5 Falling into Nothingness How My Identity Was Stolen In the autumn of 1998, over half a year since my abduction, I became completely discouraged and saddened. While my schoolmates had embarked on a new phase of their lives after the fourth grade, I was stuck here, crossing off the days on the calendar. Lost time. Lonely time. I missed my parents so much that I rolled myself up into a little ball at night, longing to hear a loving word from them, longing for an embrace. I felt small and weak, and was on the brink of capitulation. My mother had always drawn me a hot bath whenever I felt dejected and discouraged as a small child. She would put colourful bath beads that shone like silk and bubble bath in the water so that I sank under piles of crackling, fragrant clouds of foam. After my bath, she would wrap me in a thick towel, dry me, then lay me in bed and tuck me in. I always associated that with a profound feeling of security. A feeling I had had to do without for so long. The kidnapper found it difficult to cope with my depression. When he came to the dungeon and found me sitting pathetically on my lounger, he eyed me agitatedly. He never directly addressed my mood, but tried to cheer me up with games, an extra piece of fruit or an additional episode of a television show on video. But my dark mood continued. How could I help it? After all, I was not suffering from a lack of entertainment media, but rather from the fact that I was chained through no fault of my own to the fantasy of the man who had already long ago sentenced me to life in prison. zo4 Falling into Nothingness I longed for the feeling that had always coursed through me after such a hot bath. When the kidnapper visited me in my dungeon during that time, I began to attempt to persuade him. A bath. Couldn't I take a bath just once? I asked him over and over. I don't know whether or not I got on his nerves at some point, or whether he decided for himself that perhaps it was really high time for a full bath. In any case, after a few days of asking and begging, he surprised me with the promise that I would be allowed to take a bath. If I was good. I was allowed to leave the dungeon! I was allowed to go upstairs and bathe! But what was this `upstairs'? What would await me there? I vacillated between happiness, uncertainty and hope. Maybe he would leave me alone and maybe I could seize the opportunity to flee... It wasn't until several days had gone by that the kidnapper came to let me out of the dungeon. And he used those days to quell any thoughts of escape in me: `If you scream, I will have to hurt you. All of the windows and exits have been secured with explosive devices. If you open a window, you will end up blowing yourself up.' He impressed upon me that I had to stay away from windows and to make sure that I was not seen from outside. And if I failed to follow his orders down to the last detail, he would kill me on the spot. I did not doubt him for a minute. He had kidnapped me and locked me up. Why should he not also be capable of killing me? When he finally opened the door to my dungeon one evening and ordered me to follow him, I could only hesitate in taking my first steps. In the diffuse light behind the door to my prison, I recognized a small, somewhat elevated and obliquely designed anteroom with a chest. Behind that was a heavy wooden door through which you entered a second anteroom. There my gaze fell on a massive, round-bodied monster on the narrow side of the ro5 3,og6 Days wall on the left. A door made of reinforced concrete. Weighing i5o kilograms. Inserted in a nearly fifty-centimetre thick wall and locked from the outside with an iron-threaded bolt inserted into the masonry. That is what it says in the police files. I can hardly put into words the feelings that surfaced in me when I got a look at that door. I had been encased in concrete. Hermetically sealed. The kidnapper warned me over and over of the explosive devices, the alarm systems, the cables with which he could electrify the entrance to my dungeon. A maximum-security prison for a child. What would become of me if something happened to him? My fear of choking on sausage skin seemed utterly ridiculous when I imagined him falling, breaking his arm and being taken to the hospital. Buried alive. Full stop. I couldn't breathe. I had to get out of here. Immediately. The reinforced concrete door opened up to allow me to view a small passageway. Height: 68.5 centimetres. Width: 48.5 centimetres. If I stood up, the lower edge of the access way was approximately at my knee level. The kidnapper was already waiting on the other side. I saw his legs outlined against the bright background. Then I got down on my knees and crawled forward on all fours. The black walls appeared to have been tarred, and the air was stale and damp. Once I had manoeuvred myself through the passageway, I was standing in an assembly pit for cars. Directly adjacent to the passageway were a dresser and a safe that had been moved aside. The kidnapper once again told me to follow him. A narrow staircase, with walls of grey concrete tile, the steps high and slippery. Three down, nine up, through a trap door, and I was standing in the garage. I stood as if paralysed. Two wooden doors. The heavy concrete door. The narrow passageway. In front of it a massive safe that the kidnapper, when I was in the dungeon, pushed in front of the Falling into Nothingness entrance using a crowbar, screwed into the wall and, in addition, secured electrically. A dresser that concealed the safe and the passageway. Floorboards that covered the trap door leading down to the assembly pit. I had already known that I would not be able to break open the door to my prison, that every attempt to flee my dungeon was futile. I had suspected that I could beat my hands against the walls and scream as long as I wanted to, nobody would hear me. But at that moment up in the garage, I understood instantaneously that nobody would ever find me either. The entrance to the dungeon was so perfectly camouflaged that the likelihood that the police would discover me when searching the house was frighteningly small. My shock did not subside until an even stronger sensation imposed itself over my feeling of fear: air that poured into my lungs. I breathed in deeply, again and again, like someone dying of thirst who has reached a life-saving oasis at the very last second and dives into the life-giving water headfirst. After months in the cellar, I had completely forgotten how good it felt to breathe air that wasn't dry and dusty, blown by a fan into my tiny hole in the cellar. The whirring of the fan, which had wedged itself in my ears as an inescapable noise, waned for a moment; my eyes carefully scanned the unfamiliar contours and my initial tension dissolved. But it returned immediately when the kidnapper indicated with a gesture that I was not to make a sound. Then he led me through an anteroom and up four stairs into the house. It was dim, as all the blinds had been let down. A kitchen, hallway, living room, foyer. The rooms I entered one after the other seemed unbelievable to me, almost ridiculously large and spacious. Since 2 March I had been kept in surroundings in which the greatest distance measured two metres. I could keep an eye on the small room from any angle and see what awaited me next. Here, the dimensions of the rooms swallowed me up like a large wave. Here, 107 3,096 Days an unpleasant surprise, or evil, could be lurking behind every door, behind every window. After all, I did not know whether the kidnapper lived alone or how many people had been involved in my abduction - and what they would do with me if they saw me `upstairs'. He had spoken of the `others' so often that I expected them to be behind every corner. It also appeared plausible to me that he had a family that was in on it who were only waiting to torment me. For me, any conceivable kind of crime seemed within the realm of the possible. The kidnapper appeared excited and nervous. On the way to the bathroom, he hissed at me repeatedly, `Don't forget the windows and the alarm system. Do what I tell you. I'll kill you if you scream.' After I had seen the access way to my dungeon, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind when he told me that the entire house was armed with explosives. While I let myself be led to the bathroom with my eyes lowered, as he wished, my thoughts raced. I racked my brains fiercely as to how I could overpower him and escape. I could think of nothing. I was not a coward as a child, but I had always been fearful. He was so much stronger and quicker than I was - if I had tried to run away, he would have been on me in two steps. And opening the doors and windows would obviously have been suicide. I continued to believe in the ominous security measures until after my escape. However, it was not just the outward constraints, the many insurmountable walls and doors, the physical strength of the kidnapper, which prevented me from attempting escape. The cornerstone of my mental prison, from which I was less and less able to break away over the course of my imprisonment, had already been laid. I was intimidated and fearful. `If you cooperate, nothing will happen to you.' The kidnapper had inculcated that belief into me from the very beginning, threatening me with the worst kinds of punishment, including death, if I resisted him. I zo8Falling into Nothingness was a child and used to obeying the authority of grown-ups - all the more if disobedience entailed consequences. He was the authority present. Even if the main door had stood wide open at that moment, I don't know if I would've had the courage to run. A house cat, allowed for the first time in her life to go outdoors, will remain, frightened, at the threshold and meow pitifully, because she does not know how to cope with her sudden freedom. And behind me was not the protective house I could return to, but rather a man who was willing to follow through with his crime to the death. I was already so deeply in my imprisonment that my imprisonment was already equally deep inside me. The kidnapper ran a bubble bath and stayed as I undressed and got in. It bothered me that he wouldn't even leave me alone in the bathroom. On the other hand, I was already used to him seeing me naked from showering in the dungeon, so I only protested meekly. Once I sank into the warm water and closed my eyes, I was able to blot out everything around me. White peaks of foam piled over my fear, danced through the dark dungeon, washed me out of the house and carried me away with them. Into our bathroom at home, into the arms of my mother, who was waiting with a large, pre-warmed towel, and ready to take me straight to bed. The wonderful image burst like a soap bubble when the kidnapper admonished me to hurry up. The towel was rough and smelled strange. Nobody took me to bed; instead, I descended into my dark dungeon. I heard him lock the wooden doors behind me, close the concrete door and bolt it. I imagined him going through the narrow passageway, heaving the safe into the opening again, screwing it into the wall and pushing the dresser in front of it. I wished I hadn't seen how hermetically I had been sealed off from the outside world. I lay down on my lounger, curled up and tried to recreate the feeling of the bubble bath and warm water on my skin. The feeling of being at home. * iog 3,o96 Days A little while later, in the autumn of 1998, the kidnapper once again showed me his caring side. Maybe he just had a guilty conscience; whatever the reason, my dungeon was to be made somewhat more inhabitable. The work proceeded slowly; every piece of panelling, every bucket of paint had to be carried all the way down individually. Bookcases and cupboards could only be put together once in my dungeon. I was allowed to pick a colour for the walls and decided in favour of wood-chip wallpaper that I wanted to have painted in pastel pink. Just like the wall in my room back home. The name of the colour was 'Elba gliinzend'. Later he used the same colour for his living room. There couldn't be any leftover tin of paint in a colour not used somewhere upstairs, he explained to me, always prepared for a police raid, always eager to nip any potential suspicions in the bud. As if the police back then had still been interested in me, as if they would have investigated such things, when they hadn't once examined the abduction car despite the two tips from the public. My memories of my first days and weeks in the dungeon vanished piece by piece with the sections of drywall he used to cover up the wooden panelling. The sketch of the hallway dresser, my family tree, the Ave Maria'. But what I was getting instead seemed to be much better anyway: a wall that made me feel as if I were at home. When it was finally papered and painted, my small dungeon stank so strongly of chemicals that I was nauseated for days. The fumes from the fresh paint were too much for the small fan. Then we proceeded to install my bunk bed. Priklopil brought boards and posts made of light-coloured pine into my dungeon, which he carefully screwed together. When the bed was finished, it took up nearly the entire width of the room and had a height of approximately one metre fifty. I was permitted to decorate the Falling into Nothingness ceiling above it. I decided on three red hearts, which I carefully painted on. They were meant for my mother. When I looked at them, I could think of her. The most complicated part was installing the ladder. It wouldn't fit through the door due to the difficult angle at which the anteroom was separated from the dungeon. The kidnapper tried it again and again, until he suddenly disappeared and came back with a battery-powered screwdriver, which he used to dismantle the wooden wall subdividing the anteroom. Then he dragged the ladder into the dungeon - and that very same day put the wall back up again. As he was putting together my new bookcases, I witnessed for the first time a side of the kidnapper that terrified me deeply. Up until that point he had yelled at me sometimes, he had denigrated me, cursed at me, and threatened me with all sorts of terrible punishments in order to force my cooperation. But never had he lost control over himself. He stood in front of me holding the drill and was in the process of affixing a board with screws. Working together in the dungeon had made me somewhat more trusting and I simply burst out with a question: `Why are you screwing that board on right there?' For a second I had forgotten that I was only allowed to speak when he gave me permission. In a fraction of a second, the kidnapper flew into a rage, bellowed at me - and then he threw the heavy drill at me. I managed to duck at the very last moment before it slammed into the wall behind me. I was so stunned that it took my breath away, and I stared at him wide-eyed. The sudden outburst of anger had not touched me physically. The drill hadn't even come into contact with me. But the incident burrowed itself deep into my psyche. Because it showed a new dimension in my relationship with the kidnapper: I now knew that he would hurt me if I did not obey him. It made me even more frightened and submissive. 3,096 Days The first night after the kidnapper's outburst, I lay upon the thin mattress in my new bunk bed. The rattling of the fan felt as if it was directly next to my ears and boring its way into my brain, until I would have loved to scream out in desperation. The cold air from the attic blew directly on my feet. While I had always slept on my back at home, stretched out, I now had to roll myself up on my side like a foetus and wrap the blanket tightly around my feet to avoid the unpleasant draught. But the bed was much softer than the sunlounger. I could turn over and I had more room. And most of all I had my new wood-chip wallpaper. I stretched out my hand, touched it and closed my eyes. I let the furniture in my room at home glide by in my thoughts, the dolls and stuffed animals as well. The position of the window, the door, the curtains, the smell. If I could just imagine it all intensely enough, I could fall asleep with my hand on the wall of the dungeon - and wake up the next day, still with my hand against the wall, in my room back home. Then my mother would bring me tea in bed, I would remove my hand from the wallpaper and everything would be okay. Now I fell asleep every evening with my hand resting on the wallpaper, and was certain that one day I would in fact wake up again in my own room. During that initial phase, I believed in it as in a magic formula that would come true at some point. Later, touching the wallpaper was a promise to myself that I renewed every day. And I kept it: eight years later, when I visited my mother for the first time after my imprisonment I lay down on the bed in my room, where nothing had changed, and closed my eyes. When I touched the wall with my hand, all of those moments were there again - especially the first: the small, ten-year-old Natascha who was trying desperately not to lose confidence in herself, placing her hand on the wall in the dungeon for the first time. `I'm here again,' I whispered. `You see, it worked.' Falling into Nothingness The more the year wore on, the deeper my sadness became. When I crossed off the first few days in December, I was so gloomy that the chocolate `Krampus'* the kidnapper brought me for St Nicholas Dayt couldn't cheer me up. Christmas was coming closer and closer. And the thought of spending the holidays alone in my dungeon was absolutely unbearable. Just as for any other child, Christmas was one of the highlights of the year for me. The smell of cookies, the decorated tree, the anticipation of gifts, the entire family coming together to celebrate the holiday. I was picturing these images as I apathetically pulled the foil wrapper off the chocolate. It was an image of childhood days, an image that had little in common with the last few Christmases that I had spent with my family. My nephews had come to visit us like always, but they had already received their presents at home. I was the only child opening gifts. As for tree decorations, my mother had a weakness for the latest trends, so our tree glittered with tinsel and purple balls. Underneath lay a pile of presents for me. While I opened one present after the other, the grown-ups sat on the couch, listening to the radio and looking at a tattoo magazine together. These were Christmases that disappointed me deeply. I had not even been able to persuade anyone to sing a Christmas carol with me, although I was so proud of the fact that I knew the songs that we had practised at school by heart. It wasn't until the next day, when we celebrated with my grandmother, that I began to feel the Christmas spirit. All of us gathered in an adjacent room and solemnly sang `Silent Night'. Then I listened for the anticipated small bell to ring. The `Krampus' is a mythical creature who is said to accompany St Nicholas during the Christmas season, warning and punishing bad children. j- A celebration on 6 December when children receive sweets for having been good during the year. 3,096 Days Christkind* had been there. When we opened the door to the room, the Christmas tree shimmered in the light of real beeswax candles and gave off a wonderful smell. My grandmother always had a traditional, rustic Christmas tree, decorated with straw stars and glass baubles as delicate as soap bubbles. That's how I imagined Christmas to be - and that's how it would have been this year as well. But I was going to spend the most significant family holiday of the year without my family. The idea frightened me. On the other hand, I had to admit that Christmas with my family had always been a disappointment anyway. And that I, in my isolation, was surely romanticizing the past. But I could try to make Christmas in my dungeon as similar as possible to how I remembered the Christmas holidays spent at my grandmother's. The kidnapper played along. Back then I was infinitely grateful to him for making some semblance of a real Christmas possible. Today I think that he probably didn't do it for me, but rather because of his own inner compulsion. For him, too, celebrating holidays was enormously important - they provided structure, they followed certain rules, and he was unable to live without rules and structures which he obeyed with ridiculous stringency. Nevertheless, he still didn't have to grant my Christmas requests. The fact that he did may have had to do with the fact that he had been raised to meet expectations and conform to the image that others wanted to have of him. Today I know that he had failed time and again, primarily in his relationship with his father, on precisely those counts. The approval that he urgently wanted to receive from his father obviously was denied to him for long periods. Towards me, this attitude surfaced only in phases, but when it did * The figure in Austria believed to bring children presents at Christmas, akin to Santa Claus. The word translates directly as `Christ child'. Falling into Nothingness he was particularly absurd. After all, he was the one who had kidnapped me and locked me in the cellar. It's not a scenario in which you take the expectations of the other person, namely your victim, into account. It was as if he were choking someone and asking them at the same time whether they were lying comfortably and if the pressure was okay. However, at the time I blocked all of that out. I was full of grateful, childish wonder that the kidnapper was making such a fuss for me. I knew that I wouldn't be able to have a real Christmas tree, so I asked for one made of plastic. We opened the box together and put the tree on one of the small cupboards. I was given a couple of angels and some sweets, and spent a great deal of time decorating the small tree. On Christmas Eve I was alone watching television until the light was turned off, desperately trying not to think of my family at home. The kidnapper was at his mother's house, or she was visiting his, just as would happen on all the Christmases to come. But I didn't know that at the time. It wasn't until the next day that he celebrated with me. I was amazed that he gave me everything I asked for. I had asked for a small educational computer like the one I had received from my parents the year before. It was nowhere near as good as the first one I had got, but I was overjoyed that I could study without going to school. After all, I didn't want to be completely left behind should I manage to escape. I also got a pad of drawing paper and a box of watercolours. It was the same as the one that my father had given to me once, with twenty-four colours, including gold and silver, as if the kidnapper had given me a piece of my life back. The third package contained a paintby-numbers set with oil paints. I had had that at home too, and I looked forward to the many hours of activity that the painstaking painting promised. The only thing that the kidnapper did not give me was turpentine. He was probably afraid that it would cause harmful fumes in the dungeon.

 

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