We leave the building, walking next to each other in silence. There’s a lot I want to tell Joanna, and even more that I want to ask her. Like what exactly she told Dr. Schattauer, for instance, and how the doctor reacted. But I don’t dare say anything just now. The fact that Joanna is prepared to come home with me seems like a new, frail bond between us, one so delicate that a single ill-judged word might tear it apart. I’m not going to risk that. We’ve almost reached the car. I click the car remote, open the passenger door and stand next to it. Joanna’s gaze wanders from the door to my face, then her eyes fixate on mine. “Still scared I’m going to run away?”
I shrug and, for some strange reason, start to feel guilty for not denying it.
Joanna folds her arms in front of her chest. “I came along to see this doctor because I want to know if there’s something wrong with me. I’m coming back home voluntarily. But let’s make one thing perfectly clear—you’re not locking me up again. Promise me, otherwise I’m not getting in that car.”
“I promise,” I say, not missing a beat. Not because I’m convinced Joanna won’t try to run away again, but because I know I can’t watch over her all the time. Neither do I want to. If she still wants to run to the police after seeing the doctor, I won’t be able to stop her. All I can do is hope that she won’t.
“Are you getting in?” I ask carefully.
“Only once you’re on the other side.”
I understand. She wants to test if I’ll really leave her be. If I trust her.
Is she waiting until I’m in the car to run off? No. She actually gets in the car. Relieved, I sit down behind the steering wheel. She buckles her seat belt and nods her chin forward. “Let’s go.”
Her voice sounds so impersonal that, in this moment, she really does seem like a stranger to me. It hurts.
I start to drive, eyes on the road, but my thoughts are on us. On Joanna and me. Will there ever be an us again? Will it be possible to reverse whatever happened to her yesterday? What if everything we had between us is irretrievably lost?
“Will you tell me what you talked to the doctor about?”
“I told her everything that’s happened since yesterday evening. From my point of view.”
“And? What did she say?”
“That there are various possibilities.”
“Like what?”
She seems to think for a moment. “I can’t say just yet. Maybe later. Once I know more about you.” Once she knows more about me? We haven’t been together for a full year yet, but there’s barely anyone who knows as much about me as Joanna does.
I feel another, new feeling pushing away the emptiness inside me. It’s faint at first, but when I glance over and see the delicate, familiar contours of Joanna’s face, which all of a sudden I can no longer caress, no longer kiss, the feeling surges through my entire being like a wave of heat.
Defiance. Rebellion. Anger. At this twist of fate, which is screwing up our lives.
There’s no way in hell I’m going to just roll over and accept this, no matter what else may come. I love this woman, and she loves me. Even if, right now, she has no recollection of it.
I’m going to tell her everything. Describe every single day we’ve spent together. Every hour if need be. I’m going to …
“What are you thinking about?” Joanna asks me all of a sudden. She does that often. Usually I have a hard time answering the question. Now, though, it’s easy. I quickly glance over at her again, our eyes meet.
“I was thinking that I’d like to tell you about us. Everything, from the very first day. Maybe that will help you remember again.”
“Everything, really?” she asks, a strange undertone in her voice.
“Yes, everything I can remember myself.”
“All right. I’m eager to hear.”
I’d give the world to know what’s going on in her head right now. Maybe it’s the same for her, too.
I eventually turn into the driveway to our house and park the car. We get out, walk to the front door. It’s almost the same as it always was when we came back home together. If only it weren’t for this pervasive, nagging sense of fear inside me, a feeling that even my defiance can’t suppress.
My eyes wander to the place where the cockatoo used to be. I resist the temptation to go see if any traces of it can still be seen in the soil.
We enter the house. I take care to do everything in the exact same way I always do. Keys onto the shelf, in the same place as always. Shoes next to the dresser, in the place where my black sneakers had been until yesterday morning. Rituals. They might just help.
Joanna goes into the kitchen. That’s almost always the first thing she does when she comes home. I’m waiting for the buzzing sound of the coffee machine being switched on, and, sure enough, hear it only a few seconds later.
I walk over to her, sit down at the small breakfast bar where we always eat together in the mornings. I look at her, feeling like I’m watching a film I no longer play a role in. This silence as we’re in the kitchen together … it’s so alien. Joanna usually can’t go a single minute without telling or asking me something.
“We met at a flea market.” Did I really just say that so loudly? Joanna takes her mug and sits diagonally across from me. Not too close.
“Uh-huh,” she mutters, taking a cautious sip of the steaming coffee.
She sounds so uninterested I have to force myself to keep talking. “Yes. I bought a little box right from under your nose. You were pretty angry with me.”
“That, at least, I can imagine quite well.”
“I gave it to you afterward as a gift. You didn’t want to take it at first. Until I told you I’d bought it for you.”
Another sip from the cup, which Joanna is now clutching with both hands as if she was trying to warm them on it. “When was that?”
“Nine months ago.”
“And how long have we allegedly been living together?”
Allegedly … “For six months. You had a one-room apartment, and my place was too small for the two of us. We went looking for somewhere new and finally found this house.” Even as I’m uttering the last sentence, something occurs to me. “The lease! Joanna. We both signed the lease. It’s in the green file, in the cabinet in the living room with all the other documents.”
Without even waiting for her to react, I slide off my stool and practically run into the living room. My heartbeat quickens. If Joanna sees both of our signatures on the tenancy agreement …
Except—what if that’s disappeared as well?
I open the top right cabinet door, and find the green file right away. Joanna wrote IMPORTANT on the white tab at the back of the file in permanent marker. My hand is shaking as I reach for it and pull it out of the cabinet. The lease must be somewhere in the middle, in between the other documents. With nervous movements, I leaf through the papers, already fearing that the document’s gone, but then I finally have it in front of me. I take it out of the plastic sleeve, hastily flip it over and heave a deep sigh of relief. Our signatures are there on the lower third of the last page, next to the date.
Joanna looks at me warily when I hold the agreement out toward her.
“There, look at it,” I prompt her, unable to suppress the triumph in my voice. I put the paper down in front of her and point at the spot. “Here, you see?”
Joanna only eyes the document for a moment then looks back up at me. “The signatures were added with two different pens.”
This can’t be happening. “Christ, Jo, we both had our own pens. That’s not exactly unusual.”
“Do I really have to point out that you could have added it at any time after the fact?”
This is driving me crazy. My hand slams down on the breakfast bar with a bang. “Yes, damn it. At the end of the day you can question everything, even when you see it with your own eyes. Come on, think about it. If everything really was phony, the photos, the contract, evening visitors, even your friendship with Ela … just think about how much of a hassle it would have been to set it all up? And what could possibly justify all of this? Jo? Why would I be doing it?”
Again, I get one of those strange looks from her. One full of suspicion, mixed with anger. But now it seems there’s a new element in the mix. Something I can only read with difficulty. Like she knows more than I do. It almost seems disdainful.
She must have inherited it from her father. From the stories she’s told me, he’s a … A thought flashes through my head. Why am I only thinking of it now? “Your father!”
“What? What about my father?” She looks irritated.
“You told him about me, Jo. You put it off for a long time, but … Call him. Please. He’ll confirm it.”
This next look irritates me even more. She’s hiding something from me, I can feel it. But right now it’s more important for her to speak to her father. She’d believe him.
“All right.” She gets up. “I’ll call him.”
I’m so relieved I could kiss her. “Thank you.”
I’m tempted to jump up as Joanna, very matter-of-factly, walks over to the shelf behind her where her phone is, but I decide not to. She picks it up and tosses it back down again seconds later.
“Battery’s empty. Can I use yours?”
“Yeah, sure.” I fish my smartphone out of my pocket and hold it toward Joanna.
To my surprise, she sits back down on the stool as she’s dialing. I was expecting her to leave the room for the call to her father. Like she usually would.
I nervously wait for someone to answer. This should be the breakthrough moment. If Joanna’s father confirms that we live together, there’s no way she can have any more doubts. Then, of course, there will still be the problem that she can’t remember me, but once this awful mistrust she holds against me is gone, things will look totally different. I feel like we can get through this.
“Hi, Dad, it’s me, Jo.” Her voice sounds harder than usual. Is it because she’s speaking English rather than the German she speaks with me, or because it’s her dad she’s on the phone with?
“Good, thanks, and you?” She laughs briefly.
“Same old, same old … Oh, thanks. Tell him I said hi.… No, he hasn’t been in touch. But that’s fine.” There’s a longer pause, during which she’s only listening. “I don’t know yet.” She looks over toward me. “I’ll discuss it with Erik.”
My heart is pounding. I watch her face carefully. Another strange look, then Joanna gets up and leaves the kitchen. I watch her go, perplexed. Why is she leaving now?
She pulls the door to the hall shut behind her. If she leaves the house now … I push the thought aside, try to calm myself down, tell myself her father must have said something about me that she wants to talk over with him in private. Maybe he’s trying to convince her to come back to Australia. After all, that Matthew guy is waiting for her over there.
Man, how long is this going to take? I consider following her, but discard the thought. I want her to feel that I trust her.
Finally, the door opens. The way Joanna looks at me brings my world tumbling down even before she opens her mouth.
“My father didn’t know who I was talking about when I mentioned your name. He doesn’t know any Erik.”