‘Please come,’ he said. And immediately retracted it. Now, with death so close at hand, I no longer had any business there. The family would slip back into their roles; they would be mother, father and brothers again, ready for a proper farewell, proper mourning. Family only was the rule on these occasions. Only the people she belonged to. ‘So it’s all been a waste of time.’ He gulped. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly. ‘Thank you. You were there. Thank you.’

  After he’d hung up, I went into our room. I sat on my bed and looked out of the window. I couldn’t look at Sarah’s bed.

  On my final visit, I’d told him who I really was. He’d nodded. ‘Yes, I’d already guessed.’ And for him, that was that. In her room, this secret had no power at all. I realized he welcomed any visitor who came through the door. Anyone who would shorten his solitude with her by a few minutes.

  Days or weeks. That was all Marianne had left. And when it was over, her hair would keep growing for a while. Of its own accord.

  I readied myself for the news. I believed it would bring me a sense of relief.

  Briefly, I’d been able to share her brother’s hope: Marianne opening her eyes, and everything being exactly as it was before the intervention. Except her rage wouldn’t wake with her. Her rage would simply stay asleep.

  I quickly relinquished this image. All I could picture was visiting Marianne, Marianne in this persistent state, forever. I had no idea how she was. Maybe she wasn’t so bad. What did I know? After all, wasn’t it me feeling the warm weight of her life and wanting to be released from it?

  Five days later, he called again. I rushed to the phone, still in my nightdress. This time there was no anger in his voice. He was flustered. He didn’t sound like there’d been a death.

  ‘My sister would like to see you,’ he said.

  14

  There was still something untouched about her, a quality that had only set in since her body had found its new state. But there was also unease. Maybe it scared her to know that this body didn’t need any input from her to keep going. That it was built to function and wouldn’t let her go if it was capable of this.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘You took your time.’ Her voice wasn’t her own again yet. Her words sounded stilted, as if she was speaking an unfamiliar language. She put her hand to her larynx. The vibrations in there must have felt strange.

  I stayed standing by the table.

  She pointed to the chair beside her bed. ‘Sit down.’ Then she hesitated. ‘Please,’ she added, unsure whether in here she should be asking me to do things, rather than ordering me around.

  Up close to her again, I saw the cracks in her skin. Fine lines branching across her cheeks.

  ‘My brother told me you were here.’ She pointed to the table by the window, where the flowers stood. ‘Apart from you two, only plant life comes to visit.’

  ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘Remember what? You, here?’ What we did to you, I wanted to say. Instead, I nodded.

  ‘Maybe.’ Her fingers felt for her larynx again, resting there as she carried on speaking. ‘Sometimes images come into my head. Like in a dream you remember at some point during the day. A very long, very tedious dream.’

  I looked over at the cards on her bedside table. ‘Your brother played cards with you here. He told me about your games. Do you remember?’

  ‘He played cards with me?’ She snorted. ‘With himself more like – what an idiot.’ She grabbed the cards and dropped them on the floor beside me. ‘He left me on my own. For years. He pretended it was a law of nature. He was a brother and I was a sister, and these were… two different worlds.’

  She was breathing quickly. It took almost all her strength to talk. I wanted to calm her down. Place my hand on hers. I wanted to tell her about Wilm. That my brother had gone, too, off into a different world. I said nothing.

  ‘It’s still there,’ she said after a while, her right hand clutching the sheet. ‘It’s still in me.’

  ‘What is?’

  Only now did I notice the photo frame. It was standing on the bedside table. Her and her family. The glass was shattered.

  ‘Your rage?’

  ‘They said I was lucky. That people don’t usually come back from that kind of thing. That it probably won’t last long. They said that too. But they have a lot to say. They know everything. Apparently.’

  ‘If I can do anything…’

  She shook her head. She didn’t want to know about my guilt. ‘I hoped it would go away. That I’d wake up and… I wouldn’t feel the rage any more.’ She looked at me. ‘The doctor was here.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘He sat there, where you’re sitting. He said if things improve… if things stay the same… with me… we can try it again.’

  ‘No,’ I stammered. My voice could barely manage that one word. ‘No,’ I said again. My neck went cold. I tried to imagine the doctor here at her bedside. His words, which always made sense, which were his greatest skill, greater than anything his hands could accomplish.

  ‘Fine by me.’ She nodded. ‘I don’t want to go through it again either.’

  My eyes filled with tears. I wanted to open her hand and place myself in the hollow of her palm. I wanted to cry for her.

  ‘Get me out of here.’ There was something about her that wouldn’t let you turn away. Not when you were sitting so close. ‘Take me somewhere. I don’t care where.’ She pulled back the blanket from her hip. There were marks on her thighs from all that time spent lying down. ‘As long as it’s away from these rooms, where I’m… sick… and damaged.’ She let go of the sheet.

  I was trapped by her gaze. ‘I can’t,’ I said, forced to look her straight in the eye.

  15

  She was sleeping. I wanted to go over and wake her, but I just stood by the table. I leaned on it and watched her.

  I’d got up that morning before she was back. I’d gone to the toilet, had breakfast. A night shift lay ahead of me, so I had the day to myself. I’d run some errands. I’d sat outside a café. I was the only one out there in the cold eating a slice of cake.

  ‘Sarah?’

  She didn’t react. A few months before, I would have woken her by kissing her eyelids. I remembered exactly how her skin felt on my lips.

  ‘I want to ask you something.’

  She nodded drowsily.

  ‘Shall we take Marianne away?’ I moved over to the bed and propped my arms on her mattress. ‘We’ll make a plan, and then we’ll go.’

  She stared at me. For a moment, she didn’t seem to know whether she was dreaming or not.

  ‘Let’s go, Sarah.’

  She shook her head, confused. I took a deep breath so I could say everything in one go before she had the strength to answer back.

  ‘We’ll drive away from here, and we’ll never come back. All we need is a car. You can drive, can’t you? And a place to go. And a plan, of course. We’ll need a plan.’

  Now she was wide awake. She grabbed my hands. ‘Are you mad? What are you talking about? We can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not? Because we have duties?’ Agitation in my body. Excitement running through me, all the way to my fingertips. ‘Because it’s wrong? Because we’d be punished?’

  ‘Because it’s…’ Her voice died away. She gripped my hands with force, in a way she hadn’t touched me for months. ‘Because it’s…’ She shook her head again and fell silent.

  Without her, without her I could live in peace.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  I nodded. She pressed my hands to her mouth. I thought she was going to kiss them. But then she rested her head in my palms.

  16

  It was almost dark when we set off. We passed through the suburbs in silence. Sarah didn’t trust a single green light. ‘See if anything’s coming,’ she instructed me at every junction. Otherwise she said nothing. She navigated us through the increasingly rural roads. She’d memorized the map. She said that when it came to finding the way, she trusted no one but herself.

  We were early. We parked at a slight distance and waited. Sarah switched off the engine. She opened the glove compartment, took out her cigarettes and stuck one in her mouth.

  ‘Can I have one too?’

  ‘No.’ She wound down the window. She pulled a packet of mints out of her pocket and handed them to me. ‘Here. If you want to get addicted, try those.’

  We sat like that for a while. Sarah smoked a second cigarette, then a third. By the time the fourth was in her mouth, the desire had passed. She threw it out of the window.

  She’d bought the car three days before. We’d pooled all our savings. It had already done a lot of miles with its previous owners, too many in my opinion. But Sarah was sure it would get us to our destination. She said she knew a thing or two about tin cans. She could always tell if they would let her down.

  ‘Do you think she’ll come?’ It was already twenty minutes after the agreed time. I realized I was hoping. For a few seconds, I’d hoped we could drive home again and slip back into our old lives.

  ‘Let’s see.’ Sarah leaned back. She seemed very calm, but her heart was racing. I saw it thumping in her chest.

  She’d kissed me. After she’d bought the car, she’d come into our room, taken my face between her hands and kissed me. ‘We’re really doing it.’ She’d pulled me onto her bed. She’d rested her forehead on mine. ‘We’re really doing it.’ Then every movement had seemed automatic. Her neck. Her armpits. Her stomach. Her legs. The warmth between her thighs. Her eyes on me. Her gasping. The sounds the pillow could barely stifle. Her exhausted body, which almost dissolved in its embrace with mine.

  I didn’t want to go back.

  She took one hand off the steering wheel and tousled my hair. ‘It’ll be fine.’

  As long as we’re together, I added silently. I took a few deep breaths, closed my eyes, sucked in the cool air. Our car smelled of leather and smoke. Our car, I thought, and my fingertips tingled with warmth.

  ‘They’re coming.’ Sarah let go of my hair and turned on the ignition. Through the window I saw two figures approaching the car. Marianne’s brother was pushing her in a wheelchair. Her legs weren’t strong enough yet. It had only been a few weeks, not enough time to build up her muscles. Months lay ahead of her, ahead of us, before she’d be able to walk that far.

  ‘Good evening,’ said her brother, shaking Sarah’s hand. His formality was almost comic. Marianne gave us a nod, a thin smile playing on her lips.

  Her brother helped her onto the back seat. He embraced her. After shutting the door, he put his hand up to the window. She pressed against it from the other side. Then he knocked on the bonnet. ‘Take care,’ Marianne said softly. Her lips tightened.

  In the rear-view mirror, I saw him crumple. Not like others, who fell to their knees, threw themselves on the ground and sobbed. He was an Ellerbach, after all; his composure was greater than he was.

  We drove almost all the way back. The closer we got to town, the more I sensed the growing unease within me. Sarah had insisted this was the best route. No unnecessary detours that would add hours to the journey. I put my hands on my knees. I tried to imagine Sarah’s heart. Its beat.

  ‘We can turn around any time,’ I said to Marianne when we got to the station and took the road heading out of town again.

  ‘I know.’

  She’d told her brother he owed her. For all the years he’d left her on her own. She would forgive him. If he let her go.

  ‘I know.’

  Marianne soon fell asleep, so Sarah and I were alone as the lights petered out around us. ‘Would you like me to talk to you to keep you awake?’ I asked Sarah.

  ‘Every now and then, I’d like you to say: keep going.’

  ‘Keep going?’

  ‘Yes. That’s enough.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘Good.’

  We only stopped once. Sarah made the most of the few minutes I took to relieve myself by the roadside. In the brightly lit car I saw her prop her elbows on the steering wheel, fold her hands, then close her eyes. She mouthed her prayer soundlessly.

  We woke Marianne. She opened her eyes and looked at us with a calmness I hadn’t seen before.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked. I put my palm on her forehead. ‘Do you know where we are?’

  ‘Yes. And yes. Can I go back to sleep now?’

  She let us undo her belt, place her feet on the back seat and put a cushion under her head. She briefly squeezed my hand as I covered her up again.

  We passed a few villages, and then there was nothing else. The headlights were all we had to show us the way. I slowly relaxed. There was the steady motion of the car, the unevenness of the road, us.

  ‘Keep going.’

  We hadn’t been able to take everything. We’d argued over the plant. I said we should leave it for the next occupants, to help them make their room a home. Sarah was of a different opinion. She even threatened not to drive if the plant stayed in the nurses’ hall.

  ‘Keep going.’

  I looked at the fogged-up windows and drew patterns in the condensation with my finger. I waited for the rain. Sooner or later it would come, raindrops covering the car, propelled into rivulets by the speed.

  ‘Wait here.’

  I must have fallen asleep. I woke when the car stopped. It was still dark outside. Everything was unfamiliar.

  Sarah got out. She went over to a brightly lit window, bent down, picked up some gravel and threw it at the pane. A cry of protest came from inside, and the window was flung open.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ roared the woman, looking out at her daughter. ‘What are you doing here in the middle of the night? I thought you were coming tomorrow!’ She disappeared from the window, and we could hear her grumbling as she came down the hallway. ‘Have you brought a whole caravan with you? Didn’t you say… How many people did you say were coming? What do you think I am? A hotel?’

  The door opened. The hall light illuminated the two of them as they embraced. I saw how tightly they held each other. How her mother placed her hand on Sarah’s head, almost lifting her off the ground.

  ‘What are you doing to your old mum?’ she scolded. ‘Are you trying to kill me?’

  ‘Wake up,’ I said. ‘We’re here.’

  17

  I’d imagined it would be a museum of past lives. A house full of things left behind.

  I stopped in the hallway on my way back from the bathroom. I could hear Sarah’s mother in the kitchen through the open door. ‘I don’t usually smoke,’ she said, followed by the sound of a match being struck.

  Above a little telephone table hung the photos Sarah had told me about. I tried to make out the faces in the dim light. Everything here was precious. Everything here was connected with her.

  I could hear her rinsing our plates. I could hear the clattering. She was taking her time. I pictured the movement of her hands. Only Marianne had managed to eat more than a slice of bread since our arrival. She’d been almost talkative.

  It was too dark to properly make out the photos. I turned away, running my fingers over the telephone. Sarah’s voice must have come out of it so often. She always called her mother in the afternoon, said hello and waited while her mother got a glass of water, or sometimes waited longer, not knowing whether she was looking for something or sitting there in silence, staring out of the window at some detail that had caught her eye in the vast landscape.

  I took a few steps and peered through the half-open doors. Barely anything anywhere, only contours. Beds, tables, lamps. I hadn’t reckoned on such emptiness.

  ‘I’m off to bed,’ Sarah’s mother said. ‘My daughter can show you where everything is. The folding bed is in the laundry room – can you put it up in your room, Sarah?’

  Marianne cleared her throat. ‘Are we all sleeping in the same room?’

  I couldn’t help smiling. I leaned against one of the door frames and stared into the emptiness within, wishing I could sink into it.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ The sound of another match. ‘Do I look like I have enough wood to keep the whole house warm?’

  I couldn’t yet feel the solid ground under my feet. If I closed my eyes, everything sped past me again.

  The voices fell quiet, then I heard Sarah’s mother again: ‘You can sleep in my room with me, if you prefer?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Marianne quickly. ‘Yes, please.’

  Sarah’s mother hadn’t expected that. She stayed silent.

  Sarah burst out laughing. She choked on her laughter, coughed, struggled for air. Someone thumped her hard on the back.

  Quietly, I laughed with her.

  I remember our first morning together in this house.

  It was still dark. She was lying with her back to me, but I could tell she was awake. She was breathing quickly. She’d realized the consequences of what we’d done.

  I remember her turning over and looking at me without saying anything.

  ‘Yes?’ I extended my hand towards hers. Our old life, the one we knew our way around, the one we knew how to lead, was still very close. Our room in the nurses’ hall was waiting for us. The rotas. The things we’d had no more room for.

  She hesitated.

  I remembered the blackness outside the window. The silence. Even the house respected it.

  I didn’t know how things worked here. I didn’t know anything about this new life.

  ‘Yes.’ She reached for my hand. Whispering, so as not to disturb the silence, she repeated the word that would get us through the years, up to this point here and now: ‘Yes.’

  the author would like to thank:

 

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