The Rabbit Girls(86)

‘Yes, thanks, Lionel.’ She takes a deep breath, the eyes of the officer are hard. ‘Will I be back tonight?’

‘I should think so.’

‘Do you want me to tell anyone where you are?’ Lionel asks.

‘Only if she comes by.’ Miriam doesn’t want to mention Eva, it doesn’t feel right that she should get into trouble when she was the one to save her life. She hopes Lionel understands.

Miriam is directed to a police car outside with an officer behind the wheel. She has her handbag on her knees and her coat neatly folded over the top. The car is clean and the seats deep. The journey is short, but Miriam feels unsettled and more nervous than she thought possible.

In the station, she sits on a plastic chair. Pictures are taken of her neck, and of her hands, the bruises and cuts, scabs and broken fingernails shine up against the white, so that once the pictures are taken Miriam wants nothing more than to cover them up and hide them away.

She is shown into an interview room and invited to sit on another cold and hard plastic chair, this one grey. The desk in front of her is pockmarked: black cigarette burns, scratches, blotches. The officer’s skin resembles the table, and seems to have been around as long as it has. He sits opposite her with a sigh.

Nothing is said for a long time, then the door opens and another officer joins them, a pressed white blouse and blue pleated skirt with sharp, small heels. Miriam recognises her at once. Officer Müller; the officer who saw her at the hospital. She smiles at her in relief when she sits down and places a file on the table.

The officer with the pockmarked skin speaks into a recording device and places it on the table.

‘Frau Voight, please can you tell me where you were on the night of December thirty-first between six and nine p.m.?’

‘At home.’

‘Alone?’

‘No, Axel, my husband, he arrived. I don’t know what time, around eight, I think. He barged through the door.’

‘Barged?’

‘Yes, I opened the door thinking it was someone else, but he pushed his way through it, he broke the chain. He locked me in with him.’

‘In your father’s home?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘What happened then?’

She can’t find the words to pave the way forward. Her mind circles.

‘Did you talk, argue, eat?’ Officer Müller offers her a lifeline and her voice is soft and gentle as Miriam tries to find words to accurately recall the evening’s events.

Miriam speaks directly to her, and although she remains aloof, Miriam hopes she understands.

‘He brought the divorce papers – I filed for divorce after what happened in the hospital.’

Offer Müller nods and Miriam takes this as consent to continue and an acknowledgement that she remembers her.

‘He said he’d sign the papers if I consented to attending a psychiatric evaluation. He wants me to be sectioned. I asked him to leave.’

‘You asked him to leave?’

‘Yes, after all that happened in the hospital I realised that to be taken seriously I needed to tell Axel, no.’

‘So, you told him you didn’t want him in the house, because an officer recommended you did that if he should be difficult?’

‘Yes, well, the officer didn’t say I had to, but he suggested that I wasn’t being hurt because I didn’t call out. I’ve never said “no” to Axel because right from the start it didn’t really matter what I thought or wanted anyway.’

Miriam waits for what she is sure will be the past rising, shrouding her, suffocating her. She takes a deep breath, waiting to be plunged back.

Nothing happens.

She continues to speak to Officer Müller, who sits almost completely still. She is young with blonde hair tucked up into a bun and clear skin, her hands are folded in her lap.

Miriam, aware that she is talking a lot and not coherently, continues. The rasping of her voice not only hurts, but each sentence lowers it further. And still she is present. Sitting on a plastic chair, the smell of cleaning agents, stale coffee and smoke. Nothing else.

She feels a little intoxicated by the fact that she said ‘no’. She did say ‘no’ to Axel, and not only that, she also told the police she said ‘no’ and they recorded that she said ‘no’ on their device. So that people will hear that Miriam did say ‘no’ and she meant it. This tiny thing, a speck of sunlight, makes Miriam sit up taller.

‘Did he leave?’

‘He refused. He said I could leave, but where would I go? So again, I told him to go. I tried to stand my ground. This is my father’s and my house after all.’

The older officer in low tones says, ‘So you chose to stay?’

‘It wasn’t a choice. Where would I have gone? Who would I have gone to? My mother died. My father is dying. I have no one. I have no one,’ she repeats.

Officer Müller passes her a small box of tissues. She tries to compose herself, but she howls instead, her entire chest feels like it is collapsing and her throat feels swollen and worn away to nothing.

An arm appears on her shoulders and Officer Müller bends so she is in Miriam’s eyeline; she smells fresh, like linen.

‘I’m sorry you have had to go through all of this, Miriam. We only have a few more questions for you. Let me get you a drink. Tea? Coffee? Water?’