The first time he came was the night before my eighteenth birthday. I woke up and saw him standing in a corner of my bedroom.
I wasn’t surprised, and I was aware that I wasn’t. It would have been normal if I’d screamed and run out of the room, because I can really overreact when I’m startled. Instead, though, I just lay there in my bed and folded my hands behind my head and asked him who he was.
“They call me Ted Bundy,” he said.
“Is that your name?” I asked.
“I was born Theodore Robert Cowell, but it was changed to Bundy when my mother married a loser and he adopted me. You can call me Ted.” There was laughter in his voice.
“What’s so funny?” I wanted to know.
“Me, being here. You, letting me in.” He looked at me with an intense expression in his eyes. “Letting me inside you, do you understand?”
I didn’t.
It got very quiet in my room, and I didn’t know what he expected of me.
He came closer. “They stopped me,” he said. “I want you to pick up where I left off.”
At that moment, I heard Mother in the bathroom. I turned my head toward the sound. Water ran out of the tap, then stopped. The toilet flushed.
When I turned back, Ted was gone.
Anja, the psychiatric caseworker I have to see every month, always asks me if I hear voices or have visitors. She wouldn’t ask that if I’d just ignored Mother always grilling me about who I talk to late at night. But I had to go and tell her someone was coming to see me, someone she couldn’t see. She should have known that was private information, not something she was allowed to pass on to anyone else, but Mother doesn’t understand things like that. It doesn’t surprise me when every man she goes out with winds up dropping her. What does surprise me is that, with all those guys, she’s only had the one child: me.
Mother lives in a world of her own.
I don’t give the caseworker a hard time. I’m polite, I answer her questions, I tell her I take my penfluridol every week. It’s important I stay calm when she asks me trick questions. I know for a fact she’s trying to trap me.
Tuesday
Ted told me about track 13B months ago, and today I went to take a look at it.
Mother had a migraine this morning and stayed in bed. She can’t stand the least bit of light or sound when she gets a migraine, so I shut the living room drapes, made sure the windows were latched, and disconnected the doorbell. Then I snuck out of the house.
She didn’t come right out and say so, but she made it clear that the migraine was my fault. In her indirect way, she let me know that I’d disturbed her sleep by making a racket until all hours, not even quieting down when she banged her cane against the wall that separates our rooms.
See, Ted showed up again last night, which was a surprise. When I realized he was there, I tried to make a joke: “Don’t you have days of the week up there in Eternity?” I asked him, but I don’t think he got it. I backed away from his angry reaction and apologized profusely. He raised his voice, and that made me start screaming. When Mother wouldn’t quit banging on the wall, I begged him to calm down. I lowered my voice and began asking him questions. Open-ended questions, full of empathy. That helped.
He was clearly in the mood to talk, and to brag. Full of pride, he told me that, right before his execution, he confessed to more than twenty murders, but in fact his count was much higher. He explained what it had meant to him, the kidnapping, the raping, the killing, and he especially wanted me to understand how much he missed it, and how happy he was to be able to enter into me, and we were going to be a team. An amazing team that would always be there for each other.
I was so touched.
I feel this powerful connection to Ted, because we’re both children of unwed mothers and we never knew who our fathers were. That’s why I don’t think it’s weird that he picked me to be his special friend. And that’s why I’ll do whatever he tells me to. I won’t be surprised if he shows up every night this week, though he didn’t promise that he would.
He’s always welcome.
I go into the Central Station by the main entrance. The gates from the main hall to the tracks never close, so I can walk right through.
There are two women in front of me, and they keep looking around. I go past them as quickly as I can and hug the right side of the expansive shopping area. First I check to make sure all the stores are in the right order. De Broodzaak: check. Swirls Ice Cream: check. Smullers: check. The Amstel Passage is closed. The Döner Company: check. No changes, so that’s good.
There are two sets of fifteen steps up to track 13B. I have to be sure to remember to count them again when I come down.
My mission is so exciting! I can feel that it’s all going to go just right for once. The woman I’m supposed to look for will be there. Everything will work out perfectly. I know it, and that sense of certainty makes me happy.
I’ve never been so happy in my life.
The man is only a few feet away from me, and I can smell his cigarette. “There are special smoking areas,” I say, and I point to the standing ashtray not far off. He inhales deeply and blows a white cloud at my face.
I lower my head and count to ten. Every time Ted gives me a mission, he tells me not to raise my voice and not to argue with anyone. If I say something to this man...
I count to twenty.
I feel like Ted is watching me, but I can also feel Anja’s eyes aimed in my direction. Let that frustrated caseworker find herself another victim! A piece of advice: make it somebody who’ll give her a good roll in the hay. Somebody her big boobs will make all horny.
“Watch where you’re going,” a voice beside me snarls.
I’m standing next to a woman whose buttons are practically popping off her blouse. I mumble an apology and walk away.
As I approach the stairs, I see a woman in a short brown leather jacket coming toward me. Black skirt, black stockings, black high-heeled boots. Her long blond hair is parted in the middle. But it’s only Tuesday.
I hurry down the thirty steps.
Mother has left me a note. She’s gone to the beauty parlor and wants me to do the shopping. There’s a list in the linen bag on the inside of the kitchen door. The money is in an envelope.
The thought hits me the second I touch the bag.
Mother is going to poison me. She’s letting me do the shopping so I won’t be suspicious, but she’s already bought the poison, see? She tells me to get the ingredients she needs to make her endive stew with bacon, that way she figures I’ll never stop to think how easy it’ll be for her to stir the poison into the stew. She’ll serve me a poisoned dinner, a meal I know she doesn’t like and won’t eat.
She wants to get rid of me.
I don’t fit in here.
I wish Ted would come, wish just once he’d come during the day instead of at night. I could talk with him, explain my suspicions. He would give me good advice. Maybe if I sit very quietly on the sofa and stare straight down at the floor. I listen for his footsteps, not moving a muscle.
The clock in the hall strikes four. He’s not coming. I’d better go do the shopping. But I won’t eat the stew, not one bite. I won’t let myself be poisoned. Not by anyone.
Wednesday
The new day is only ten minutes old. I slipped into the kitchen half an hour ago to make two cheese sandwiches. Mother loves cheese, so that’s something she won’t poison. And bread is safe. And butter. And milk. Anything Mother eats, I can eat.