I’d been sitting up there at Tyska Brunnsplan, on a little isolated bench, reading and enjoying the last remnants of the atmosphere in Old Town, when my phone rang. Unknown number. I don’t usually answer these since they’re almost always sales calls. But this time, whether out of boredom, loneliness, or maybe hoping a friend would want to go out for a bite to eat, I picked up and answered anyway.
— Hello?
At first a long silence, then a weak voice; I couldn’t decide if it belonged to an adult or a child, or of which sex.
— Hello? Who is this?
— Who are you trying to call?
— Don’t know. You.
And with a tone that sounded weaker but simultaneously more piercing, more chilling than any I’d ever heard, the voice hissed: Help me! Please, you’re my only chance.
— How can I help?
— I’m locked up. Only you can help me.
— You don’t even know who I am.
— He said I should call you. Only you can help me.
— Who told you to call me? Where are you?
— Nearby. Here: in Old Town.
— Tell me where.
— I’m not allowed. You have to find me yourself.
— I don’t have time for games like this.
— It’s not a game. If you don’t find me... He’s coming. Answer the next time I call.
— But...
— Promise!
— Okay, okay. I’ll answer.
I put the phone back in my pocket, anxious and irritated — not knowing if I should take this anonymous call seriously or not. People always allege that they can hear if a voice is telling the truth or a lie, just as they declare they’re able to see if someone is good or evil, clever or stupid. But the truth is probably that in most cases wisdom comes only after the fact. Even old Nazis looked avuncular, and each time a genuine murderer is unmasked, a serial killer who’s buried a dozen women in his garden, family and friends always say they had no idea, that he was so nice and polite, but maybe spent a little too much time by himself...
The book I’d been reading was no longer a temptation. I opened it, but my eyes couldn’t focus on the pages. So I just sat there a little while in solitude and felt the phone in my hand, uncertain if I should leave or sit there waiting for more calls. Maybe this was all an elaborate joke being played on me, or maybe just a prank.
The phone rang again, so I took the call and listened without replying. Someone was breathing at the other end. And then a man’s voice could be heard this time, utterly distinct: I know you’re there.
— ...
— I know that it called you. How did it get your number?
— Who is this?
— It doesn’t matter. How did Kim get your number?
This was more an order than a question, and the tone provoked me more than a little.
— Damned if I know how that child got my number! Who the hell are you?
— Who I am is unimportant. Now it’s your responsibility. That’s all you need to know.
— Hello? What kind of...?
Evidently the man had turned the phone over to the person he called Kim.
— Sorry... I heard the weak androgyne say, while s/he breathed heavily into the receiver.
There was something in the tone of voice and the wheezing that made me take it seriously. Yes, a helplessness, maybe outright pain, which I’d never heard so clearly, so distinctly in a voice, and I couldn’t, as reason urged me, end the conversation.
— You have to find me.
— Where are you? I’ll call the police!
— NO! If you call the cops he’ll kill me.
— Who’ll kill you?
— I don’t know.
— What am I supposed to do? How can I help you? Don’t you have any idea where you are?
— All I know is that you can help me. Maybe. You have to trust me. He says you must rely on me.
The voice sobbed with exceptional vehemence. Someone was subjecting Kim to something.
— What does he do to you?
— You have to do it.
— Do what?
— What he does. It’s the only way.
— No. I don’t want to. What does he do?
— He owns me. Buy my freedom. That’s the only way you can help.
— Have you been kidnapped?
— You don’t understand. Wait.
The man snatched the receiver again. His voice was firm and determined.
— Do you want to own it?
— It?
— This worthless slave.
— Kim?
— Are you simpleminded? Do you want it?
— No.
— Then it will die tonight.
— Then yes! I want it!
— Then you’ll be able to handle it?
— Yes, yes! Just tell me what to do!
— Instructions will come. Keep your phone turned on and the line open.
There was a click on the other end and the conversation was over.
My whole body was shaking. This was like nothing I’d ever been involved in before. It felt like a secret I didn’t want to keep had been thrust upon me. And now there was something that connected me with this Kim, and with the man who evidently held her captive. When I looked up and observed the solitary wanderers in Old Town, the tourists with their maps and the natives who knew which side streets to take so they could be alone, I saw them all together from the outside, as if through some kind of thin glass, as if they and I no longer lived in the same world.
Where could Kim be hidden? What was it that had happened? And why was I selected to be the one capable of freeing her? It distressed me deeply that the man on the phone had called Kim it. It? Like a slave? Though I probably should have been grateful that he didn’t say that thing.
Should I go home now and wait for the call? Stay in Old Town? The two conversations had forced me to assume a responsibility that burst my frames of reference and created an uncertainty within me that intensified the feeling of solitude that even earlier on this tediously beautiful summer afternoon threatened to eat into my soul. An emptiness that was deep inside of me, and when my desire for solitude had been so completely satisfied I wanted nothing more than for someone to contact me, meet, get a bite to eat, talk, have a beer with me in peace and quiet. Now I’d been given an opportunity that seemed to preclude all others until further notice.
I toyed with the idea of going to the police. They could certainly trace the call and solve this whole riddle without my involvement. But what would I say to them? Even if they took me seriously they’d scarcely begin to make a move before it was too late. I felt in my bones that it could already be too late. It was serious, I was convinced of that. Both the male voice’s firm matter-of-factness and Kim’s pitiful despair, the entreaty in her tone when s/he said that I alone could free her, were clear and distinct proof, all the proof I needed, that this was serious.
The bench was hard. It chafed and I was sore; I took a little walk through the nearest alleys. Round and round, making little turns. How small Old Town still is. It felt as if I were moving in a little labyrinth, a simple path with no way out, but also with no end, as if the inner space were greater than the outer, with infinite possibilities. Old Town was like a brain, the city’s brain, and I was a lone obsession, a song stuck on replay in the head, going around, up and down and back and forth between the small squares and alleys, searching for some way either to get out of this damned part of the city or really get into it.