A fake brick in the wall to the right of the old boiler.
My fingers dialed the code without thinking.
Four digits.
Catherine’s birthday.
Inside – folders with half-burnt protocols, photos from the lab, copies of a police investigation, bank statements from accounts that my father had never talked about.
I read and two lives intertwined before my eyes:
of a girl running barefoot on a panel balcony in Pazardzhik, and of a woman who signs documents for dangerous experiments in sterile white corridors.
Both mine.
Julian’s death
Two days after I listened to the tape, Julian died.
Quiet, no scenes. He fell asleep in the window armchair, with a book closed in his hand.
Doctors wrote “stopping the heart in a general deteriorating condition.” I read “a man who has done his job.”
The synaptic bridge was completed.
My nights were already full of scenes that weren’t mine. I could see Catherine in the lab, I could hear him scolding him for not buckling his coat, I was feeling the taste of the wine I had never drunk.
At the same time, I also remembered how my dad was buying a patty in front of school, holding my hand when we were crossing.
Two universes, packed into a skull.
At Julian’s funeral, I was standing next to the coffin in a black dress, with a look that I don’t know whose it was.
My father was there – upright, healthy, in color in the cheeks, which I had not seen for years. He was wearing a new suit he couldn’t afford before.
There were tears in front of the people:
“He was our savior… Thanks to him I am alive…
I squeezed the bag with the folders inside and told myself it was the last time any of us told this lie.
The clash
After the funeral, we were left alone next to one of the stone columns of the cemetery. The wind blew my veil, the rain sticking my hair to my face.
“Tough day, huh?” my father said, hugging me. “But from here on out, it’ll be better.” There is a legacy left. We’ll start fresh.
His touch, which had brought me comfort before, was now causing me physical disgust.
I inhaled. Two scents were mixed in my memory – its cheap aftershave water and the smell of laboratory burning, ozone and melted plastic.
“Dad…” I whispered.
“Yes, dear?”
Do you remember that night in the lab?
I felt his body freeze.
“What… what are you saying?”
I leaned over to his ear so that no one else could hear:
It smelled like ozone. On smoke. It was so hot that the glass was bursting on its own. He pressed the lock button outside and heard her screaming your name before it exploded the core of the reactor.
He stepped back, his eyes widening.
“Klara…
I remember everything, Dad. I saw it through his eyes. I heard it through his ears. I read the papers you signed. I saw the bank statements.
His face turned pale to greenish.
He… he poisoned you! These pills… you’ve brainwashed you!
“No,” I said calmly. “The pills gave me his memory.” And the safe gave me the evidence.
He began to look for words, his hands waving:
