Life After Forty (12 page)

Luise rolled her eyes.

“Boyfriend! That’s her new trophy. She’s always picking up men, and they seem to get younger and younger. David must be ten years younger than her, easily. She makes out she’s just some scatty woman and spends her whole time messing around with these boys. Completely brazen and always so that Werner gets wind of it. Then she complains about Werner and plays the innocent wife. And Werner and the others go along with her games. It’s really messed up.”

I was surprised. “How do you know about all this?”

By now we were walking up to the entrance of a furniture shop. Luise stopped.

“I know Werner from way back, from Berlin. I was friends with both of them. At the beginning of their marriage at least. But the whole story got more and more hypocritical and embarrassing, so I’ve all but broken off contact. Christine, I’ll tell you another time; I’m not in the mood right now to let Anke ruin our day.”

We were standing in front of the entrance. The door opened as I stood in front of the motion sensor. I went through and turned back to face Luise. At that moment her cell phone rang. She searched frantically through her bag, found it after the third ring, and took the call with an eager look on her face.

“Oh, hello, Franziska.” She looked disappointed.

“No, you’re not interrupting anything. I’m at Stilwerk with Christine. What can I do for you?”

She listened for a moment.

“They belong to…yes, exactly. Wait a moment, she’s called Mrs. Strehlke, the one that buys the children’s books too.”

While Luise listened to Franziska, she smiled.

“You know, we were planning to window-shop, but Christine is going crazy in here, spending money left, right, and center. I know, just imagine.”

Franziska was saying something. Luise looked at me.

“You think five hundred euros is an awful lot? Wait, Christine, what are you up to so far?”

I did a few quick sums and said, “Two thousand six hundred and twenty euros.”

“Did you hear that, Franziska? Two thousand six hundred and twenty euros.” She burst into loud laughter. “Yes, I’ll tell her. Okay, I hope the rest of your work goes well. Bye.”

Luise put her cell back in her bag, still smiling.

“Franziska reckons you’ll get to ten thousand easily; after all, it’s only midday. And she wanted me to remind you that expensive things don’t save lives, but they can make them a damn sight nicer.”

Make a note of that, Edith,
I thought.

Luise’s expression had relaxed again. But I couldn’t help asking, “You were waiting for another call, weren’t you?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “For some reason I’m always waiting for Alex to get in touch. But he hasn’t. We haven’t seen each other for weeks; we’ve only spoken on the phone. I wanted to sort out everything with Dirk first.”

“Does he know that you’ve got your own place and are moving out?”

Luise bit her lip. “I sent him a text. His answer was, ‘Give me time.’”

I felt compassion for her. “Oh, that’s not great perhaps, but come on, you’ve got a great apartment, we’re here now, and it will all work out somehow. After all, you had a good thing going, so maybe he means something else or he’s really busy at the moment or he just mistyped. Just wait and see. It’s easy to misunderstand these stupid text messages.”

I hoped I was right.

Luise nodded. “Yes, hopefully. So, come on, I’ll buy myself a huge bed and think of Alex, or the other men that will come after him.”

We made our way slowly down the aisles. I decided not to let myself be intimidated and made an effort to put on a facial expression that left no doubt that I’d been shopping exclusively in shops like this for years. I thought about the sofa in the old house, wooden with red upholstery, 380 euros from IKEA, and the pinewood table in front of it, 120 euros from the Home Depot. Bernd had thought they were sensible purchases, and back then I thought we would buy something nicer later. Now it was later, and Antje was sitting on it.

Charlotte said
, Exactly, later is now, so buy yourself something beautiful.

And at that moment I saw the most amazing armchair I had ever seen in my life. It was enormous, soft, warm, safe, dark red, velvety, and with a matching footstool. I went over to it, sat down, and felt like I never wanted to stand up again. I shut my eyes and heard Charlotte say,
Oh, yes,
and then Luise said, “I was looking for you. You wanted to look at the beds with me, right?”

I opened my eyes and looked at her. “I’ve just fallen in love. I have to have it, without a doubt.”

Edith’s voice said,
Only if it costs less than three hundred euros.

Luise looked at me in it. “It really suits you. It’s beautiful. How much does your new love cost then?” She looked for the price tag, shaking her head.

“This shop is too expensive for them to stick labels on the furniture. But it has to be somewhere.”

She continued looking. I stood up and found a discreet price list on a small side table. “Luise, I’ve found it, four hundred and fifty euros. Sold!”

Charlotte was pleased
. That’s fine. Give or take a hundred and fifty.

I sat down contentedly and joyfully in the wonderful chair. Wrinkling her forehead, Luise studied the list. “You have to read it properly, sweetie. The footstool is four hundred and fifty, but that’s without the velvet cover; with, it’s six hundred and fifty. As I said, just for the footstool. The chair in velvet, so, just as you see it now, costs two thousand two hundred euros.”

I swallowed. So did Edith.
Are you crazy? Almost three thousand euros? You paid that for half the kitchen in the old house.

Charlotte answered,
Exactly, and now Antje is cooking in it.

A very smart sales assistant popped up in front of us and smiled at me. His name tag said
Daniel
. “It’s a really beautiful piece of furniture. Once you sit in it, you really don’t want to get up again, do you?”

I smiled back and felt understood. Luise looked at me and opened her mouth. I was quicker.

“I’ll take it.”

Luise closed her mouth again.

The smart Daniel looked at me, baffled. He seemed disappointed that he couldn’t do his sales pitch. Still sitting in my “half kitchen,” I smiled up at him. I felt unbelievably good. He turned to Luise, appealing for help.

“Yes, er, okay.”

She held his gaze. “And I need a bed.”

Now he was really unsure. “If I may, er, show you something…”

Luise interrupted him. “I’ve already found one; come with me.” She turned around and walked purposefully towards a huge bed, a dream in white, on which countless cushions and blankets were draped.

Before I followed Luise, I stroked the velvety arm of my new sanctuary. Daniel was watching me uncertainly and followed us. We stopped in front of the dream bed, where Luise was already laid out on her back. She spread her arms out, looking first at me and then Daniel through half-shut eyes, and said, “I’ll take it.”

Visibly strained, Daniel tried to find a way to get his practiced sales pitch in. He was clearly debating whether he should check to see if his spontaneous shoppers had any idea of what the prices were. His anguish was brought to an end by a resolute colleague. She walked up to us, introduced herself as Mrs. Grönke, and telling us she had just attended a mattress seminar, began to impose the fruits of her wisdom. Still lying down and bobbing her hips up and down on the mattress, Luise was subjected to the detailed differences between latex, feather core, and tempur as Mrs. Grönke worked up to full speed. The sight of Luise bouncing away like a kid in the presence of the prim sales assistant threatened to make a fit of giggles take hold again, so I moved on a few meters.

While Luise worked her way steadfastly and earnestly through all of the possible sleeping positions, I stopped in front of a chest of drawers that would look wonderful in my hall—920 euros. The lamp on it emphasized the warm tone of the wood—320 euros. I liked it. I decided to buy both.

Half an hour later we were sitting opposite Daniel at a glass table. In front of us were two glasses of champagne. We wrote our addresses down again while Daniel wrote two separate receipts, reading each section out loud to us and watching us closely. We looked back without betraying any reaction.

Once our credit cards had been put through, we stood up slowly, Daniel looking relieved. I thanked him and shook his hand, which put him in a muddle again. Luise did the same, giving a beaming smile while she shook his hand and thanked him as emphatically as though he had just given us everything for free. Looking embarrassed, he immediately turned around and took two small white porcelain vases from a display dining table. With a grand gesture, he handed them to us.

“May I offer you ladies a little something, for two such charming customers.”

We bowed appropriately and left the shop with controlled posture and without looking at each other. We walked through Stilwerk, collecting Luise’s reserved purchases on the way. Determined and without exchanging a single word, we made our way to the parking lot. Just before getting to our cars, in the middle of the parking lot, we both stopped, looked at each other, and the suppressed laughter burst forth.

I held the little vase towards Luise. “May I offer you…”

Our laughter became hysterical. Luise held her sides. “He thought we couldn’t pay.” The tears were running down her face.

So were mine. “Luise, we just spent over eight thousand euros in just forty-five minutes.”

She gasped for air and then carried on laughing loudly.

“And we didn’t even try to barter.”

I had a stitch. I looked at the vase. The laughter started to build up again.

“But we’ve got two vases which we can fit roughly two small flowers in.”

We were crouched next to one another in the middle of the parking lot, elegant shopping bags all around us, our faces deep red, and laughing like two teenagers. Passersby looked at us in amazement. A few smiled. Eventually, we wiped our tears away and pulled ourselves together. Luise took deep and concentrated breaths in and out. “God, that was fun!” We walked slowly over to our cars. I felt both lighthearted and grown up at the same time. I’d never spent money with such abandon in my whole life.

Once we were standing in front of Luise’s car, she looked at her watch and said, “So, what are we doing now?”

Charlotte whispered,
The ring, the jeweler in the Lange Reihe.

I glanced briefly at my lonely hand. Before Edith could butt in I quickly said, “I’d like to show you a ring in a shop on the Lange Reihe that I really like. There was no price on it though. And then afterwards we can take our cars and bags home and then meet up later at Casa di Roma to have a meal and celebrate.”

“Wonderful.” Luise nodded. “Although, in your current state of mind I don’t think the price will be an issue.”

Charlotte smiled. I didn’t let Edith get a word in edgewise.

By the end of this amazing day we were sitting in our favorite Italian restaurant with two glasses of Taittinger Rose in front of us.

“If we’re doing it, we’ve got to do it right.”

Luise hadn’t hesitated in ordering the most expensive champagne on the menu. I turned my hand so that the small stone in my white gold ring sparkled in the candlelight.

“One thousand six hundred and thirty euros,” was the jeweler’s answer when I asked after the price.

Without hesitating, Charlotte had said
, Much more beautiful than your stupid wedding ring.

And Luise had leaned over to me and whispered, “Go on, try it on, and if it fits, take it.”

It fit. Of course it did.

Edith was outnumbered. And now my hand looked beautiful and confident.

Luise followed my gaze and said happily, “You’ve done it. The first half year, your new life, and you’ve replaced your wedding ring. You know, seeing you gives me strength. To us, and to life.”

We clinked our glasses together. Before we drank, another thought came to my mind.

“Do you know what? I’ve spent seven thousand six hundred and ninety euros today. And with relish. Next I’ll pay back Georg the five thousand euros he lent me, which will be a relief. Then there’ll still be exactly two thousand three hundred and ten left over from Bernd’s fifteen thousand. That’s not much. We’ll spend at least a hundred euros tonight; well, let’s say a hundred and ten, so that’ll leave two thousand two hundred. And the only man I have to confess not having saved more of it to is my tax consultant. And however much he shakes his head, at the end of the day he still gets paid by me, and so he won’t say anything really. Luise, I feel like I’ve made it.”

Contentedly, we nodded at one another.

D
orothea spread her arms out wide and fell back into my red dream chair, swinging her legs up onto the footstool. She looked first at the ceiling and then at me.

“Wonderful. You did good! How much did this darling cost then?”

I looked at her. Black suede suit, expensive black shoes—and the red of her lipstick matched the chair perfectly.

“Two thousand two hundred euros.”

Dorothea stroked the chair arm slowly. “That’s fine, just buy four less pairs of shoes.”

I laughed. Dorothea’s view of the world—in terms of shoes at least—was very different from mine. “Dorothea, that’s at least twenty pairs.”

She looked critically at my sneakers and sighed. “That’s exactly your problem. You’d get at least twenty pairs of those for that, yes, but I’m talking about real shoes.” She stretched out her leg and made small circles with her foot. “Shoe culture, sweetheart, Manolo Blahnik.”

I looked skeptically at the soft leather, the pointed toe, and high heel.

“I could never walk in shoes like that.”

Dorothea circled both feet, looking at them as though she were in love.

“Beautiful shoes aren’t supposed to be comfortable; they’re supposed to give you attitude.” She stood up.

“Someday I’ll get you to buy your first pair of Prada mules; then you’ll understand.”

After she’d examined and enthused about the rest of my purchases, we settled down in the lounge and opened a bottle of champagne. We’d hardly seen each other over the last few weeks, just spoken on the phone now and then. Dorothea had had one television production after another, and my schedule had been packed lately as well. I updated her on the recent events, my appointment with Rüdiger, and on Luise’s apartment and her move last week.

Dorothea looked sympathetic. “How did moving out go? Have you seen her?”

“She had a moving company do it all. Dirk stayed with friends for the weekend, so she was alone to do the packing in the morning. I went over to see her at the new place at midday, and she wasn’t doing too good. She was feeling awful about Dirk, she’s never really lived alone before, and for some reason she still hasn’t heard from Alex. It’s all pretty terrible.”

Dorothea poured herself some champagne and said, “Moving out is always miserable. When I moved out of Georg’s, I had a fever and the shivers for three days.”

I could still remember it. “And you two hadn’t even separated at that point. You just didn’t want to live together anymore; the break-up came a year later.”

Dorothea shook her head and laughed a little. “What does ‘want to’ mean? We only managed to live together for three months, after a five-year relationship. He was ruled by his head and I by my heart, and we had two completely different body clocks and routines. I paint at night, Georg gets up early; I’m hungry in the evening, Georg at midday; I don’t like talking in the morning, Georg is tired in the evenings; he’s tidy, I’m creative. We had to make so many compromises that there wouldn’t have been anything of ourselves left over. If we’d carried on, we wouldn’t have recognized each other. I can only handle love with physical distance, that’s what I’ve learned.”

I thought about myself, about my lack of enthusiasm for cooking and shopping for myself, about cold beds and dark apartments, about double-locked front doors that need two turns of the key when you get home.

“Don’t you miss having someone to look after, who looks after you and is waiting at home for you sometimes?”

Dorothea looked at me, amazed. “Why would I? I look after myself, and I do it better than anyone else. When I come home I don’t want to talk right away, so I’m happy that I don’t have to. And I like the fact that my apartment looks exactly the same in the evenings as it did when I left it that morning. I can have a grouchy face, lie around in bed all day, I can eat whenever and whatever I want, speak on the phone when and for as long as I like, and lie in the bath for three hours. I think it’s great.”

“And you never feel lonely?”

Dorothea thought for a moment. “You know, the company I most enjoy is my own. So if I get hormonal urges now and then, I call Nils. But that’s not something I want every day.”

Nils was a musician, lived in Cologne, and was married. Dorothea had met him three years ago at a filming. She rarely spoke about him; he popped up now and again, stayed a few days, and then was gone again for weeks on end. Dorothea seemed content with this state of affairs; she regarded as him as her private pleasure and declined any explanations.

“I’m not suited to being part of a couple. I tried with Georg, but it didn’t work. And I just don’t enjoy it long-term.”

I thought about Nina. She was the other extreme. Dorothea hadn’t met her yet, but I told her about our get-togethers, the conversation about single life, and her search for a new man.

Dorothea listened with a look of disbelief.

“Honey, that sounds awful. Togetherness at any price, as long as it looks good from the outside and you’re not living alone. I can’t understand why forty-something women can’t be happy with themselves. As if some guy is a guarantee of a better life.” Then she looked at me, startled. “Christine, I didn’t mean you.”

I’d become lost in thought and had stood up to make some cappuccinos with the new espresso machine. “You’re right though. All I had in the last five years with Bernd was a façade. I felt neither loved nor desired, but I thought everything else would have been even worse.”

I went into the kitchen. Dorothea called after me. “By the way, do you still remember Richard?”

I flinched. Charlotte sighed.

I turned the machine on. Without turning away from the chrome masterpiece, I called out in answer to Dorothea’s question.

“Richard. Oh yes, what makes you mention him?”

“No need to shout at me.” Dorothea was standing in the kitchen door.

I pressed the wrong button and hot water spritzed next to the milk jug.

Dorothea shoved a cup underneath it. She laughed. “You have to be on the ball with these high-tech machines, you know. What’s up? Two glasses of champagne and you’re already all over the place?”

I looked at her while I wiped away the water. “I have no idea. Perhaps I can’t handle champagne during the day anymore.” I carried on wiping until Dorothea took the cloth from my hand. In the end, I asked anyway.

“What about Richard?”

Dorothea threw the cloth in the sink and looked at me questioningly.

“Richard? Oh yes, I ran into him last weekend. I was in Bremen for Anneke’s fiftieth birthday—you remember, the mask artist. You met her at my birthday—the tall, beautiful redhead. She’s divorced too now, by the way.”

I took a deep breath.

“Yes, I remember. And?”

“Nothing really. It was a great birthday party. And Richard was there too; they knew each other from Berlin. How did I get onto that?”

She thought for a moment, biting her lower lip.

“Oh, I know, the thing about façades. Richard had a lot of problems in his private life in Berlin for a long while—at least that’s what Georg told me. Demanding wife, massive arguments, and he just put up with it all. That’s what Georg said. In any case, he handed in his notice at the station—he was a lawyer for years, if you remember—and is now living in Bremen where he runs a media law practice with a colleague, and he seems to be very successful.”

Edith piped up while I was still taking in what I’d heard.

It was six years ago; he won’t even remember you.

Dorothea continued. “I was supposed to say hi to you from him; I completely forgot about that. I’d forgotten that you knew each other. Well, in any case, as I was saying, he seems to have put all those personal issues behind him and is living in Bremen. Hang on a moment, he gave me his card.”

She went out to the hallway, fetched her bag from the new chest of drawers, and emptied it out.

Charlotte whispered excitedly.
Richard. And now of all times!

Dorothea came back and triumphantly pressed a crumpled card into my hand. “Come on, nothing gets past me. Give him a call. He’s a nice guy, and you’re in Bremen quite a bit.” She looked at the clock. “Oh hell, is that the time? I was supposed to be at the TV station twenty minutes ago.” Hectically, she packed all her things back into her handbag, blew me a kiss, and disappeared through the door, which clicked shut loudly behind her.

I sat down slowly at the kitchen table and stared at the card.

I read the name again and again, the address of his office, his private address. He still had the same mobile number. My heartbeat was quickening, and it felt as though I couldn’t get enough air. Decisively, I stood up, grabbed my jacket and bag, and left the apartment, planning to walk around the Alster Lake at least once.

Half an hour later I slowed my pace and let the memories flood back.

It was six years ago.

Georg and Dorothea were working for a television channel based in Berlin. Georg still lived there back then. After their unsuccessful attempt at living together, Dorothea had moved back to Hamburg. Once a year the station hosted a summer party. Dorothea could never understand my fascination with the world of TV back then.

“Stick to the book trade,” she’d said. “These TV types have all got a screw loose.”

I refused to believe her, so to “cure” me she sent Bernd and I an invitation to the summer party. I was excited—a whole weekend in Berlin, and with a summer party and TV people too. And perhaps it would do Bernd and I good; our relationship was going through some changes back then. It would be the first time in months that we would have a chance to get away from the countryside and the daily grind together.

Bernd only gave the invitation a quick glance.

“I’m not going to Berlin just for one evening. That’s ridiculous.”

I tried to convince him.

“But we could spend the weekend there and look around Berlin. And I’m sure the party will be fun. We can stay at Georg’s, so it won’t cost anything.”

Bernd wouldn’t give in. “I want to go sailing with Adrian on Sunday. And besides, I don’t know anyone there.”

I was disappointed. “I don’t know anyone there either, apart from Georg and Dorothea. But that doesn’t matter; maybe we’ll meet some nice people. Come on, we don’t do anything together anymore.”

But Bernd was done discussing it. “I’ve got neither the time nor the inclination, and that’s the end of it. Go there by yourself if you really want to.”

I told Georg and Dorothea that Bernd had to work and went there alone by train. They picked me up from the station in the early afternoon and took me to their favorite haunts around Berlin. We went all over the city. I was enraptured with the big city atmosphere, and I found myself missing the Bernd I used to know.

The summer party was that evening. I had bought myself a red dress, was full of anticipation, and wanted to love every second of it. Dorothea noted my excitement somewhat sympathetically and murmured lightly, “Don’t get too worked up or you’ll just be disappointed.”

Two hours later I understood her skepticism.

The majority of the almost eight hundred guests were very young, very blond media yuppies who were almost all dressed in black. They were in their mid twenties at the most, had identical outfits, which looked like uniforms, shrill voices, and very little to say. I wasn’t up to scratch in the small talk, and I felt old and inappropriately dressed.

George noticed my anguished expression and pulled me towards a small bar nearby. We collapsed onto two leather chairs and both sighed deeply. The loud music was muffled here, and the air was better than in the other rooms.

My brother looked at me and laughed. “I told you they were mostly all media lemmings and big cheeses. But…there are exceptions.”

I suddenly felt someone was standing behind me. I heard a deep voice that made my stomach feel strange.

“And here comes the exception. Hi, Georg.”

Georg stood up, looking pleased, and held out his hand to a tall, dark-haired man. “Richard, it’s great that you could make it. I thought you were on vacation.”

Richard smiled, looking first at me, then Georg, whose hand he was shaking. “It gets worse every year at this party. And younger.”

I reckoned he was about forty.

His gaze turned back to me. I stared back, not moving, and felt as though I were glued to my seat. Georg took over the introductions. “Christine, this is Richard Jürgensen, our lawyer. Richard, this is my sister Christine who, until today, was a big TV fan, but who’s now probably going to return ruefully to her books.”

Richard’s hand was warm; he clasped mine tightly. His eyes were very blue.

“Very pleased to meet you.”

I had the feeling he actually meant the well-worn phrase.

Meanwhile, I’d circled around half of the Alster. There was a vacant bench right down by the dock. I sat down, watched two nearby swans, and lit myself a cigarette. My thoughts wandered back to that night again.

Nothing spectacular had happened at the party. We stayed sitting in the small bar. Richard pulled a chair up alongside mine and stayed by my side. In the course of the evening more and more of Georg and Richard’s colleagues joined us, and so our circle of refugees from the main party grew steadily.

Richard, with his charm and humor, was the center of attention. Not that he tried to be. He was certainly the center of
my
attention. I sat there, listened to him, laughed at his stories, was amazed at his quick-wittedness, and was touched by his careful manners.

And I fell in love. That’s all.

The next morning Dorothea, Georg, and I went out for brunch together. I wasn’t in the mood for talking and was still back in that small bar in my thoughts, thinking of the feeling I’d had when my knee had brushed against Richard’s leg. Almost accidentally.

Georg and Dorothea put my silence down to too much alcohol and gossiped about the partygoers. They said very little about Richard, and I didn’t trust myself to ask. Georg only mentioned that he was a great guy, but unfortunately with a tendency for having a difficult private life. “I don’t really know much about it. He doesn’t talk about it much. But he’s on his second marriage, and he has two children from the first whom he rarely sees. And his current wife is apparently a rather complicated person. I’ve never met her; she doesn’t come to the station or to parties. She doesn’t seem particularly interested in his work.”