Forever Yours (6 page)

For some weeks now Hannes and Valentin had been meeting regularly to play tennis. (They'd arranged it back in May when they first met on Ilse's terrace. Interesting. Hannes had never mentioned a word about it.) After their game they'd usually have a drink together; Lara had even joined them a few times.

If, to begin with, Hannes had been “the happiest man on earth” in his openly professed love for Judith, two days ago he'd made the contrite admission that the Venice trip had been rather unsuccessful. He'd annoyed Judith with “a few silly comments and gestures”, and now he was trying to resolve this “little crisis” in their relationship with roses and other gifts.

As they were going to visit Judith anyway, he asked whether they wouldn't mind bringing round the flowers. But – and this was his wish – they should leave them in her flat secretly, hide them “maybe in the bed” for full effect, and spare Judith any unnecessary talk about their “silly relationship crisis”.

“Oh, great,” Judith muttered into her mobile. “He's even setting my friends on me now.” Lara: “What are you talking about?” Judith: “Listen, Lara. I've broken up with Hannes. For good. Please let Valentin know. And all the others. And especially Hannes when you see him next at tennis, or wherever else!” Lara: “Oh Judith, you sound so desperate. Chin up, it'll be fine, I'm sure it will.” Judith: “Lara, it won't
be
fine; it already
is
.”

As each day passed without “incident”, her hope grew that he'd finally understood. Bianca said she'd seen him “scurry past the shop window” once. “Why doesn't he come in anymore?” she asked. “He's very busy at the moment,” Judith replied. Letting Bianca know the truth could wait a while.

But unfortunately everyone had to wait. Judith was not up to talking to anyone about Hannes and the breakdown of their relationship. She dreaded each and every “Chin up!” or “It'll be fine!” as well as the disappointed faces of her close friends and acquaintances, who always meant so well, wanted only the best, and now were forced to watch as – yet again – the best wasn't good enough for her. Hannes, the jackpot in the lottery, the epitome of serendipity. There he was, the dream man, for her alone, and she was letting him stand out in the rain with his bunches of yellow roses.

What also happened after each day without “incident”, of course, was that her sympathy grew. In all likelihood he was feeling lousier than she was. For her, he was merely a painful “failure”, proof in person that to be loved passionately was not enough to reciprocate feelings of love. And it was embarrassing that she'd fallen into such a simple trap, given her past experiences. He, on the other hand, had to get over the fact that he'd been rejected by the woman he had placed at the centre of his universe, and towards whom he'd channelled all his longing and desire. She cursed herself for having watched him suffer for so long.

And who was there for him now? He couldn't have many friends; he'd never talked about any. Past relationships? He'd guarded his past like a great secret. He had no contact with his younger stepsister and her family. His biological father had died when he was still a child. His mother and stepfather, about whom he'd only said a few detached words, lived in Graz. Did that just leave his two pale, faceless colleagues?

*

At lunchtime on the eighth day she called him from her office and dared a “How are you?” She didn't allow herself to be more personal. Hannes: “Thanks, Judith, I'm just about coping.” His way of addressing her (for the first time as Judith rather than Darling), the register, the mood, the content – in every respect she was relieved by his answer. “I'm trying to preoccupy myself with work,” he said. “Pharmacies and more pharmacies. We've had a few big projects.” “We”: she wasn't a part of that and it sounded good. Pharmacies, projects and preoccupy – three important words beginning with “P”.

“What about you, Judith?” Her: “Oh, you know, I'm O.K.” Him: “Are you out and about much?” Her: “No, not much. I'm at home most of the time. Like I said, I need a bit of peace and some distance from… er… from everything. I have to find myself again first.” Him: “Sure, I understand. It can't be that straightforward for you, either.” Her: “No, it isn't.” (She needed to find a way out of this phenomenally meaningful conversation before it turned gloomy.)

Him: “So how are you celebrating your birthday tomorrow?” This ambushed her, it came too much out of the blue. Until now she had managed to push the date to the back of her mind; he'd probably marked it on his calendar with a fat heart. Him: “With your family?” “I… I've no idea, really. I think I'll be a bit spontaneous about it,” she lied. Him: “If you see any of them please give them my regards.” “I'll do that. Thanks, Hannes.” She was grateful for his lovely, formal, respectfully aloof greeting.

Him: “O.K., then. I've got to…” Brilliant. Her: “Yes, me too… Well…” Him: “Oh, Judith, there's just one thing. Did you solve the puzzle?” Her: “Which puzzle?” Him: “The rose puzzle. What have they got in common? Did you figure it out? It's an easy one.” His voice had assumed that rapturous tone again. The conversation had to come to an end immediately. “All the roses are yellow,” she said hastily, irritated now. Him: “You disappoint me; it's not
that
simple. You need to take another look. Promise me that you'll have another look. You've got all of them. Surely they haven't withered, Darling?” She wasn't going to answer that. “Darling” would have to remain the final word.

A cold front arrived on the third Saturday in July, and she turned thirty-seven a single woman. And she was at home with Mum. Ali had come with a heavily pregnant Hedi at his side. Perhaps the baby was planning to celebrate its birthday with Judith.

There was something peculiarly ceremonial about the way they greeted each other. She was pleased to see that Mum looked more excited than she had done for years. And she hardly recognised Ali as her brother. He had shaved, put on a freshly ironed white shirt, and was smiling gratuitously, as if he suddenly found life terribly amusing. All of this gave the impression that some extraordinary event was about to occur.

“I'm afraid Hannes is tied up,” Judith said, surprised that they hadn't all asked about him the moment she came through the door, and no less surprised when they didn't react in the slightest to what she said. She wanted to have an hour before she told them – and she had decided that she definitely would – the story of her break-up with Hannes, in all its awkward detail.

“There's a very special surprise for all of us today, Judith,” announced Ali, who had never been the one in the family to speak first. They were standing around the table alight with candles.

“A surprise for all of us?” she asked, worried. “Yes, it's waiting in the bedroom,” Hedi said. “No, please don't,” Judith murmured. Her appetite for surprises lurking in the bedroom had been satisfied for the rest of her life. Ali knocked at the door, as excitedly as when, as a child, he'd waited for Father Christmas. It opened. Several voices attempted an incongruous, but at least synchronous: “Happy Birthday, Judith!” She literally gaped in astonishment and said: “Dad! Wow! That's unreal! What are you doing here?”

First he hugged her more affectionately, more paternally than was consistent with the relationship they had cultivated over many years. A few gifts were handed over, all wrapped in the same gold paper. Then, with glasses of sparkling wine in their hands, they toasted a few “B”s – birthdays, babies, being together and suchlike.

After that they sat at the table. Ali, to whom Father was being unusually nice, took a few photographs. For the occasion, Father put his arm around Mum's shoulder, a very touching picture which Judith hadn't seen since her schooldays. It slipped out that they'd had a “rapprochement” and had met up a couple of times. Ali whispered to Judith that there was even the prospect of the two of them “making another go of it”, living together again.

Judith tried her best to make her delight appear genuine. As far as she was concerned her father's return to the bosom of the family had come two decades too late. The real gift to her, one of the loveliest she could imagine, was the transformation in her brother, who seemed to have been brought back to life. Father and mother sitting together around a table, in harmony – Ali reacted euphorically to this simple therapy.

“Now let's talk about you, Judith,” Mum said. By now a pleasant hour, reminiscent of her birthday parties in the early 1980s, had passed. The cake with its thick layer of pink icing had been eaten. Enough of the family idyll – it was time for a radical change of mood.

Mum: “Child, you're a worry to us.” This reproach, which crept in sweetly, took on a tone of bitterness and severity the very moment Father sat next to her and nodded in solidarity. Ali looked away. Ali, the impartial one, the one who hated conflict, the younger brother who always sought balance. Hedi put both of her hands flat on her belly, as if she wanted to shield her baby's eyes and ears from what was coming.

Mum: “Why haven't you breathed a word of this to us? Why haven't you mentioned that you've got problems?” Problems? Did she have problems? “I've broken up with Hannes,” she said defiantly. “Where's the problem?” Shocked silence. It was as if Judith had just confessed to a crime without showing any remorse.

“Yes, but why, for heaven's sake?” Mum asked. She didn't seem terribly surprised, just distraught and at her wits' end. Judith felt a heat rising inside her, on its way to becoming a flush of anger. “Because I don't love him enough. It's as simple as that,” she said. Mum: “Don't love him enough? Don't love him enough? When do you actually love anyone enough? What kind of fairy-tale prince needs to come along for you to love someone enough? Stop dreaming, child, and grow up!”

That did it. The heat had now reached her cheeks and was burning her temples. Judith made to stand up and leave, an old habit from her teenage years. Then her father chimed in, trying to appease her: “Please, Judith, sit back down. You can't hold it against your mother for reacting like that. You have to look at it in context. There's something we've got to tell you. Do you know who we have to thank for the fact that we're all sitting around this table today?” A horrible foreboding swelled inside Judith, straining the walls of her stomach. “Hannes.” It was Ali who finally uttered the magic word. Hannes had called Father. Hannes had met Father. Hannes, the architect, his daughter's partner, his son's boss. For her birthday, Hannes wanted to give the “love of his life” the “present to end all presents”, unbuyable, unsurpassable, unparalleled: Father and Mother. On her lips were the words “I can feel the tears of joy already.” But she didn't want to upset Ali, and she was too busy keeping her fury in check. From the way her hands were trembling she could see that she was on the verge of a violent outburst.

Hannes, Mum and Father – they had spent hours together. Then Ali had joined them and they'd leafed through stacks of photo albums, recounted old stories and rummaged about in Judith's (and Ali's) childhood. “That's the kind of family I always dreamed of having,” Hannes had said.

And clearly a “son-in-law” like Hannes was all they needed too, Judith knew. One who would pick up the broken pieces of the past and cement them together. With pink icing on top. And one, two children in quick succession, before their daughter was too old to have babies. Now her knees were trembling as well.

Her: “I find this hurtful and humiliating! Why didn't you talk to me first?” Mum: “Did you talk to us?” Father: “But it was all for your sake. It was supposed to be a birthday surprise. Hannes meant really well!” Mum: “We couldn't possibly have imagined that you…” Judith: “I am most
awfully
sorry, but I do not love that man!” A pause for general embarrassment. Ali, quietly, conciliatory: “What's wrong? If she doesn't love him…” He shrugged his shoulders before letting them drop. He was wearing his sad face again. And she was to blame, as she could see from the expressions of Father, Mum and Hedi.

“He rang me yesterday to say he couldn't come for her birthday,” Mum lamented, just before Judith did actually get up to leave. “‘Why not?' ‘Judith doesn't want me to?' ‘Judith?' ‘She's ditched me.' ‘You're joking!' ‘She's not up to having a close relationship at the moment, she says.' ‘No!' ‘She needs time, we've got to give her time.' ‘Time? She's going to be thirty-seven tomorrow. We'll talk to her, her father and I.' ‘You don't have to do that. Things will sort themselves out. I'm a patient soul.' ‘Oh, Hannes. I'm really sorry!' ‘Have a nice celebration all the same.' ‘Oh, Hannes.' ‘And don't forget me entirely.'”

After that he went quiet again, hauntingly quiet. But she had him in her mind every day, every night, every hour. She imagined him preparing his next move, and this time she intended to be suitably armed. She couldn't manage it alone, however. Judith the fighter, who had never needed anyone to help her deal with her life crises and their perpetrators, whose biggest problem had always been sharing her problems with others, was suddenly up against a superior opponent: uncertainty.

The nights began too early and ended too late. Sleeping tablets, Judith's first ally, soon became ineffective. It was no use; she had to talk to someone, she needed a confidant. Her parents and Ali were out of the question. She'd written them off for the foreseeable future as far as Hannes was concerned. Being in contact with them meant being in contact with Hannes. She had no intention of making it that easy for him.

She put great hope in Gerd. She camouflaged her cry for help with a trip to the cinema. Afterwards in Bar Rufus – milky neon lights, lustreless eyes, no room for secrets – she finally spelled it out: “Gerd, I've broken up with Hannes, but he just won't accept it. I feel persecuted. I'm afraid of him. What should I do?”

“I know,” Gerd said. “But I can reassure you.” The very opposite was the case. Her: “What do
you
know? Are you playing tennis together? Are you great mates? Is he employing you? Have you got a bunch of yellow roses for me?” Him: “Judith, what's wrong with you? You're shaking. It's high time we talked about it. I can reassure you, sweetheart, I really can. Just listen to me.”

Hannes had called him two days earlier, confidentially, and asked for some “advice in a very personal matter”. What he said, roughly, was the following: Judith has ended our relationship. It came like a bolt out of the blue. My world has fallen apart. In my despair my initial reaction was misguided. I bombarded her with flowers. And then I met up with her mother and father, and arranged a family gathering for her birthday. It was all meant well, but I meddled in a private matter which is none of my business. She's bound to be very angry with me. I'd love to apologise. I want us to go our separate ways on amicable terms. But now I don't dare get in touch with her. What do you think, Gerd? What should I do?

Gerd: “I advised him to wait for a few more days and then ask to see you to talk things over. Talking is always good.” Her: “I don't want to talk. Everything's been said. I want him to vanish from my life. I don't believe a word he says. He orchestrates everything. He tries to get all my friends on his side.”

Gerd: “Come on, Judith, calm down. He doesn't mean any harm. He's not a monster, you know. He loves you; you can't hold that against him. He just needs to get it out of his system. In any case, he wants to say sorry. It must be better if you talk about everything sensibly. You've got to understand where he's coming from, too. I mean, it isn't easy when all of a sudden…” Her: “I don't want to understand. I want
you
to understand
me
! I need someone who understands me. But you're not the person, Gerd. You're on his side. Once again he's got there first.”

Gerd: “What are you talking about? I'm not on anybody's side. I'm your friend; I want you to be happy. And I want to try and help mediate. I prefer peaceful solutions to conflict. Judith, Judith, listen to yourself! The way you're getting worked up about this, it sounds so awful. You really do feel persecuted.” Her: “That's right Gerd, I really do feel persecuted. That's because I really am being persecuted. But I'll manage. Thanks for your support.”

Hannes had clearly heeded Gerd's advice, for he waited a few more days then rang Judith and left a message on her voicemail: “Hi Judith. Listen, I don't want us to part on bad terms. And I don't want you to have negative feelings when you think of me. Please, please can we have one last chat? I've realised my mistakes now. Could we meet just one more time? How about Café Rainer, tomorrow at noon? If you don't reply I'll assume, or rather, I'll hope that you'll be there. I'll be waiting for you. See you tomorrow!”

She didn't reply, nor did she have any intention of going. The following morning in the shop she couldn't hide her tension and the turbulence in her mind any longer, so she let her apprentice in on the situation with Hannes. “Oooh, that's terrible,” Bianca said. “But I understand you 100 per cent. I don't like a guy running after me when I don't love him anymore. And let me tell you, he could get on my nerves in no time.” She pulled the appropriate face. If I could manage a grimace like that I'd have shaken off Hannes ages ago, Judith thought.

Bianca: “But go and meet him today, Frau Wangermann! Then you've got it over with. Otherwise he'll ask you again tomorrow and the day after that. I know from experience that some people just don't get it. They don't want to understand.” How strange that Bianca should be the first to begin to put herself in Judith's position. Maybe Hannes' emotional intelligence had got stuck at Bianca's age. “Thank you, Bianca,” she said. “Stay totally cool, Frau Wangermann!” the sixteen-year-old replied.

He was hunched at the window table to the left of the door. She was shocked by his appearance: unshaven, sunken cheeks, greasy, lank hair, skin shimmering a pale green. His eyes were bulging as he looked up at her. “I'm glad you've come,” he said. Swallowing seemed to cause him discomfort; at any rate he had trouble talking.

Judith: “Are you ill?” Him: “Not when I see you.” She was already regretting having come. Her: “You ought to see a doctor.” He gave a pained smile. “You really are the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said. “I'm sure you've got a fever. Maybe it's protracted flu, or a virus.” “You are my virus.” “Hannes, just stop that. You have to forget me,” she replied. He'd infected her; now she was having difficulty swallowing.

Him: “Darling, both of us have made mistakes.” Her: “My mistake was coming here today.” Him: “Why do you say such horrid things? It hurts me. What have I done to you, Darling, to make you talk to me like that?” Her: “Hannes, please, I beg you. Stop calling me Darling. I'm not your darling, I'm not anybody's darling. I just want my life back.”

“May I remind you, Judith?” All of a sudden his voice was powerful and laden with anger. “We sat over there.” He pointed to the table in the corner. “Twenty-three days ago…” He looked at his watch. “Twenty-three days and seventy-five minutes ago. We sat over there and you told me – you used these very words, correct me if I'm wrong –
I'm just not capable of having a close relationship at the moment
. And a few minutes later you said:
Hannes, I think it would be better if we just stopped seeing each other for a while
. He paused. His lips forced a smile from his pallid face. “So, Judith, how long does
at the moment
last for you? And how long is
for a while
? It's not been a while, Judith, it's been half an eternity. Look at me, Judith, look at me. Look into my tired eyes. Here you see twenty-three days and seventy-six minutes. How much longer are you going to keep me on tenterhooks?”

Her: “Hannes, you're not seeing the real picture. You need a doctor. You're sick, you're mad.” Him: “You're driving me mad, continuing to play this game with me. I'd resolved to be patient, I even promised your mum and dad that I would be, but sometimes, sometimes…” He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, his cheek muscles stuck out and you could count the veins on his forehead.

Judith was on the verge of leaping up and running away. But she thought of Bianca and her “guys that just don't understand”, and that they would keep trying unless you were clear enough in your rejection. Trying to remain “totally cool”, she said, almost in a whisper: “Hannes, I'm sorry. I like you, I really like you, but I don't love you. I DON'T LOVE YOU!” We're never going to be a couple. Never, Hannes, never. Look at me, Hannes: never! Please stop waiting for me. And get yourself out of the habit of thinking about me. Please cut me out of your life. This sounds so brutal it makes me want to cry. And it hurts me, too, to hear myself speak like this. But let me repeat it one more time, so that you accept it once and for all: Cut me out of your life!”

Hannes looked at her and shook his head. He screwed up his eyes and let her see just how hard he was thinking. Then he smiled again and gave a shrug of his shoulders. It seemed as if he was finally going to believe what she had said, as if this might even be an act of liberation, but something inside him resisted. Judith remained silent and followed his inner struggle with a stony expression.

“Judith,” he said, almost as a result of his own reflection. “I'm going to let you go.” He began to roll up his sleeves, almost casually. “On the surface I'm going to cut you out, I promise, and let you go.” He laid his hirsute forearms on the table. “But inside,” he said, trembling melodramatically, “inside you'll go on living with me.” Now he turned over his arms demonstratively to show the underside. Judith stared at them in horror. Long, red weals ran all the way along them, too deep and symmetrical to have been scratches from a cat.

“How did you get those?” Judith asked. For him, the trembling in her voice was as good as an ointment on his wounds and brought forth a benign, almost beatific smile. “Inside, the two of us are inseparably joined,” he said. “And now you are released.”

All Judith could do on the days which followed – and she was thoroughly alarmed to note that it was now August – was to watch them tick by. She was incessantly busy with trying to starve out the intruder inside her head. And she was so focused on this task that she herself forgot to eat. At night, for fear of dreaming about the undersides of his arms, she stared at the lights of her Rotterdam laburnum lamp until her eyelids drooped.

In his daily attempts to establish contact, Gerd made as little headway as did all her other friends, who slowly began to worry about Judith – slowly, and far too late. She was going through a process of inner emigration, forever on the alert for Hannes' next attack, and with the indomitable will to ignore them to the bitter end.

Once a day he would speak to her voicemail, mainly in the afternoons and never at night, thank God! Within a few seconds she'd erase the message. If nothing changed in his low-dosage ritual – a daily message, the contents of which she remained unaware, on the pathetic S.I.M. card of a soulless mobile phone – she would soon be living life normally again, she persuaded herself. Then she'd be able to go running back to her friends and family as if reborn and say: “I'm back. It was nothing more than a minor crisis. No surprise really, the heat, the stress, you know how it is.” And they'd reply: “It's wonderful to have you back, Judith. Now, why don't you spoil yourself and take a nice holiday. You've got nothing more to fear. We're all here!”

She hadn't got to that stage yet, she was still feeling her way down the dark, narrow tunnel, but the first cracks of light were appearing, and in a brief wave of euphoria she booked her first attempt at re-acclimatisation to the outside world, a one-week trip to Amsterdam at the end of August. There she could stay with friends who knew nothing about Hannes. And the most they would find out was that he was a lunatic who was obsessed with her, who left insignificant messages on her voicemail every day.

*

Two days later she was overly reckless; while sifting through the post at work she opened a letter whose sender was not revealed on the envelope. As she realised, with shock, that the letter was from him, she made her second big mistake: she read the message line by line to the very end.

At first the text read like a protocol and sounded deceptively factual: