Julia’s biggest fear was that she’d lost her mind. Or, even worse, that she was only dreaming that Lisa had opened the balcony door and was now standing before her. If she were suddenly to awake in Daniel’s cabin, still sedated by the drugs he’d forced on her, and if her daughter were to vanish into thin air for a second time, the pain she’d feel on waking would finally be unbearable. She was absolutely certain of that.
At her mother’s funeral the pastor had said that parents do not die until their children stop thinking of them. He forgot to mention the reverse situation where parents die inside when nothing remains but the thought of their children.
And yet Lisa seemed anything but an illusion. And if she were, then the Fata Morgana ordering her to come into the cabin and sit in the armchair beside the bed was astonishingly realistic.
‘There you are. Finally. I’ve been waiting for you all day.’
Wearing a black lace-up dress, Lisa was standing a short distance away in front of the television, in exactly the spot where the chambermaid had been cowering as she bled from her mouth. The sight had been substantially less frightening than the one of her daughter now. Lisa looked as if she’d made herself up in the dark on choppy seas. Eyeliner that had run and mascara applied too thickly disfigured her pale face. In her hand she held a long screwdriver.
Julia looked at her daughter as if she were a ghost, which essentially she was, and uttered just a single word:
‘Why?’
Why are you still alive?
Why did you do that to me?
An abortive smile formed on Lisa’s lips.
‘You don’t know?’ Her voice was cold. Pitiless. It matched her expression. ‘You destroyed it,’ she said.
‘What, darling. What did I destroy?’
Lisa yelled at her, ‘He belonged to me. I had him first.’
He? Who was she talking about?
‘I… I’m sorry, I don’t know what…’
Her daughter interrupted Julia’s helpless stammering and screamed, ‘With us it was love. But you… you just wanted to fuck Tom!’
‘Tom?’
At that moment Julia performed a cliché. Her jaw dropped. And she felt incapable of closing it again.
‘Don’t look like that! He was my first.’ With a vulgar gesture Lisa grabbed her crotch. ‘He took my virginity, Mama. We were to be together forever. But then you came along.’
‘Tom?’
Tom Schiwy?
‘Wasn’t it enough taking my father away? Did you have to steal the love of my life from me too?’
‘Your liaison teacher… the man I had an affair with, Tom Schiwy…?’
… abused you?
Lisa took a step closer. In the mirror Julia could see that her combat boots weren’t done up. The laces were flapping loose.
‘Loved. Oh, yes. We were going to get married. He told me I was much more mature than all the others.’
‘But darling, sweetheart…’ Julia was about to get out of the armchair, but Lisa threatened her with the screwdriver and made her sit back down.
‘Don’t try telling me it wasn’t your fault. I saw the way you spruced yourself up for him. You went to the parent consultation dolled up like a cheap tart to throw yourself at him. You’d have loved to go to school just in your underwear, wouldn’t you?’ She gave Julia a scornful stare, pointing first at her panties and then at her bra. ‘Christ, do you actually know how unhappy I was?’
Lisa blew a strand of hair from her face.
‘Didn’t you notice I wasn’t able to eat any more? That I was only wearing black clothes? And skiving off school with my new friends? No, you didn’t. You only had eyes and ears for your Tom.’
You’re wrong. Oh, God, darling. You’re wrong.
‘Listen to me, Lisa,’ Julia instructed her. ‘I understand your anger. But what your teacher did with you…’
‘Don’t you go fucking justifying yourself,’ Lisa interrupted her. ‘Querky said you’d try to talk your way out of it.’
Querky?
‘Wait a sec, I thought that was your boyfriend?’
This time Lisa managed an honest smile. Derogatory and derisive. ‘Querky’s a she. Yes, you know what, dearest Mother? I didn’t know either. I met her on the internet. In a suicide forum.’
‘Jesus Christ, Lisa…’
‘Shit, I wanted to kill myself when Tom dumped me for you.’
Tears flooded into Julia’s eyes at this admission. ‘I’m really sorry, I didn’t know…’
‘But Querky opened my eyes.’ Lisa stabbed the screwdriver in Julia’s direction. ‘It wasn’t me who had to be punished, but you.’
‘And that’s why you staged your own suicide?’
To scare the living daylights out of me?
‘You needed to experience what I had to go through. What it means to lose the thing you love most in life.’ Lisa gave a self-satisfied grin. ‘That was part one of my plan. Me and Querky worked it out together. Man, that woman is so cool. She works here on the ship. She hung a chambermaid’s uniform in my cupboard and programmed my key so I could go anywhere on the ship, even down to the crew deck where I hid last night.’
That’s why Martin Schwartz saw her down there, Julia remembered. It must have been while Lisa was preparing all this nonsense and looking for somewhere to bunk down.
‘Querky really thought of everything. She even paid for the trip so we could entice you on board.’
Jesus Christ!
In spite of Lisa’s threats, Julia couldn’t hold out in her seat any longer. She stood up and took a step towards her daughter who was now wielding the screwdriver like a dagger.
‘What are you planning?’ she asked, looking Lisa directly in the eye. Her daughter held her gaze effortlessly.
‘You’ll see, Mama.’ She gave a crooked smile. ‘You’ll see.’