2016
Anneliese
ANNELIESE SCURRIED ALONG the lane bordering the forest, head down, long dark hair hiding her face. The evening was darkening, the birds returning to their roosts, and the night creatures stirring, poking their heads out of their lairs and hiding places. The air smelled different in the dying daylight. Like damp earth and moldering leaves.
The streetlamps were blinking on when she turned into her own street. On the front porch, she fumbled the key in the lock, pushed open the door, and slipped inside. To her surprise, the entrance hall wasn’t empty. Daan sat on the second from the bottom step of the stairs. Her gaze fell on a rope that was coiled in his lap. What was it for? The house was silent, no kitchen noises, no blare of the television.
She swallowed hard.
“Where are Mama and Papa?” she asked.
“They went out to dinner. They gave me money for the snack bar.”
“Why didn’t they tell me?” Anger rose inside her, but fear was stronger. If she had known, she would have stayed for dinner at her piano teacher’s house, as she had done on several occasions.
Daan shrugged.
She looked at the rope. Was he going to tie her up? Once, he had bound her to a tree deep in the woods and left her for hours. At twilight, hundreds of bats darkened the sky, filling the air with their eerie cries. She had squeezed her eyes shut and whimpered in terror while she’d waited for the bats to bite and drain her blood. But she had suffered nothing worse than mosquito bites.
He uncoiled the rope.
She stepped back and reached behind her for the doorknob.
“Liese,” he sobbed.
He only wept when he was off his meds, but it could be a trick. Stay one step ahead, she reminded herself, and her hand tightened around the doorknob.
He held up the rope, and now she saw he had tied a noose. Her mouth was so dry her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
He rose and trudged up the stairs to the landing. She watched him fasten one end of the rope to the top rail of the balustrade. He ignored her, as if he had forgotten her presence. She started up the stairs but stopped three treads from the top. A safe distance. He slipped the noose over his head and climbed onto the balustrade.
“Daan, no.”
He swung over a leg.
“Are you off your meds?” she asked.
“What if I am?”
“Take the pills. They’ll make you feel better.”
“Is that what you want?”
She said nothing, her thoughts conflicted. What did she want, if she were honest? He watched the emotions playing on her face and hooted with laughter. She shut her eyes, thinking he would climb down, but when she opened them, he was still perched on the balustrade, his hands clutching the top rail and his legs hanging over the side.
“Gotcha, didn’t I?”
It was another one of his stupid jokes! She climbed the last treads, turning over options in her mind.
“Let me help you down,” she said softly.
She stepped onto the landing, and as he turned his head in her direction, still laughing, he lost his balance. He managed to grab a baluster with his left hand as he fell. His legs dangled in space. The noose still loose around his neck.
“Liese.”
She stared at his pleading eyes. He couldn’t hold on much longer.
“Shit,” he said.
His fingers were slipping.
Her mind reeled. She had been ten years old when Daan crawled into her bed for the first time, before she learned to barricade the door. She remembered her doll sliding off the bed and landing with a soft plop on the carpet when he climbed on top of her. She had felt Daan’s heart hammering in his thin chest as he pushed against her, hurting her private parts.
She imagined his heart thrashing wildly now.
“Don’t. Please, don’t,” she whispered, just as she had whispered then.
His fingers let go.
He gave a terrified grunt. The rope tautened, and his body flopped, the legs flying upward for a moment. He started spinning, his legs kicking in every direction. He grabbed at the rope, tried to haul himself up, hand over hand, feet pedaling. The noose cut into the flesh under his chin, cut off his air, prevented him from crying out. Deprived his brain of blood. But the rope hummed. The railing creaked. His clothes rustled. She crouched against the banister, eyes wide open, stomach somersaulting. The spinning gradually slowed. He swayed like a bell. His urine splattered onto the floor.
She stayed crouched at the top of the stairs, unable to move or tear her eyes away. Time lost its meaning. It could have been seconds, minutes, or hours. She didn’t know what she had done or failed to do. Or what she should do next.
The next thing Anneliese remembered, she was drinking hot, sweet tea on the neighbors’ sofa and nibbling on a stroopwafel cookie. Their house had the same layout as hers but smelled of a lemon-scented cleaner instead of stale cigarettes. Mrs. Grootheest had yelled up the stairs to her son and ordered him to stay in his room. The boings, chords, and chimes of a computer game were audible downstairs, making what had happened next door seem unreal.
Through the big window, Anneliese saw a real ambulance, police car, van, and motorcycle arrive, headlights glaring. Mr. Grootheest waited for the police on the driveway, waving his arms to attract their attention. Mrs. Grootheest untied her apron and jerked the curtain shut.
A few minutes later, Mr. Grootheest ushered in the tall, morose hoofdagent, whom Anneliese dubbed Lurch. He sat down in a chair facing her, long legs slightly apart, feet flat on the floor. He asked questions in a deep, dispassionate voice: “Were you present when Daan hanged himself? What did he say? Did you touch anything? Start at the beginning and tell me everything that happened.” He paused often to write notes in a pocket notebook.
She answered with only half her attention, her mind lost in a fog, but she had enough presence of mind not to mention she had mounted the stairs. What would they do if she told the whole truth? She saw herself again at the top of the stairs. Daan’s fingers clutching the rail. Slipping. They would ask why she hadn’t tried to save him, but she was the only one who knew how Daan had violated her and hurt her in a thousand ways; she could pretend none of it had ever happened.
Her thoughts drifted. She imagined officers in white suits cutting down Daan’s body—the rope suddenly slack. Did they catch him when he fell? Maybe it didn’t matter since he was dead. It was all taking too long. Where were Tineke and Ray? Finally, the policeman’s questions ended, and he stood up.
“I’ll show you out, Officer Terpstra,” Mr. Grootheest said. His wife followed the men into the entrance hall.
Anneliese tiptoed across the living room and pressed her ear against the door, straining to hear what the grown-ups were saying. After the front door thudded shut, she heard Mr. Grootheest tell his wife if the rope had been longer or made from hemp instead of stretchy nylon, Daan would have been decapitated. His words chilled her blood. Her hands began to shake, her legs wobbled, and she slid down the door to the floor.
That was the night her problems with urination began.