Strangers: A Novel(63)

I take it and lift my head up; a woman is standing in front of me.

“How are you feeling? Any pain? Are you injured?”

She’s pretty. And with her clean, white clothes, she’s in complete contrast to the interior of the train station, almost to the point of absurdity. An angel in hell.

“Yes. I’m fine. Do you know what happened in there?”

“No one knows for sure right now. Can I leave you on your own for a moment? There’s still too few of us.”

“Yes, thank you. I’ll manage.”

She nods at me and turns away.

I try to comprehend what happened. I keep thinking of that man. I see him before me, screaming from all the pain, hands clenched around the stump of his leg. I never would have thought a human being could scream like that.

Suddenly, Gabor appears in my head. And the reason why I’m here, the two Arab men. What happened to them? I was a few minutes late …

I was a few minutes late.

Had I been on time, I would have been standing right where the explosion took place. If I’d been on time, as Gabor kept telling me I had to be, again and again.

I start to feel nauseous. The reason for this sudden nausea is something I feel, rather than something I can put into words just now.

I’ve just escaped certain death by a hairbreadth, because I wasn’t in the place where, had it been up to Gabor, I was meant to be when the explosion happened.

I stand up, feel the blanket sliding off my shoulders. I don’t care. Something’s dulling my thoughts. Something that’s making them slower.

I obey a voice inside me telling me I should leave this place at once. And that I should leave the car Gabor got for me. It seems alien, this voice, but it’s crystal clear and commanding. I leave the parking lot behind me; there’s now a steady stream of new emergency vehicles and people arriving.

No one takes notice of me. Someone who can walk unaided doesn’t need attention right now.

The voice in my head is telling me about a defective boiler and an attempt to run me off the road.

And then it repeats the content of an email I saw on Gabor’s laptop by accident.

Munich central station, October 18th. 1:10 p.m. More details to follow.

Not a word about any chief negotiators arriving. Just a date and a time. Exactly the time at which the explosion happened.





29

It’s Munich. The train station.

I’m kneeling in front of the television as though it were an altar, staring at the images, unable to comprehend what’s happening.

The camera captures stumbling, dust-covered people, running emergency service workers, and a half-collapsed building. All of it in a flickering blue light. The journalist, standing in front of the station, is shouting to make himself heard over the blaring sirens in the background.

“We still don’t know the details, just that there were at least two explosions which rocked the central train station in Munich and partially destroyed it. There are a number of people injured, and from what we can make out there have also been casualties.”

The man steps out of the path of two ambulance workers running past with a stretcher. It’s evident that it takes all of his strength and professionalism to keep his eyes fixed on the camera.

Casualties. I’m struggling to breathe. Erik was on his way to Munich station, he was in such a hurry …

My phone is still on the floor. I reach down to pick it up, fumbling because my hands are shaking so much. Only on the second attempt do I manage to bring up the recent calls. I dial Erik’s number.

Please.

Please.

Please pick up.

It takes a while before I’m connected. Except that it doesn’t put me through to him.

The number you have dialed is not available.

It can’t be, it can’t. But maybe the network is just overloaded because everyone is trying to reach their family and friends. To let them know they’re all fine. And at the same time, everyone else is trying to contact their loved ones who they think are at the station. Just like I am.

Try again. Wait. Don’t let your thoughts get carried away, don’t let the images push their way into your mind.…

The number you have dialed is not available …

If it’s not the network, then it must be the phone itself. Lying in pieces under the rubble, along with its owner.

No. I can’t let myself think that. Because it’s not like that. It can’t be.

Another attempt. The same result.

As I dial Erik’s number again and again and again, the live report continues, the red news ticker announcing: Special report: Explosion at Munich central station +++ Number of victims not yet known +++ Terrorist attack not ruled out.

After the tenth or fifteenth attempt, I give up. I crawl even closer to the television, try to spot Erik among the people running and limping on the screen. Many are propping each other up, almost all of them are crying, but they’re all too far away to make out any faces. Somewhere in the background, heartbreaking screams. “Mama! I want my mama!”

Then the reporter again, his pale face staring into the camera.

“We’ve just received more information. It seems that the detonation took part right on the platform, directly next to the express 701009 train which had just arrived from Hamburg. According to eyewitness reports, the explosion must have been very powerful, destroying not just the train but also a large part of the station building.”