Shame

3

He claimed that he loved her. In fact, everything he said and did indicated as much. And yet it was so hard to accept the words. That she was the one he loved.

What he tried to get her to believe was that he found her unique, that she of all the people in the world was the one he valued most, the one who was most important to him. The one he would under no circumstances ever betray and would always protect.

It was so hard to accept the words.

Because why should she be the one that a man like Thomas would love? Eligible bachelors were scarce when you started pushing forty, and you only had to take one look at him to figure out that he must be a desirable catch. Yet it was probably his mind that had captivated her first. His self-deprecating sense of humour that made her laugh in the strangest situations. Only a man who was so completely sure of his masculinity could laugh so heartily at himself. And only a man who had dared acquire some knowledge of himself would realise what was worth laughing at. She had never met anyone like him before. He possessed a curiosity and a voracious appetite for learning something new, understanding more. Always ready to abandon his entrenched views; if someone else suddenly seemed more reasonable, he would always try to look at things from new angles. Maybe this was one of the reasons for his success as an industrial designer, or maybe it was a consequence. His unusual talents and liberal way of thinking took their conversations to unexplored heights, and sometimes she even had to make an effort to keep up with him. She found it incredibly stimulating.

Intellectually he was fully her equal. Men like that were scarce.

So why was she the one he happened to fall in love with?

There had to be a catch somewhere. But no matter where she searched she couldn’t find it.

Of course there had been other men. There were plenty of brief relationships in her past; other ambitions had guided her choices, and she hadn’t put energy into trying to extend them. The long years in medical school had demanded her full attention. Getting a B on an exam was a failure, getting an A was a must to feel satisfied, and sometimes even that didn’t help. She would prefer her professors to throw themselves across their desks out of sheer rapture over her marks and her brilliance, but she had been forced to realise that this was not at all easy to achieve. There were many talented students. That’s why she had always been filled with a sense of inadequacy, that she wasn’t good enough. And this made her work even harder.

One by one all of her contemporaries had vanished into marriage and family life, while she, to her mother’s dismay, had maintained her single status. It didn’t happen so often anymore, now that it was almost too late, but for years her mother had assiduously informed her of her great disappointment that she would never have any grandchildren. And deep inside, in that place where neither her mother nor anyone else was ever allowed, Monika had shared that disappointment.

It wasn’t always easy to live alone. Whether it was a cultural thing or not was impossible to say, but somewhere in the human mystery there still seemed to be a basic striving for connection. Her body spoke its unequivocal language. After months in solitude it begged to be touched. And she had no obligations to anyone. So she could initiate a little love affair just to brighten up her life for a while, but she never let her emotions take over. She permitted herself only restrained pleasure, and the relationship was never given the opportunity to become very important. Not on her part at least. A heart here or there had probably been hurt by her actions, but she had never allowed anyone to come anywhere near the core where little Monika lived, where she scrupulously concealed all her fears.

And her secret.

Sex was easy. It was genuine intimacy that was hard.

Sooner or later the balance would always be upset. They would start ringing too often, wanting too much, revealing their expectations and long-term plans. And the greater the interest they showed, the cooler she became. She would observe suspiciously their growing enthusiasm and then cut off the relationship completely. Better to be alone than to be abandoned.

Some of them had called her the Ice Queen, and she took it as a compliment.

But then she met Thomas.

It happened on a train, in the dining car. She had been to visit some friends at their familial idyll in the countryside one weekend, and took the train so she could use the extra time to read up on the new findings about fibromyalgia. On the trip home a gloom settled over her after having observed for forty-eight hours what was missing in her own life. How petty everything had become. She was the type of person who lived her life but who still hadn’t managed to make anything out of it. But on the other hand, how happy did someone like her have the right to be?

She had gone to the dining car to have a glass of wine, and had ended up staying at one of the tables, on the seat nearest the window. He had sat down across from her. They didn’t say a word, scarcely exchanged a glance. They had both gazed out at the landscape rushing by. And yet her entire being had been aware of his presence. A peculiar sensation of not being alone, the feeling that in the silence they shared they were still keeping each other company. She couldn’t remember ever experiencing anything like this before.

She stood up when she saw they were approaching the station where she had to get off, and gave him just a quick glance before she went back to her seat to get her bag. On the platform he suddenly came running to catch up with her.

‘Wait! You really have to excuse me, but…’

She stopped in astonishment.

‘You probably think I’m crazy, but I just felt that I had to do this.’

He looked embarrassed but then he gathered up his courage and continued.

‘I just wanted to thank you for keeping me company.’

She didn’t say a word, and he looked even more self-conscious.

‘I mean, we sat across from each other in the dining car.’

‘I know. Thank you too.’

His face broke into a big smile when he realised that she recognised him. He sounded almost excited when he went on.

‘Excuse me again, but I just had to find out whether you felt it too?’

‘What?’

‘Well, sort of… I don’t really know how to say it.’

He looked embarrassed again and she hesitated a bit, but then she nodded slightly and the smile he gave her should have made her run a thousand miles away out of sheer self-preservation. But she just stood there, unable to do anything else.

‘Wow!’ he said.

He looked at her as if she had suddenly popped right up out of the platform, and then he started digging around in his pockets. He pulled out a wrinkled receipt and looked around, grabbing the first person who came by.

‘Excuse me, do you have a pen?’

The woman stopped, set down her briefcase, opened her handbag, and took out a ballpoint pen which looked quite expensive. He quickly scrawled something on the receipt and held it out to Monika.

‘Here’s my name and number. I really ought to ask for yours but I don’t dare.’

The woman with the briefcase had a smile on her lips when she got her pen back and walked away.

Monika read the note.

Thomas. And a mobile number.

‘And if you don’t call I’ll never go to another Hugh Grant movie for the rest of my life.’

She couldn’t help but smile.

‘So don’t forget, you’re carrying his entire acting career on your shoulders.’

She had hesitated for a few days. Followed her usual pattern, not wanting to look too eager, but to tell the truth he had been in her thoughts the whole time. Finally she managed to convince herself that it really couldn’t hurt to contact him. They only had to see each other once. The fact that her body was hungering to be touched also made it easier to press those ten numbers on the phone.

On the third day she sent him a text message.

‘Guilt feelings about Hugh becoming intolerable. Can’t stand the responsibility.’

Her phone rang a minute after she sent the message.

That same evening they had their first dinner together.

‘Columba livia. Do you know what that is?’

He smiled and filled her glass.

‘No.’

‘That’s what carrier pigeons are called in Latin.’

‘Animals aren’t my strong point, but if you have some body part you’re not sure about, I’m sure I can help you.’

She could hear how it sounded the instant the words came out.

‘I mean, tell you what it’s called in Latin.’

She could feel herself blushing, and that was certainly something out of the ordinary for her. She could see that he noticed it too and that it put him at ease.

‘My grandfather had a pigeon roost when I was little; he kept carrier pigeons. I used to stay with him and Grandma in the summertime, and I was always allowed to help out in the pigeon roost. Feed them, let them out when they had flight training, band them, everything really. It was a whole little science in itself.’

He seemed to sink into pleasant memories, and she took a moment to study him. He really was a beautiful person.

‘When I say that Grandpa had a pigeon roost, I mean that he really lived for those birds. Grandma may not always have thought it was so great, but she let him keep them. You know how a carrier pigeon finds its way home?’

She shook her head.

‘They follow the magnetic fields.’

‘Oh really? I thought they navigated by the stars, I read that somewhere.’

‘Then how do they find their way in the daytime?’

‘Well… I haven’t stayed up nights thinking about it.’

The waiter cleared the table, and they assured him that the food had been delicious and that they didn’t want dessert but would like a cup of coffee. Monika had almost forgotten the pigeon lesson when he suddenly brought it up again.

‘Do you know why they always fly home and don’t fly off somewhere else?’

She shook her head.

‘Homesickness.’

He leaned forward.

‘They stay together for life, a pair of pigeons. They’re faithful to each other the whole time, so no matter where you let one of them loose, it will always fly back home. One of Grandpa’s pigeons had apparently flown into a high-tension wire, because its legs were gone when it returned, but it still came home, by God, home to its life partner.’

She pondered his story. ‘I almost wish I were a pigeon instead, at least if you ignore the part about the legs.’

He smiled.

‘I know. When I was little I used to think that when I grew up one day in some terribly distant future and met my wife, it would feel just like that, like a sort of magnetic field. That was how I would know I had chosen the right one.’

She brushed away some invisible crumbs from the tablecloth, because she felt like she wanted to ask but at the same time she didn’t for the life of her want to seem too pushy.

‘So was that how it was?’

‘What?’

She hesitated a bit, because she realised that she didn’t really want an answer. Then she fidgeted with her napkin a bit.

‘When you met your wife.’

He took a gulp of wine.

‘I don’t know.’

She could feel the disappointment in her stomach. The way it contracted when she realised that he was married. One of those cowards without a wedding ring. She never got involved with married men.

‘I felt the magnetic field, I really did. But the part about the wife is too soon to say.’

Another waiter interrupted the moment and asked if everything was all right. They both nodded without taking their eyes off each other, and he quickly withdrew.

‘So now you probably have a better understanding of my behaviour there on the platform. Since it was the first time I ever felt that magnetic field, I just had to do something about it.’

What a strange man she had met. On the way here she had been open to the possibility that they might spend the night together. As the evening went on she grew more and more doubtful. Not because she didn’t want to anymore, but because she felt that she wanted it too much. But when the matter was finally mentioned, it was his decision.

‘I don’t think I’ll ask you to come home with me tonight.’

She stood quite silent. They had stopped under the awning outside the restaurant to keep out of the rain.

‘This isn’t something I want to fritter away. It feels much too good for that.’

She had never met anyone like Thomas. They said good night and he promised to call her the next day, but his first message appeared on her phone after only eight minutes. That night the keypads on their mobiles grew hot with use, the art of communication reached unimaginable heights, and she found herself lying there smiling to herself in the dark when she read his ingenious messages. Inspired by the challenge, she did her best to come up with equally witty replies. By five a.m. she was forced to concede defeat.

‘Life and the night are approaching each other with haste. Never are dreams so close as now.’

She was finally speechless.

And he had gone up a notch or two.

And wait they did. In the time that followed they explored each other. Slowly but surely, inside and out. Two lonely people who were cautiously approaching their innermost hopes about everything they had always lacked, what they had always dreamed they would find someday in their lives. Each conversation was an adventure, each discovery a new opportunity to plumb the depths. She knew that she had never before entered that place where her feelings had now led her. Everything was enveloped in benevolence. Bit by bit she got to know him, and none of what he told her or confessed dampened her interest. On the contrary.

Step by step they came closer to the moment, and both of them were brave enough to admit that they were as nervous as teenagers, middle-aged though they were.

But, as usual with Thomas, everything fell into place quite naturally. One Sunday afternoon they just couldn’t hold out any longer.

And she realised that she was actually a virgin.

She had had sex many times. But she had never made love before.

The experience was revolutionary, overpowering, so far from her normal intellectual domain. To be completely and utterly dissolved and merge, not only with another body but in an absolute presence. For a brief time to be blessed with clear vision, to discern the simplicity in the immense mystery of the meaning of life. Overwhelmed by the desire to let down all defences, reveal her vulnerability, and in complete confidence put herself at his disposal, let happen whatever was going to happen. She had never been so close to her innermost core. Where there was no turmoil and no loneliness.

But when Monday came, fear had taken her over once more.

She didn’t communicate the whole day. When she listened to her voicemail after the last patient had gone, he had left three messages and sent four text messages. She should have been annoyed. If everything had been as usual, his interest would have been the death knell for their relationship. Instead she only grew more afraid. ‘You’re just being a coward’ didn’t help. Not even ‘Look at it as a challenge’. Her normal ways of tricking herself weren’t working, not this time; the challenge involved risks that were much too great. She was still scared out of her mind. If he dumped her she’d never survive, to have let him in so close and then end up abandoned. It was dangerous to make herself dependent on something that couldn’t be controlled. To reveal herself as profoundly as his intimacy demanded made her more vulnerable than she could bear.

At twelve thirty that night, when she had still not replied, he was standing outside her door.

‘If you don’t want to see me anymore you can tell me to my face, you know, rather than hide behind a mobile that you’ve switched off.’

For the first time she saw him angry. And she could see how worried he was, how he fought against his own fear.

She didn’t say a word, just moved into his embrace and began to cry.

She was lying on his arm. Outside the bedroom window it was starting to become light. She lay as close as she could but it still didn’t seem close enough.

‘Do you know what Monika means?’

She nodded.

‘The one who warns.’

‘Yes, in Latin. But in Greek it means the lonely one.’

He turned his head and stroked her forehead with his index finger.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who tries at all costs to live up to her name.’

She closed her eyes. The lonely one. That’s how it had always been. Until now. And now she wasn’t brave enough to let herself be rescued.

He sat up and turned his back.

‘I’m scared too, don’t you realise that?’

He had read her thoughts. He had the ability to see straight through her. It was one of his many qualities that she appreciated, but also feared in equal measure. He got up and went over to her bedroom window. Her eyes wandered over his naked skin. How beautiful he was.

‘I’ve always been able to weigh the pros and cons, go back and forth about how I should behave, and get dragged into all those stupid games people play so they don’t seem too eager. But that won’t work with you. I’ve longed so much to be hit by something like this, to feel so much that it seems I just don’t have any choice.’

She wanted to say something but she couldn’t think of a single word. All the words that would have been suitable were inaccessible, deep inside some cranny, because she had never before needed them.

‘I only know that I’ve never felt anything like this before.’

He stood there just as naked as his confession. She got up and went over to him, stood behind him and slid her arms through his.

‘So don’t ever leave me alone with a silent phone again. I don’t know if I could stand it.’

He was the most courageous man she had ever met.

‘I’m sorry.’

For one dizzying instant she dared to feel total trust, and take comfort from the feeling of being loved through and through. She felt the tears rising again, felt something black and hard inside her begin to dissolve.

He turned round and took her face in his hands.

‘I ask only one thing, and that’s for you to be honest, that you tell me the truth so I’ll understand what’s happening. As long as we’re honest then neither of us has to be afraid. Don’t you think?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Don’t you think?’

Only then did she nod.

‘I promise.’

And at that moment she meant it.

They were supposed to have dinner that evening. The following morning she had to leave town to attend the course, and she was already missing him. Four days. Four days and four nights without his presence.

Her mother had been upset. Not about the course itself, but about the fact that the grave would be dark for several days. Monika had promised to hurry home. She would pick her up at three on Sunday when she returned.

She spent a long time going through the clothes in her wardrobe. Actually she had already decided what she was going to wear, knew so well what he liked best, but she wanted to check one last time that she wasn’t mistaken. On the way past the window she stopped by one of the orchid plants and pinched off a withered flower. The others still stood in their full splendour, and she regarded their perfect creation. So insanely beautiful, in such absolute symmetry, so utterly without shortcomings or flaws. And yet he had compared her to them when he noticed them in the bedroom window, so he wasn’t that smart after all. An orchid was perfect. She wasn’t. He had the ability to make her feel unique, both inside and out, but only when he was there and she could dwell in his compelling gaze. When he wasn’t there, the other took over, what she knew was inside and wasn’t worth loving. Swiftly and ruthlessly it would take back the ground it had lost.

She hesitated in the doorway as she was leaving. If she left this minute she would get there right on time. What would happen if she arrived late? Quite a bit late. How annoyed would he be? Maybe it would make him realise that she wasn’t as wonderful as he imagined. Then maybe he would finally reveal his hidden side, expose that flaw that she was convinced he must have somewhere. Show that he only loved her as long as he thought she was perfect. She turned off her mobile and sat down on the hall bench.

She made him wait forty-five minutes. Soaked to the skin he stood in the middle of the square when she finally came running up. He had refused to leave their meeting place.

‘Finally… God, how worried I was, I thought something had happened.’

Not one mean word. Not the slightest hint of irritation. He pulled her to him and she hid her face against his wet jacket and felt ashamed.

But she wasn’t completely convinced. Not deep inside.

They slept together at her place that night. When morning came and she had to leave soon, he lingered and held her in his arms for a long time.

‘I’ve worked out that you’re going to be gone for a hundred and eight hours, but I’m not sure I can hold out for more than eighty-five.’

She crept closer to him and rested in another dizzying moment. She wanted to stay this time, and for once allow life itself the opportunity to make the decision.

‘You know I’m coming home soon, pulled by magnetic homesickness.’

He smiled and kissed her on the forehead.

‘But whatever you do, watch out for those high-tension wires.’

She smiled and saw by the clock that it was high time she left. She had so wanted to say those three words that were so difficult to utter. Instead she put her lips lightly to his ear and whispered.

‘I’m so glad I was the one who became your girl pigeon.’

And at that moment neither of them in their wildest dreams could imagine that the Monika who was just about to leave would never ever come back.