Cutting the Cord Read online

  ‘Do you love me?’ she asks in a whisper.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Do you love me?’

  ‘Of course I love you,’ he retorts. ‘No-one will ever love you as much as I love you. Your friend will arrange to meet you tomorrow. Don’t cancel; be prompt. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ she responds, lowering her head.

  The following day Wilhelm is already waiting at the cafe out the front of the chocolate museum. He is perched under a green sun umbrella, sipping coffee, wearing a black T-shirt that stretches taut over his biceps. He stares at her when she arrives.

  ‘Feeling better?’

  ‘Let’s walk,’ she says.

  He pays for his drink and throws his black laptop bag over one shoulder.

  They go around the small island in the shape of a large berthed ship that is home to the chocolate museum. The wind comes off the water, sweeping her hair across her face.

  ‘The target is difficult. Far more security than the previous one,’ she says. She pushes her fringe back.

  Wilhelm gazes at her. ‘Really? That doesn’t match what we know about him.’

  ‘I was surprised too. But his house was no welcoming committee.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘There are cameras on his property, motion detectors and dogs. A motorbike job will be best. We need to obtain details about his possible future movements.’

  ‘A week?’ Wilhelm asks.

  ‘Perhaps longer.’ She needs time to convince Kolya and Mother to break free of the Movement.

  Wilhelm stops walking and laughs. ‘No, no. You can do this in a week. You could do this in a day! What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying I can’t do it in a day or a week. I need assistance with this one. So I need you to set me up with some vehicles. A couple of cars, a motorbike. This will take time, I presume. And I’ll need to know when the target will be driving in his car, preferably alone.’

  Wilhelm’s eyes flit from Amira to the chocolate museum and back again. ‘Two weeks, maximum. Your father will not be happy about it taking any longer. It isn’t justified.’

  She nods.

  ‘I’ll see what I can find out for you,’ Wilhelm says. He taps his foot on the pavement. ‘So, you were ill yesterday?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘First the ankle, and then food poisoning. You should take better care of yourself.’ He opens his laptop bag, and takes out a manila envelope. ‘I have a present for you. Here.’

  She hesitates, confused over the contents. Surely not another briefing? She looks up at him, puzzled.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Details,’ he says. His nose glinting in the sun. ‘Of her. Your birth mother.’

  Astonished, she accepts the envelope, staring down at it. Then she realises this is Father’s way of softening her up. He is a master puppeteer.

  Yet in her hand she holds information that might help her piece together the woman’s face on the sled, on the ski lift. The single thread that connects the pictures in her head.

  ‘How did Father get this?’

  Wilhelm scratches an eyebrow. ‘Why are you asking me? You know him. He would have pulled a few favours with the Australian adoption agency, or he may have had the information all along and didn’t think it necessary to tell you.’

  ‘Why would he let you read it?’

  Wilhelm starts circling the museum again and she follows closely beside him.

  ‘You are asking me questions about your father’s intentions. How do I know what all his motivations are?’

  The envelope is light, and she has to grip it hard in the wind. She doesn’t want it to blow away, dance above the Rhine before it falls into the water, sodden. She cuts the glue with a fingernail, pulls out the single piece of paper with the name: Elga Hinkel. Location: Berlin. Occupation: Freelance investigative journalist. All formatted in the standard Movement summary. Tears spring into her eyes, but she doesn’t allow herself to cry in front of Wilhelm.

  ‘German?’ she mutters.

  ‘Looks that way. Now I’m off.’

  Amira gazes up at him. ‘You’ll look into the research?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what I said I’d do.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Give me two to three days.’

  Wilhelm walks away towards the Severinsbrücke. His stride is smooth and he looks straight ahead. She puts the manila envelope in her backpack and goes in the opposite direction towards the city centre and an internet cafe. The name, Elga Hinkel, replays over and over in her mind. She wonders why there are no details of the birth father. Is it because Henry has been able to access the original birth certificate, and there is no mention of a father? There are so many questions, and she is determined to find the answers. A reflection in a bookshop window flickers: Wilhelm. Now he is wearing a baseball cap, his laptop bag hanging on his back.

  She can’t believe it. Father surely isn’t that silly, to put someone like Wilhelm on her. She is so shocked and annoyed, that she begins to grind her teeth. It is important not to change her step or pace. She can’t let him know he’s been discovered. She turns around as usual, scanning the street behind her, only this time she does it a little more often to keep Wilhelm on his toes.

  She goes to a different internet cafe, one she rarely frequents on Hohenzollernring near her apartment. Open twenty-four seven, it is a combined gaming hall, restaurant and bar. Wilhelm would expect her to use this one and she doesn’t want him to know where she normally goes, if he doesn’t already know. She goes up to the second floor where the computers are, but when she gets there she is unable to think clearly about Elga Hinkel. She should be delighted with the information. Instead, she wonders how long Wilhelm has been following her. She doubts herself, and the images of all her checks in Lausanne go through her mind. No, she is sure he didn’t go to Switzerland. But what about before? Had he seen her with Lukas for instance? Did he see her visit Lukas’s apartment?

  She pays for an hour of access and googles ‘Elga Hinkel journalist’.

  A few links come up, though none suggests her address: an article Elga wrote about police corruption, another one about her resigning from an editorial job five years ago to pursue investigative journalism, her own website with a photo where she stands erect in a dark purple tailored suit, smiling through thick brown-red lipstick. The make-up does nothing to fatten her bony face or smooth over her pointy chin and the bump in the middle of her nose. A gold chain is slung around her wrinkly throat. Her bleached blonde hair is cut into a fashionable short bob, each strand perfectly in place. Her eyes are blue. Perhaps they could be Amira’s.

  Perhaps Amira looks more like her birth father.

  Elga Hinkel also looks like she is possibly infected. Amira hopes this is not the case, that the website image is misleading. The website details Elga’s profile, articles, journalism awards, and four books she has written. She was a foreign correspondent for several years based in the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. More recently she has uncovered a people-smuggling racket operating in Germany and Belgium. This is a good sign that Elga is healthy, and even a sign that perhaps a person who appears infected might not be. An infected person will not seek to uncover the dirty secrets like people smuggling that keep this false system running.

  She clicks on the contact link and scribbles in her notebook Elga’s email address and phone number with the 030 Berlin prefix. She will not be able to send Elga a courteous email or letter by way of introduction. A response could take days or weeks. She has to see Elga in person. So she books herself an Intercity-Express train ticket to Berlin on the Deutsche Bahn website, and leaves the internet cafe.

  Time for some fun and games, Wilhelm.

  She starts out jogging towards Rudolfplatz. Nothing like a bit of exercise, is there, Wilhelm? The wind blows yellow leaves onto the pavers. She continues past Neumarkt and on to the Cologne Cathedral with its gothic architecture, constant scaffolding, ornate lace work and blacke
ned exterior. Gradually, she picks up the pace as she goes around the outskirts of the Altstadt, until she is running at about fifty per cent capacity. Wilhelm isn’t used to running a marathon.

  Still with me, Messenger boy?

  Yes.

  He is fitter than she thought. Stubborn lawyer.

  She runs across the Hohenzollernbrücke and the Rheinpark towards the Botanical Garden cable car and then back along the Rhine at seventy per cent capacity, making it very difficult for Wilhelm to keep up.

  Tired yet, Wilhelm?

  Doggy need a sip of water?

  After an hour, she’s warmed up. Her muscles are dynamic and alive, the air – the rush – flowing through her body. The morning is bright: cloudless sky, tourists lining up at the edge of the river to board a ferry. Then, as luck would have it, the last tourist climbs aboard a boat. The conductor is about to close the gate. Swiftly she purchases a ticket and scampers down the dock.

  ‘Please!’ she yells. ‘Please wait for me!’

  The conductor looks miffed. ‘Hurry up, then!’ She runs across the plank. ‘No running!’ he calls out to her as he closes the gate. ‘Not even for pretty ladies!’

  She sits down inside the ferry near a window. Outside, Wilhelm is behind a wall, hunched over, vomiting.

  She calls Elga from Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof at around 4.20 pm.

  ‘Elga Hinkel?’ she asks nervously.

  ‘May I ask who is calling?’ a receptionist asks.

  ‘Yes. Ava. Ava Black.’

  ‘Please hold.’

  Muzak plays as she gazes out at the trains rolling in and out of the glass cocoon station.

  Then Amira hears her voice: the voice of her mother.

  ‘Yes?’ she says, sharply.

  ‘Frau Hinkel?’

  ‘Yes, you have her.’

  She inhales. ‘I need to talk to you rather urgently, Frau Hinkel. I have some information about the murders that are taking place. The murders of the billionaires.’

  ‘Do you just? How have you come across such information?’

  ‘I can’t tell you on the phone.’

  Tap, tap, tap. She can hear fingers in the background tapping on a keyboard. Elga might be trying to look her up on a search engine.

  ‘I didn’t know who else to turn to,’ Amira says. ‘I read about how you helped those women with that human trafficking syndicate.’

  Elga lets out an exasperated sigh. ‘Okay, then.’ She suggests that they meet in an hour and a half at a cafe on Alexanderplatz. ‘And how will I know who you are?’

  ‘I’ll recognise you,’ Amira replies.

  ‘Very well, Ava, I’ll see you soon.’

  Amira arrives at Alexanderplatz early. Situated in the heart of the former East Berlin, the square is a showcase of plain, bulky communist architecture, and the concrete shaft of the toothpick TV tower looms over the Fountain of International Friendship, the World Time Clock, the shopping facilities, restaurants and cafes.

  She is to meet her mother in one of these places.

  The cafe is more of a cocktail bar with plastic plants in ceramic pots – people drinking Berliner Pilsners, women with tall cocktail glasses, the sky outside a wash of blue. She takes her seat inside on a red armchair and orders a banana-and-passionfruit juice. What will she say to Elga?

  Every day I hoped that you would come and pick me up and say you had made a mistake.

  Every day I wanted you to hold me and say how much you loved me.

  Waiters circle tables. They carry plates filled with burgers, currywurst, pasta and pommes frittes. Her stomach grumbles, cramps. She’s starving.

  Randy will never eat again.

  At last her mother enters the cafe with sharp strides and shoulders confidently thrown back. She wears a bright red pantsuit with matching high heels and cherry-red lipstick. Her face is white with foundation and she holds a briefcase. She surveys the tables.

  Without effort Amira stands up and raises her hand. ‘Frau Hinkel!’

  Amira looks through all the moving heads, the ceaseless bodies of the waiters, to her mother’s eyes, raw and blue. She trembles as Elga approaches the table. When she is near her, Elga sticks out her right hand, pale as a moon, with glossy red fingernails.

  ‘Ava Black?’

  ‘Yes.’ She reaches out with her right hand and her skin is dark compared to Elga’s. Her mother shakes her hand with a firm jerk, offers a faint smile and sits down in the armchair opposite her.

  Amira fumbles and almost knocks over her juice.

  A waiter comes to their table and Elga orders a scotch. When the drink arrives she downs most of it in a mouthful, then places her elbows on the table, lacing her fingers together, and stares Amira straight in the eye. ‘Tell me what you know.’

  Amira’s ribs seem to squeeze together. She searches for words and all she can wonder is how she has become such an inadequate representation of her mother, and whether Elga may already be claimed.

  Elga’s eyes widen. She stares at her impatiently. ‘Yes?’

  Amira’s hands drop to her side and under the table she pinches her outer thighs. ‘I know this might sound ridiculous,’ she begins softly.

  ‘Oh, my life is full of the ridiculous.’ The look in Elga’s eyes is harried, as though she only wants to be at home, resting with her feet up and a glass of wine.

  ‘Well, you see …’ Amira clears her throat. ‘I was adopted when I was young and someone …’

  Her mother’s eyes move about the room. Amira wants to reach out and hug her. She wants to tell her that she understands, whatever her reasons were. She wants to give her a reason to love and want her. She wants to tell her: I am someone, look at me, for fuck’s sake; I’m your daughter.

  Elga raises her eyebrows and flashes her eyes at Amira. ‘You are getting to the murders?’ Her lipstick is caking.

  ‘I don’t know how to say this,’ she begins again. ‘Did you ever have a child you put up for adoption?’

  Elga places a hand against a cheek, astonished, and her eyes lower over Amira’s body and back up again. It is supposed to be the moment of recognition, the time where they embrace and cry and tell each other everything. This is it; this is what Amira had been waiting for.

  ‘No,’ she says shrilly.

  Amira pinches her thighs harder. She’s in denial, that’s all. Amira doesn’t wear enough make-up for her liking.

  ‘Oh. Are you sure? It’s just that … I’m sorry for bothering you. I should have mentioned it …’

  ‘This isn’t about the billionaire murders, is it?’ she asks crisply, her fingernails tapping on the table.

  ‘I had to find a way to talk to you …’

  Elga stands up.

  Amira’s head grows dizzy; tears threaten to leak out of her eyes. ‘I think you may be my mother,’ she blurts out.

  People from other tables glance at them.

  Elga flinches at her outburst. She leans in.

  ‘Look, darling,’ she says, her voice a harsh whisper. ‘I’ve never had a child, let alone put one up for adoption. Why would you think I am your mother?’

  And she can’t tell her: Because of my father, because he does not make mistakes. A knot forms in the back of her throat; the tears tumble down her cheeks now, even though she doesn’t want them to, especially not here, in this place.

  ‘Did someone tell you I was your mother? What sort of sick prank is this?’ Her eyes wander fleetingly to the waiters, the other customers. ‘Who was it?’ she asks again.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry for disturbing you.’ She starts to shake uncontrollably. She feels that everyone in the restaurant is looking at her.

  Elga sighs deeply, as if she is annoyed with Amira and her tears. ‘I’m sorry, darling. Someone has given you the wrong information. I can’t have children. Never have been able to.’

  Her red fingernails curl around the briefcase handle; she asks a nearby waiter to bring Amira some water. Before Amira can find words, and half blinded by tears,
she sees Elga’s red back steadily gliding away from her with a liquid movement until she is gone.

  Amira’s head feels now as though it is floating.

  I am foolish, naive: a young idiot.

  She watches herself rise, cut off from all the moving bodies and the chatter, and wanders out into Alexanderplatz with its drab greys and beiges and faded graffiti: a tired square for tired times. Elga, her non-mother, has disappeared. She looks for her among the tourists and students sitting around the fountain drinking coffee from paper cups and reading novels – anything – to take the mind away, among the cyclists and business people. Gone.

  But she sees someone leaning against the wall near the Sparkasse – a familiar man. He stares at her and smiles. At first she can’t believe it and she has to blink hard to check that her eyes are not deceiving her.

  Kolya.

  Yes, it is Kolya!

  Father’s pervasive eyes.

  She runs towards him. She has to talk to him, to tell him about Elga, about Knudsen, about the panic attacks and how she doesn’t know if she truly believes in complete infection as their father has taught them. Third Warrior Brother will listen to her; he always did, even if he didn’t always agree with her. But he shakes his head at her.

  She pauses, uncertain.

  He runs, heading towards the subway.

  Words and emotions well within her and she can’t help it; she breaks into a sprint, dashing down the stairs, searching for Kolya.

  For an hour she looks for him, through the faces of the people waiting, disembarking, buying tickets, but she’s lost him, as she has the mother who was never hers.

  12

  12 JUNE

  She arrives back in Cologne with a hollowed-out feeling.

  Her need to speak to Kolya, Mother or Lukas about everything that was happening is acute. She has never been good at sweeping her emotions under the carpet. They always eat away at her, and it is the same now.

  Now Amira finally listens to the message from the call she ignored on the train. The message is from three hours earlier.

  ‘Hi, Anika; Lukas here. I hope you are okay. The dojo is having some black belts visit from other schools from twelve thirty to two thirty this afternoon, if you’re interested. I’ll be there. Give me a call when you can. Bye.’