Life After Forty (6 page)

“That sounds awful.”

“I try not to think about it. I don’t really want to talk too much about it either. I’ll get through it, and that’s all there is to say. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and Silke will fall in love with someone else. With someone who can offer her the world and wants her all to himself.” Then he gave a little smile, saying, “If she does, I’ll drive her to him.”

“Jens, how long has it been like this?”

“Oh, for ages now. But that’s enough of the relationship talk. We can only talk about boiler rooms, gay hairdressers, and panda bears from now on. I’ll leave my car here, and we can drink ourselves silly and then walk along the beach to get a taxi from Westerland. Sound good?”

There was something endearing about him. And he was funny. Being with him was doing me good.

We managed to change the subject. We had more than enough to talk about from our childhood memories of summers together. We told each other silly stories and laughed so hard that Jens got the hiccups. I remembered how clumsy his sister Maike used to be as a child. “Do you remember the debacle with the bunk bed?”

Jens thought for a moment and then started to laugh.

“Do you mean the argument between Ines and Maike about who would get the top bunk?”

“Your mother Hanna started it. Ines got the bunk bed for her tenth birthday and wanted Maike to come over for a sleepover. She was generous and offered Maike the top bunk because she was the guest.”

Jens had forgotten and asked, “Then what happened?”

“Then Hanna intervened. Maike was always injuring herself in her clumsy way, falling out of the sandbox, coming off her bike, ramming the spade into her foot at the beach—there was always some mishap. My mother and Hanna spent the whole evening demonstrating with puppets and teddy bears how easy it is to fall out of a bunk bed. First Maike started crying, then Ines, then both of them together, and Maike ended up sleeping on the bottom bunk after all. With a mattress in front of the bed, just in case Ines fell out because of being in such a state.”

“Yes, that’s right, but then something happened anyway, didn’t it?”

“Maike fell from the bottom bunk and broke her collarbone.”

Jens laughed loudly.

“Even with the mattress there?”

“Well, she landed next to it.”

As the evening drew on, we told more and more stories. And drank more and more wine.

I felt warm. I’d never noticed before that he had such blue eyes. And such lovely hands.

Edith’s voice came promptly.

Well, you’ve never stared at him like this before. Think about his little blue and white striped swimming trunks!

Charlotte answered.

He’s a nice guy. He’s interested. He’s leaving tomorrow. And you have a good time with him.

I listened to both of them, all the while looking at Jens’s hands. I hadn’t had sex for eight months. And I was wearing sexy red lingerie.

“Christine, hello, you still there?”

Caught daydreaming, I looked up. His eyes were very blue. When he smiled, he had a dimple on the left-hand side. I felt drunk.

“Sorry, I was lost in thought. What did you say?”

His lovely hand was on mine. “You’re sweet when you’re lost in thought.”

I had butterflies in my stomach.

“I said, I’ll get the bill and then we can go down to the beach. Then we can…we’ll see.”

My heart fluttered.

Edith’s voice said,
Are you crazy? This is Jens!

Charlotte replied,
It’ll be nice.

I shook both of them out of my head and looked at Jens. My hand turned over of its own accord, my thumb and his little finger clasped together.

“Good idea.”

He smiled, stroking his thumb slowly over my hand. He stared at me, holding my gaze for ages. Suddenly, the waiter appeared next to us. Without letting go of my hand for a second, Jens pulled his wallet out of his jeans, managing to pay and put the change back with just one hand.

We stood up to leave. I felt like I was being moved by some strong force as we headed for the exit. I could feel Jens walking behind me. At a narrow point in the passageway we had to stop for a moment, and I felt his hand brush over my hip. My skin tingled.

Without speaking we walked across the parking lot and towards the beach. As the last beach walkers were coming towards us, we had to walk single file along the wooden walkway that led over the dunes. Jens’s hand sought mine from behind, and our fingers entangled.

Then we were down on the beach, with the sea before us and stars up above. It was still warm. Jens held my hand tightly as we walked down silently to the water’s edge.

Edith:
This is such a cliché.

Charlotte:
Stop walking.

I stopped and looked at Jens. He clasped my neck and pulled me towards him. The first kiss was cautious. He stopped and looked into my eyes. The second kiss was urgent.

I wanted him, and I wanted him here and now. I felt dizzy as his hands pushed under my jacket, then under my top.

His warm, lovely hands.

I touched his bare skin beneath his shirt. Even more warm. He was breathing quicker, and he kept kissing me.

Edith:
What are you doing? You’ve lost your mind.

Be quiet,
I replied.

I pushed my hands into his jeans pockets, pulled him closer into me, felt how hard he was, heard the rawness in his voice.

“Christine, I want you.”

Instead of answering, I kissed him. I couldn’t stop stroking the warmth of his skin.

Entangled, we went over to one of the beach chairs. Without letting go of each other for a moment, we sank down into it, opening zippers and buttons as we went.

I still felt drunk. And more turned on than I had been in months.

My eyes were closed. I could feel his hands, his tongue. I heard the waves crash nearby, his soft groaning. As he pushed himself inside me, the hard edges of the beach chair cut into my elbows. With every thrust my skin chafed against it. The same happened to my knee. It was uncomfortable.

I opened my eyes.

Jens’s face was above me, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open.

I felt dizzy. It was good to feel him, but in spite of that something was wrong.

My knee and elbows hurt, I was in an uncomfortable position, and my mind was suddenly filled with images of children playing on the beach.

Jens groaned loudly.

His face lay against my neck. He was breathing heavily. Bernd’s face came into my mind, but I shook it away. Why could I feel tears coming?

I looked at Jens and felt tenderness towards him. He was so familiar. Had been my whole life.

He lifted his head and looked at me.

Please don’t say the wrong thing,
I thought.

“It always looks so much easier in the films. Can you still move?” he asked.

Thank you. I had to laugh. “My knee hurts like hell.”

Jens laughed too and pulled himself up.

“I think we’re too old for acrobatics.”

He found his jeans crumpled up in the sand and pulled them on. Then he turned to me.

“You’re a wonderful woman. Thank you for this evening and for…this feeling.”

He helped me get my things on, got fully dressed, and then sat back down and put his arm around me. We sat there together on the beach chair for almost an hour, looking at the sea, lost in our thoughts. I felt understood.

When we arrived back at our parents’ houses, we stood in the front yard for a moment. Jens swept a strand of my hair from my face and looked at me earnestly.

“Christine…”

I put my finger to his lips.

“Sshh. It was a wonderful evening, and I had a great time. And so did you. I felt good again for the first time in ages, and I have you to thank for that. I won’t regret anything tomorrow.”

Jens smiled and kissed me softly on the cheek.

“Thank you. I know that you’ll achieve everything you’ve set out to do. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you. The next man in your life is going to be very lucky.”

We waved goodbye as we shut the front doors.

Lying in bed, I still had that tender feeling for him. The whole evening played out before my eyes like a movie. Hands and kisses on my skin. Gazes that really
saw
me. Then, suddenly, something occurred to me that made me feel even better: Bernd was no longer the last man I’d slept with.

There were no more traces of him on my body.

Content, I fell fast asleep.

T
he next few days were sunny, warm, and easy, just like my feelings. I hadn’t seen Jens again; he’d driven back to Berlin the very next day. There had been no calls and no texts, just as I’d assumed, and hoped.

I thought back over the evening with affection, the evening that would never be repeated. Jens had uncovered something in me that had been buried for months. But it wasn’t about him or me; it was just the mood, something that neither of us had experienced for a long time.

I wanted to experience it again. It didn’t matter who with.

Dark red scabs had formed on my elbows. Two days later, my mother noticed and grasped my arm tightly. “How did you do that? You used to get those from rollerblading.”

I looked at the grazes and saw us both lying in the beach chair again.

“I knocked into something in the pub.”

My mother looked at me skeptically.

“What’s so funny? And it looks like you scraped them rather than…”

“What? Did I laugh?”

“Yes, I think…”

My cell rang at just the right moment, saving me. “Sorry, Mom, it’s Leonie.”

“Hi, Christine, you sound very chirpy! Are you in Sylt? I’ve already tried to call you at home, but figured you’d probably driven up there to make the most of the good weather.”

I filled her in on the events of the last few days, although admittedly ending the story of my evening with Jens with him paying the bill.

Leonie had good instincts.

“Would he be someone for you? I saw some film years ago where the woman, who had just been left by her husband, put a note on her fridge with the numbers one to twelve on it. For every number she had to find herself a lover, and by the time twelve names were on it she would be over her heartbreak. I found it really enlightening.”

Me too, I thought, thinking of my first number.

“Leonie, do you want me to make a list? Is that why you’re calling?”

She laughed.

“No, it just occurred to me, that’s all. I just wanted to remind you that we’ve got our gathering tomorrow evening. Judith has booked a table at the Italian place for eight. I can pick you up half an hour beforehand. You are still coming, aren’t you?”

“I completely forgot about it. You’re right, it’s tomorrow. I’ll leave here in the morning then. It would be great if you could pick me up.”

We said goodbye.

My mother laid her paper down.

“Do you have to go back?”

“Tomorrow morning. We’ve had this get-together with the other book trade girls for the last five years. Two weeks before we’re all due to set off on the tour, we meet up in Hamburg for a meal. And it’s tomorrow evening. I’d completely forgotten about it.”

“How many are going?”

“Between five and ten, depending on who has time and who’s up for it. I used to stay at Ines’s for the night, but I’ve always gone along, right from the start.”

“See, and now you can just go home afterwards. It’s a good thing that you’re living in Hamburg now, don’t you think?”

“It is.” I smiled at her. “It’s very good indeed.”

As the train took me across the Hindenburg Dam the next day, this time in the other direction, I thought about my mood on the drive up. It seemed like ages ago.

Edith said
, Don’t get ahead of yourself. Just because you had sex on the beach once doesn’t mean you’re over it.

Charlotte was quick to jump in.

It wasn’t just sex on the beach; it was great, actually. And it was just a taste of what’s to come. The years without tenderness, all those rejections and disappointments—it’s all behind you now.

Yes, I thought, I’ll get to work on that at least. And Jens’s name was beside number one on the list.

As I turned into my street in Hamburg, I was in a good mood, and I felt like I was coming home.

That evening, I stood in front of my wardrobe and tried to decide what to wear. I pushed one hanger after another to the side, becoming more and more dissatisfied. They were all old clothes. Dorothea’s suit had only been a loan, and I’d taken it to the dry cleaner’s this afternoon. The only option left was the old combination of jeans with a T-shirt and black blazer, the usual rep uniform.

I held the blazer up and searched it for blemishes. Bernd had been with me when I bought it in a little boutique in Bremen. That was less than half a year ago. I’d planned to drive to the Christmas market there and buy presents for Antje’s kids. Bernd had never been up for shopping trips like that, so I was really surprised when he wanted to join me. He was in a good mood, told funny stories about work, and was very attentive. At the market, we got ourselves some mulled wine and bratwurst, watched the people go by, and got excited about the snow that was starting to fall. When Bernd’s ears got cold, he bought himself a felt Santa Claus hat, and he didn’t take it off for the rest of the day, which really amused me. We ambled through the city center and found great presents for Antje and the kids. Then, in the evening, we went for a meal, leaving only when the parking lot was about to close.

When we were sitting back in the car Bernd discovered his phone in front of his seat, where it had fallen from his jacket pocket during the drive out. He had nine missed calls.

In a flash, his good mood disappeared. I didn’t understand the reason for his bad temper and made a few jokes to try to pacify him. He mumbled something about important clients that he wouldn’t be able to reach. He stopped off at the next gas station and disappeared to the toilet for ten minutes. By the time he came back he had calmed down, but he stayed subdued.

I was so naïve. Of course he’d seen who had tried to call him nine times; she’d probably given him hell when he phoned her from the restroom. In any case, it hadn’t stopped her from accepting my Christmas present.

I shook the thoughts from my mind and pulled the blazer on. It didn’t matter; every piece of clothing I had was from my old life anyway. I was in urgent need of a shopping trip, and ideally one with Dorothea in tow.

The doorbell rang. Leonie was early, and she came bearing flowers. I let her in.

“Who are the flowers for? Is it one of the girls’ birthdays?”

“No, they’re for you, Christine.” She looked around my apartment. “Everything’s already arranged; you must have really slogged away. It looks great!”

“So what are the flowers for? Because I let you pick me up?”

“No, just because, for your new life. For the soul and because it’s summer. Just because.”

She inspected me. “You’ve got a tan. You look much better, not like death warmed up anymore.”

I laughed. She was refreshingly direct.

“Thank you. I feel better too. I’ll put the flowers in water, and then we can get going.”

In the car Leonie told me who was coming and what new gossip there was. Particularly about the girls who couldn’t make it. Apart from Leonie, I didn’t know any of them that well. I knew about their careers of course, but nothing about their private lives. I’d always been too far away, living out in the sticks. Spontaneous get-togethers with colleagues hadn’t exactly been a possibility.

When we arrived at the restaurant, Maren and Franziska were already there. They usually arrived together. They’d both been in the business for a long time and had never gotten used to the lonely nights in hotels. So for years they’d been coordinating their schedules and traveling together. They were a great team whose combined power was only held back by their respective spouses. The two men couldn’t stand each other. A misguided attempt for the four of them to spend the weekend together had ended in disaster. The two women had taken it in stride and confined their time together to their work schedules. Maren was big, blonde, and cheerful with a loud voice and an even louder laugh. Franziska had a sharp way about her; Leonie found her lacking in respect, cynical, and bitchy. I found her refreshing, and I envied their closeness.

We sat down and joined them. Maren looked at me. “You look different.”

“I’ve had my hair done.”

Franziska nodded in acknowledgement. “Very chic, your hairdresser must be gay.”

I was amazed. “How do you know that?”

She laughed, pulled her hair up with an exaggerated gesture, and trilled, “Darling, this style looks simply divine on you!”

Maren looked from her to me and laughed. “It’s true—you’ve got the same haircut.”

Franziska leaned over to me confidingly. “You know, sweetie, that’s the way they like to cut, but I tell you what, it really suits you.”

“Good evening, ladies. You can hear Maren’s laughter from outside, you know.”

Nina had arrived, as immaculate and well-dressed as ever. Her smooth blonde hair was held back in a neat ponytail, and she was wearing a gray trouser suit with a white blouse. Her nail polish matched her lipstick, and her shoes matched her handbag.

She brushed crumbs from the seat next to Maren and sat down. With a friendly expression, she looked around at us.

“So girls, how’s it going?”

“Not bad.” Franziska looked at her earnestly. “But I had hoped that you’d make a bit of an effort for meeting up with us.”

Nina looked shocked. “How do you mean? What…”

Maren gave Franziska a shove and suppressed her laughter. “Nina, don’t listen to that tease. Her jokes get worse the longer she’s at home. It’s about time the tour kicked back in.”

Nina had only been a rep for three years; before that she worked in a bookshop. The first time she’d joined us at one of our get-togethers she told us that she moved into repping after her divorce because she wanted a new life. She lived in Hamburg too, had a dog, and went on diving trips. That was the sum total of what I knew about her private life.

In the last few months I’d thought about her now and again. She seemed to have her life under control, and she was friendly and easygoing. I’d contemplated giving her a call and arranging to meet up with her, maybe to ask how her divorce had been. She was the only one of my colleagues who lived alone, not counting her dog of course. After I’d found her phone number, I lost my nerve. She seemed so grown-up, it would probably be impossible for her to imagine how someone could have such problems with something like applying for a mailbox.

As I looked up, I felt Nina staring at me. I returned her gaze. Before she could say anything, Anke’s arrival broke the peace.

She was a hectic woman with a loud voice and rushed movements. While she was still greeting us, she took her jacket off and, without looking, tried to hang it on the coatrack, managing to knock it over in the process. Maren and Nina stood up to give her a hand. Anke apologized profusely, and then she smoothed down her very short skirt and sat down. Her sweater, with its plunging neckline, stretched tightly over her bust. Her hair fell in all directions in a scraggly fashion, held by countless colorful hair bands.

She laughed, too loudly, and looked agitatedly around the group, as if assuring herself of our attention.

“Sorry, I had to really rush. The cab didn’t arrive, and then I couldn’t find my shoes. I asked Werner where he’d put them, but he’s not talking to me again.”

Franziska leaned over to me and whispered, “Oh God, no Werner stories, please, and next time let’s buy her some clothes that are two sizes bigger.” I nodded.

Anke’s husband Werner was twenty years older than her and the publishing manager of a large newspaper. I’d once run into them both at the book fair. Werner had treated his wife like a child, ordering her around and interrupting her, then giving her behind a benevolent pat. In return, Anke spent his money and slept with colleagues, either his or hers. She had a tendency to talk about her life and marital problems loudly and indiscreetly in public.

Now she was looking for the waitress and calling loudly for some Prosecco. Leonie looked over at me and raised her eyebrows.

Franziska took a deep breath, but before she could say a word, Eva and Judith came around the corner. Eva and her husband owned a bookshop and lived with their two children in a Hamburg suburb. Every one of us visited her on our business trips and liked her. Judith had just turned fifty, and she had been working the North German bookstores for twenty-six years. She had married a colleague, and both of them were very committed to the job. Their circle of friends consisted predominantly of publishers, authors, and press people. They spent their vacations in Tuscany, reading nonstop, drinking only Italian wine, and chain-smoking.

Breathing heavily, Eva sat down. “Judith was so punctual picking me up, but then my darling child starting acting up. She wanted Judith to read to her, and if it wasn’t for that we would have got here sooner.”

Judith treated Eva’s children as if they were her own; she was very fond of them. Suddenly Antje’s children came to my mind. I used to be very fond of them too, back then. I looked at the faces of the women around me. Apart from Leonie, none of them knew about the events of the last few months in my life. I didn’t really want to tell them either.

Judith was counting heads.

“Someone’s still missing, right? I made the reservation for nine people.”

“And you were right to, as always.” Luise sounded like a voice-over artist, but much more beautiful. Tall, graceful, black hair, classical features, always impressively dressed. She was the kind of woman who stood out for all the right reasons and was immediately the center of attention. She sat down on the empty chair next to me. Instantly, I felt fat, with bad skin and frumpy clothes.

“Hi, Christine.” Her green, perfectly made-up eyes fixed on me. “New hairdo I see—got rid of your man?”

Like a shot, the conversation around us fell silent. Seven pairs of eyes stared at me.

I summoned my courage and held Luise’s gaze.

“Yes.”

The silence was now a shocked one. Eva, probably sensing my discomfort, tried to salvage the situation.

“Are you staying at your sister’s again today? Didn’t the two of you come to our shop once?”