Free Bunker by Andrea Maria Schenkel Page B

open any wider, I have to force myself through it.
    I go through the door, the stage swivels and now I’m in a different set of scenery. Lamps hang from the wall on long nails near the low brick wall. They cast beams of light on the stone floor. My glance wanders from one beam of light to another. Beyond the last one, someone is standing in front of a closed door in the dim light. I go up to him. Now he seems to notice me and turns around. He has a knife with a curved blade in one hand, a tubular reddish-grey shape in the other. He lets it go, it lands on the floor with a squelch.Dark, mushy stuff comes out, forms a little lake that spreads, fills the cracks in the stones. Runs on, slowly making its way to the next stone.
    I look up. There’s a gutted body dangling there, with a thin trickle of blood running down. The hand holding the knife hangs limp and powerless.
    He’s a murderer, he murdered him. Slaughtered and gutted him like an animal. I was right, he did it, he murdered him.

My God, what’s the matter with her? Hair in a mess, face bright red, swollen and scratched. Everything about her filthy. She must have run through the forest. I’ve been searching it for her, she wasn’t there. I drove the Fiesta back to the road, very slowly. Stopped again and again, searched the forest to right and left. No sign of her. I’d started reconciling myself to the idea that she’d got away. How else was I to look for her? Just running around the forest is no use, at least not on your own. She could have been anywhere. I’d never expected to see her again so soon. It was plain stupid of me to carry the crockery downstairs and then forget to go back and bolt the trapdoor. Seems to run in the family. Father once forgot to bolt it too. Looks like we always makethe same mistake in our family. Mother came back as well. I’ve been lucky.
    But there’s something not quite right about her. Is she drunk? Standing there with her legs apart, but all the same she’s staggering around, can hardly stay upright. Looks like she’d lose her balance and fall over. Good heavens, girl, pull yourself together!
    Her eyes are wide, black and gleaming, her glance is crazy. She stretches her whole arm out and points her forefinger at me. Instinctively I look at the finger, it wavers back and forth. Now she opens her mouth – but she can’t get a word out. I stand there too, gaping at her. The way she stands with her mouth open reminds me of a toad. Girl, if you just keep on breathing in the whole time like that you’ll burst. Like a toad with a burning cigarette in its mouth. Bang, there it goes, blown to a thousand fragments.
    She starts muttering something to herself. First quietly, I can’t understand what she’s saying, I can only hear the murmuring and I see her moving her lips. Then it gets louder. My God, what’s she up to? Stupid as shit, first running off, then coming back again. And now she stands there talking utter nonsense. She’s lost her marbles. All I can make out is, ‘You bastard!’ and ‘You murdered my brother!’ Her voice gets louder and louder until she shouts, ‘By rights I ought togive your name to the police.’ The way she says that! ‘I doubted myself, I thought it was my own fault.’ She might be playing a part on stage in a theatre. ‘But it was you who did it, you, you!’ It sounds so artificial, all put on. ‘And me with a guilty conscience for years, all because of you, you useless creature.’
    Then she collapses entirely. Crying, screaming, sobbing. She’s gone right off her head.
    â€˜Shut up, will you, or you’ll be sorry!’
    She doesn’t stop, goes on shouting at me, screeching the same thing over and over again like crazy. ‘You bastard!’ She takes off, runs towards me. Her body is shaking, she swings her arm back. What’s her idea? Is she out of her mind? She’s