Strangers: A Novel(51)

It feels as though I’m leaping, out of a window or off a cliff. From the moment I can no longer feel the ground beneath my feet, it’s as though things just take on momentum of their own, going faster and faster.

I confess everything to Ela, from the moment when we went into the kitchen, to when Erik drove off.

After I finish, there’s nothing but silence on the other end of the line for a few seconds. “You attacked him with the knife,” Ela whispers, so quietly I can hardly hear her.

“Yes. Even though we were getting along so well. Even though I was really starting to like him … What’s happening, Ela? What’s wrong with me?”

She doesn’t answer for a while, and when she speaks again her voice is cool. “Let’s deal with your issues later. First I’m going to try to find out where Erik is, and I’ll get in touch again afterward. Please try not to cause any more chaos in the meantime, OK?”

I can hear as much contempt in her words as I feel for myself. I mumble good-bye, then curl up on the sofa and close my eyes.

And see nothing more. Hear nothing more. Feel nothing more. I manage to go into a merciful semiconscious state, and it’s only the ring of the telephone that pulls me out of it again. Ela.

“I found him. He had a car accident on the way to the hospital. He says the car’s totaled.”

“Oh my God.” And I let him drive alone, in the state he was in. Instead of calling an ambulance. “Is he badly injured?”

Coldness resonates from Ela’s voice again when she answers. “The stab wound you gave him is the worst injury he has, but of course he has some extra scrapes and bruises now. Nothing too bad, luckily. But he has to stay overnight.” She hesitates before continuing. “And he doesn’t want to see you. He forbade me from telling you where he is.”

I understand, very well in fact, but it still hurts. Even though that’s illogical.

The memories of this afternoon are suddenly all around me again. His lips, his hands. The way he looks at me.

“But he does want me to look after you,” Ela continues. She doesn’t sound too enthusiastic about it.

“You don’t have to, I—”

“I’m doing it for him,” she interrupts me. “Do you realize he’s covering for you? That he’s claiming the wound on his arm is from the accident?”

“No,” I whisper. “How could I know that?”

Ela sighs. “I’m coming to get you now. Erik is worried about you; he doesn’t want you to spend the night alone in the house. He’s an idiot, obviously, but he’s one of my best friends. Be warned, though, I might just hit you for almost killing him.”

“Do it,” I say. “As much as you want.”

She laughs, at least. “OK, Jo. Pack what you need for the night. And when we get back to my place, we’ll talk, OK? You need psychiatric treatment, you see that now, don’t you?”

“Yes. See you soon.”

I spend the evening on one of Ela’s armchairs, with my legs pulled up to my chest and my arms wrapped around them. As if holding on to myself that way was enough to stop me from doing something else uncontrolled. Ela gives me a list of experts that she’s printed out, along with a few case reports about people with systematic amnesia whose stories align with mine in some ways, but are completely different in others. None of them became violent.

I listen with one ear, but my thoughts are with Erik. He didn’t report me. I wonder if I’ll still get the opportunity to thank him for it.





24

They let me leave just before midday. Neither the X-ray nor ultrasound yielded any findings.

“You were lucky,” says the doctor, indicating the fresh bandage on my upper arm. “Something with a very sharp edge did that. If it had been your chest or your neck it went into when you crashed…”

I’m fully aware of what would have happened if Joanna had caught me in the chest or neck with that sharp knife. But he doesn’t know anything about that. Thank goodness.

Yeah, I was lucky, when you stop and think that it could have been worse. Things could always be worse.

Two men appear just as I’m about to leave the room. They identify themselves as police detectives and ask their questions. I say that I can’t tell them any more than I told their colleagues right after the crash. We agree that it was probably some drunk who forced me off the street.

They’re going to go look for witnesses, they tell me. Put a notice in the local section of our daily paper. Then they note down my personal details and bid me good-bye.

Outside the hospital, I get into a taxi and have the driver bring me home.

Home.

After paying and getting out of the car, I pause in our driveway and contemplate the white housefront. For the whole time we were here, I saw this house as being exactly what it was supposed to be: a temporary solution until Joanna and I either bought or built our own place together. Nonetheless, it was our home, and I was always happy to come back here, be it in the evenings after work or after business trips. Because I lived in this house together with her. Because she’d almost always been there waiting for me.

Now I’m standing here in front of it, and it feels unfamiliar. Not just this house, but also the fact that I’m standing here at all. Thoughts about what happened here only a few hours ago are blanketing everything that defined my existence over the past months. Everything about my life with Joanna now seems to be so far away.