Forever Yours

 

Translated from the German by
Jamie Bulloch

First published in the German language as
Ewig Dein
by Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna, in 2012

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
MacLehose Press
an imprint of Quercus
55 Baker Street
7th Floor, South Block
London W1U 8EW

Copyright © Deuticke im Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 2012

English translation copyright © 2014 by Jamie Bulloch

This translation was supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture.

The moral right of Daniel Glattauer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Jamie Bulloch asserts his moral right to be identified as the translator of the work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN (Ebook) 9781 78206 7849

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

You can find this and many other great books at:
www.quercusbooks.co.uk

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When he stepped into her life, Judith felt a brief stabbing pain. Him: “Oh, I'm terribly sorry!” Her: “That's O.K.” Him: “Such a scrum in here.” Her: “Sure is.” Judith cast an eye over his face as if it were the sports headlines. All she wanted was an idea of what someone looked like who would crunch your heel in the heaving cheese aisle on Maundy Thursday. There were no surprises; he looked perfectly normal. He was like everyone else here, no better or worse, no more original. Why did the entire population have to shop for cheese at Easter? Why in the same store at exactly the same time?

There he was again at the till. He put his shopping next to hers on the conveyor belt. She recognised him by the distinctive smell of his rust-brown leather jacket. She'd forgotten his face – had she even noticed it in the first place? – but she liked the dextrous and purposeful, yet supple movements of his hands. Even now, in the twenty-first century, it still seemed a miracle that a man of around forty could fill and empty a shopping basket, and pack away his goods as if this were not the first time he'd ever tried it.

It was barely a coincidence when he reappeared at the exit to open the door for Judith and dazzle her with his long-term memory for people. Him: “Listen, I'm really sorry about your foot.” Her: “I've forgotten all about it.” Him: “No, I know it can hurt like hell.” Her: “It wasn't that bad.” Him: “Good. I'm glad.” Her: “So am I.” Him: “O.K., then.” Her: “Yup.” Him: “Happy Easter!” Her: “You too.” However much she loved having these conversations at the supermarket, this particular one had dragged on long enough.

Her final thought about him – for now at least – was reserved for the five, seven or eight bananas, the large yellow bunch he'd packed away in front of her eyes. Anybody who bought between five and seven, or even eight bananas must have two, three or four hungry children at home. Beneath the leather jacket he was probably wearing a rainbow-coloured diamond tank top. A proper family dad, she thought, who did the washing for four, five or six people, and hung it out to dry, the socks all in a row, arranged no doubt in pairs. Woe betide anyone who messed with his system on the washing line.

Back home she put a padded plaster on her sore-looking heel. Fortunately her Achilles tendon wasn't torn. At any rate, Judith felt invulnerable.

Easter was the same as ever. Saturday morning: visit to her mother's. Mum: “How's Dad?” Judith: “I don't know, I'm seeing him this afternoon.” Saturday afternoon: visit to her father's. Dad: “How's Mum?” Judith: “Fine, I saw her this morning.” Sunday lunchtime: visit to her brother Ali's in the country. Ali: “How are Mum and Dad?” Judith: “Fine, I saw them yesterday.” Ali: “Are they back together again?”

On Easter Monday she had friends over. They weren't due until the evening, but she started preparing dinner the moment she got up. There would be six of them: two couples, two singles (one permanently so, the other Judith herself). Between courses the table hummed with sophisticated discussions about the best cooking methods to preserve maximum vitamin content and the latest techniques for preventing crystals forming on wine corks. It was a homogenous group, even conspiratorial at times (anti-war, anti-poverty, anti-foie gras). The art nouveau chandelier she'd recently hung gave a warm light and made faces look friendly. What's more, The Divine Comedy had released their new C.D. just in time for the occasion.

Judith even caught Ilse conceding a smile to Roland, who massaged her right shoulder for a couple of seconds – and this after thirteen years of marriage and two children: that quiver from which arrows of anti-passion were drawn and shot on a daily basis. The other, younger couple, Lara and Valentin, were still at the hand-holding stage. From time to time she'd clutch his fingers with both hands, maybe to secure a firmer hold on him than she was ever likely to enjoy in the longer term. As usual, Gerd was the funniest of the bunch, a social animal who excelled in loosening the tongues of the tight-lipped and aloof, and giving them the courage to speak. He was not gay, sadly; otherwise Judith would happily have met up with him on a more regular basis to discuss more personal matters than was possible with couples around the table.

At the end of these evenings, when the guests had slipped away and the odours that lingered were the only reminders of their presence, Judith would always ask herself how she felt to be back to normal – no company save for a mountain of washing up. Oh, this was the life: devoting an hour to kitchen chores, throwing open the windows to allow fresh air into the sitting room, taking deep breaths followed by a prophylactic headache pill, before sinking into a warm embrace with her beloved armchair and not letting go until eight o'clock the next morning. Surely this was better than entering the psyche of a chronically silent partner who was probably drunk (too), allergic to clearing up, and had no understanding of personal space, just to fathom whether he was harbouring hopes or fears that sex might still be on the menu. Judith was saving herself all this stress. Only in the early mornings did she miss him, a man under the covers beside her. But it couldn't be just any man, not even a certain man, only a particular one. And for that reason it sadly couldn't be any of the men she already knew.

Judith liked going to work. And when she didn't, as was usual after a long weekend, she made every conceivable effort to convince herself that she did. The fact was, she was her own boss, even if she never stopped wishing she had a different one, someone more laid-back like her apprentice, Bianca, who needed only a mirror to be busy. Judith ran a small firm in Goldschlagstrasse, in the fifteenth district. It sounded more professional than it actually was, but she loved her lighting shop and wouldn't have swapped it for any boutique in the world. As a child she had found this the most beautiful place on earth, full of twinkling stars and glittering balls, always brightly lit, always festive. In Grandpa's glittering museum of light, Christmas was celebrated every day.

At fifteen Judith felt as if she were in a golden-yellow cage, guarded by standard lamps as she did her homework, and even her most intimate daydreams illuminated by chandeliers. Her brother Ali found it too bright; he spurned the light and withdrew to dark rooms. Her mother battled doggedly against the competition and her own lack of business passion. Her father had already developed a preference for dingier places. The two of them had separated on good terms. “On good terms”: the most ghastly expression Judith had ever heard. It meant letting the tears dry and harden on lips wrenched upwards into a smile. The corners of her mother's mouth had eventually become so heavy that they sank and stayed down for ever.

At thirty-three Judith took over the ailing lighting shop. Over the past three years it had started to glitter again, not as iridescently as in Grandpa's golden years, but sales and repairs were good enough to remunerate her mother for staying at home. Without doubt these were the best terms on which Judith had ever separated from anybody.

The Thursday after Easter was an extremely quiet day in the shop, so Judith spent most of it in the back room, where only a nagging sense of duty dictated that she should get on with her book-keeping under the dim glow of the office lamp. Between eight in the morning and four in the afternoon she heard not a peep out of Bianca; the girl was probably putting on her make-up. As if to prove that she had actually turned up that day, she cried out just as the shop was about to close: “Frau Wan–ger–mann!” Judith: “Please don't yell like that! Come in here if you want to tell me something.” Bianca, now beside her: “There's a man here for you.” Judith: “For me? What does he want?” Bianca: “To say hello.” Judith: “Oh.”

It was the banana man. Judith only recognised him when he opened his mouth. Him: “I just wanted to say hello. It was me who stepped on your heel in the supermarket, remember? I saw you come in here this morning.” Judith: “Have you been waiting all this time for me to come out again?” She giggled involuntarily. She had the feeling she'd just been rather witty. The banana man laughed, too – very handsomely in fact, with two shining eyes surrounded by scores of tiny wrinkles, and around sixty gleaming white teeth. Him: “My own office is just around the corner. So I thought…” Her: “You'd pop in to say hello. How sweet of you. I'm surprised you remembered me.” That last comment was meant to be serious rather than coquettish. Him: “You really shouldn't be surprised.” Now he gave her a strange look, a strangely euphoric look for a father with eight bananas. Judith didn't know what to do in moments like these. She felt her cheeks burning. Glancing at her watch, she said she had an urgent call to make. Him: “O.K., then.” Her: “Yes.” Him: “Nice to see you again.” Her: “Yes.” Him: “Maybe we'll see each other again.” Her: “If you ever need a lamp…” She laughed in an attempt to cover up her tragic comment. Bianca appeared on the scene, for once with perfect timing. “Erm… Is it alright if…?” She meant that it was time to go home. This was the signal for the banana man to leave too. At the door he turned and gave the sort of wave one might see at a station, not like a man saying goodbye, but as if he'd come to meet someone off a train.

That evening Judith thought about him fleetingly on several occasions. No, not fleetingly, but she did think about him. And more than once. What was it he'd said? “You shouldn't be surprised.” Or had he actually said: “You really shouldn't be surprised”? And hadn't he emphasised the “you”? Yes, he had. He'd said: “
You
really shouldn't be surprised.”
You
in the sense of: “A woman like
you
.” Rather sweet of him, Judith thought. Maybe he even meant: “
You
, a woman who looks like you do, such a beautiful, interesting woman,” he meant, “such an incredibly beautiful woman, such a breathtakingly beautiful and intelligent-looking, smart, cool woman, yes, a woman like
you
,” he meant, “such a woman really shouldn't be surprised.” Really rather sweet of him, Judith thought.

“Such a woman,” he obviously meant, “you see her once,” such as when you've just knackered her heel in the cheese aisle, “you see her once and you can't get her out of your head, let alone your senses,” he meant. That really was very sweet of him, Judith thought.

She wanted to stop there, because she wasn't twenty anymore, because she knew men and these days she wasn't so prepared to stray from her resolution to remain single, and because, by God, she had more important things to do, such as descale the coffee machine. But she allowed herself one final thought, a brief one, about how he had emphasised the “you”, the “you” of “
You
really shouldn't be surprised.” Was it the “you” of “a woman like you”? Or did it sound more specific and deliberately chosen, as in “
You. You
. Yes,
you
!
You
and
you
alone.” So what he probably meant was: “Every other woman in the world might have been surprised, every single one apart from
you
, for
you
, you are not a woman like all the others, no, you are a woman like no other. And
you. You
. Yes
you
!
You
and
you
alone,” he meant, “really shouldn't be surprised.” That was indeed terribly sweet of him, it truly was, Judith thought. Unfortunately – and there was no getting away from this – she
had
been surprised that he recognised her. And that was the point. And that was why she was now descaling the coffee machine.

The following day she thought about him only once, unavoidably. Out of the blue Bianca said: “Frau Wangermann, I noticed something yesterday.” Judith: “Oh really? Did you? Now I
am
curious.” Bianca: “That man fancies you.” Judith – and this was top-class acting – “Which man?” Bianca: “You know, the tall one who works nearby, who popped in to say hello, who gave you that weird look.” Bianca waggled her head and whizzed her pretty, dark pupils round in circles. Judith: “Oh, nonsense, you're just imagining it.” Bianca: “I'm not imagining it one bit! He's smitten! Haven't you twigged?” She said this loudly and brazenly, but if anyone could get away with it Bianca could, for she had no idea she
could
get away with it; it was merely Bianca's way. Judith loved her irreverent, instinctive candour. But on this occasion the girl was plain wrong, that much was obvious. The man was not smitten with her, not at all – what rubbish, just the idle fantasy of a lighting-shop apprentice. After all, he didn't even know her, apart from her heel. Nothing, absolutely nothing.

On Sunday they celebrated Gerd's fortieth birthday at Iris, a dimly lit bar which made him look ten years younger. Gerd was a popular fellow. Of the fifty guests he invited, eighty turned up. Twenty of these had no desire to spend an oxygen-free evening so, with the greatest respect to Gerd, they relocated to the Phoenix Bar next door, which was practically empty thanks to its live piano music. Judith was one of the breakaway party.

One man from a thankfully long way back in her past – and who was now of no importance – proved to be exceptionally clingy that evening. His name was Jakob; what a shame that such a beautiful name should be for ever stuck with that face. She had talked everything through with him (or not) long ago. After three years of inter-personal relations – and that was all the arrangement had amounted to – Judith had felt obliged to put an end to it. The reason? Jakob had a persistent life crisis, which went by the name of Stefanie. He married her soon after.

But that was six years ago, and so on Sunday night in the Phoenix Jakob had regained a sufficient degree of objectivity to conclude that he had never seen a more beautiful pair of lips than Judith's. Lips which shaped themselves to ask the question: “What's up with Stefanie?” Jakob: “Stefanie?” The name seemed out of place in this setting. Judith: “Why isn't she here?” Jakob: “Oh, you know, she stayed at home. She doesn't really like big parties.” At least she wasn't at home on her own; he could be certain that Felix (4) and Natascha (2) were keeping her well entertained. Judith insisted on seeing photographs of the little ones, those pictures every self-respecting father carried around in his wallet. Jakob resisted for a while, but in the end he brought out the photos. After which he had cooled down enough to go home.