Life After Forty (13 page)

Dorothea knew a lawyer from his department.

“Susanne told me that Richard’s wife is horrendous; they met her somewhere once. An arrogant cow apparently.”

Georg gave Dorothea a reproachful look.

“You don’t even know her. Susanne may have met her briefly, but that doesn’t mean anything. You’re all so quick to judge.”

Dorothea nodded at him smugly. “You’re such a saint.”

Georg looked thoughtful.

“But I don’t reckon he’s happy either. The poor guy. And he deserves to be.”

Later, when I sat on the train, on my way home and to Bernd, I thought about why I hadn’t told Georg or Dorothea about the feelings Richard had provoked in me.

Edith knew the answer:
Because it’s ridiculous. He’s married, you’re married, it was just the atmosphere of the summer party. You were never even alone with him. You don’t know him at all.

Charlotte was in love.
He sat next to you the whole evening. And the looks he gave you. He felt good in your company.

Edith groaned loudly.
He sat there because it was the only free chair. Good grief, he’ll have forgotten you already. Wake up—you’re thirty-four, not thirteen.

Bernd picked me up from the station. He seemed pleased that I was back. We went to the Chinese restaurant on the way home. During the meal I told Bernd about the party. When I mentioned the name Richard Jürgensen, my heart started to pound. Bernd seemed to notice something and asked a question for the first time during my account of the partygoers.

“Richard Jürgensen. Do I know him from TV?”

“No, he’s a lawyer for the station.”

Bernd piled rice onto his plate.

“Oh, okay. I thought he was someone special.”

Over the next weeks and months, I dreamed of Richard now and then and thought about the feeling I’d had in his presence. After a while, the details of his face faded, but a feeling of longing remained. I made an effort not to let the thoughts in.

After all, I had Bernd.

Half a year later we received the next invitation. In Berlin again, and again on a Saturday. This time Georg was one of the three guests of honor at a joint birthday party. The date was in three weeks’ time. That evening Georg phoned.

“I know it’s a bit short notice, but it was a spur-of-the-moment idea. Can you guys make it?”

This time Bernd really couldn’t; he had to go to a trade fair in Munich.

“I’ll come by myself again. Bernd’s fair has been arranged for ages. I can come with Ines.”

“It’s a shame that Bernd can’t make it. Oh well, never mind. Anyway, Christine, would you mind sleeping in a hotel? I can’t manage to put everyone up at my place.”

“Sure, that’s no problem.”

“Great. Ines is staying with a friend of hers, so you can arrange to travel up together between yourselves.”

I thought briefly of Richard, and I wanted to ask Georg whether he was invited. Bernd came into the room and said, “Give him my best, and tell him to pop by sometime.” I swallowed the question about Richard and, afterwards, was happy I’d done so.

Three weeks later Ines and I climbed out of a taxi in front of a trendy bar in Berlin. We were a little late; the route from my hotel to Gundula’s apartment had been a little longer than I thought. My hotel was near the bar, so really Ines should have picked me up and not the other way around, but neither of us had thought of that.

Ines laughed as I paid the bill.

“That’s what happens when you don’t check the map. You insisted on picking me up, so I just assumed you knew the area.”

I kept the receipt, asking myself why at the same time, and said, “I’m the oldest. It’s my responsibility. Come on.”

The bar was full, the music not too loud, the buffet Italian. We made our way through the guests, looking for Georg. We waved to a few familiar faces, some of Georg’s old friends from college and elsewhere. Dorothea was standing behind the bar, gesticulating wildly, pointing to her left and blowing us kisses. We followed her lead and pushed our way up to Georg.

“Happy birthday, big brother.”

Ines hugged him.

“Christine has our present. This is a great bar.”

I kissed Georg on the cheek, gave him a big hug, and pushed a Manufactum voucher for store credit into his jacket pocket. He felt the envelope and beamed.

“Thank you, what a surprise!”

Georg hated birthday presents, and even as a child he’d suffered from extreme anxiety about getting presents he couldn’t bring himself to act pleased about. That’s why we’d been giving him a voucher for his favorite shop for years. Only the sum varied.

He looked around.

“I think you already know a lot of the people here; as you can see, I won’t be able to look after you that much.”

“Don’t worry.”

I watched Ines, who had discovered Malte with a cry of joy. Georg followed my gaze.

“Look, Malte and Ines. When she was six, she wanted to have his babies.”

A new group of guests arrived. Georg turned to greet them, and I made my way to the bar. On the way I looked at all the faces, suddenly realizing who I was looking for. I couldn’t see him, and I sensed my disappointment. Dorothea had fought her way through to me and held a cocktail in front of my nose.

“Sex on the Beach. I know you love it.”

She giggled. I tried it. “If your jokes were as good as your cocktails, life would be a lot more fun. It tastes great. Cheers.”

Dorothea laughed anyway. “I think my jokes are superb. Oh, I’ve got to go back to the bar. See you in a bit.” I drank and watched her go.

As I felt his hand on my shoulder, I almost choked on my drink.

“I was hoping you’d be here.”

That voice, those blue eyes. And he still had his hand on my shoulder. If we were in a comic strip, a sea of flowers would have exploded around my head. In real life, my pulse was racing. My brain tried to come up with hundreds of intelligent and witty lines.

I said, “Oh, hello, Richard.” And then spilled my orange-red cocktail all over my white trousers.

Six years later, sitting on the bench on the Alster, I had to smile at the memory. I stood up, stubbed out my cigarette in a paper towel, and walked slowly on. I hadn’t taken in much more of the party, although I’m sure it was a great one. Richard was all I could remember. He had come alone. We stayed together the whole evening, first standing with the other party guests, and then we sat down by ourselves in a corner. We drank a bottle of red wine together, and smoked and talked. I don’t know which of us started. Or about what. We talked about his job, about mine, about brothers and sisters, about books, about TV.

The air became sticky, the music louder. We looked at each other briefly and then stood up. Our search for a more peaceful location proved to be unsuccessful. Richard bent over to me to whisper, and his mouth brushed my ear. I got goose bumps.

He asked, “Shall we go for a walk? I’d like to get out of here.”

Instead of answering, I stroked my hand over his back, which shocked even me. He took my hand in his and pulled me towards the exit.

We walked through the dark streets and talked about our lives. I can’t remember what came over us; we were barely stoppable. His first marriage, the horrendous divorce, which was mostly about money and carried out at the expense of the children. Then about my marriage and how it had developed into a house share, the fact that I hadn’t had children, and about the desires I had that couldn’t be fulfilled by Bernd because he didn’t even know them. His second wife, who had been the reason for his divorce, and who had obviously had a very different idea of who he was.

“You know, I think all she wanted was to get me for herself. Once she’d achieved her goal, she moved on to her first affair. A year after we got married.”

“My husband hasn’t wanted to sleep with me for the last two years. Perhaps that’s what marriage is like.”

We went to sit in a bar for a while and sat in silence while we warmed up. Richard took my hand and held it between his. “A strange night. Nothing like this has ever happened to me.”

I looked at him for a long while. I felt like I wanted to burn the image of his face into my mind.

“Nor me. It’s confusing.”

We left the bar and walked slowly on. I knew the way to the hotel; in another life I’d come along here in a taxi. I looked at myself. Richard had clasped his hand with mine and put them in his jacket pocket. I brushed my thumb over his warm skin. I could feel his presence with every pore, and I thought about my familiar life, about Bernd, about Richard’s wife. Everything was circling around in my head. He was silent.

Then we were standing in front of my hotel. I didn’t know what to think.

I heard Charlotte.
Ask him if he’s coming up. Go on.

And Edith.
It’ll just be complicated. It would turn your whole life upside down. This man will get under your skin. You won’t be able to handle it.

Richard kissed me softly on the lips. He looked at me sadly.

“I would love to sleep with you. But I’d end up hurting you too. I’ve got a lot of things to sort out in my life, and I haven’t even made a start yet. Perhaps tonight has released something in me that will finally give me the courage to make some changes. But it’s going to be a long journey. And I like you too much to ask that of you.”

I realized that my eyes were filling with tears. I couldn’t say anything, just touched his cheek gently. He was still looking at me.

“Thank you, Christine. This was the best night I’ve had in a very long time. Especially because it’s ending like this and will stay something special.”

Something occurred to me. I turned aside and looked in my handbag for the taxi receipt and a pen. My hands shaking, I ripped the receipt in half and wrote my mobile number on the first half. Richard took the other half, wrote his number, and put it back in my bag.

I tried to find my voice.

“Maybe we can talk on the phone sometime.”

He smiled and brushed his finger over my lips. His voice was raw.

“Definitely. This was too good to just lose touch.”

He walked off to the taxi line. I watched him go, feeling light, alive, and yet very sad.

Having made my way all around the Alster, I went back to my apartment. So much had happened since then. The week after that night in Berlin, Bernd had had a serious car crash. I found out at two a.m. when the police called me, telling me the name of the hospital but not how he was. I drove almost an hour to get there, full of panic and blinded by tears. I felt guilty, was scared of losing Bernd. I swore to myself that I would never allow myself to have the feelings and thoughts that I’d had with Richard again.

Bernd was very lucky; his injuries weren’t life-threatening. I sat thankfully by his bed the whole night staring at his bruised face. In my thoughts I asked both Bernd and Richard for forgiveness.

I opened both locks on my apartment door and went in.

In the years that followed, I had dreamt of Richard now and again; he was still there somewhere, in my soul. We had only spoken on the telephone once; he had phoned me two days after the accident, and it was a short conversation. Both of us were in shock.

I still knew his mobile number by heart. I sat down in my red chair, poured the last of the champagne from Dorothea’s glass, and drank it down. I looked around my apartment. A great deal had happened since that night, and Richard didn’t know about any of it.

I heard Dorothea’s voice in my ear.

“He said to say hi to you from him. He seems to have put all those personal issues behind him and is living in Bremen. Why don’t you give him a call?”

I smoked two cigarettes, one after another, and thought for a while. Then I stood up and looked for the telephone.

L
eonie stood up slowly, went over to the door of the sauna, and turned over the hourglass that was hanging next to it. Her gaze fell on a woman who was lying on her back on the lower bench, and then she sat back on her hand towel and gestured at me to join her on the lower level. I stood up and took my towel over, leaned over, and whispered, “What is it?”

She gestured towards the woman again. I looked, but she didn’t seem familiar to me at all. I looked back at Leonie questioningly and shrugged my shoulders.

She shook her head and whispered, “In a moment.”

I leaned back and watched the hourglass. The minutes trickled untiringly down in the sand. I was slowly starting to sweat.

Leonie and I met every two weeks for a sauna day; it had now become a ritual of ours. Leonie’s husband Michael had come along with us once. Over our post-sauna beers he had decided—feigning bewilderment—that he didn’t want to accompany us there again. He felt himself to be too manly and naïve to follow our girl talk without lasting damage. Of course, we didn’t have the slightest clue what he was referring to.

The woman next to us sat up and stretched. Looking at the hourglass, she stood up, wrapped herself up in her towel, and left the sauna. Now we were alone. As soon as the door had swung shut, Leonie turned to me.

“There’s no way they were real.”

I was still trying to work out if the woman looked familiar to me, and I had no idea what Leonie meant. “What weren’t real?”

Leonie looked at me indignantly. “My God, Christine, are you blind? Her breasts were fake. And not particularly good ones at that. You could tell right away!”

“I can’t believe the things you look at. Michael would have been horrified.”

“My darling husband would have noticed too. Those things practically poke you in the eye.”

Leonie had to laugh at what she’d just said.

The sweat was running down my face. I looked at the hourglass; we’d been in there for twenty minutes now. I stood up. “That’s enough for me. I’m done.”

A little later we lay wrapped in bathrobes and blankets on two teak loungers on the covered roof terrace. Leonie looked up at the glorious blue sky.

“It still looks like summer, but it smells like fall.”

I turned my head towards her. “It’s September—the summer’s nearly over.”

Leonie turned on her side, propped her head up on her bent arm, and looked at me. “Do you have the fall blues?”

“What makes you say that? It was you who brought it up.”

She looked at me thoughtfully.

“I don’t know. You’re so quiet today. Is something wrong?”

I shook my head.

Charlotte nodded.
Richard.

Edith answered.
Oh great, now it’s getting you in such a state that everyone’s noticing. Excellent.

Leonie was still watching me. When I didn’t answer, she turned back over onto her back. Her voice sounded a little peeved.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But you were so curt on the phone the night before last. I was just asking.”

She stared into the distance. I gave the arm of her bathrobe a placatory tug.

“If there was something wrong, I would tell you about it. It was just that I was waiting for another call the other evening. That’s why I was a little short.”

I paused, but Leonie didn’t ask. But she did turn her head and look at me again. “So I’m supposed to believe that there’s nothing bothering you at the moment? I know you, Christine. There’s something on your mind.”

I tried to think of something to say that would neither be a lie nor give too much away.

“It’s nothing I can really explain. It’s just that I’ve got too much time on my hands at the moment; almost all of my appointments are done, and I only have a handful of visits left to make. When I have that much free time, so many thoughts go through my head. Like whether I’ll manage to get to grips with living alone, whether I can ever fall in love again, whether I even want to get into another relationship, whether I can ever trust anyone again, things like that.”

I felt that I’d sailed smoothly around the topic of Richard. Leonie sat up.

“Of course you’ll fall in love again. And once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to get involved again. It just needs time. First just find yourself a lover, no strings, just to feel some intimacy. After all, you need sex now and again too.”

I stared at her, amazed.

“Leonie, you’re not seriously telling me to become someone’s lover?”

She had stood up now and was looking down at me.

“Gosh, don’t be such a prude! I’m not saying you should start having an affair right away, but it’s okay to be aware of your needs and to want to have them fulfilled. You’re going to be forty in eight weeks; don’t be so inhibited.”

I was speechless. Leonie noticed and laughed. She sat on the foot of my lounger and laid her hand on my covered legs.

“Look at it like this. There are two possibilities. Either you have a partner who knows your needs, takes them seriously, and does his best to fulfill them. If you have that, you’re lucky. Or, you have a partner who doesn’t really care about your needs and doesn’t consider himself responsible for meeting them, and then you might as well forget it. Unfortunately, you had the second with Bernd, but don’t make the mistake of suppressing your needs again—you have a right to them.”

She stood up again and looked at the time.

I couldn’t stop myself from asking. “Which one is it for you?”

Leonie smiled. “I’m very lucky. But now, I have an appointment with my lovely masseur. That’s one of the few needs that Michael can’t fulfill. So for the last two years he’s been giving me vouchers for ten massage sessions as a birthday present. So, off I go. See you later.”

I watched as she disappeared through the glass door into the spa. I wrapped my cold feet up snugly in the woolen blanket and lay back comfortably. Leonie’s words stayed in my mind. My needs really had fallen by the wayside in recent years, and to be honest I wasn’t even sure what they were anymore.

Charlotte knew one.
Richard is a need.

The thought of having Richard as my lover made my heart start to pound.

Edith was against it.
Nonsense, you’re being dumb again—you’ll just fall in love immediately. And then you can forget it.

I burrowed deeper into my bathrobe. I had that “Richard” feeling in my stomach again.

On that evening two weeks ago I’d picked the phone up at least twenty times, and I put it down again just as many. I painted my toenails, cleaned the bathroom mirror, filed all of my bank statements, ironed three blouses, and then opened a bottle of red wine. I thought about it for the duration of the first glass, and then at nine p.m., I phoned Richard. As I dialed the code for Bremen, I felt my pulse start to race.

He answered after the second ring.

“Jürgensen.”

My mind felt empty, my mouth dry. I sought desperately for an opening line. Richard was impatient, had no idea of my torment.

“Hello, who’s there?”

I hurried to speak and took the plunge.

“Hello, Richard, um, it’s Christine, me, I mean…Georg’s sister.”

Edith rolled her eyes.
Great opener.

At the other end there was a small pause. Then he found his voice again. It sounded guarded.

“Christine. How nice to hear from you. How are you?”

I hadn’t been able to imagine what his reaction would be; I wasn’t expecting shouts of joy or tears, but this “nice” sounded so wrong. I tried to sound casual.

“I’m good thanks. Dorothea mentioned that you’d passed on your best and she gave me your card, so I thought I’d give you a call. Just to see how you’re doing.”

Edith shook her head.
What a stupid thing to say.

Richard didn’t seem to have expected anything else. His answer sounded noncommittal.

“Oh yes, Anneke’s birthday. Dorothea told me that you were still in contact even though she’s not with your brother anymore. That’s really great. How is Georg, anyway? I haven’t heard from him in ages. Is he still in Berlin?”

This was going all wrong. So different from the conversation I’d had in my mind while I was walking mawkishly around the Alster.

Edith again.
I told you.

Charlotte was still hopeful.

I answered Richard’s question.

“No, Georg is living in Hamburg too now. He’s been there for two years. He’s a freelance journalist and has lots of commissions. He’s doing well.”

Pause.

Then Richard again.

“Aha. That’s great. What do you mean, he lives there too? Oh yes, your sister lives there, right? What’s her name again, Iris?”

“Ines.”

“Yes, that’s right. That’s great. So you’ve got two places you can stay at in Hamburg now.”

Edith was going crazy.
This is just getting worse and worse.

I lit up a cigarette and noticed that my hand was shaking.

Richard picked up on it. “You still smoke.”

For the first time I could hear a smile in his voice. I cleared my throat.

“Yes, I still smoke. And I don’t need places to stay in Hamburg anymore. I live here now.”

Pause.

Then his voice, neutral again. “Had you two had enough of country life?”

“Not us, me.”

Now I was curious.

His answer was disappointing. “Oh right, well, I did it the other way around. I’ve moved out of Berlin into a Bremen suburb—well, almost a village, really. But you get used to it.”

Charlotte begged.
Go on, ask him something personal.

Edith stopped.
This is probably the dumbest phone conversation you’ve had in years.

Agreeing with her, I sat up straight.

“Anyway, Richard, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I was just calling because of Dorothea and the card. So, I hope you have a lovely evening.”

Richard’s answer was just as noncommittal.

“Sure, thanks for calling. Maybe we could have lunch sometime. I’m often in Hamburg on business.”

Edith was off again.
“Lunch. It doesn’t get much more businesslike than that. He’ll probably claim it on his expenses.”

In desperation, I tried to sound casual.

“Sure, give me a call sometime. Have a nice evening.”

Charlotte was absolutely miserable.

And Edith said,
The ass didn’t even ask for your phone number.

I stayed sitting in my upright posture at the table, the phone still clasped in my hand, and felt the intense desire to throw it across the room and against the wall. Instead, I stood up and quickly paced twice around my apartment to calm myself down. When I came to a standstill, I was in front of my red sanctuary of an armchair. I let myself fall into it, then stood up, angrily fetched my wine glass, and sank back down again.

Edith was rubbing salt into the wound.
You’re making a fool of yourself, having these crazy daydreams all day long, expecting God knows what from some guy that you haven’t heard from in six years—and then you’re disappointed when he brushes you off. You’re so sensitive!

Charlotte was still bewildered.
But there was something between you in Berlin. You didn’t just make it up. And he was the one that told Dorothea to say hello to you, so maybe he was just a bit overwhelmed and startled by your call.

Edith laughed mockingly.
Overwhelmed! Ha! That must be a joke. We’re talking about an evening that took place six years ago. It’s been forgotten. You’re acting like you’re thirteen again. You were just the same with David Cassidy when you had his
Bravo
poster above your bed. But that was thirty years ago. Don’t be so childish.

I was annoyed when I felt the tears. It really was childish. I’d gotten swept up in the memory. Perhaps Nina’s longing had been infectious and I was mutating into one of these single women who are consumed by their search for love.

“I won’t let that happen. Not after everything I’ve achieved.”

I realized that I’d just said the last sentence out loud. If I told Dorothea that I was starting to talk out loud to myself, she would rush me into one of her favorite shoe shops that very same day. She solved all small problems by buying new shoes.

And this was only a small problem—not even a problem really, just confusion.

Realizing that the wine was starting to go to my head, I went into the kitchen, poured the small amount that was left down the sink, and went to brush my teeth. Upstairs in bed I started to read my crime novel, but after three pages in which both the detective and the suspect had Richard’s face, I turned the light out, my nerves shot.

In my dream, I was standing in front of a huge mountain of shoes and trying desperately to find a matching pair. I had a black heeled shoe in one hand, and in the other I only ever had brown or green or a different style. Dorothea stood next to me, smiling and putting pair after pair together. It was like a memory game; every time she matched a pair a bell rang.

I woke up as the ringing got louder and louder, and I reached sleepily for the light switch. Once I managed to decipher the time on the alarm clock, I realized I’d only been asleep for two hours. It was shortly before midnight and some idiot was phoning me at this time of night. I sat up, not wanting to go at first, but then images of accidents and other catastrophes came into my head. I sprang up, got the phone from the lounge table, and answered hoarsely.

I recognized his voice immediately; it sounded completely different now, almost urgent.

“Christine?”

In a shot, I was awake.

“Richard?”

Only then did our conversation come back to my mind.

“How did you get my number?”

Richard laughed quietly.

“I wrote it down from the display earlier. Christine, I reacted like an idiot. Can we forget the conversation we had earlier and start again?”