Model family man
Alfred and Freeda had been married for a long time. You could tell by the way they spoke to each other and by the genuine warmth in their eyes. Ask any of their neighbors, and they would tell you that even an argument was such a rare occurrence between them that, whenever it happened, the whole building would press its ears against the walls in hopes of hearing at least something bad about their lives.
Freeda worked as a florist and a tutor of foreign languages because she enjoyed teaching children and showing them new things. Alfred, in turn, worked as an electrical technician and took on various side jobs outside of his shifts while trying to secure a government grant for his inventions. Each of them was attentive to the other’s interests. Alfred loved Freeda for her kindness toward children, while Freeda admired the remarkable inventions he created using the basic laws of physics.
One day, the couple left Schwarzbach.The local old women could only guess where they might be spending their holiday and what stories they would tell when they returned. But a week later, roses appeared on the stair landing. Their smell was awful, and they looked as though someone had forgotten to carry them all the way to the trash. Sometimes the flowers remained on the landing. Other times, they could be seen in the garbage almost immediately. The locals did not think Freeda had taken a lover, since they saw Alfred carrying the flowers himself.
His regular deliveries irritated the other husbands. Whenever their wives saw Alfred with a fresh bouquet, they would nudge their own husbands and say, “I wish you’d bring me flowers at least once a month.” Each time, Alfred smiled as he carried the flowers to Freeda. But there was one strange thing. Nobody had seen Freeda.Everyone could hear Alfred talking to her. Sometimes he even argued with her. Yet no one had actually seen her for days, perhaps even weeks. Meanwhile, the smell of the roses grew worse and worse. Even when there were no flowers on the landing, the odor on the floor was unbearable.
Alfred laughed it off. First, he claimed that his refrigerator had broken because of one of his experiments. Later, he said the wiring in the apartment had failed and that he was still repairing it, while food continued to spoil.
An autumn evening would have been as dull and gloomy as always if the entire courtyard had not gathered at their windows to watch the Schwarzbach police car. An anonymous resident had called the police to complain about the foul smell in the building, and a patrol was dispatched to the address.
According to witnesses, the officers entered the very building where the couple lived. The old woman from the apartment across the hall later claimed that Alfred himself had opened the door.
Then the officers ran out in horror. On a double bed lay a decomposing body surrounded by countless roses.
The investigation later revealed what had happened. One evening, after returning home, Alfred found Freeda lying in a pool of blood beside the bathtub. She had most likely slipped, struck her head, and died. Her loss drove him mad, and he could not accept it. So he continued living with her. And when the body began to decay, he remembered something Freeda had once told him: «that roses have a way of absorbing unpleasant smells»
