the gates. One of those five men stepped on the accelerator and drove straight into Mark. Dunya knows it, senses it, does not believe in coincidences. It was murder, she says. Blum contemplates the possibility. There is so much that is hidden.

‘Please, Dunya. How can you be so sure?’

‘Because I got to know those men. They’d do anything to avoid being caught. They’d spend the rest of their lives in prison for what they did.’

‘You’re talking about murder.’

‘Yes.’

‘Mark never harmed anyone.’

‘He stirred up a hornets’ nest. The last time we met, he told me that he might have found one of the men. The photographer.’

‘What did he find?’

‘I don’t know. He just said I wasn’t to worry.’

‘Nonsense, that wasn’t on the phone. It can’t be true.’

‘He’d already switched off his phone, he didn’t want anyone to hear. No one, you understand. It was the last thing he said to me. Then he left. And didn’t come back. I hated him for that.’

‘But they wore masks, didn’t they? All the time? You said you never saw their faces all those years.’

‘No, only the masks.’

‘Then how could he have found the man? How, tell me?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘There are hundreds of photographers in the Tyrol. And no one says he has to come from the Tyrol anyway. No one knows where that cellar is. You could have been in Bavaria, or in Italy. You were found just by the Italian border.’

‘I’m so sorry. I can only tell you what I told him myself.’

‘Now you must tell me everything, one last time.’

‘I can’t go through it all again.’

‘Please. Do it for Mark.’

‘My story killed him. And it will kill you too.’

Blum steps on the gas again. She is wearing a helmet, she has bought herself leathers. She keeps reminding herself that she has children; that she doesn’t want to die. Hence the helmet, hence the leathers. But still she rides fast. Along the autobahn, over the bridge into the Ötz Valley. There are many bends in the road but it’s only twenty minutes before she reaches the village where she may find answers. Everything that Dunya has told her began there. In the staff hostel five years ago. Someone must know something, someone must have noticed that Dunya was missing.

Blum is riding twice as fast as she should. She races through Ötz, a little Tyrolean village. Ignoring the disapproving looks of people by the road, she swiftly leaves the village behind her, she must go on, she must get to Sölden quickly. Mark found something, Blum knows it. She now knows that Dunya is right and there can be no doubt about that, none at all. She speeds past roadside shrines as the road winds upwards. Everything that has happened lies ahead of her. Blum spent almost all night trying to soothe her fears, stroking her hair and listening to her story. Dunya told her things she hadn’t told Mark, terrible things that made her weep, that brought her to seek protection in Blum’s arms. An evil fairy tale in which Dunya plays the starring role. A horror film about five men, including this photographer.

Five men. The photographer, the priest, the huntsman, the cook and the clown. Dunya has described each of them. She tried to remember everything they did, she wanted to help Blum. She told her all about the pictures the photographer took. How enthusiastic he was, how passionately he spoke of his work. His photographs would make him famous, they were unique. Compositions on the subject of pain. How he talked to the others about his projects, his achievements, taking photos like a man possessed. Then Youn’s face while the priest smashed into him from behind. Youn’s screams, his gaping mouth, his desperation. And Ilena, her eyes vacant because nothing could hurt her any more. There was only a void, never mind how hard they struck, how often they thrust into her, how often the clown hit her, pummelling her belly. Only those dazed, empty eyes. The photographer enthused about that effect for minutes on end, saying how unique they were, these moments recorded in pictures. How authentic and true to life, how extraordinarily honest. He tied Dunya down to the table and raped her, taking photographs all the time. If she turned her head away he hit her.