Text for You

by Sofie Cramer

  Suddenly it’s quiet in the living room. Katja gives Clara a bit of a shamefaced look, like she’d eaten the last piece of cake that her friend had been saving.

  “And what was the avenging angel thinking in my case? What did I ever do wrong?” Clara asks, more to herself than anything. Her words have a bitter aftertaste.

  “Ugh, babe, I know, here I am griping about my banal relationship problems. But the burden you have to bear is so much heavier.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Besides, if your burden feels as heavy as mine, we’ll just have to lug both of ours together somehow. Maybe you really belong together, you and Robert, who knows?”

  “Pssh, yeah, but only if he grows an ass to fill those pants of his—” Katja bursts out laughing again. When she’s calmed back down she points to all the glasses and brushes lined up on the windowsill. “Hey, so what’s all this stuff, anyway? Are you painting again?”

  “Yeah, I started a large canvas yesterday,” Clara replies with a grin that’s a bit sheepish but still proud. “But I’m only going to show it to you when it’s finished!”

  * * *

  • • •

  The next day Clara is standing nervously at the door of Ben’s sister’s house. All week long she tried not to think about their coffee date. But she definitely didn’t want to cancel on Dorothea. Clara feels responsible for Theo, as Ben always affectionately called his sister, and worries about how she’s doing. She knows only too well that in the two months since Ben’s death Dorothea still hasn’t been able to come to terms with it. Nevertheless, even though she’s just twenty-five years old, she has come an astonishingly long way, and for Clara’s sake she’s trying very hard to be brave.

  They’ve agreed to find something nice to do, and because the weather is so pleasant this Sunday, Clara considers proposing to Dorothea that they take a spring outing into Hamburg. If nothing else it’s a way to ensure that they can breathe a little easier, without being reminded of Ben everywhere they go.

  Sometimes Lüneburg seems like a deadly minefield. At their go-to bar, at Beppo’s restaurant, at the movie theater, in the salt air and seclusion of the Kurpark, at the thermal baths, in the shops, and even on the most far-flung paths in the large idyllic city park . . . everywhere memories lie in wait. Like snipers lying in ambush, they fire little darts from their hiding places with pinpoint accuracy. Darts that pierce her straight through to the heart and hurt so much sometimes that Clara feels like the wind’s been knocked out of her. At such moments she wishes she could just teleport into another time, like maybe five years into the future. Then hopefully everything will feel somewhat more “normal,” even if nothing can ever be good again and a “normal” without Ben is actually unthinkable.

  Maybe Katja’s right. Maybe she should try to get her mind off things by seeing other men. Who can guarantee her anyway that she and Ben would actually have gotten married like they’d promised each other they would? If he really did take his own life, then that would mean he just left her, without even saying goodbye. But the Ben she knew and loved would never have done such a thing.

  Clara can still vividly remember a show she saw on television one night about a year ago about people who just took off and left home in secret without saying goodbye. They leave their family and friends behind and start a new life somewhere else, usually abroad, and the people they leave behind become sick with worry because they don’t know what happened. One mother they interviewed, whose son had vanished one day out of the blue, said that the uncertainty was much worse than the actual grief you felt for the person you loved and seemed to have lost. Hoping every day for their return, going over things from the past again and again in your mind searching for clues that could confirm or even explain their disappearance—it was sheer torture.

  As Clara stands there frozen outside the house where Dorothea lives with her father, it suddenly hits her how thankful she can be that she and everyone else had the opportunity to say goodbye to Ben with dignity.

  Clara wouldn’t even say that the day of the funeral was the worst day of her life. There was an endless crowd of people present for the service and for the wake that followed it. And even though the mood was mostly set by Ben’s music, which Katja and Knut from the band had helped her pick out, Clara didn’t spend much time by herself or dwelling on lonely thoughts of Ben. Inside she had felt entirely calm, which her mother of course chalked up to her twin panaceas, Reiki massage and homeopathic pills. At the time Clara couldn’t have cared less what was given to her. A sedative injection from the paramedic after the police had shown up at her door, broken the terrible news, and started asking questions, like was there a suicide note and what had Ben’s living circumstances been like. After that sleeping pills every night and Bach flower drops and, sure enough, a few Reiki sessions with her mother, who thought that she could combat her deep emotional pain with the mere laying on of hands.

  Really though Clara hates it when her mother comes at her with all that New Age nonsense. How many times have they butted heads over it! Her mother is an office manager, but for years she’s been trying to find her true purpose in healing people. The thing is, thinks Clara, if she wants to help people she should start by helping herself, as loopy as she is. Her mother is always dragging her into these long conversations about being one with the energy or the universe or whatever else. Clara gave up trying to follow her a long time ago. Of course she loves her mother. But it’s very different from the love she feels for her grandparents or even her father.

  She and her mother are just fundamentally different. Karin is temperamental and brash. Clara meanwhile considers herself to be more quiet and introverted. Karin always has an opinion, which she’s happy to share whether you ask her or not, while Clara prefers to hold back, which more than once has led her mother to criticize her for being calculating and unspontaneous. Even superficial things, like the way Karin dresses or how her apartment is decorated, seem so foreign to Clara sometimes that she asks herself from time to time whether she might actually have been adopted.

  On the other hand, Clara is of course aware of how grateful she should be that her mother is so concerned about her. After all, not all of her well-meaning advice is completely off base. And when it came to everything that had to be taken care of before the funeral, Karin, and of course Katja as well, were one hundred percent there for her. Ben’s parents, by contrast, weren’t capable of pulling themselves together and throwing themselves into the job of tackling the practical side of things, like many grieving family members do out of desperation. No, it was Karin who took care of everything and bravely volunteered to sort through Ben’s clothes—even though there were precious few of them that Clara was willing to part with.

  Only Clara’s clothes are to be found now in the dresser they used to share. Nevertheless, she has a few bags of his clothes in the closet and a few personal things sitting unsorted in boxes in the living room. These “urns” suggest a closeness that may never have existed and give Clara a vague sense of unease.

  But day and night she wears the ring Ben gave her when he proposed, even though she really doesn’t feel like the jewelry-wearing type. She did give Ben a ring for Christmas one year, though. It was one of a few cherished possessions that she placed in the grave with him. Which wasn’t exactly legal.

  About a month after the funeral, Katja had summoned all her nerve and convinced Clara to go along with this crazy idea. After all the turmoil surrounding the funeral, Clara had realized that she really would have liked to have given Ben something to take with him. And so, late one night, with hearts pounding like wild the whole time, the two of them actually went to the graveyard. In the dark, they dug a hole about a foot deep right in front of the newly placed headstone and laid a box down in it. In the box were a long farewell letter that Clara had written on the advice of Dr. Ferdinand, plus of course the ring, which the funeral home had handed her in a white envelope along with B
en’s watch, his wallet, and his cell phone. Clara had put the phone into the grave as well, because it represented so many small tokens of his love and also the connection between them.

  Clara had kept Ben’s wristwatch for Dorothea. Maybe today there will be a good opportunity to give it to her, she thinks, then rings the doorbell. The few times they’d seen each other before now had been sad enough, Clara hadn’t wanted to bring on any more tears with such a significant gesture.

  Now she senses a vague feeling of dread when she hears footsteps inside. She really hopes that Ben’s father isn’t home. She prays that she’s spared having to see him. He acts friendly enough, but there’s always a look of reproach in his eyes when he asks how things are going with her. As if she’d be capable of just chatting away like she was at some old ladies’ tea party.

  “Hello!” Dorothea says cheerfully when she opens the door. “I’m so glad we’re doing this.” Her voice seems very honest and heartfelt. She gives Clara a warm hug and Clara’s fear quickly gives way to joy at seeing her again.

  “Me, too! And if it’s all right with you I figured we could head out right away. What do you think about driving to Hamburg? We could go for a walk on the Alster or on the Elbe,” Clara says, keeping her voice down a little.

  Dorothea nods eagerly and grabs her jacket.

  Without another word they walk over to Clara’s old Peugeot. Clara notices Dorothea glancing uneasily back at the house. Is she keeping an eye out for her father? Clara knows that he hasn’t been managing well on his own since the death of his son. But it seems like Dorothea didn’t tell him about her plans to meet up with Clara today.

  When they’re sitting in the car, Ben’s sister says suddenly: “He’s been drinking like a fish. I can’t take much more of it!”

  Clara is surprised; Dorothea isn’t usually so direct. “Your father?” she asks.

  “Yeah, I have no idea what to do. And even if I did, I’m probably not the right one to get him straightened out.”

  “Do you think he’d agree to get help somewhere?”

  “Never. He’s just as pigheaded as Benny,” Dorothea says bluntly. It sounds bitter but affectionate nonetheless.

  They don’t say anything for a while, and somehow this, too, is a comfort to Clara. She’s always felt close to Dorothea, but before now they hadn’t had much of an opportunity to become something like real friends. This didn’t have anything to do with the age difference between them; it was solely because Clara didn’t want to intrude on their family business and usually sent Ben to see his sister on his own since the two of them rarely got to see each other anyway.

  When after about thirty minutes of driving they cross the bridge over the Elbe, Clara suddenly feels a sharp pain in her chest. The last time she went to Hamburg was with Ben. They’d gone to a housewarming party for Lilo and Jan, a couple who used to live next door to them until they decided to move to Altona—they didn’t want to waste away in the sticks, they said. The four of them usually had a lot of fun together though. There were countless nights when they’d gotten together at short notice to grill out, watch a movie, or play board games.

  Clara realizes that she’s close to losing herself in her thoughts, even though Dorothea is talking again now and saying how hard it’s been with her divorced parents, who even after Ben’s death haven’t had much to say to each other and definitely not anything nice. She’s afraid they might actually hate each other even more now, that each blames the other for what happened to their son.

  “You know, maybe it’s really all my fault,” says Clara suddenly and bites her lip—she didn’t actually want to put that on Dorothea right now.

  “Are you crazy? You can’t ever think like that, Clara!” Dorothea replies so quickly that it seems to come right from the heart. “Where did you come up with something so ridiculous?”

  “I mean, it could be. If he really . . .” Clara hesitates. “If he really did decide to . . . to leave, then there would have been reasons for it. Maybe it was all too much for him, there was too much pressure, or what do I know . . .”

  Clara can’t look Dorothea in the eye. She stares doggedly at the red light on Rödingsmarkt. She’s afraid that now that she’s voiced her fears aloud for the first time, they’ll turn out to be justified.

  “What kind of pressure do you mean?”

  “I mean, I don’t know. I clearly forced him into a life that maybe he didn’t even want. I did want it, all of it: a home, a family, a regular income. But maybe Ben just wasn’t cut out for all that.”

  “Well, then he could have said something. And if he didn’t it’s his own fault! You know, I really just get so mad at him sometimes.”

  “Mad? How come?”

  “Because he just left me to deal with all our family’s shit all by myself. First he takes off and leaves home, and then he goes and checks out for good. And plus all those stupid drugs he took . . . doesn’t it make you mad, too?”

  “Sure. But I don’t have a right to feel that way.”

  “Of course you do! I’ve read that anger is actually a part of the grieving process.” Dorothea rolls her eyes and balls her fists. She’s truly seething with rage now. “Sometimes I could really just . . . kill him!”

  Clara’s heart skips a beat. And the car starts to shudder as well—the engine stalled when she tried to put it in gear.

  After two seconds of shocked silence they both look at each other. And suddenly they both have to laugh.

  * * *

  • • •

  Somehow, once Dorothea made this plainly absurd comment, the tension was broken. They’d had a really pleasant afternoon together after that, thinks Clara as she lies in bed exhausted late that night. She’s also glad that she found an appropriate moment to give Dorothea Ben’s watch.

  Today they had had more fun together than ever before. And yet they had also cried together. For example, as they stood on the St. Pauli piers staring out over the water at the opposite bank of the Elbe, Dorothea had gotten very quiet all of a sudden. When she blew her nose, Clara knew that she was crying, even without looking at her. She hadn’t needed to. Clara understood. And little by little Dorothea began to talk about her first New Year’s Eve without her parents. She was fifteen years old and incredibly proud because Ben had said he was going to take his little sister to Hamburg with him. The plan was to start out partying in St. Pauli with a few of his bandmates and then around midnight to make their way through the Freihafen and find a spot near the Stage Theater to get a better view of the big fireworks show on the harbor.

  The two siblings had always gotten along well together, as far as Clara could tell. But they really didn’t spend much time together.

  Dorothea put it that way, too, more or less. She said she was incredibly sad because she’d always looked up to her brother so much. Now she was an only child, and she felt guilty because it seemed like she had made it through the whole business of their messed-up childhood better than her brother had. But then Ben had always seemed so strong. He’d been her rock, someone she could always depend on and who was always right there for her whenever things got rough.

  She had said all of this in one long monologue, like a kind of eulogy, and Clara knew just what she was talking about. In that moment, she sensed quite clearly that she was the only person who Dorothea felt she could speak so openly with. And immediately she felt like an egotistical monster who until now had been so consumed with her own sadness and despair that she never truly realized that other people were also grieving.

  And that’s why Clara is so happy that she worked up the nerve to tell Dorothea about the texts. Ben’s sister didn’t think it was creepy or crazy at all, just kind of amusing. Clara felt encouraged to go on further and describe how the strange idea of sending Ben texts had come to her, and what a comforting ritual it had become for her by this point.

  Clara also confessed that she
’d gone back and buried Ben’s cell phone in the grave with him. A warm, almost hopeful smile came to Dorothea’s face. In that case, she said, she still had a chance to let her brother know how mad she was, and at the same time that she regretted not telling him nearly enough how much she loved him.

  Clara pulls the duvet up higher now and can’t help but smile at the thought that now Dorothea will be texting her brother every now and then and might also find a little comfort in it. And she’s very glad that she hadn’t been too afraid to share what she was thinking with Ben’s sister. She’d opened up to her about things that otherwise she had only shared with Katja—and maybe her grandmother, if she felt brave enough. But with Dorothea it even felt right to tell her about the absurd stories that she had heard at some point about people whose loved ones had died. Ever since Ben’s death these stories keep popping into her head more and more. Apparently there are people who experience a kind of surge of energy after they’ve lost the person they love.

  Clara told Dorothea about the experience that her mother had apparently gone through with Clara’s father, about ten days after his death. Karin took the ferry to Sweden as a way of trying to get some distance. While Clara went to live with Lisbeth and Willy for a time, her mother meant to use this trip through Scandinavia to try to leave all the pain behind her, at least for a little while. After all, she had cared for her husband for months and had had to witness his body’s steady decline firsthand. Clara doesn’t know, even today, if her parents’ marriage was what you could call true love. But she can well imagine how difficult the loss must have been for her mother. And even if Karin is with someone else now, still Clara knows that what her parents had was very special. And even aside from that, a boring guy like Reinhard can’t hold a candle to her father.