Splinter

57

He hadn’t run far when he caught sight of her.

Sandra.

The driver of the Volvo had dropped her and disappeared into an underground car park in the next block, the illuminated sign above whose entrance proclaimed that there were still 317 spaces free. Sandra was waiting at some lights. She was wearing a cream-coloured winter coat with a synthetic fur collar and standing with her hands on her hips as if she had backache.

Or as if she was pregnant.

He was closing the gap between them and had covered half the block when the car park’s digital sign changed to 316.

What’s she doing here? And who was driving her? Constantin?

The pedestrian light changed to green and Sandra set off. She seemed in no hurry, in fact she was feeling for something in her outsize handbag as she went. Her golden-yellow hair bobbed up and down at every step. Marc felt so close to his wife he fancied he could smell the fragrance of her shampoo, although they were still at least fifty metres apart.

‘Sandra!’ he called, but the only response he got was some derisive remarks from a couple of youths slouching out of a mobile-phone shop. He clutched his side, breathing hard to relieve his stitch. Just as the urge to rest became unbearable, he spotted where she was planning to go.

She’s going shopping. Of course, it won’t be long now.

The window of the baby boutique was already decorated for the winter season. A snow cannon was showering the playpens and prams on display with fat flakes of artificial snow, and child-friendly customers were being lured into the shop by an over-lifesize snowbaby in pink rompers stationed outside the entrance.

Sandra slowed; she was now within arm’s reach of him. He put out his hand, longing to stroke her hair and run his fingers over the little bump on the back of her head – the one he always had to knead when she got a migraine. He wanted to massage her neck, hold her against him and gaze into her eyes, imagining they would give him the answers to all his questions. In the end, all he ventured to do was tap her on the shoulder and say her name. Louder than he intended, in a hoarse voice he himself failed to recognize.

‘Sandra!’

She swung round. For a moment she strove to retain her composure, wondering whether a smile or a word of greeting would be appropriate. Then fear gained the upper hand. The corners of her mouth began to quiver, and Marc could read her thoughts.

What does he want?

She retreated a step and opened her mouth, but it was Marc who spoke first: ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

He raised his hand.

Seen from the front, the woman bore not the slightest resemblance to Sandra. She merely shook her head in alarm.

‘No, no, I’m not after your…’ Marc stammered, pointing to the handbag which the far too old, far too heavily made-up blonde was clutching in white-knuckled trepidation. ‘I’m sorry, I mistook you for somebody else.’

She backed away from him, not turning round until she had put a safe distance between them. Marc stared after her and repeated his apology when she looked back at him over her shoulder with the expression people normally reserve for tramps and beggars. Leaving the baby boutique behind, she merged with a party of Japanese tourists who were just alighting from a bus at the Friedrichstrasse intersection.

‘So sorry,’ Marc whispered in the direction the unknown woman had taken, disappearing like a name you can’t remember.

So sorry.

Looking down, he noticed that he was standing in a puddle of melted snow and had lost control over his wet, trembling fingers. He was feeling hypoglycaemic but not hungry in the least, dead tired but as overwrought as someone who has drunk a whole pot of coffee on an empty stomach. All he wanted to do was cry. For his wife, his life, himself. But the floodgates refused to open.

I’m losing my mind. For the first time, he formulated it as a statement, not a question. Then he shut his eyes and buried his face in his hands, heedless of what the passers-by must be thinking as he got in their way.

Or did they exist at all? Perhaps he wasn’t standing on a pavement with his eyes shut. Perhaps the big-city cacophony was just a figment of his imagination.

Perhaps I’m lying in a hospital bed and the parking meter beside me is a drip. I’m wearing a catheter, not a pair of jeans, and the roar of passing traffic is the sound of my ventilator.

He dreaded to open his eyes. He feared the worst – in other words, was afraid to confront the truth that would reveal his life to be a lie. When he finally brought himself to do so, he put his head back like a child trying to catch snowflakes on its tongue. The initial shock was not so great because the cloudscape in the cement-grey sky distracted his attention from the scaffolding. Then the plastic sheeting fluttered, plastered against the office building by the wind.

This is impossible.

The realization exploded like a bomb, setting off an earthquake inside him. He reeled, although he didn’t move.

Slowly, as if he really did have a splinter in his neck, Marc turned on the spot and scanned his surroundings like a 3D camera, storing items of information that vastly intensified his bewilderment. He saw the baby boutique, the car-hire firm, the medical bookstore, the entrance to the underground garage and, beside it, the inflatable mascot bobbing in the wind outside the mobile-phone shop. He remembered all these details, having seen them once before from a different perspective.

While peeing. On the sixth floor.

And then, when he had come full circle and returned to his original position, and when Emma cautiously put her hand on his shoulder from behind, he saw the final proof: the polished brass plate that discreetly identified the psychiatric institution situated inside the building:

BLEIBTREU CLINIC

It was back.

And he was standing right outside its imposing entrance.