Food's on the table, like yesterday. No rolls this time, just four slices of dark rye bread. Not even fresh. Some kind of sausage, a bit of cheese. The milk smells fresh, a whole litre of it. I suppose these are my rations for the day. Not enough for a whole day! But who's interested? I push the plate back and forth with my fingertips. I don't have any appetite. Maybe later.
The fat fly is crawling over the table. Goes a little way, stops, goes on, stops again, cleans itself, moves on. Its proboscis gropes over the top of the table until it finds a breadcrumb. Starts in on the breadcrumb. I put my face as close to the fly as I can. The thickened end of its proboscis looks like a pair of lips. It gets the lips above the crumb. Do
flies have lips? It keeps taking its proboscis away and then reaching it out again. It doesn't seem in the least bothered by me watching it, putting my face so close. It's shut up in this room just like me, it's my fellow prisoner. Hi, fellow prisoner! How can we get out of here? You could fly through the window pane if I broke it, but I couldn't. My fellow prisoner has six legs, a hairy black body and huge eyes. As far as I can remember from biology lessons, they're compound eyes, with facets. It sees everything a thousand times over with them, or maybe not quite that many. I was never too good at biology. It's a restless little thing. It leaves its breadcrumb and flies across the room. Settles on the ceiling, runs a little way along it. Takes off, comes down on the table again. Starts cleaning itself. One of the fly's front legs keeps passing over its eyes. It's a jerky sort of movement. Can flies move their eyes, maybe in different directions, like a chameleon? Now it's unfolding one of its wings. As it does that it puts out one leg, so now it's standing on only five legs, and then it puts out another. The little thing moves really well. After that it takes off again. Comes down on my arm. With a tiny, barely perceptible movement I shake it off. It's not going to be shaken off, comes back to settle on my arm again. Persistent, aren't you? I keep still, feel the touch of its little legs on my skin, a very light touch. It feels my skin with
its proboscis, licking up the saltiness. That tickles. You're getting on my nerves, little fellow prisoner. I shoo it away, flapping my arms and hands back and forth. It's not bothered, it keeps coming back, even settles on my face. Oh no, you don't, my friend! It takes off again, flying on its rounds. I pick up the towel and swipe at the empty air several times. Like an idiot, I follow the fly through the room, swinging the towel wildly. I knock over the carton; milk runs out and spills over the table. By the time I can set it upright half the contents are lost. A large white puddle on the table, slowly widening towards the edge. Finally it runs over the edge of the table, a thin stream of milk running down to the floor. âYou just wait, you brute!' The fly crawls through the puddle of milk on the table. It's really running just above the surface. I hit out at it, try to kill it with my towel. It cleverly avoids all my blows. Flies up in the air. I lash out wildly, without keeping my eye on the fly, I just brandish the towel. It snaps through the air. One of my blows hits home. Suddenly the fly is lying on the table in front of me. Beside the pool of milk. Just lying there. Right in front of me. I look at my victim with interest. At first it lies there apparently dead, on its back, legs at an angle. I blow at it. The little legs begin waving in the air. My puff has brought the breath of life back into it. It waves its legs some more, hesitantly turns over, gets on its legs
again, begins crawling. It looks funny, left wing unfolded and sticking diagonally into the air. It can't fold the wing again. The other wing is dragging on the table. Damaged like that, it runs in a circle. Lost your sense of direction? Too bad, little fly, it's all over now, you can't bother me any more. Not you, you little horror. It tries to fly, gets into the milk again. It leaves a white, winding trail. I watch it for a long time until it begins to bore me, and I get tired of it. There you go then, sweetie. I flick the fly away with my forefinger.
I'm thirsty, I drink from the carton. I put my head back and let the milk run straight into my open mouth, swallow greedily. A thin trickle of liquid runs out of the corner of my mouth and then slowly down my throat. I put the empty carton down and wipe my mouth and my throat with the back of my hand. What little was left wasn't enough to quench my thirst. I look at the liquid on the table. A huge lake of milk made by that silly fly. Well, the fly paid for it. But I'm paying for it too! I'm thirsty, terribly thirsty. I turn my head to left and right, I know I'm alone in the room, but I still look around. I'd feel embarrassed to be watched and not know it. Maybe that guy has set up cameras all over the place? I'm the lab guinea pig in a new, perverted TV series. What does someone do when she's been abducted and shut up alone in a room? That's the idea. All secretly observed by
a camera. A crazy TV show, with families sitting in front of the box at home wearing tracksuits, munching crisps and betting on what I'll do next. I bend over the table. If I purse up my lips I can get at the milk. A strand of hair comes loose, falls into it. I fish it out, push my hair back, hold it in place. Holding it with both hands, I begin sucking up the liquid with my pursed lips. There, that's quite something for you lot out there gawping at the box to watch! I slurp noisily, I stop for breath, and listen in case a noise somewhere gives away a camera running or a secret watcher after all. No, there's no one here. Well, dear audience, you really missed something! I suck up all the milk from the table. Done it! My lips feel furry with the sucking vibrations, as if I'd been playing the trumpet or blowing up balloons for hours.
What was that sound? A rumbling noise down below. Close to the stairs?
I gaze at the trapdoor. No creaking on the staircase, there's no one coming up. The door stays closed. Footsteps again, loud, clacking sounds, the footsteps move away and come back again.
Very cautiously, so as not to make any noise, I crawl on all fours over to the trapdoor. Lean my face slowly down to the crack until my eyebrows touch the wood.
There's someone there! All I can see is someone holding
a rabbit by its back legs, just the rabbit and the arm holding it. The rest is outside my field of vision. The rabbit is probably dead. No, suddenly it struggles and a short, violent twitch goes through its body several times. Then it hangs limp again. I was terribly frightened, but thank God I put my hand in front of my mouth just in time to keep from screaming. I don't want the man down there to notice me watching him.
Come on, you, take a step to the left, why don't you? I hear metal objects clinking and clattering. He seems to be looking for something in the cupboard by the front door.
He steps forward, and his body comes into view. Bright daylight falls on him from outside, emphasizing his striking features. On each side of his head there's a bald strip beginning at the temple and going down to his ear. A narrow strip, completely hairless, as if it has been shaved. Who on earth shaves his head in a pattern of stripes?
He turns, goes out of doors, there's nothing more to be heard. Silence. I look through the crack again, waiting. Nothing at all happens for a long time. After a while my knees hurt. I drag myself over to the bed and go on staring up at the ceiling. Why am I here? Why me? Why not the boss? He has the key to the safe, and anyway who'd care about old wobbly-jowls? But maybe this guy isn't after the
money after all? He must have been watching me, to get into my apartment while I was out. Why did he take that picture? He can only have stolen it from my place. Who
is
this guy? Maybe he's been to our firm before. But there are lots of people going in and out of the place every day. Just his kind, with close-cropped or shaven hair and army surplus clothes. Most of them want to do some kind of shady business with the boss, something involving stolen cars. The staff don't officially know anything about that, but I'm not stupid. I keep my eyes open.
That weird haircut, two bald stripes down the sides of his head. I'd noticed them before. What kind of idiot shaves stripes like that into his hair? Could be they're birthmarks, or the result of an injury. Only a village idiot like Hans would go about looking like that...
My God â they're scars! An accident! No, no, this can't be true, this mustn't be true, I don't believe it!
The injuries left on Hans's head by the hay grab! Two bleeding wounds made by its gripping arms! Hans the village idiot who fancied little boys.
Hans, the last person to see Joachim alive. Presumed to have murdered him, not that anyone saw it. All I told the police was that Hans was the last person with him, nothing else. No, no, I never called him the murderer, at least not to
the police. Of course everyone was sure he was guilty, who else would it have been? Me, his own sister? They took Hans straight away, everyone knew how aggressive he could be. He was the only possible suspect capable of such a cruel murder.
What became of him? They said he was crazy. Life in a mental hospital. He was a danger to the community. That's all I know. It was obvious, why talk about it? Dead is dead, and no one really liked Joachim. Even our stepmother was soon happy again, he'd just been a nuisance all round.
Can Hans have been released? A life sentence doesn't mean life any more. So he found me, well, that wasn't difficult. I haven't moved far, only to the next town. And then I cross his path in the local hire-car and used-car dealership. No, finding me wasn't difficult. He only had to keep his ears open in the village, most of my friends and relations still live there.
But why is he after me? Because of my evidence, obviously: I said Hans was the last person with him. And now I'm in trouble. He wants revenge. He's crazy.
I walk up and down the room. I don't want to have to think about what happened back then. I keep pressing my fists to my forehead. I was still a little kid, you don't think so much of what you're saying, what you're doing. There's a lot of things you do, and later you wish you hadn't. I'm sorry if he wasn't with Joachim that particular day after all. Hans
was the one who'd be thought responsible. I only said out loud what everyone was thinking. Everyone in the village! Everyone!
Oh, bloody shit! How am I going to get out of this?
Years and years in the loony-bin, and who was responsible? Little Monika! She gave evidence to the court! At the time he kept on and on telling the court he was innocent, he hadn't done anything. He sat there and said it over and over again. They couldn't get anything else out of him. Just: âIt wasn't me'. No one believed him. And there was my evidence. The dead boy's sister wouldn't be telling lies.
If he was innocent, that would eat into him corrosively year after year. Deeper and deeper, and then he'd get around to hating the person who put an innocent boy behind bars. That's only logical. His hatred grows and grows, he discharges it the first time he sees that person again. All of a sudden, like that! He's making me writhe on the hook. Who knows what else he's planning to do to me? More than likely the beating I took was only the start.
I have to get out of here.
Maybe I can break the lock on the trapdoor? With the broken knife.
Where I felt metal resisting it last time, the knife meets a void. I can't believe it. The trapdoor isn't locked. Am I
lucky! Now I mustn't make any mistakes. Go very carefully, make no noise. I pull at the door and it opens a crack. Pulling it up is easier than pushing it from below.
I wait for a moment. The stairs are empty, no one in sight on the ground floor. I keep perfectly still, hold my breath, listen. Nothing to be heard apart from a cricket chirping. A cool draught. That's all.
I pull the trapdoor further up with all my might, open it fully, lean it slowly and carefully against the wall without a sound. First my left foot on the first step, toes first, then slowly let the rest of the foot down until I'm standing on the entire sole. Step by step. A mouldy smell rises to my nostrils. After a few steps I bend down and peer at the large room beneath me under the open door. The door beyond the low brick partition is wide open. Hanging on the open door is a small body with its arms stretched. Like a baby's. The outline stands out clearly, the body itself is in shadow. I've opened my eyes wide, I stare at the body, go down the last few steps without taking my eyes off it. I start making my way towards the low brick wall and then along it, hardly daring to breathe. I'm taking smaller steps now. As I come closer, the body takes shape more clearly. No skin, just pale red, muscular flesh. Head and feet cut off. I notice how my throat is constricting more and more, I feel sick, just a step to the wall,
propping myself on it with my hands, I vomit in a great gush against the wall. I let myself drop to the ground. A metre away from me there's a shallow tin pan. In it lie the rabbit's bloodstained skin and severed head.
It's all so disgusting. I have to get out of here, quick.
I scramble up, take another look at the skinned rabbit, turn and go over to the door opposite. I don't look left or right, just straight ahead. Over the threshold. The sun dazzles me for a moment, just disappearing behind the treetops. I cross the old wooden door. First cautiously, slowly, taking care to make no sound, then I move faster. Past the pond, through the undergrowth. I'm running. I ignore the thorny shoots catching in my blouse, tearing it. The path â left or right? Right or left? Which way did I get out of the car, was it to the right or the left of it? Damn it, my stupid sense of direction! Go on, think!
I can't concentrate, I don't know. Hell! Well, any direction, then. Right or left â heads or tails. Left! I run for a little way, but then my breath gives out. I get a stitch in my side, go down on my knees, gasping, I'm out of strength. All the same, I struggle on and on. It gets darker and darker. When I look at my shoes I see that I'm having difficulty lifting my feet from the ground. The path grows narrower, just a cart-track with two deep ruts. Grass in the middle. I switch to one of the
ruts. It's full of broken tiles and stones, my steps sound louder and clearer than on firm ground. There are hardly any clouds in the sky, pale moonlight, black bushes beside the path.