Planet Literature

Excerpts from Nadja Dietrich’s Novel Murder in the German Parliament! Investigations of a Cleaning Lady

Does a murder mark us with a mark of Cain that alienates us from others forever? Or can people detach such an act from themselves as if it were someone else’s deed and go on living as if nothing had happened?

During her school years – it must have been in the fourth or fifth grade – Lidia Afanasyevna had a classmate named Alyona with whom she had been in constant conflict.
Today she couldn’t even say what it was all about. Maybe it was jealousy due to a boy they both fancied, maybe it was just about mud splashes on a dress, for which each blamed the other. Just kids‘ stuff, nothing earth-shattering. But at that time, as Lidia Afanasyevna clearly recalled, she had been downright eaten up by hatred for the other on some days.
One night she had been startled by a nightmare, which from then on kept recurring every now and then in a similar form: it was deep night, she was wandering alone through a dark maze of alleys abandoned by God and the world – and she knew: she had killed Alyona. There was no corpse to bend over, nor could she remember in what way she had committed the murder. The only thing she knew for sure was that she had committed it.
Although there was not a soul to be seen, she felt watched all the time. Behind every window she suspected a figure, disappearing inside the room as soon as she looked up at it. Constantly she saw shadows darting around the corner and heard the footsteps of invisible pursuers.
Everyone seemed to know what she had done. Now their persecutors were just waiting for the best moment to arrest her. Yet there was no doubt that no one had watched her commit the crime.
So did her appearance reveal what she had done? Was it written all over her face what she was capable of? Wasn’t that even the way it had to be, now that her innermost self had turned outward in her felony?
Lidia Afanasyevna could still remember the feeling of infinite loneliness that had taken hold of her at that moment – and that persisted even after the dream had ended. Suddenly she had realised that after satisfying her lust for murder, she would never again be able to lead a normal life among others – and that if she did try, she would always feel their piercing, accusing glances burning in her soul.
The very next day she had gone to Alyona and apologised to her – no matter what for. They had not become friends after that, but from then on Lidia Afanasyevna had always tried not to let her anger turn into hatred. She feared too much that in real life she could fall into the same nightmarish abyss as in her dream.

Was murder, she asked herself in retrospect, not in fact the most extreme form of alienation from others, the ultimate kind of antagonism, which radically excluded repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation, because it eliminated the counterpart necessary for this? And wasn’t it therefore even some sort of relief for Wesel when his deeds were revealed and he at least no longer had to hide from others?
Or did such a person, Lidia Afanasyevna pondered as she took the coffee pot off the warming plate, perhaps have a completely different emotional constitution than normal mortals? Could someone who always had to play a certain role at some point mistake the latter for his real self – so that he perceived what he did as who he really was as the deeds of a stranger? In other words, did certain forms of public activity contribute to personality splits?

Picture: Ntnvnc: Gloom (Pixabay)