Hey Mom, hey Pops,
When you read this letter, I’ll already be gone. The news of my death surely fills you with horror, and you’re asking yourselves a bunch of questions. Why did she do that? Was she unhappy? What did we do wrong?
Let me start off by saying that you’ll remain alone with those questions forever.
The healing practice that helped me find the right path offers its candidates sample texts for their suicide notes. The samples contain boilerplate like “You bear no guilt for any of this,” “My decision has nothing to do with either of you,” or “My share of the distribution is to go to you, dear Mama, so that you can finally buy yourself XYZ. And every time you use XYZ, you must think of me and how much I love you.”
As far as I’m concerned, none of the samples was appropriate. I’m donating my fee to the animal shelter.
Dear Mom, dear Pops, if you’re totally devastated right now, you should simply think it’s because of your feeling that you failed as parents, and not because you miss me. You’ve reduced the universe to the outline of your persons, and you’re empty inside. Don’t delude yourselves by thinking you’re capable of genuine feelings. Imagine that I’m studying abroad, and then that I get a job, a husband, and children. In London, say. Or Boston. I wouldn’t have gotten in touch with you anyway, so it really doesn’t make any difference.
Best of luck with everything else,
Julietta
Britta has read the letter ten times. Reading it an eleventh time is not a requirement of her work, certainly not in this situation, sitting uncomfortably at the wheel of her parked multivan with a briefcase full of weekly reports on her lap. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what she does: she reads the lines one more time. The words trigger a strange feeling in her, like a scab that must be scratched and scratched until the blood comes.
An amazing number of candidates fail at writing their suicide note. When it comes to addressing their loved ones in concrete words, their death wish slams into reality. The Bridge’s statistics show that a third of its candidates leave the program at this point and return to their lives, so Britta has moved the letter-writing requirement up to Step 3. Many aspirants spend weeks toiling over this task, trying out every one of the sample texts, tossing away one attempt after the other, until they realize that when the chips are down, they don’t really want to kill themselves at all.
Julietta didn’t toil. She put her words on paper in a flowing, coherent script that shows how much joy she took in what she was writing. Britta feels as though she’s come in contact with something great. Julietta’s words express hardness, cruelty, and hatred, and with them the capacity to accomplish amazing things. Britta feels a sudden urge to write her own parents a suicide note. She stares through the windshield at the desolate parking lot of the Leipzig prison, mentally testing possible formulations, considering what her opening might be: Dear Mama, dear Daddy, when you read this letter…She jumps, startled, when she recognizes that the sentences she wants to write are Julietta’s, word for word.
She straightens up with a jerk and puts the letter aside. The Bridge’s rules forbid identification with candidates. Mind games of this kind are unprofessional. And anyway, Britta shouldn’t be here at all, she should be at work, sitting in her office, not in a vehicle parked outside Leipzig prison. Against all reason, she’d insisted on accompanying Babak to Leipzig. They’d left Braunschweig shortly after dawn in order to be at their destination by eight o’clock. During the whole drive, she tried to tell Babak about Guido Hatz. But every time she was about to open her mouth, her head would empty out. He has a mustache was all she could think of.
Now she lets down her window and takes a deep breath; her problem is simply that she hasn’t been sleeping much. She sticks Julietta’s letter back in the briefcase and is just about to take out a few more documents when the outer door of the prison’s main building opens and Babak appears. It’s too soon. Counting the half-hour visit he was granted and the attendant formalities, he shouldn’t be leaving the prison before nine. Britta’s dashboard clock reads a quarter past eight.
Babak takes a few steps in the direction of the parking area, strays over to the empty bike racks, and stares at the curved metal tubes as though wondering what they’re good for. Then he slowly raises his head, looks around, and begins what looks like an unhurried return to reality. When he spies the VW bus, he takes off, moving quickly, almost running. Britta leans out the open window.
“What’s wrong?” she calls softly. “Did they spot you?”
“Markus is dead.”
They sit in silence on the way back, Britta behind the wheel, Babak in the passenger seat, both gazing straight ahead as the multivan’s blunt muzzle swallows up the road, meter by meter. They have an urgent need to talk, but it’s not happening. Britta is sure Babak’s mulling over the same thoughts she is. Two-point-five. That was the score Lassie gave Markus in relation to his suicidality: 2.5 points out of a possible 12. A score of 2.5 corresponds to a superficial death wish, like someone ogling the emergency exit; nothing more. And yet Markus is supposed to have hanged himself in his cell.
Britta can’t shake the feeling that she’s part of a puzzle that absolutely refuses to make sense. The attack in Leipzig, the Hilux in front of her house, Julietta, Richard’s very opportune investor with the stalker mustache. Markus Blattner’s death. She must get something to eat soon, her stomach’s aching; it’s as if somebody were in there, poking in all directions.
Would Markus still be alive if Babak hadn’t tried to visit him?
It’s only ten thirty when they pull into the Kurt Schumacher Apartment Blocks’ parking area. An absurdly early time of day, considering the distance they’ve traveled so far. Britta massages her wrists, stiff from clenching the steering wheel. Babak gets out of the car immediately and disappears down the Passage without waiting for her. When Britta reaches the office, she hears bumping and banging sounds coming from the lower floor. She slowly descends the spiral staircase and leans in the doorway of the server room. It pains her to watch Babak as he yanks cables out of the walls, disconnects everything, pulls components apart. Cutting The Bridge’s heart out of its body.
Britta doesn’t help him; she sits on the couch upstairs with a cup of coffee that she neglects to drink. Now and again, Babak hustles past her, carrying boxes or bins, cable spools, monitors, bags full of small parts. A shrill screech from downstairs fills the air, a howl repeated whenever Babak shoves the next load of paper into the shredder. Britta doesn’t have to look closely to know that the documents being destroyed are the results of the most recent large-scale searches.
A good hour later, Babak surfaces for the last time, panting, heaving up his Blade System enclosure, stair by stair. The shredder has fallen silent; the silence weighs heavy.
“See you later,” Babak says, smiles weakly, and disappears out the front door.
Britta reassures herself that Lassie is going to be put back together somewhere else. In a place that not even she knows about. She tells herself it’s only a relocation, a security measure. Nevertheless, it feels like something is coming to an end.