It’s just after nine in the evening in Melbourne, and Dad only picks up after the seventh or eighth ring. That probably means they have guests, because then my father only answers the phone very reluctantly.
“Hi, Dad, it’s me, Jo.” I try to hide my nerves.
“Jo, sweetheart.” Yes, I can hear voices in the background. Laughter. “How are you?”
“Good, thanks, and you?”
He clears his throat. “Everything’s fine. The McAllisters are here right now, and Max Cahill with his new wife—do you remember Max?”
Yes. A bald-headed lawyer with buckteeth and a laugh that could make milk curdle. “Mom’s away for a couple of days,” Dad continues. “The usual charity stuff. She’ll be sorry to have missed your call, you know how much she likes to hear about your adventures in her homeland. Paul had a fight with Lisa but then they sorted things out again; other than that…”
“Same old, same old,” I finished his sentence for him.
“Yes. And Matthew sends his best.”
“Oh, thanks. Tell him I said hi.” Matthew. The fiancé who I definitely can remember, maybe even a little too well. The man whose life consists of a steady stream of fulfilled wishes, the man for whom I—everyone agrees—am the perfect match. One empire marrying another, just like it was two hundred years ago. The fact that I had felt the need to put a few continents between us hadn’t particularly fazed Matthew—after all, he would get me for the rest of my life once I was back, he had told me as we said good-bye.
The match is very close to Dad’s heart too, unfortunately. “Have you heard from him?” he asked.
“No, he hasn’t been in touch. But that’s fine.” Erik doesn’t take his eyes off me even for a second. He’s following our conversation, no question about it. He works as a computer technician, so his English must be better than average.
“You could give him a call yourself sometime, you know.” Dad’s tone sounds accusatory. “Or come here for a surprise visit! Or even better, just come back. Seriously, Jo, this Europe nonsense has gone on for long enough. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fine that you want to experience things—in every sense—but don’t lose sight of your real life in the process. Right then.” His voice has taken on the tone he usually uses for business negotiations. The George Arthur Berrigan tone, which it’s advisable not to argue with. “So I’ll just send you a plane. When?”
This is my chance to leave all this nonsense behind me. If I hand the reins over to Dad, I’ll be out of this situation in a few hours. Except then I would never understand it. And I would be his Jo again, irreversibly. Daughter, heiress, business capital that can be married off.
“I don’t know yet.” I rest my gaze on the stranger sitting opposite me at the kitchen counter. Then I summon up all of my courage. “I’ll discuss it with Erik.”
Silence, one or two seconds that seem to last forever. Then my father’s voice again, dangerously quiet now. “With whom?”
I manage to stop the smile from appearing on my face as I slip down off the barstool and leave the kitchen. I shut the door behind me, stand there in the hallway. The paperweight is back in its usual place.
“Erik. I told you about him, remember?” My father is the last person who would deceive me, or anyone else for that matter. He would regard such a thing as being miles beneath him. So I wait for his answer like it’s a judgment from God.
“No you didn’t, not once, I would have remembered. So who in God’s name is Erik?”
If only I knew, I feel the urge to yell into the phone. I have no idea, but he’s sitting in my kitchen and he cosigned my rental contract, and my best friend here says that we’re in love.
It’s too late to backtrack now. “A man I met a while back.”
“Goddamn it, Jo.” Dad doesn’t shout, but lowers his voice to a tone so deep it resembles the sound of distant thunder. “You remember what we agreed, don’t you? You can have your fun, but only to the extent that it doesn’t endanger your relationship with Matthew.”
Oh yes, I remember the conversation. That unbelievably embarrassing conversation.
“So I really didn’t mention Erik to you?”
Now Dad does raise his voice after all. “No, and I never want to hear about him again! End it and come back home! And without any gold-digging Germans running after you!”
He hangs up before I can.
For a moment, I stand there indecisively holding the stranger’s cell phone in my hand; then I open the contacts list. Yes, there’s my number, as well as Ela’s. And the number of the photography studio. Other than that, just names I don’t know, apart from the Chinese restaurant in the pedestrian zone, and my favorite pizzeria.
I go back to the kitchen. Only once I’ve opened the door and see Erik’s expectant expression do I realize it would have been much better to check the text messages instead of the contacts list.
Too late now. I stay at a safe distance and look him directly in the eyes. “My father didn’t know who I was talking about when I mentioned your name. He doesn’t know any Erik.”
He doesn’t look surprised; he must have known, of course he did. For a moment he just closes his eyes, as if he’s exhausted. When he opens them again, there’s not a single trace of guilt. Just anger.
“You promised me. I know how afraid you were of having the conversation, but I thought you’d gotten it over with.” He turns his head to the side, slams the palm of his hand down on the bar. The spoons in the coffee cups clink.
“You said you had, anyway. You said it was hard but that in the end your father accepted it. Unwillingly, but he did.” He laughs. “You also said that we still had a lot of hard work ahead of us. Well, Jo, maybe I should have asked you what you meant by that.”
I open my mouth to retort, but he doesn’t give me a chance. “So you already lied to me when your memory was still intact, and about such an important thing at that. But who knows—maybe you’re just pretending not to know me? If that’s the case, there’s no need to go to all this effort. If you’re so eager to get rid of me, you can just tell me.” Erik gets down from the barstool and stretches his hand toward me. He wants his phone back. I give it to him. And all of a sudden I’m picturing the knife again, long and shiny and sharp. It’s not just in my thoughts, it’s actually close to hand. I would only need to take five steps into the kitchen and I could pull it out from the wooden block, eleven inches of Japanese steel, and plunge it into the stranger’s body.
I instinctively edge back to the door, which makes Erik shake his head in resignation. “No, I’m not going to hurt you. Maybe you’ll finally realize that.” He puts the phone into his jacket pocket and raises his hands, looking dejected. “If you want to run away, then run. If you want to call the police, do it. I’m going to the office to get some things, I’ve got a change of clothes there.” He gestures down at his body. “I don’t have anything to wear here anymore, you know? Not even any underwear. So I’m going to go shopping, that could take a few hours. If you’re still there when I get back, I’ll be very happy. If not…” He takes a step toward me, warily, and brushes his hand across my cheek. “If not, then have a good life, Joanna.”
He goes without locking the door after him. He left my cell phone here too; I plug it into the charging cable and turn it on.
Seven missed calls. Once the battery has started to fill up again, I listen to my messages. Five of them are from Manuel, each one angrier than the last. Why didn’t I show up to the photo studio when I had clients booked in? Don’t I realize that it’s his business and his reputation that I’m damaging if potential clients leave disappointed? The last two messages are from Darja, who’s also working as an assistant for Manuel, and she sounds much more concerned than he did. Is everything OK, she asks, adding that I was usually so reliable.
I decide to call her back instead of Manuel. I tell her I woke up with a migraine so bad that I couldn’t get up and use the phone.
“And are you better now?” she asks.
“Yes. Please tell Manuel I’m very sorry. And that I’ll be there on time tomorrow.”
I spend the next two hours turning the house upside down, searching for some clue that I don’t live here by myself. There’s not a single text message from Erik on my phone, nor any emails on my computer. There are no photos of him on either of the devices, nor on any of my SD cards, and of course there’s also no trace of Antigua. But there are at least fifty pictures of Matthew. Playing polo, at the wheel of his damn yacht, in the enormous waterscape he calls a pool. Always grinning and tanned. I’m itching to delete the photos, but I stop myself. It’s possible that my memory is uncertain territory, so I shouldn’t destroy anything that I might later forget.
After I’ve searched through all the rooms, I’m bathed in sweat. I found precisely three things that I don’t know the origins of: a green USB cable under the bed that I definitely never used and certainly never bought. In one of the chest of drawers there’s a comb, not like the ones women use—black, narrow, and wholly inadequate for long hair like mine. And the final object, crumpled up in a corner of the basement, a gray T-shirt with oil stains on it, most definitely neither my size nor my style.
Nothing specific. In theory, they could all be things left behind by the previous tenant. Except that the house was unfurnished when I took it, so the theory can’t be applied to either the cable or the comb.
I glance over at the kitchen clock. Even though Erik has a lot to do, it won’t be much longer before he comes back. He’ll hurry, no doubt about that. By then I want to have showered and changed.
My glance falls on the knife block again, and I pull out the knife, the one I keep thinking of. The blade shimmers dully, alluringly …
And suddenly an idea comes into my mind, one that makes sense to me but which at the same time is so terrible I almost can’t bear to acknowledge it.
Systematic amnesia, as Dr. Schattauer described it, is unleashed by trauma. One that is probably connected to the person who the consciousness is now blocking out.
This knife, the knife I can’t get out of my head—is it possible that Erik threatened me with it? Or even hurt me? Or held it to my throat while we had sex because fear turns him on? Is that conceivable?
I try to search for a memory, to force something back, but there’s nothing, so I put the knife back into the block and run up the stairs into the bedroom. I undress to my underwear and search my body for injuries. Cuts, scars.
Nothing. Just some bruises, one on my upper arm, two on my left thigh. And a graze on my right knee.
I have no idea where they came from. Probably from the struggles yesterday during my unsuccessful attempts to flee.
A quick glance out of the window. There’s still no sign of the silver Audi. I’ll just have to hurry in the shower.
Normally I can count on the cascading water to clear my thoughts, but normally seems to be a thing of the past. I’m barely under the shower for two minutes before my head starts pounding, as if I were getting the flu. Just what I needed. It was only a lie to explain the client appointments I missed, but now my body seems to think it has to turn the lie into a truth.
I take a deep breath, but the only result is that I feel sick.
Very quickly.
Very intensely.
And then the world goes dark.