The Secret Room (4 page)

I shook them a little, but they didn't budge. They were anchored firmly into the wall above and below.

It reminded me of a castle we had visited once—and then I understood. The round room, the bars, the landscape so far, far below: I was in a tower.

And the bars were there to keep someone trapped in this tower.

I flew more than ran back to the door. It opened easily. I stood panting in the hall for a while, staring at the silver handle.

No, I wasn't the secret room's prisoner.

But then who was?

I went down into the yard.

The branches of the trees were full of green apples; soon they would turn red and fall to the ground. There was a swing hanging from one tree. I sat down on it and swung back and forth for a while, thinking to myself.

From here I could see both of the hall windows. And the wall between them, where the vine was growing with its blossoms that were white and so violet they almost looked black. A silent garden rat scurried through their stalks. No, there was no room.

No room and no barred window and no tower.

Mosquitoes were dancing in the sunlight, and in the distance a dove was cooing. From time to time, the ropes of the swing would squeak.

Otherwise it was totally silent.

It seemed like everything was waiting. The apple trees, the mosquitoes, the vast blue sky above me, and the tall grass. They were all waiting in silence.

“I don't know,” I said to them. “You really think so? You think I should go back?”

The grass nodded and the mosquitoes buzzed in agreement.

“That's easy for you to say,” I said. “You aren't the ones who have to do it. You don't have to open the door a second time and feel the cold and look at the iron bed.”

But eventually I sighed and got up from the swing.

A strange feeling had crept into my heart, a feeling that I was the only one who could do this. And as if it were important that it was done.

I made myself some bread with butter in the kitchen and ate it to calm the tingling nervousness in my stomach.

Holding the bread and a plate, I wandered through the kitchen.

I stopped in front of a small, framed photo on the wall. It was of a young woman with red hair and a small boy. The two of them were wearing red rubber boots and walking along a beach.

The woman was Ines, I recognized her right away, and the small boy—that had to be her son. I stepped a little closer to the photo. He had a large mole in the middle of his right cheek and bright green eyes. Ines's red hair was blowing into her face, and you only had to glance at them to know that they were happy.

That's when it happened.

I was so absorbed in the picture that the plate slipped out of my hands.

It fell onto the kitchen floor and—with a single, small crash—broke into a shower of tiny porcelain shards. For a while I couldn't do anything but stand there and stare at them.

The inhaler in my pocket brought my breath back, but not the plate. It couldn't bring that back.

What would Paul say when he came home?

I found a little broom in one of the cabinets. I pulled my sweater off and swept the broken glass into it, and then I knotted it carefully and ran upstairs to hide the bundle under my mattress.

Maybe no one would notice that a plate was missing.

But they probably would.

When I finally stood in front of the door with the silver handle again, my fear was gone. It had broken with the plate. The fact that I had broken it on my very first day in this house was so terrible that everything else suddenly seemed unimportant. Even if a monster were waiting for me behind the door, it didn't matter now.

I opened the door very quietly and closed it just as quietly behind me.

The room was cast in the same surreal blue twilight as before. Nothing had changed.

But then I saw that something had changed after all.

Someone was standing at the window looking out.

He was about as tall as me and had his back to me.

He probably hadn't noticed me come in, I thought. I took one step forward, and then another. When I was close to the window, I stopped.

The person had red hair that almost came down to his shoulders. He was wearing a white shirt that was too long for him—and nothing else. At first I thought it was a girl, but when he spoke it was with a boy's voice.

“You've come back,” he said, without turning around.

I was shocked. “How do you know that I was already...? Have you been here the whole time?”

“Under the bed,” he answered.

“Under the bed?” I asked, confused.

He nodded. “I was hiding. I didn't know who you were and whether I could trust you.”

“And now? Now you know you can trust me?”

What an extremely strange conversation
, I thought.
What an extremely strange way to first meet someone
.

“I'm not sure yet,” he replied. “But I think so.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “This room, the window with the bars, what does it all mean? Who are you?”

“So you don't know?” he asked.

Then he turned around. He had a large mole in the middle of his cheek and bright green eyes.

“I'm Arnim,” he said. “And you, you're Achim, right?”

“You only took me because my name is so close to his,” I said.

Paul slipped off his shoes and looked at me in confusion.

“To whose?” he asked.

“To your son's, that's whose!” I muttered and shoved my hands so deep into my pockets that they almost came out again. “Arnim.”

Paul hung his jacket up on a hook. “Did the neighbors' kids tell you that?”

He put his hands on my shoulders.

“Achim,” he said. “We brought you here because we wanted you, and for no other reason. Do you understand? And why are you only wearing an undershirt?”

I turned away without a word and ran up the narrow stairs to the room that wasn't mine at all, but the Ribbeks'. Or Armin's.

I threw myself onto the bed and buried my face in Lucas, because Lucas belonged to me and me alone, and I could cry into him as long as I wanted.

The sweater with the broken glass in it made a small lump, and I could feel it on my shoulder.

From downstairs Paul was calling me, but I didn't answer.

Later when I heard him clattering with pots and pans in the kitchen and whistling, I took Lucas under my arm and paced back and forth with him—like a beetle in a matchbox or a tiger in its cage or something.

Over the colorful rug, along the shelves, pacing back and forth, and all the while I told him about all the strange and peculiar things that Arnim had told me.

They were so strange and peculiar that I could hardly believe it myself.

I had been right: The tower really was a prison, Arnim's prison—since the day he had been hit by the truck.

“I was crossing the street,” Arnim had said. “All of a sudden, tires squealed and I saw fireworks, an explosion. I was right in the middle of it all. The explosion was probably just in my head. When it was over, I was suddenly standing on the sidewalk, but I was lying in the street too. I could see myself lying there—perfectly still. Somehow I knew that I didn't need my old self that was lying on street. I had left it behind—it had become totally unimportant, but Ines rushed up and cried my name.

“I wanted to run up to her, but before I could, everything around me went dark. It was as if I had fallen into a deep sleep. And when I woke up, I was here and saw that I was wearing one of Paul's old shirts, nothing else, and that I couldn't open the door. I pressed my ear to it and listened. I was surprised to hear Ines and Paul crying. At one point someone called, and Ines cried into the telephone. She said I had died. And I knew it was true because everything was different than before—I wasn't hungry or thirsty anymore, and time also passed differently.

“So yeah, I had died, but I couldn't leave Ines and Paul.

“As much as I wanted to. I wanted them to stop crying and wanted to get away from here... See the birds?” Arnim had asked and led me to the window where the iron bars divided the view into narrow strips.

“See how they're gathering together to fly south? They used to be people like you, and they died, like me. But they're free. They can fly wherever they want. And believe me, there's a lot more than just hills and grass down there. Every year in the summer, they come back for the ones who are ready to go with them.”

“And you? Why didn't you turn into a bird? Why don't you go with them?”

Arnim had paused for a long time. Then he had said, “I can't. He's there, you know, and he makes sure that I can't.”

“Who's he?” I had asked.

But Arnim had quickly put his finger to his lips.

“Let's not talk about him. He can hear us. He's big and powerful, and he doesn't have a name. Sometimes the birds fly up here and talk with me. They told me he has lots of prisoners all over the world. Those people are longing to be free and fly away, and he's using that longing to build his palace. That and the sadness of the people who think about us and can't let us go. He's building his palace out of black and white stones, and the birds say it's just getting bigger and bigger. They've seen him on their travels; they should know. When he takes my longing, they say, it becomes white stones, and my parents' sadness becomes black ones.”

“You mean he's milking the sadness and longing from people like milk from a cow?”

Arnim had laughed a little, but not very happily.

“I don't know how he does it. If I knew that, maybe I'd be free.”

Eventually Ines came home and put the record player on. The smell of onions and something a little burnt came from the kitchen.

I crept down the stairs and felt embarrassed to see that the table was already set and I hadn't helped at all.

But no one seemed to notice but me.

“How was your day?” asked Ines when we were sitting at the table.

“Hm,” I said and stuffed some mashed potatoes into my mouth. With mashed potatoes in your mouth, you can't say very much.

Paul served the fish sticks. “They used to be deep-frozen,” he said. “I think now they're ultra-heated or something like that.”

Ines leaned over the table and kissed him on the nose.

“They're burnt,” she said cheerfully. “That's all. We're going to eat them anyway.”

No one said anything about the missing plate.

I pushed the mashed potatoes back and forth on my plate and wondered how I could casually find out if Paul and Ines knew about the secret room.

“The door handles are nice here,” I said finally, feeling sort of stupid. “They're actually all … they're all the same?”

Ines gave me a funny look. “I've never met an eleven-year-old who was interested in door handles,” she said.

“Here's someone who has taste,” said Paul. “You know, Ines wanted these terrible old ones made of brass and fake rust and stuff...”

“Shut your trap!”

Ines threw a tiny piece of burnt fish at him.

Really
, I thought,
maybe these Ribbeks were grown up. But very grown up, no, very grown up they were not
.

“Anyway, I chose the red door handles,” Paul explained as he wiped the piece of fish off his cheek. “And even if you throw a whale at me, my dear wife, all the handles in this house will still be made of red plastic.”

“And there isn't a single silver one?” I asked.

“Silver?” Ines laughed. “Maybe if Paul becomes a head chef and we get rich quick.”

“Hm,” I said. But I was thinking much more than “Hm.” I was thinking:
They don't know about the door
.

“How did it go over there yesterday?” asked Ines the next morning as she took her hat off the hook. “With the kids ... I'm forgetting their names right now...”

“It was okay,” I said quickly, before she could ask what their names were.

“What did you do?” she wanted to know as she accidentally put the hat on backwards.

“Oh, this and that,” I said.

“Then it's no problem for you to go back over?”

“No, no,” I said.

“And you definitely get along with them?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said.

“Dress warmly,” said Ines. “It's starting to get cold outside.”

As soon as she was gone, I ran up the stairs and down the hall to the door with the round arch at the top.

I pressed the silver hand down and went inside.

Arnim was standing at the window talking to someone.

“You really think so?” I heard him say as I closed the door to the secret room behind me. “You think he could do it?” As he spoke, his fingers played nervously with the vine's flowers.

I waited for the reply, but one didn't come—just a bright chirping and what sounded like the flutter of wings, and then Arnim turned around.