The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

Hugging myself, I leaned against the door. Like the rest of the house, it was old and uncared for. The wood felt rough and weathered under my touch. As well as a newish metal lock there was still a brass doorknob, tarnished with age, and underneath it the old keyhole, the worn edges giving it the appearance of a toothless old mouth. Without really thinking about what I was doing, I slid my freezing fingers around the doorknob and gently turned it. With an audible click the door opened.

For a moment I stood there dumbfounded, with my fingers still gripping the knob. Herr Duster’s house yawned in front of me, the interior a black pit.

“Stefan.”

“What?” came the reply, in an irritable stage whisper.

“Stefan, the door’s open.”

“What?”

“The door’s open.” I heard him get to his feet and a moment later he was by my side.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. It just opened. He can’t have locked it.”

“Mensch.” Stefan sounded impressed.

“Stefan-maybe he’s at home.”

“No way. Frau Koch said he’d gone.”

“So? Maybe she’s as big a storyteller as her grandson.”

“Come on-does it look like anyone’s at home?”

“No-o-o,” I said doubtfully, but looking around the street none of the houses looked any livelier than Herr Duster’s; all were utterly dark. He gave me a little push. “Go on.”

“You go first,” I said, not moving.

I heard an impatient little sigh, and then Stefan had brushed past me and entered the house. It was inky black inside, and almost immediately I heard a bump followed by a smothered exclamation.

“I’m going to put my flashlight on,” whispered Stefan, fumbling for it.

“Someone might see us.”

“Someone will definitely hear us if I don’t.”

There was a tiny click and a small circle of light appeared, traveling slowly over a heavy oak cupboard, its front panels carved with twining leaves and prancing stags, a section of faded wallpaper with an indistinct design of foliage, an old-fashioned clock whose metal face was spotted with tiny patches of rust. There was a smell on the air of dust and old furniture polish.

“What’s that?” I whispered as softly as I could. Stefan let the light move up the wall until it illuminated the thing I had glimpsed; it was a wooden crucifix, the metal Jesus on it contorted in pain.

Stefan said nothing, but let out a little sound like a sigh. He swung the flashlight around and the yellow beam drifted through the musty air like a phantom, touching without touching. We were in a narrow hallway, the wooden floor overlaid with a shabby-looking runner, the walls lined with dark blocks of furniture. Directly ahead of us the wooden staircase began. The treads were worn, and the newel post, carved into the shape of a face peeping out from a nest of leaves, had a dull shine that I suspected came more from the touch of many hands over the years than from polish. The beam of light moved on and the peeping face was swallowed in the darkness once more.

To the left of the staircase the hallway continued farther back, but from where we stood the light was insufficient to do more than suggest a doorway at the end. As Stefan completed the sweep with the flashlight, I saw there was also a door to our immediate left, a stout wooden door, firmly closed. Just the living room, of course-it could hardly be some kind of Bluebeard’s chamber, facing onto the street as it did.

All the same I was losing my taste for investigation. In the pervasive gloom it was difficult not to imagine the absent Herr Duster still lurking within, perhaps hunched in a high-backed armchair in the dark, like a lobster concealed within its cave in the rocks deep under the black water, nothing visible but the dull gleam of a carapace and the two shining beads of eyes.

Stefan reached for the handle, and with infinite care opened the door. We slid cautiously into the darkened room. Inside, it was an obstacle course of standard lamps and cabinets and chairs. The same depressing smell of dust and old polish permeated everything. From the little detail that I could pick out by flashlight-the fringed edge of a lampshade, the claw foot of a chair, the dull gleam of a pewter plate-it looked as though the room hadn’t been redecorated for many years. The reflective glint of glass showed that the walls were crowded with framed pictures, though it was possible to see what they were only by training the light directly on them.

I wondered what the friendless Herr Duster used to decorate his house. Fumbling for my own flashlight, I switched it on and examined some of the nearest pictures. They were all photographs, but old ones: some of them were sepia, and had the soft-focus effect at the edges that some very old photographs have.

A portrait shot of a young woman in old-fashioned clothes caught my eye; hers was the only genuinely pretty face among the collection of stolidly respectable subjects with long upper lips and indignant eyes. I stared at her for a moment, wondering whether this was perhaps the Hannelore about whom Frau Kessel had gone on at such length, but looking at the style of her high-necked dress and her upswept hair, I was doubtful. Wasn’t this picture too old to be her?

I was still contemplating the photograph when I heard a thump! somewhere behind me. I whirled around as though I had been stung.

“Stefan, can’t you-?”

He didn’t let me complete the sentence.

“Shhhhhh.” He stretched a hand out toward me, as though warding something off.

The next moment he switched off his flashlight. “Switch yours off too,” he hissed at me.

I hesitated. The thought of being plunged into darkness was not a pleasant one. Stefan had no such qualms; he took a couple of steps nearer, plucked the light out of my hands, and switched it off.

“What-?”

“Shut up.” His voice was so emphatic that I did shut up, and for a few moments the pair of us stood there in the darkness, listening.

“Stefan?” I whispered eventually. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

“Shhhhh,” came the reply, then: “No. It came from upstairs.”

“Up-?”

Realization trickled through me, momentarily robbing my limbs of the power to move. Scheisse, Scheisse, boomed my thoughts incoherently. I almost staggered, then grabbed Stefan’s arm, trying to pull him with me toward the door, knowing even as I did so that if someone-or something-was to come down the stairs at that moment, we could never get out of the house without passing within an arm’s reach of it.

Stefan stood his ground, and the fingers of his free hand closed around my wrist with surprising strength.

“Stay still,” came the whispered words out of the darkness.

“No-” I twisted like a landed fish in his grasp.

“He’ll hear you.”

That was enough. I froze. Then from somewhere above us came another muffled sound, as though someone had dropped something on the floor. I could not help myself; I struggled to break away from Stefan.

“Keep still,” hissed an agonized voice. “Your jacket-”

He was right; with every movement the fat arms and body of my down jacket rubbed together with an audible rustle. I clutched Stefan in panic. “What are we going to do?” I whispered.

“Get down. He might not come in here.”

It was a slim hope, but I couldn’t think of a better plan. We squatted down on the worn carpet, so that a heavy armchair flanked by a little table with a lamp on it shielded us from the doorway. I felt for Stefan’s hand. His fingers closed around mine gratefully. We waited.

For a brief moment I had entertained the hope that all we had heard was Pluto, springing down from some favorite sleeping spot onto the floor above. But now I could quite clearly hear footsteps moving across the room above our heads. There was a scraping sound, as though someone had moved a piece of furniture slightly, and then the sound of the footsteps changed and I realized that whoever it was must have moved out onto the upstairs