Berlin Syndrome by Melanie Joosten

Author:Melanie Joosten
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense fiction., Berlin (Germany) - Fiction.
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2011-06-26T16:00:00+00:00

The bandage on her hand is clean and tight and, reluctantly, she admits that this makes her feel a little better. Hopeful. She hears the familiar sounds of Andi returning. The key shifting in the lock, the open and shut of the door, the key in the lock again. Precise and without ceremony. Andi’s footsteps coming down the hallway. She looks out the window. One, two; one, two. The lights on the television tower blink steadily. One, two; one, two. They don’t hesitate. She hears him coming up behind her. One, two; one, two. She imagines him doing a quickstep through the lounge room. Sweeping her into his arms, through the door and down the stairs into the courtyard, the leaves now brown and soggy beneath their feet. It feels like it has been months; it has only been a week.

When he places a book in her lap, she instinctively picks it up and then wishes she had not. She wants to remain in control, but all the books in his apartment are in German — their content unavailable to her, they have become objects, more like building bricks than stories — and her eyes go straight to the book; she cannot help it.

The greatest love story ever told, the cover declares, and she almost laughs: if that is the case every potential lover in the world should give up now. She wants to thank him, an automatic politeness, but she is not ready to speak. Her tongue feels heavy and useless in her mouth. It slouches against the crevices between her teeth. Why is he being so nice to her? He hates her; he is keeping her prisoner. As he sits himself beside her on the couch, her heart quickens. She wishes it didn’t, but it does. Why does her body keep betraying her like this? For it is not fear that she feels but anticipation. She knows because she waits for her stomach to begin its tricks, for the disgust to rise in her throat, but it does not. She feels like she is lying in a bathtub, her ears underwater, the noises amplified. She wants him to explain everything to her, and she wants to listen, to believe him and then to take her leave.

‘All happy families are alike …’ he says. He reaches out his hand to her as if to stroke her cheek, offers her a grimace of shared understanding.

Surely he cannot be thinking this applies to them? Who the fuck is he? Her stomach leaps, and she follows it off the couch, throwing the book on the floor.

‘That’s love, Andi!’ She points at the book. ‘Not this. I’m not a character. You can’t make me be the person you want. Just let me go!’ She turns to face him where he is seated on the couch, one leg tucked beneath him, his hand drawn back as though he has been burned.

‘I want you to be happy, Clare.’

‘I am happy!’ It’s a sentence never made to be yelled, and in the silence that follows she thinks that this is it, he will let her go.

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