TMB III: Without a Trace

Nothing unusual at first. Not that I had expected anything. The apartment was cool and quiet. The silence hovering in the rooms was almost palpable. The foreboding of her absence hung in the air like a faint shadow. I took off my jacket, unbuttoned the upper buttons of my shirt, and drank a glass of water at the kitchen sink. I switched on the lights in the bed- and the living room and rechecked her wardrobe. Same as before: not a trace of her garments. Her blouses, her jackets, her skirts and dresses, her trousers, her underwear, all gone - as if they never even had existed in this particular space and time. I sighed at the sight and returned to the living room, where I seated myself strategically on the sofa. We'd chosen that one together, just like most of the other furniture in our apartment. Originally it had been my apartment to begin with, but she'd done a great job refurbishing it once she had moved in with me. She'd had a great taste. Damn it. Right now it felt as if she had died. Perhaps had. Who knew? This brought my thoughts right back to the mystery at hand. What was going on?

Our life together had not been bad, or so I had assumed and still did. When we hadn't been working, we'd spent most of our time together, although, admittedly, we worked most of the time. There had been diversions in our personal interests, but we'd covered enough common ground to build upon. Well, we had started building long ago. Only that now it rather appeared like so many castles in the air to me…

To tell the truth, she'd filled the more energetic part of our relationship. She'd come into my life that summer three years ago, she'd pressed to move in with me, she'd done most of the rearrangements in our home, and she'd insisted on marrying. Now she was the one who had opted to go. Energetic right until the end. And good for a surprise, as always.

I myself seemed rather like the phlegmatic type to me. Oh, I sure was a nice guy, neat and tidy, and ready to rise to most occasions. But phlegmatic I was on the emotional side. As long as she'd been around, that hadn't been much of a problem, as she had tended to pull me out of my habitual submersion and up into her own occasional frenzy. But the moment she was gone I'd slumped right back into my natural affinity to indecision concerning my emotional matters. It had taken me most of the night to figure out I was angry. And up until now to notice that I was also sad. And even more so the longer I pondered about it.

She'd repeatedly called me an emotional steamroller - slow to get moving and catch speed, but steadily rolling along once I got going.

I immersed myself in misery for a period of time, on the edge of crying, but not having any tears to shed. Then I pulled the brakes. That was one of the advantages being a steamroller entailed.

That very moment, a door shut with an audible click. I stared into space absentmindedly until I realized what I'd just heard and made the necessary connections to establish the knowledge that the sound had indeed come from the front door.

I jumped up and raced over and out onto the stairs. No one there. I hurried down and burst onto the dimly lit street - no one there either.

While I pondered the question whether I had really heard anything and whether anyone had had been here at all, it occurred to me to catch the door to our apartment building just in time before it fell shut. In my mad dash down the stairs, I hadn't thought of taking any keys with me. Fortunately, our apartment door upstairs was stuck on the uneven floor as usually. Quite a feat to close it so quietly. Light poured out through the crack in the door and sprawled across the floor like a discarded blanket.

I shut the door with a reasonable amount of force and returned to the kitchen. I drank another two glasses of water and pulled a beer from the fridge. Leaning against a shelf, I took a few gulps and used the bottle to chill my forehead.

Someone had been here. He (or she?) must have hidden in our guests' washroom. So I must have surprised him. Thinking of it, given that at first glance nothing seemed to be stolen (no open drawers, no disorder to speak of), and that the lock on the door was completely intact (I went over and checked just to be sure), it seemed to me it had in fact been her who'd raided our apartment - or at least someone who hadn't been interested in any valuables and had had her keys.

That thought startled me so much, I nearly ran out on the streets again, spilling some of my beer midway through the room. Looking down on my beer-soaked trousers, I told myself to calm down. Whoever had been here was long gone by now. I took a look out of the kitchen window, just to be sure. As before, no one was to be seen.

Why had she come back? What had she done? And why hiding herself the moment I came through the door?

It must have been a close thing. Looked like she'd been about to leave when I scrambled up the stairs. After all, I hadn't been particularly quiet. She'd heard me and must have decided to take no chances. She'd cleared the scene, hiding in the washroom. Then making it to the door the moment I was distracted.

Provided it had been her. But who else could it have been?

I emptied the beer and started to turn our apartment upside down.

I started right in the kitchen. I opened every shelf and drawer, rummaged through the pots and provisions, ransacked the cutlery. Nothing unusual to speak of. Nothing lacking.

I continued in the living room, took the books out of their shelves and flipped through the pages, opened every cupboard and mentally reconstructed the original state of things. Nothing unusual here either.

On the way to the bedroom I paid a short visit to the bathroom, throwing a cursory glance at the assembled bottles and tubes. Her perfumes, shampoos and even toothbrush were gone, but you could restock on these everywhere you wanted. You needn't sneak in in the middle of the night to get them.

Even more puzzled I entered the bedroom. Her wardrobe had been empty before, no need to look there. I took a half-hearted look into my own wardrobe, but could see at first glance that nothing was in the wrong place or missing. What would she have done with, say, one of my ties, anyway?

So, the last place to sort through was our desk in the corner. We'd both used it for home office now and then, and had stored some of our collective stuff in it, as well as our personal documents.

My stuff resided in the top drawer. Business as usual in there. Her things used to be in the middle drawer. It now was as empty as a church on weekdays. Her papers, her passport, her documents, her banking stuff: all gone. A lone remaining paper clip lay in the far corner, like in a still life.

I opened the bottom drawer. There we'd stored our photographs, capturing everything from friends' wedding feasts to our holidays, and also what we'd saved of our love letters we'd written now and then to each other.

Taken aback I looked on the shambles before me. An Armageddon of mutilated memories stretched out before my eyes. I took a closer look on some of the scraps: She'd cut herself out clearly of every single photograph we'd been on together. The pictures of her herself were missing completely. Every photo left in the drawer showed me and only me. No need to tell that our love letters had vanished as well.

She'd erased every trace that she'd ever shared a life with me. And thoroughly so.
God dammit, what was going on?