Susanne Preusker - Seven Hours in April - Patmos Verlag

Susanne Preusker
Seven Hours in April
My Story of Survival
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ISBN: 978-3-8436-0038-5
Hardback with jacket
160 pages
Format 14 x 22 cm
EUR 17.90
Sold: Italian, Korean
English sample translation available
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© 2011 Schwabenverlag AG, Patmos Verlag,
Ostfildern, Germany
Translated by Tammi Reichel, APE Int’l
Prologue
He pulls on the mounting of the window blinds. He
wants to let them down, the white blinds with the
narrow slats. They have been hanging in this
window for almost five years. I’ve never lowered
them. He tugs and pulls. Something in the
mounting gives, and the blinds hang at an angle in
the window. He yanks, first in one direction, then another. On the windowsill is a photograph in a
narrow wood frame. The blinds will fall on the frame. That can’t be helped. The picture will tip
over, fall, maybe on the ground. He continues to pull, first in one direction, then another.
Dear God, don’t let the picture fall down. Dear, dear God, please, please, please give me a sign.
Make the picture stay upright. Then I’ll make it. If it falls, that’s it for me. Then I’ll die here in this
room. Please, please, please give me a sign, dear God, please. Let the picture stay where it is.
Please. Don’t let it fall down. Please give me this sign. Don’t leave me all alone. Please.
He pulls. The blinds move, give way. He yanks some more. They crash down. First onto the
picture, then on the windowsill. The wood frame tilts precariously.
Please, please, please, no.
Contact:
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Claudia Stegmann, Foreign Rights Manager
t: +49 711 4406 148
f: +49 711 4406 177
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www.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de

The picture remains upright. On the windowsill. Behind it are the white slats of the window blinds.
Big Susanne Makes Noise
When I look out the bedroom window, I can see both spires of the cathedral in the distance.
Depending on the weather, they seem to be very close and clear, or further away, vague through
the fog or rain. But they are always visible.
The cathedral has been there for a good eight hundred years, and when I look out the window I
am often amazed by what this oldest Gothic church on German soil – it is said – has already seen
and experienced: wars, prosperity, demonstrations, destruction, reconstruction. Its own wounds.
An endless chain of repeating events. And stoically the cathedral keeps watch over everything.
I’ve often imagined what this edifice might think about us human beings as we walk through the
square in front of it, bent with cares or shopping bags. Or crying. Or happy. Do our little lives
seem unimportant to a structure like that? Does stone think? If I were the cathedral, I would just
be grateful and glad to be a cathedral. I don’t think I would want to ponder things. And after eight
hundred years I wouldn’t have enough energy left to waste it on small, fleeting lives.
Three years ago I was inside the cathedral for the first time and lit a candle. Not that I’m
especially devout, but there is something sublime, something mystical about that gesture. You
feel blessed in some indefinable and probably feigned way, and connected to a divinity of some
sort. And it can’t hurt anything, I thought at the time.
In the time since then, I’ve been there often, watching the archaeologists and the conservators,
observing the organ builders and the tourists. I followed the progress of their works, spent time in
the space of silence and actually kept my mouth shut there. I walked through the cloister several
times, even though I usually just pass through, and at some point I started to feel comfortable in
the cathedral. At home. But the act of lighting a candle never lost its special quality for me. I lit
candles for myself, my husband, my son, my mother, for graduations and tests, for important
decisions at work, our love, all our health. Over time it became lots and lots of candles. I never
prayed. But I talked quietly. With whomever.
Ten days after my old life came to an end, I got married. After the civil ceremony, we, the small,
sad and deeply distressed wedding party—consisting of the bride and groom, two witnesses with
their partners, a young man (son of the bride), a widowed honorary doctor (father of the groom)
and a widowed, retired chief secretary (mother of the bride)—gathered in the Chapel of Our Lady
to receive the church’s blessing. No, not a church wedding, strictly speaking, just a simple
blessing. Without an organ and a lot of rigamarole. The religious ceremony, we had arranged with
the provost, was supposed to take place a few months later in a different place, where the groom
Contact:
Verlagsgruppe Patmos der Schwabenverlag AG
Claudia Stegmann, Foreign Rights Manager
t: +49 711 4406 148
f: +49 711 4406 177
claudia.stegmann@verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
www.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de

had spent his childhood, and where his mother lay buried. That was the plan, because the stilldewy-eyed
lovers were agreed that certain things in life might work out better with God’s help.
Marriage, for example. If God exists, but that’s another subject entirely.
I had drawn up the guest list for the big church wedding one day before my old life came to an
end. The invitations, however, were never sent. The church’s blessing in the old, wise cathedral;
the simple, heartfelt ceremony would have to be enough for now. And it should and it was, too. I
can hardly remember what happened in the chapel. Just the words faith, love, hope.
This is my second marriage. The first, like so many marriages, was a long, drawn-out fight with no
winner. Then the divorce, then unexpectedly the new, the great, the perhaps eternal love of an
almost-fifty-year-old woman for a man she never believed she deserved. Happiness, laughter,
passion, breathtaking sex, a marriage proposal and a half-laughed, half-cried yesyesyesyesyes! I
had looked forward to this wedding, to this marriage. To riding the Ferris wheel of life – and
another round, and another one, and another, higher, higher, faster, much faster.
But if he finds you and you find him,
The rest of the world don’t matter;
For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim
With you in any water.
That’s what Rudyard Kipling said. I knew I had found him. The Thousandth Man.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of ‘em call
For silver and gold in their dealings;
But the Thousandth Man he’s worth ’em all
Because you can show him your feelings.
After my old life had ended, in our first encounter in the new life, I asked my future husband if he
still wanted to marry me. He replied, “Now more than ever.” What would I have done if he had
said no? I don’t know.
The Big Susanne hangs in the north tower of the cathedral and makes noise. She can sound off
because she is a big, fat church bell. You can read all about it in Wikipedia. I know nothing about
bells, very little about church history, and only a tiny bit about music or scales or harmonies or
whatever it is that determines the sound of church bells. But the thought of the sound of the Big
Susanne protecting me in this city where I move ever more independently and confidently, and
reminding me of the many candles I’ve lit, and the magic of the cloister or the blessing at my
wedding – I like that very much. I see the cathedral from my window, I see it when I approach the
city from a distance from any direction, and when I don’t happen to see it, I hear the noise of the
Big Susanne. I think that sound can be heard throughout the entire city.
Contact:
Verlagsgruppe Patmos der Schwabenverlag AG
Claudia Stegmann, Foreign Rights Manager
t: +49 711 4406 148
f: +49 711 4406 177
claudia.stegmann@verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
www.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de

Cotton Wool is Terrifying
It can happen anywhere – while shopping, at the gas station or talking to other people, and it
doesn’t matter a bit whether I’m with acquaintances or strangers. It can happen in a restaurant, in
my apartment, at the gym and sometimes – although that is the exception – when I’m entirely
alone. There is never any warning. It’s just suddenly there, remains for several minutes,
sometimes an hour or more. And it makes me afraid. Always.
I call it the cotton wool feeling. Of course there’s an official, professional term for this feeling,
which isn’t a feeling at all, but more of a condition or state of being. But it doesn’t belong here, for
one thing; secondly, it isn’t helpful, and thirdly, it was invented by people naming something they
hadn’t experienced firsthand, but only knew from what their patients told them. So I’ll stick to my
own term, what I call my cotton wool feeling.
I want to try to describe it: A wall of very sturdy transparent film inserts itself between me and my
surroundings. The film isn’t soundproof; I hear everything that’s said, I hear all noises, they are
loud and clear and yet oddly muffled. As if I, already surrounded by plastic wrap, were also
wrapped in cotton wool. The cotton wool is also transparent; I see everything going on around
me, but at the same time the people and my surroundings aren’t accessible. My perspective
changes. I can only concentrate on an image now; I don’t grasp more complex connections
anymore. I’m isolated in my plastic wrap and cotton wool package, and surprised that no one
notices. I can speak – “I’ll pay by debit card” – and my voice sounds muted, as if it didn’t come
from me, as if someone else was speaking my thoughts out loud. Everything is muted somehow,
surreal.
I know that it would be just a small, easy step to leave my body and be able to observe myself
from the outside. I know this, too: if I allow that to happen, I’ll lose my mind. And I will never be
able to return to my body, to my senses. This makes me unbelievably scared. At first, all that’s left
to me is flight, get away, away, away, get away fast, like during a panic attack. But I quickly
discovered that neither plastic wrap nor cotton wool possess an emergency exit. When I fled, I
took everything with me. It stuck to me: the transparent film, the cotton wool, the awareness that I
was about to lose my mind. When it had gone away again – all by itself, with or without an
escape, I had nothing to do with it – I was tired, exhausted, sad. And helpless. And afraid of the
next time. That there would be a next time was clear. There is always a next time. I had no idea
how to cope with the cotton wool feeling. How should I? In my old life there was no such thing.
Over time I developed strategies to trick the cotton wool feeling. At first with a kind of inner dialog,
a mantra that I prayed unceasingly:
Everythingisokay.It’salright.Itwillbeoversoon.Everythingisokay.Youarenotgoingcrazy.It’salright.
Repeat it. Continuously. Don’t stop. Repeat it.
Contact:
Verlagsgruppe Patmos der Schwabenverlag AG
Claudia Stegmann, Foreign Rights Manager
t: +49 711 4406 148
f: +49 711 4406 177
claudia.stegmann@verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
www.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de

That helped me a little. Then I started to concentrate as intensely as possible on my surroundings
when the cotton wool feeling struck. Very simple, and yet so difficult: Your feet are touching the
ground. Feel the ground. The number 23 is on the house. The numbers are black and made of
metal. The cashier is wearing a thin, gold wedding ring. It’s raining, but there’s no wind. The car’s
steering wheel is leather and feels cool to the touch. For example. That helped some, too.
But the most helpful thing of all was the certainty that it would pass. There is always a next time,
but each ‘next time’ ends. And over and over and over. It passes, I don’t lose my mind, the cotton
wool feeling is unpleasant and scary, but normal. It’s normal to react to abnormal situations
abnormally. Also helpful was the insight that I can’t and don’t have to explain the cotton wool
feeling to anyone. Who could understand it? The sentence, “I’m not doing so well at the moment,”
had to suffice in a pinch. Everything else would be an imposition on the healthy, who would have
been forced into feigned understanding. In the end, this whole business is a matter between me
and my cotton wool feeling; we have to get through it together.
At some point the cotton wool feeling was no longer my enemy, but instead a kind of sidekick in
my new life. A companion I don’t particularly like, even today, but who is simply there, whether I
want it or not. Like an unpleasant neighbor, an incredibly annoying colleague at work or
disagreeable relatives; we don’t get to choose them, either. Maybe it wants to warn me or protect
me or make me more clever. I don’t know. But since I stopped seeing it as my enemy, we get
along better. And lately it’s been visiting me less and less often. But once in a while it comes to
assist its sister: panic. Even though there may be reasons for it, these double visits are very
difficult – impossible, actually – to bear. Like recently in the parking garage.
May Showers Make Everything Beautiful
I am a good and experienced driver. Sure, everyone says that about themselves, even people
who first brake and then look. Or the ones who block the middle lane of the A2 – a highway I
despise – by trying to pass Polish trucks going 103 km/h while traveling 100 km/h. This game, by
the way, is called “Let’s Make a Traffic Jam”. In any case, I am allowed to call myself a good
driver because I drove a taxi for several years. Any questions?
I will drive almost any car almost anywhere. Only I’ve never liked parking garages. The reasons
are clear: drive up to the barrier, roll down the window, pull out a ticket. Naturally, the car is too
far from the button that needs to be pushed, so back up, which is almost never possible because
of course another car has pulled up behind you, and the guy at the steering wheel glares at you.
Then open the door and try to get out, which is almost never possible because the gap is rarely
big enough to let you open the door. Then there’s only one more alternative: open the window all
the way, unbuckle yourself, and lean so far out that Pilates is child’s play by comparison. Those
who have mastered Pilates are golden – but at that point everyone else is doomed. With or
Contact:
Verlagsgruppe Patmos der Schwabenverlag AG
Claudia Stegmann, Foreign Rights Manager
t: +49 711 4406 148
f: +49 711 4406 177
claudia.stegmann@verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
www.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de

without Pilates skills, it certainly doesn’t look especially elegant. But that’s always just the
beginning. The worst is yet to come: parking spots that are too narrow, meter-thick concrete
pillars that materialize out of nowhere in places they absolutely do not belong, other drivers
backing up randomly and often without lights, lost parking tickets, etc., etc. But unfortunately,
sometimes there’s no way to avoid it.
On a day when I cautiously thought I might just maybe have arrived in my new life, for reasons
that belong to another story, I had to drive a rental car into an underground garage I had never
seen before. During that time, a friend was waiting for me in front of the car rental office to drive
me back home in her car. It was the first of May, the last sunny day before a series of rainy
weeks. And this first of May would become one of the blackest days in my new life, in which I had
not yet arrived after all.
It really can’t be a problem to park this car somewhere in there. It’s just not a problem. Anja is
waiting for you. So go. The entrance looks dark, like a black abyss. Don’t be silly, it’s just a stupid
garage. Are your hands sweaty? No. So there. You’re okay. There’s the ticket, barrier up, drive in.
Why does it go down so steeply? Why is it so narrow in here? And so dark. It’s so dark here.
These walls. What an awful entrance. I can’t see what comes after the curve. I have to get out of
here. But how? I can’t get out. Now I have to go down there. I have to. I can’t turn here.
Impossible. I can’t go backwards, either. I have to go down. The car rental spaces are probably
right there. They just have to be on the next level down. No, they’re not. I have to go further
down. There’s no light here. I don’t see any exit. There are no windows. I’m underground. I have
to go even deeper underground. And another level lower. I can’t. I have to get out of here. I can’t
breathe. My hands. My hands are damp. I can’t breathe. I’m suffocating. Am I suffocating? No.
No. No. You are not suffocating. No one suffocates in an underground garage. That’s ridiculous.
Drive. Go, drive! You’re at the very bottom now, it doesn’t go any further down. The parking spots
have to be here somewhere. Concentrate. I can’t. I have to get out of here. You can’t get out of
here. Park the damn car. Where? But where? There’s a sign back there. I have to go to the
furthest corner. No windows. No air. I’m alone and abandoned. I’m panicking. My legs are
shaking. They won’t be able to carry me. I can’t do this. Why doesn’t someone get me out of
here? Anja is waiting. Anja is waiting outside. Park the car now. Drive into the dark corner, park
the car, and get out of here. Yes. Yes. I’ve parked the car. Now I’m getting out. Slowly. There’s no
point in running. I can’t run. But I can’t breathe. It’s so dark here. I’m scared. Where’s the exit? I
don’t see any stairs. The noise from the ventilation, it’s so loud. Why aren’t there any windows
here? I’m deep underground. All alone. I feel sick. This noise in my ears again. Is it my blood
pounding or the fans? Where is the exit? Please, please, please dear God let me please find the
exit. There’s a door. Behind it an elevator. Oh, no, not an elevator, too. I can’t do that. You have
to. You want out and that’s the only way. Go to the elevator. It will take you up. Okay. Okay. I’ll do
it. I want out. Nothing but out. There is a note on the door of the elevator. Out of service. No. I
can’t take this. I have to get out, I can hardly stay on my feet. How do I get out of here? There has
to be another way out. Do you see one? No. You have your cell phone in your pocket. Breathe
calmly. Keep breathing calmly. Call Anja. She should come. She should come get you. But I’m
Contact:
Verlagsgruppe Patmos der Schwabenverlag AG
Claudia Stegmann, Foreign Rights Manager
t: +49 711 4406 148
f: +49 711 4406 177
claudia.stegmann@verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
www.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de

underground. There’s almost certainly no cell phone reception here. And if that’s true, I don’t want
to know it. Don’t look at the cell phone. It will tell me how alone I am. I want out of here. The
ground gives way. I’m scared and I can’t get enough air to breathe in this darkness. Back there.
Someone’s coming. A man is coming. He’s coming toward me. Oh God he’s coming right toward
me …
I no longer know how I got out of the underground garage. I can’t remember, but obviously I must
have managed it somehow. I can only vaguely remember that the stranger smiled at me. Why I
don’t know. And I don’t care. No man should smile at a woman in an underground parking
garage. A new life makes things evil and unfair. I see it like a photograph or a still image before
me: the smile of a strange man in the lowest level of the garage. And then I must have done
something, made a decision that brought me out of there. Then I climbed into Anja’s car, that
much I do know, and came to my senses, completely distraught and shaking. Anja was upset and
said she should never have let me drive down there by myself. That’s nonsense. Anja is not to
blame. The one at fault is the man who took my old life away from me. And no one else.
When I finally got home, I was so tired, so very tired. I slept a long time in the afternoon hours of
that first of May that had demonstrated to me how foreign and dangerous my new life could still
feel, and that I was a long way from feeling at home in it.
Later that evening it started to rain, and it wouldn’t stop again for a long time. May showers make
everything beautiful, my mother used to say.
Whether the May rain ever helped me, I don’t know.
Intermezzo II: The Transformation
Charges were brought against the man who took my old life away from me almost a year later.
Eleven months isn’t a long time when you’re working, meeting friends, going to the movies,
cleaning the bathroom, resolving disputes with the tax department, watching television, mowing
the lawn, buying cat litter, going to the dentist, calling teachers and just going about the business
of your life. Eleven months are a very long time when you’re waiting for what I am about to
describe, when you are waiting with a mixture of emotions you’ve never felt before: fear, hope,
revenge, shame, outrage; with a mixture of emotions that shouldn’t exist.
I was a joint plaintiff. I was prepared. I was nervous, and I was determined.
Why do you want to put yourself through that?
Contact:
Verlagsgruppe Patmos der Schwabenverlag AG
Claudia Stegmann, Foreign Rights Manager
t: +49 711 4406 148
f: +49 711 4406 177
claudia.stegmann@verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
www.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de

I want to look him in the eyes. I have to do that. For me. I never want to have to think, oh, if only
you had gone. I want the people who judge him to see me. I don’t want to be a case number, a
nameless victim. In the name of the people!
There weren’t many people who were able to understand these sentences. I spoke and
understood them, but I didn’t believe them. At the time, I had no idea that these sentences were
the beginning of a transformation.
The transformation:
The courthouse looks the same as ever. It’s cold. It’s late February, the end of a long, snow-filled
winter. I’m wearing a pants suit, my winter coat and large sunglasses. Because of the media.
Because of the media? What do these sunglasses hide? Earlier, in my former life, someone once
said I looked like a giant housefly in them. I laughed a lot about that. I’m going to see that
someone again here. He’s summoned as a witness. I reach for my husband’s hand, his arm. I’ve
never needed support so urgently in my whole life. My son. My son is there, too. In a black suit. I
look at him again and again. Security control. checking everyone’s handbags. Checking everyone
with metal detection devices. Safety. I don’t speak, my husband asks about the courtroom and
arranges the witness protection room. I am mute, and will remain so for a while.
The courtroom. Sober, professional, cool. Not like I’ve seen in other district courts. No pomp, no
stucco, no carved wooden barriers. Somehow I’m relieved by that. In the hallway: the press. As
was to be expected. And then they all come – the spectators, my lawyer, the prosecutor, the
experts. A man I don’t know who sits down at the row of tables on the other side. He is the lawyer
for the opposing side, for the defendant, the one who took my old life away from me.
The expert witness psychiatrist places his things on the table and sits down. My husband and my
lawyer discuss something. I’m not listening. I’m thinking about how I used to organize my papers
in courtrooms. Now someone else does that; I’m busy putting my thoughts and feelings in order. I
am the wronged one, the person concerned, a victim. And a joint plaintiff. I charge you!
He’s coming. Shackles on his hands and feet. Bowed. Accompanied by young police officers.
Some of them remain next to him, two others secure the windows. Bent over, he shuffles. A
jacket on his head. Flashes of light. Photographers. Cameras. He’s wearing a jacket over his
head, as if that would change anything. As if it had any relevance – that face. He’s deposited on
the chair more than he sits down himself. The storm of flashing lights continues. It doesn’t stop. I
stand, lean on the windowsill, don’t know if the ground beneath me will give way. I stand and the
ground supports me and I hold my husband’s hand tightly. I will only seldom let go of it during the
two and a half days of the trial. I see that figure with the jacket over its head and I calm down. I
take a seat between my husband and my lawyer. My son sits in the spectator gallery. First row. I
can look at him any time, and that’s a good thing. In front of me stands a plastic cup of water.
Glass isn’t allowed. Safety precaution. In front of me lies a sedative. Prescription strength. A
blessing. I didn’t have to take it. That, too, is a blessing.
Contact:
Verlagsgruppe Patmos der Schwabenverlag AG
Claudia Stegmann, Foreign Rights Manager
t: +49 711 4406 148
f: +49 711 4406 177
claudia.stegmann@verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
www.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de

He takes the jacket from his head, looks around, and I look at him. I sit up very straight and look
at him. For a very long time. I look at him until he turns away. He looks away. That is the
beginning of my transformation.
The chief justice appears. Ritual proceedings, personal information. Who is who? And what is this
all about? Who is the man beside the plaintiff? Her husband. Aha. Yes, we have a medical attest
– the immediate presence of the husband is absolutely necessary from a psychiatric perspective.
I see. Yes. Husband – the one on the other side flinches. A blow. The last victim – dead. The one
before that – badly injured and not present at the proceedings. The other victims – unknown,
unimportant, forgotten, statute of limitations has run out. This is the first time he’s seen a
husband. He is afraid. I see that and it makes me happy. And he doesn’t yet know that he’ll also
see a son for the first time. He doesn’t know yet that the worst is still to come. And that’s a good
thing.
I become calmer and I hold my husband’s hand tight. So many people. And I’m very calm, look at
the man on the other side, and sense my transformation, which I’ll only recognize as such much
later. At the time I only know that he looked away.
The charges are read aloud. A juristic gibberish, legalese. Law – that’s an art, someone once said
who knew what he was talking about. A trial – that’s solving a social conflict according to certain
rules. Expect no emotions. He looked away. That’s enough. And I’m holding my husband’s hand.
The defense makes a motion to exclude the public. Reason: to protect the privacy of his client.
The proceedings are interrupted. The bench withdraws for deliberations. My lawyer, representing
the joint plaintiff, is part of the discussion. Waiting in the hallway. My husband and my son form a
protective wall between me and the cameras and the people who look at me, who observe me,
who want to read my thoughts. My lawyer returns. Now three men build a protective wall to block
out the curious world, and also the sympathy. The bench intends to reject the motion to exclude
the public. But due to formalities, that would only be possible if I were willing to testify in public.
Testify in public? For eleven months it has been clear that the public would be excluded. It’s
obvious to me that we will make that motion. How could I possibly confess my humiliation in
public? That was a precondition for agreeing to let my son be here. My child shouldn’t learn any
of the details, that was the plan. Eyes are turned to me.
I search the floor for answers. I have to decide. In my old life, I was usually pretty good at making
quick decisions. Sometimes too quick.
“David, you’ll hear terrible things. Will you be okay?”
“Sure, mom.”
“Are you sure?”
Contact:
Verlagsgruppe Patmos der Schwabenverlag AG
Claudia Stegmann, Foreign Rights Manager
t: +49 711 4406 148
f: +49 711 4406 177
claudia.stegmann@verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
www.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de

“Of course. Or do you really want to give that asshole protection?” Yes, he said asshole. With the
right, the wisdom and the clarity of a seventeen-year-old.
I look at my husband, whose hand I am holding. He nods.
I turn to my lawyer: he looks at me. Yes, I’ll testify in public. Good.
The decision that completed my transformation didn’t take longer than two minutes.
The trial continues. The spectators stay. There’s murmuring in the chamber. The journalists are
pleased. Nothing on the opposing side. Then he speaks. He talks a lot and for a long time and
haltingly. No, he didn’t threaten me. The knife? Oh, yeah, the knife … Ah, he didn’t know … I am
silent and look at him and hold tight to my husband. Once in a while I glance at my son.
Only in the afternoon do I start to speak. Slowly, clearly and to the point. Two or three times the
tears almost come, but I don’t cry. My husband squeezes my hand. I don’t cry and I continue
talking. A word won’t come to me. What do you say when someone puts their arm around
someone else’s neck and squeezes? What’s that called? I can’t think of it right now. Headlock?
Do you meant to put someone in a headlock? Yes. That’s what I mean. I keep talking. Do you
need a break? Should we take a short break? No. I would like to finish this. I continue speaking
until I’ve said everything there is to say. The young police officers assigned to guard him look on
without expression. What will they say when they get home tonight?
A few questions. It’s quiet in the courtroom. The spectators are there and they are silent. The
defender of the man who took away my old life:
“And when my client approached you sexually …”
“He didn’t approach me sexually. He raped me.”
“Now, let’s not argue over words; that’s not really the issue here.”
“Actually, Mr. Defender, that’s exactly what this is about. Rape.”
“No further questions, Your Honor.”
Someone in the crowd applauds. Only briefly, but unmistakably.
I am called forward to the bench and let go of my husband’s hand for the first time. I see the
judge leafing through a folder of pictures. Fleeting glances of the photos of my clothes: leather
jacket, jeans, cut up bra. A woman with cut wounds on her face. So tired, so pale, so ugly. A
woman on the cusp between two lives. A knife. Bottles of superglue. Duct tape. My office,
Contact:
Verlagsgruppe Patmos der Schwabenverlag AG
Claudia Stegmann, Foreign Rights Manager
t: +49 711 4406 148
f: +49 711 4406 177
claudia.stegmann@verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
www.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de

wrecked, in total chaos. Blood. I have to ask you this: were these smears of blood already on the
cabinets and on the floor before? No, Your Honor. They were not. Thank you. You can sit down
again.
The proceedings continue that afternoon and also the morning hours of the next day. Then, half a
week later, the verdict: imprisonment for 13 years, 9 months, preventive detention after that. Does
the verdict give me satisfaction, I’m asked. No. It gave me satisfaction that he looked away. But I
didn’t say that to the journalist.
It’s over. Everyone leaves. Files are closed. Only he sits there, handcuffed and surrounded by
police. I stay. I want to see him being led away. I want to see him shuffle away one last time.
He looks at me and I suspect what’s coming. He tried twice to apologize. Each time I said I
wouldn’t listen to that crap. He addresses me, stammering, as is his way: “Mrs. Bergmann, I …”
I hold my husband’s hand. My son stands next to us. Big. His voice is deep, very clear, firm. No
wavering, no trace of uncertainty. Directed at the police officers: “Sirs, may I ask you to make
sure that this criminal doesn’t speak to my mother?”
They take him away, the criminal.
The criminal who lied for four years about how sorry he was for everything.
And all at once my son is grown up. I am very proud of him.
My decision to speak out in public had consequences of which I was completely unaware that day
in the hallway of the courthouse, hidden behind a protective wall of love. If it had been different,
would I have made a different decision? I hardly think so. Suddenly there was media attention.
And it was intense. Criminal offenses are exciting, and that very special mixture of ‘sex and crime’
that I had to offer, even more so. Who should be reproached for it? Journalists are just doing their
job. And I can tell you: they did it well. I met lively, interesting, intelligent women like Birgit Fürst
from the Bayerischer Rundfunk and Petra Hollweg of Focus magazine. I met a very likeable
newspaper photographer from Berlin who takes wonderful pictures and from whom I learned a lot
about Asia and bowling groups. I also denied the requests of some journalists because I didn’t
like the media they represented. And because at some point it was simply enough. Everything
that could be said on the subject of safety in my former workplace from my perspective and out of
my experience had been said. Or, as a former boss of mine probably would have stated it: the
problem has been sufficiently described. May other people take care of solving the problems.
Which they won’t, but that’s another story that might be told in a different form.
Contact:
Verlagsgruppe Patmos der Schwabenverlag AG
Claudia Stegmann, Foreign Rights Manager
t: +49 711 4406 148
f: +49 711 4406 177
claudia.stegmann@verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
www.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de

My decision to go public has met with criticism. Publicity seeking, urged by the husband, throwing
stones, professional victim – these are all opinions that I’ve heard. There are certainly others as
well, but I don’t know about them and don’t want or need to know them.
It’s enough for me to know that these critiques come from people who in their own personal idylls
might be shattered by much smaller problems; who would be thrown off course by a much lesser
centrifugal force.
Victims are ashamed, victims act as if everything were normal and like always, victims are the
ultimate disturbing factor, victims unsettle their antagonists, victims make one helpless, victims
are packed in padding. And victims should be ashamed, victims should lower their heads and
victims should act as if everything were normal and just like always. Victims most definitely
should behave like victims: quiet, inconspicuous and thankful for any kind of sympathy and
support. And, let us not forget, victims should please at all costs refrain from disturbing the circle
of not-victims. Why else are there psychiatrists, therapists, hairdressers or taxi drivers that a
victim can unburden themselves to? A victim should go under at some point. And if they drown in
the process, well … The beauty of precise language: one falls victim to a crime. One falls in order
to become a victim. One falls into an abyss. That’s true. And it’s all the more important to get up
again. And with one’s head held high. Transformed.
Contact:
Verlagsgruppe Patmos der Schwabenverlag AG
Claudia Stegmann, Foreign Rights Manager
t: +49 711 4406 148
f: +49 711 4406 177
claudia.stegmann@verlagsgruppe-patmos.de
www.verlagsgruppe-patmos.de