My sister has been gone a long time. It was four years ago this Thursday. I am older now. It won’t be long before I’m an adult. I long for that every day. But I’m still not allowed to go out without telling my parents. Sometimes I climb up the hunter’s lookout in the woods with the elder of the two boys from next door. We lie in wait, and when a deer appears in the clearing we press our faces up to the slit in between the boards. We make use of those few seconds to lean our shoulders softly against each other or to let a finger sidle up to the other’s hand. I can feel the boy’s warmth. He smells of hay. When I’ve finished school, I want to go to Australia to be an au pair. I practise sometimes with the boy next door’s younger brother. He can’t remember my sister. He was too young at the time. I love him for that. I bury my nose in his fine, almost white hair. His hands are plump. I put chocolate coins in them. Then the phone rings. It rings inside me. The sound is shrill. It vibrates in my skull. I turn hot, then cold. The ground opens up.

The phone rings. My trainers are outside on the terrace getting drenched by the rain. I’m staring out of the window while I peel potatoes. I still need to practise for a vocab test, so I’m peeling them in a hurry. The telephone doesn’t stop ringing. The sound seems to be getting louder and louder. It echoes. The knife slips. Blood pours from my thumb. My mother beckons me to answer the phone. She doesn’t want to speak to anyone. I lie and say she isn’t in. I’m sucking the blood from my cut when the female police officer on the other end of the line says: We have found a person who fits the description of your sister. Other officials have said something similar a few times before. It was always a false alarm. But this time it’s different. My parents are speechless when I tell them.

The voice on the telephone says the person concerned is a girl aged approximately fifteen years old. Not very tall, thin, with shaggy dark, almost black, hair. She was found lying in between beach huts at a Danish seaside resort. The beach was deserted at the time, back in October; the huts there were locked up. Gulls circled above the foamy sea. A few cars were parked in the street by the beach. The owners didn’t get out, they just reclined their seats, and closed their eyes or stared at the sea through the windscreen. One of these parked-up drivers discovered the girl. She was wearing a black binbag over her clothes, probably to keep out the damp. She had built a camp behind the huts on a set of tyres. She didn’t say anything when the man spoke to her. She immediately tried to hit him with an iron bar. He managed to restrain her. Soon police officers and youth workers were on the spot. The young girl didn’t speak. She babbled. She attacked everyone.

The police took her to the hospital. The doctors there didn’t rush her, they observed her, worked by instinct. The girl cowered in the corner of the treatment room. She even relieved herself there. She hardly touched the food they brought. The doctors didn’t get any response from her for days. Eventually they took the girl to supported housing. A young female doctor would come and sit next to the girl. Every day she got a bit closer. At first the girl hid behind her chair and snarled. After five days she accepted the doctor’s presence. The girl didn’t do much during the hours the doctor sat there with her. She rocked back and forth or pulled strands of hair over her face and contemplated the ends. Sometimes she would bite her nails a bit or scratch the crook of her elbow. The doctor felt sorry for the girl. She put her in mind of a frightened animal. But the girl knows how to write, so they discovered after several weeks. A police officer called round various aid organisations and eventually ended up comparing the girl with Elly’s picture. Our telephone rang.

My parents say it’s impossible. This girl can’t be our daughter. There must be some mistake. They try to compose themselves. The prospect is too enticing. We can’t get our hopes up; it takes too much out of us. We can’t cope with another disappointment. It’s better to assume the worst. Our vocal chords rasp. We clear our throats. But the lump is too low down. We can’t shift it. We discuss which one of us should fly to Denmark. In the end both my parents go. They book separate flights in case there is a crash. I am supposed to carry on going to school like nothing has happened.

My mother has frozen meals for me. Every day I heat up the contents of one of the Tupperware tubs. The block of brown ice turns into goulash, the red one into tomato soup. I spoon the food from the tub and wipe it out with a slice of bread. I don’t tell anyone about the phone call. Then everything would come true. I don’t believe in miracles. I try to put one foot in front of the other. I get through the day bit by bit. By the evening I can no longer remember what I did in the morning. I watch TV until the sun comes up again. I can’t sleep. Something tingles under my tailbone, I can’t switch off. I run through the woods to tire myself out. I go as fast as I can. I gasp, my blood thunders in my ears. The treetops above me are spinning. I trip over a root. My chin splits open. I can smell moss. Pine needles stick to my face. My mother’s voice pounds in my head. She says: It’s true. We’ve got her back. It’s unbelievable. I ask Judith if she is really sure. My mother flies into a rage and tries to cut me off, but then she interrupts herself and says I’ll see soon enough. They will be coming back with Elly the day after tomorrow. I knock my trainers together.

The nose of the aeroplane icon is pointing down. I’m standing behind the stainless-steel barriers where I alternate between staring at the sliding door and staring at my watch again. Every few seconds the door glides to one side, releasing bunches of people with their suitcases on wheels and their baggage carts. Over the tannoy, passengers with foreign-sounding names are requested to make their way to their flight. Outside on the apron a mobile stairway docks onto an Airbus. Then the sliding door made of opaque glass glides to one side. I see my parents first. They are pushing a baggage cart. A girl is sitting on top of the cases. That must be my sister. I don’t recognise her. She has pulled the hood of her sweater up and is wearing sunglasses. I can’t even make out her figure. Her jacket and trousers swamp her. Then suddenly there are flashes. Photographers jump in front of the baggage cart, shouting loudly, gesticulating. One even reaches for her hood, but Elly clutches it tightly with both hands. My father takes my hand and pulls me away. We flee from the photographers. We run through the airport. The crowd parts before us. We’re on the motorway before we shake the press off. I ask my mother whether her former colleagues might have got wind of the arrival time from her? She had a spell as a reporter many years ago. She shakes her head. I can tell by her cheeks that she is clenching her teeth. I squint at Elly, who is sitting next to me on the back seat. She has taken her sunglasses off. I don’t know what I am supposed to say. So I say: I’m glad that you’re back again. Elly looks at me, but I don’t recognise her. She looks older than fifteen. Her skin is taut over her pointed chin. It is wrinkled around her eyes. Don’t be scared, my mother said on the phone. She has had terrible experiences. They have changed her. The Elly I know has been extinguished. I don’t like it. The new Elly next to me looks tired and tense at the same time. One hand is resting on the door handle. As if she wants to jump out of the moving car. I stare silently out of the window on the other side.

My parents and I observe Elly like an animal at the zoo. An invisible pane of glass separates her from us. Elly remains deadened, turned in on herself. She doesn’t tell us anything about her life in the past four years. Our parents know the story from the doctors. They suspect that Elly had been kept captive in a cell, without light, with very little food or water, deliberate abuse. Perhaps there was more than one captor, perhaps she was passed around or sold. In any case she is severely traumatised. The assessor prescribes complete rest and recuperation. No loud noises, no physical contact, no pressure. I feel guilty for seeing her tormented. It’s as if I’d betrayed my sister with my thoughts, as if I’d brought her to it. But I didn’t do anything. That’s what my parents reproach themselves for: for not doing anything. I was still a child when my sister disappeared. My memory is unreliable. My mother and my father are happy that we have Elly back again.

I keep looking at my newly returned sister. Her thin hair, the parchment colour of her skin, the way she splays her little finger when she holds her fork. She moves around the edges of the rooms. The middle is uncomfortable for her. I guess she is afraid of feeling exposed there. She cuts corners so fine that her sleeve sometimes gets caught on the door handle. I tell her that I don’t play tennis any more, or do athletics or trampolining. I don’t mention judo. It doesn’t feel appropriate. I don’t do any sport any more, apart from shopping. Without spending any money. That’s also very strenuous, I claim. Elly nods. She is trying to find an American radio station on the internet. She refuses my help. Finally the sound of a drawling presenter in bubblegum American, followed by a thumping pop song with a female singer whose voice keeps breaking. Elly listens to American college radio. I ask her how she knows the station. She shrugs her shoulders and says everyone knows it. I follow her gaze to the shelves on the wall. The two blue vases are standing there, presents from our grandparents. Elly points to them. Laurel and Hardy, she says, and laughs. One vase has a long neck, the other is spherical. I use the vases as hand puppets. Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who’s the fairest of them all? I nudge Elly with the neck of the vase. She purses her mouth. That’s so babyish, she says. But I don’t back down. I repeat the phrase. Eventually she sighs: Stop this nonsense. Before she would have tickled me into submission or declared that she was the fairest of them all, and we would have strutted around in front of the mirror for an imaginary casting. An electric sander screams into life in the garden next door. Our neighbour is bending over the window frames he has taken out. He is wearing a dust mask. The shavings fly up into the air. The draughts threaten to rip the papers from the pinboard. Elly asks me to shut the window. I briefly consider refusing, then stand up. The sander sounds quieter but isn’t completely silenced. Elly is shivering. I tell her it will definitely be warmer tomorrow. I persuade her to come for a walk. She trudges alongside me with her head bowed. Before she practically used to bounce. She has hardly grown in the past four years, but her hands are old. There’s not much more to see of her. The new Elly covers herself up. Even at home she never takes off her hoodie. When our mother creeps into her room at night to stuff the sweater in the washing machine, Elly wakes up immediately. Guiltily, our mother puts the hoodie back. After that Elly doesn’t even take it off at night any more.