Clara (eBook)

Licia Hansen (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
284 Seiten
novum publishing (Verlag)
9781642688115 (ISBN)

Infos

Louise's life is actually very tranquil: her studies are going well, her father Stefan takes care of the household and her regular ballet training is a welcome counterbalance. She has no memories of her mother, who died young, but the dreams in which she appears to her help Louise fill this void. When fate brings her together with Clara, a charismatic musical performer, Luise's life takes a sudden turn: 'It was as if this woman had made her a different person...' But suddenly truths become lies, trust is abused, and goals are lost sight of. What is really behind Clara's flawless façade and why is Stefan suddenly acting so strangely?

Textauszug

 

Chapter 1

The shadow man

The air was suffocating in thick clouds of mist. You could barely see your own hand in front of your eyes. Although it wasn't cold, Luise cuddled her neck into the collar of her jacket as much as she could and shoved her hands deep into her pockets. The smoke from her breath floated over her head as she locked the car and set off. She bought a few yellow tulips from the cemetery nursery and paid without saying a word. Then she strolled along the pebbled path, the flowers pressed gently against her chest. It was not yet late, but the dense cloud cover blocked the shy sun's path. It was almost dark already. It hadn't really been light all day. But Luise didn't care about the gloomy weather. She didn't care about anything. For her, it was a day of mourning and longing, of pain and loneliness. She was on her way to the grave of her mother, who had been born on this day 47 years ago. She stared fixedly and blankly at the ground, which she left a little further behind her with every step. As she passed pebble after pebble through the fog, it looked as if she formed a congregation of mourners, all alone. If she wanted to put into words how she felt at that moment, when the chirping of a fleeing blackbird distracted her for a brief moment, she would not have been able to express it. Someone was coming towards her. The person was humming a melody to herself, a melancholy and dramatic melody at the same time. It had to be a woman. The sounds impressed her. They took her out of her equilibrium . They sounded crystal clear. They swung around her like an invisible band that forced her to make herself small. Involuntarily, she ducked her head and hunched her shoulders. She looked up. At that moment, the song stopped and no one was there. That was strange. Was she hearing ghosts singing now? She shook herself and pushed the thought away.

She felt nothing. Nothing but incomprehension and the deep longing of a daughter for her dearest mother. As she slowly walked to the grave, she again wished for nothing more than to have at least met her. They say a child never forgets her mother's voice, but for her it was as if she had never spoken to her. She simply knew nothing of her. While other girls could borrow their mother's blouse or perfume, she had no scent in her nose that she associated with her, no item of clothing in front of her that she envied. She had nothing. Nothing she could draw on, no happy memory that she shared only with her, no secret that only she knew about, not even a habit that she had inherited from her, let alone a faint glimmer of what it must have been like to lie happily in her arms or grieving on her shoulder. Nothing that reminded her of her, unless she was confronted by her friends, who only had to use the word "mom" to put her in a bad mood. She had left her nothing, not even a piece of jewelry, like a ring or a necklace, no possessions that she might have been attached to, like a cuddly toy that she had given her when she was a baby. Nothing. All traces had been erased. All that remained were a few blurred photos in which she was barely recognizable. But she imagined her, every night and also during the day, when her gaze sometimes wandered dreamily around the lecture hall and she imagined that she was waiting for her outside. Then she saw a lovely woman, as beautiful as a queen, tall, elegant and slender as a willow, with the magnificent hair of an opera singer and lips painted red . The photos did not show this image. It only existed in her imagination. And once again she smiled at the thought that she was appearing at her own grave at this very moment to finally clear up the misconception that she was dead. With her departure, a piece of the puzzle had broken out of Luise's world that had always remained missing.

But then she suddenly stopped. She hid her breath for fear of being discovered. The outline of a sinister figure had torn her from her reverie. She hastily hid behind a damp tree trunk covered in moss and cautiously peeked out, but she couldn't see the man's face. She was excited. Who was that? She had never seen anyone lingering in this place before. Was it a stranger who was walking through the cemetery and just thought the grave was pretty? Had he brought something with him? Flowers? The view was too restricted for her to make out anything apart from the hooded figure's fully hooded backside. Suddenly he looked around. Luise jerked her head back behind the safety of the tree. It was beginning to drizzle. The magpies in the treetops were in an uproar. When she dared to look again, there was no one there. She looked around hastily. There was no one there. She was all alone with her. Unsure, she placed the yellow flowers on the gray gravestone. Half hidden by the fallen magnolia leaves, the letters of her first name flickered in the gentle fire of the cemetery candle: Marie. She knew that her father had only ordered a large flower arrangement for her birthday. But there was something else: a wreath that the shadow man must have brought. But how did he know her? As she slowly stood up again and gently ran the tulips through her fingers, she whispered: "Happy birthday, mom."

She stayed there for a few more minutes, but was no longer able to dream about it with her. The encounter had thrown her completely off course, so she felt much more of an urge to tell her father about it immediately. Did he know the man? She couldn't imagine that he would hide a relative from her. All the way back to the car, she kept looking around to see if she could spot him again, but the man disappeared. She didn't see a soul at all. Completely confused, she got into her red speedster and sped along the highway through the tunnel, just in time before it was closed due to a fire alarm. A thick cloud of black smoke sent panic coursing through her limbs.

But when she arrived in the hallway, the life-threatening incident was no longer important. Still wrapped in her soaked jacket and with wet shoes, she got straight to the point.

"Hello Dad, I saw a man ... in the cemetery ... at Mom's," she stuttered. The smoke had strained her throat.

Luise's father abruptly stopped folding sweaters on the kitchen table.

"Dad, who was that I saw there?" she urged when he made no move to say anything. He still said nothing. Impatient and now anxious, she became louder and more reproachful.

"You said mom had no relatives left. But the man knew her, he left a wreath. Dad, tell me the truth now! Do you know who I saw there?"

She pestered him over the ironing board with a blurred look. He stroked the already smoothly ironed sweater he had just folded once more and finally answered.

"Lui, it's true. I kept something from you about your mother. God, I didn't want you to ever meet him."

It seemed as if he was sorry, but that didn't appease her. Her anger was fueled. The blood was pounding in her veins. Nevertheless, she calmly and calmly asked him to finally tell her what was going on. And her father, his hands now both flat on the table and his upper body bent forward, managed to force himself to make a confession. Her mother had a brother. She had probably seen him.

Silence. He looked at her expectantly, but Luise's jaw dropped. Disoriented, she reached for the back of a chair to support her stricken body. She breathed out loudly. She didn't even know what bothered her more: the fact that there was a blood relative of her mother's whom she wasn't supposed to know, or his audacity in lying to her so disgustingly all her life. Neither of them said anything. Luise hoped he was ashamed of having offended her. She clenched her teeth to keep from crying, but she couldn't hide a small tear.

"What's his name?" she wanted to know.

"I don't know exactly. Richard or something like that."

Silence again. Still wrapped in her jacket, she began to sweat. With cold, wet hands, she clung tighter to the hard back of the chair. Wistfully, the overwhelmed father explained that his daughter's uncle had been a miserable good-for-nothing and that was why he hadn't wanted her to meet him. He had not wanted her mother's image to be destroyed by a homeless man who knew nothing about love and instead begged for money from the family. Luise tried to understand what had caused him to remain silent, and on the one hand she succeeded, but the disappointment was deeper than the will to forgive him immediately.

"I'm so sorry," he added ruefully, but when he tried to hug her, she blocked him. She didn't feel able to bear his love. She pulled away in silence. It simply couldn't be true. She couldn't believe what she had just found out. Her father was right, the certainty of her brother's existence blackened the illusion of the perfect mother. No, she couldn't let that happen. She wanted to forget him again right away. If she saw him again in the cemetery, she would hide from him again. Nothing could be changed by him, the dreams could not become darker, the longing could not be soothed. A ragged shadowy figure had no place in her dream world.

But what if father was wrong and Richard wasn't a bad person after all? Perhaps today he regrets the way he treated his sister? The poor man certainly didn't have an easy life, after all, he too had grown up without parents. And there it was again: pity. Pity for the deceased mother, who herself didn't know what it was like to be loved by her parents. She felt her heart sink as she finally hung her jacket on the coat rack. What else could she think? It seemed to make the most sense to sleep on it for a night. Perhaps she would know more the next morning. She...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.3.2025
• Verlagsort: Neckenmarkt
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: Belletristik • Krimi • Licia Hansen • Spannung
• ISBN-13: 9781642688115 / 9781642688115