Phantasmagoric Affair “It was a cold Tuesday in January 2016, day 4 out of 5 until I had to turn myself in for something I hadn’t done. It was late at night, I was on my way home from work. Suddenly, my phone started to ring. I peeked quickly, the number was unknown. I felt hesitant, but my curiosity made me pick up the call. Quickly, I pushed the phone against my ear and said ‘hello?’ On the other side a male voice answered with a strong Russian accent: ‘You have one day left.’ I replied squealing out of my throat: ‘what?’ ‘I told you, you have one day left’, he continued with a threatening tone before I panicked and hung up. I didn’t know what to do. I still had to change buses to get home. The darkness of the late autumn night surrounded me.” Victor first came to Copenhagen in summer 2012. “I came for Roskilde festival and spent some time in the capital”, Victor explains. From the moment he set foot in the city, he fell in love with it. “I immediately got the feeling of moving there someday.”
The names in this story have been changed.
Victor kept on coming back for Roskilde festival every year. In 2015, he returned home to Østersund after a great festival, as always. The following days, Victor had to deal with horrible post festival blues and an existential crisis. “I felt like I couldn’t find my direction anymore at home.” Østersund lays in Northern Sweden. Victor grew up there, surrounded by mountains and forests. “It is a part of me. But at that very moment, I’d chosen to break free. I couldn’t find my place there anymore.” Victor felt that the original spirit of the area was dying and becoming exploited by mass tourism. “I was thriving for a change. A new environment, challenges and opportunities. I followed my instincts from 2012 and set the sails towards Copenhagen.”
Victor sat down in his cozy room, poured coffee in his mug and began his story. It ain’t an easy task to lay down one´s roots in Copenhagen. It took me months to find accommodation. The city is a housing nightmare! After endless internet research, disappointments and traveling back and forth between Copenhagen and Østersund I finally found a place to settle in. I was lucky to find home in a collective with 7 other exceptional human beings. I came in for an interview and moved in the same day, we connected instantly. As I settled in my new home, luck kept finding me. Later that week I got a job, Swedish customer service for a low-profit gambling company. The job was super relaxed as I didn’t have many calls, maximum 5 per evening. I had a lot of time to kill so I usually spent 6 hours watching netflix or listening to music. After a few weeks on the job I got a new colleague, Anna. Anna was a moderate metal chick, she mainly wore black clothes, robust makeup and shiny piercings. She was beautiful, sort of my type. We exchanged the bunks and ended up sitting back to back.
As time went on, I began to feel an urge inside me wanting to get to know this girl. We connected quickly as we shared a lot interests and enjoyed each other´s company. She started going out with me to smoke, even though she didn’t smoke herself. That was how I found out that she had a boyfriend. “Bummer!” I thought. We kept on talking, chatting, snapping. She obviously had an interest in me and vice versa. But we kept it under the radar, which was a bit shady at times. Anna claimed that she wasn’t happy in her relationship which kept me going. I never figured out if she truly meant it or if she just wanted me to keep on trying to impress her. Nevertheless, I really liked her and felt like there was something between us worth delving into. Our friendship evolved into a romance, which led to Anna breaking up with her boyfriend to be with me. That marks the beginning of our relationship. At last, we didn’t have to hide anymore. After that, everything took a rapid shift forward as we spent a lot of time together. At work and in our private lives. She slept over every night.
“It was early in the morning, Anna was laying in my bed half asleep when I said goodbye to her. I left, but she stayed in bed.” After 3 months time, I started to feel a bit weird about the whole thing. Things weren’t as perfect as I thought they would be. We’re stoned most of the time. She had smoked weed before but had stopped, with me she started again. Now, I see that it was bad for us, especially in the beginning.
While I was in Sweden we spoke sporadically, I could feel the tension between us. A day before I was supposed to return she stopped answering my messages, it enhanced the friction. I decided to leave it until I was back in Copenhagen the next day. Then we could discuss it faceto-face.
I felt like she started to imitate me. Things I did or talked about. I had a very close relationship with my housemates, we’ve had become very close with them since I had moved in. Kind of like brothers and sisters. We could be annoying around each other, be mean to each other without any hard feelings afterwards. Anna started to assimilate the way we talked to each other, which was inappropriate as they didn’t know each other for long. It was a different relationship they had, all of us sensed it.
As soon as I set a foot in Copenhagen I tried to get a hold of her, unsuccessfully. I couldn’t get in touch with Anna, she had been offline for 18 hours. Which was weird, since she was always online. I called her, no answer! My worries increased promptly. I wrote messages to her friends and asked around, nobody had seen or knew anything.
I felt overwhelmed by this fast paced relationship, I needed some time for myself to think and reset. Therefore, I decided to visit my family in Sweden for a few days. Anna did not take it well, she rather wanted to lock herself in the bathroom to avoid the conversation. She was bad at talking about these sort of things.
Anna’s landlady hadn’t seen her for 2 days. Where could she be? I asked if she could check her room and she did. The first thing she saw was Anna’s phone in pieces, it was taken apart. On the night table next to it she noticed her passport and wallet. I heard how she turned around and sighed out loud that her jacket and shoes were still there. At that point I got really worried, something was wrong, something was off.
I felt desperate and in need of some help, so I brought up the situation to my housemates. With them by my side, I called the police.
Four days went by fast, without any word from Anna’s alcoholic father. In the bus on my way home from work on that cold Tuesday night, I received the ‘one day left’ call. I panicked, I called my mother crying and asked what I should do. My conversation with her didn’t sooth the vein. I was certain that a Russian hitman was aiming for my head. Anna´s father started texting me just minutes later and addressed me friendly with the Russian version of my name, “Vitya”. I thought that this was strange, since he obviously hated me. It made the situation even more kooky. A few minutes later, I received the same text with exclamation marks:
The police verified the story and recognized her name. They concluded with saying: “you shouldn’t worry” before hanging up. This conversation didn’t help me in any way, so I decided to call again and insist on getting more information. “We know where she is and that she is okay, but that is all we can tell you for now. She will contact you when she wants to.” Policeman explained me. His answer raised even more questions. I still had no idea what the hell was going on! I was forced to stand on the sidelines and just leave it for a while... But, it was all I could think of! My hands were tied. I was constantly thinking about her. I remembered stories about her traumatic past, how she grew up and how her parents were. Her dad is an alcoholic and the reason why she moved to Denmark. She escaped him. He had been abusing Anna and her mom psychologically, but I also think physically. He is a freaking mental case. A week passed and I felt horrible. I thought that everything was my fault because I left her alone. It was around midnight on a friday night, I was sitting on my bed when suddenly my phone beeped. I looked at it and saw that I had gotten a text message from an unknown number. I raised my eyebrows and started to read.
I have no words to describe the feeling I got. From Anna’s stories and the use of language in the message I figured out it was from her father. I’d put the puzzle together, but the last part, “why me?” was missing. I was stuck between the cynical part of me which was saying this wasn’t real and another that reminded me of childhood stories about Russian hitmen. I got scared, terrified and didn’t reply to the message.
It seemed like he wanted me to answer, so I did: After the last message I saw no other choice then to call the police and report his threats. I was scared for my life that night.
“Four minutes later, he hit me with a reply...”
I called the police and told them my story. The problem was that the local station was closed the next day, so I couldn´t make a statement. One day late. I could be dead by then... The next morning, I therefore I went to the head police station to make a statement. They created a case, but still sent me to a local station. So I had to wait. That night everyone in the house slept together in the living room, to keep each other safe. Nobody showed up to do any harm.
“This is not Victor, this is someone else” I still didn’t know what had happened to Anna when I received a message from her ex-boyfriend. I was home when he wrote me, he had spoken to her. She wanted my number in order to call me. As a result of the past events, I got paranoid and hesitated for a bit. But I decided to give my telephone number anyway. Shortly after, Anna called. I picked up. Immediately, she started to apologize for her dad´s behavior, saying that I didn’t need to worry and his threats were harmless. She kept on talking and apologising until I interrupted her: “It’s not your responsibility to excuse your father, I just want to know what happened to you?” As soon as I paused she calmly stated: “This is not Victor, this is someone else”. I was confused. She didn’t believe it was me. “Have a good night”, she said and hung up the phone. Anna´s ex-boyfriend told me that she was very paranoid, didn’t trust phones and he needed to convince her of his identity. Anna disappeared from my life until I shared a video on Snapchat a month later. She replied to it. “Is that really you, Victor?” “Yes, who else?!” I answered hopelessly.
“I keep thinking about old times, how it was before.” I tried to convince Anna that it was really me. She asked me questions that concerned us and no one else could know. I told her things I remembered about her: her favorite song, favorite artist and things we did together. I thought I had already convinced her that it was me, when she said: “Okay, final question: where was the last time you saw me before you left for Sweden?” “In my bed”, I answered quickly. “BINGO” she replied. I thought it was absurd, like some kind of game! However, I was happy to finally be able to get some answers now.
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Anna told me her story. While I was in Sweden her phone acted suspicious, it was glitching and unable to control. She was convinced that her father hacked it to spy on her. Anna panicked, disabled the phone and left the apartment in a rush without even putting her shoes on. She ran to a bridge, ready to finish it. She couldn’t bear with the idea of living her life being manipulated by her father. Luckily, she was spotted by a taxi driver who stopped her and drove Anna to a hospital. There she was put in a psychiatric ward where she was treated with strong medicine to keep her calm for a few days. The sad thing is, that after the treatment Anna was forced to move back to her abusive father. You could say that he won in the end. In my texts I showed Anna empathy and support. Suddenly, she replied: “I keep thinking about old times, how it was before. If I’d return, can we be together?”, she asked. I had mixed feelings and answered “Do you realise how it was for me? I know you’ve been through a lot, but it’s your shit I was dragged into.” Shortly after Anna replied: “If I can get over it, why can’t you?”