The Dark Frontier A. Decker (i like reading TXT) 📖

It was a strange sensation for Ellen entering a room known to be occupied by a man who was said to be her husband – but was fast becoming a complete stranger to her. It was like invading the privacy of someone who bore no relation to her, and she found it slightly distasteful. The bed was neatly made. A small suitcase lay half-unpacked on a chair. And the bedside table was occupied almost entirely by an old book.

“The room is in the condition how we found it. We wait on your man,” the Kommissar explained in his broken English.

“He’s not my ‘man’,” Ellen insisted. She sensed an involuntary anger in her voice. But more than that, she was giving vent to her relief, because she was finally convinced beyond all doubt that this room was not inhabited by her Frank. Nothing in the room was familiar to her. She looked in the bathroom – the shaving set, the toothbrush, the toilet bag: they were all completely foreign. Ellen let out an almost hysterical laugh. She could barely contain herself. Tears of both joy and despair ran down her cheeks as she leafed through the book beside the bed – a gilt-edged Victorian tome filled with beautiful illustrations of exotic fauna and flora.

“This book has been stolen,” said Kommissar Staehelin.

His eyes were on her every move. He made her feel she was the culprit, that she was responsible for this whole absurd situation. She tried to ignore his cold, insensitive presence and directed her attention at the suitcase that lay on the chair beside the bed. This too was as unknown to her as every other item in the room. And the clothes she rummaged through were things she had never set eyes on in her life. She examined the labels and found they were not even English – except for one pair of underpants; these she had to admit did bring a flicker of life into her battered dog-weary memory.

But so what? Underpants like these were probably worn by thousands of men all over Europe, she told herself. They did not even have the distinction of a pattern, but were simply brief black crotch holders. A pouch just large enough to carry the substance of its wearer’s pride and joy. Yet here was the familiarity that disturbed her. It did not strike her at first when she looked at the label. It was only as she put the pants down and her hand slipped for an instant under the black cotton cloth of the pouch that she noticed it. A hole about a quarter of an inch in diameter where the cloth had been worn through. She knew that hole so well. How often she had teased Frank about it, and joked about what on earth he had been doing to make a hole in a place like that. What were the chances of another man walking around the city at this very moment with a hole a quarter of an inch wide in the pouch of their black English-labelled briefs? She rummaged further. And at the very bottom of the case, she came across two pairs of socks that also looked familiar. No, not familiar – she knew them intimately. It was not only the design, but the pattern of wear; day in day out she had put his socks in the washing machine, taken them out again, hung them up to dry, and tucked them away in his drawer – she knew every worn thread like she knew the lines on her hand.

At that moment, she became more aware than ever of the vast gap that had opened up between them, as she gazed at these socks and underpants. Garments that she had known so intimately now lying in a strange suitcase with a lot of strange clothes in a strange room in a foreign country. It was as though she had years of divorce behind her, and all the pain and emotion of the separation were still there, fresh as ever. She sat on the edge of the bed, a sock still in one hand, and finally submitted to an uncontrollable deluge of tears. The despair was echoed in the doleful bawling of her words.

“Where is he? I can’t stand this any longer. Please just tell me where my Frank is.”

She sensed Marthe’s comforting arms around her shoulders and heard her voice. But the words laboured in vain to get through. Ellen was hopelessly at sea in her distress.

Her recollection of what followed was very vague. Even fainter and more garbled than a half-remembered dream on the edge of sleep. It was not until she was woken the next morning by Marthe bringing her a cup of tea in bed that she learned how Marthe and her husband had taken her home, completely overwrought, after assuring Kommissar Staehelin that she would be in good hands and that he could interview her as soon as she had recovered. The Kommissar had apparently proved to be completely out of his depth and was hopelessly embarrassed by her outburst. Like two overgrown schoolgirls, Ellen and Marthe both giggled at the poor man’s ineptitude, as if they had caught him with his trousers down.

“Marthe, you’ve been so kind. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“Please.” Marthe place a reassuring hand on Ellen’s arm. So warm. So tender. Her affection sent a thrill coursing through Ellen’s veins – a closeness she had not felt in months. Then, leaving her smile with Ellen as she went over to the window, Marthe pulled back the heavy curtains.

“Look. Today we have the sun. Urs has clinical duties today. So we will go for a daytrip into the country, have lunch together somewhere, and forget all our problems for a few hours.”

Ellen suspected where the journey into the country was taking her soon after their car left the city boundaries. They were on the same road as before on that