A Neverending Affair

by Kopen Hagen

  “We all thought it was because we were so smart or because of our wonderful democratic political system that we could develop and maintain our wealth,” Bo said when they met a week ago in Brussels, “but we didn’t want to see to what extent it was based on the exploitation of oil. And of other people.”

  Olaf thought about Monika, “Miss Monika” as he used to address her, or sometimes just “MM.” Without a doubt, he loved her. He had never felt the same overwhelming passion for her that he had felt for Ronia, but then again, he had met her when he was still ailing from the failure with Ronia. They say men can’t be alone very long, and at least for Olaf, that was true. After the breakdown with Ronia, he was first desperately sad for several months. He even went to a therapist, the same one that he had seen with Liv. The therapist was sympathetic, but in the end, what could she do? What could he do?

  The pain over the lost passion was like a physical condition that needed time to heal. Olaf wasn’t sure that this was the right time to discuss his upbringing or whether his parents had shown him enough love, or if he wanted to kill his father in order to marry his mother. In all honesty, the therapist never suggested that, but still she wanted him to find clues, keys, and understanding from things from his childhood. Even if he realized that there were issues there, and that despite his seemingly nice childhood, he was messed up like everybody else, in the end he came back to the fact that he had just lost the love of his lifetime, and that was equal to losing a body part, and that it was just natural to feel pain.

  He saw the therapist as much to have someone to talk to. He found it difficult to speak about the separation from Liv with Susanne and Bo. He had met Liv at their place and they had remained their closest friends. In some way, he felt that they accused him for the mess. He slept a lot. Then gradually, he started seeing other women. He had many brief acquaintances. Ronia’s painting, with its masks, hyenas, jumping Masaai warriors and supernatural creatures, was still on his wall. A few friends who knew the story, and knew that the painting was hers, had suggested that he take it down, at least for a while. He stubbornly said, “I keep it there as proof of that I can live without her,” like an alcoholic in recovery keeping a bottle just to prove his point. He didn’t even convince himself with that.

  He met Monika at a friend’s party. She lived alone; she hadn’t had a serious relationship before and was of the age where she seriously wanted to settle down. He knew that she was a social worker at the municipality. She was rather short, a bit round without being fat, blue eyes with big lashes, brown straight hair cut short and with a very friendly, pleasant face, the type that makes you happy, or at least, it made Olaf happy. She was a motherly type and pitied him. He asked her out.

  After that first dinner, it was quite obvious for both of them that they were a match. They went for a long walk and spoke about their lives. They met three times that same week and the last evening, after a dinner and a movie, he followed her home. Even if they didn't talk about it, it was clear for them both that he would stay overnight. Olaf noticed that Monica was shy and didn't take a lot of initiative when they made love. He was gentle and so comforted by the love making that he cried. Monika held him tightly but chose, wisely, not to ask him to talk about it.

  Another day though, Monika took the bull by the horns. Her professional background made it easy to speak about personal things, or at least to make others speak about their personal things. “Olaf, I see clearly that you have been in pain. Marianne told me about your divorce and your affair with that other woman. Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “OK, but I’m afraid it was a lot more than an 'affair,'” he said and told her selected parts of the story. Finishing, he concluded, “She was the love of my life, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get over it fully. I have gotten over it in the sense that I don’t seek her out or hope that she will come back to me, but I am not sure how 'ready' I am for a new relationship.”

  “Olaf, I don’t know if we’re meant to be,” Monika assured him. “It’s too early to say. I’ve heard your story. I understand that I might be a pale copy to that Ronia, but I do like you a lot and want to continue seeing you. There’s no rush to determine anything. Perhaps it will work out, perhaps it won’t. Perhaps I’ll fall in love with you and you won’t fall in love with me or vice versa. Neither of us knows, and we don’t have to know. We can just let it flow.”

  In the end, their relation developed as if there was an urgency. Olaf appreciated Monika’s consolation. She made him feel good. For the first time in her life she felt real closeness to a male, and Olaf also showered her with affection and attention. Olaf was also vulnerable, which made her relax. Previously, she had often felt intimidated by men. They had a good sex life, shared most of the same interests and had common friends. After five months, she raised the issue of children.

  “Olaf, I’m thirty-two, I’ve finished my education, I have a good job—well, a job at least and it’s secure. It’s time for me to have a child.”

  “Monika, I’m not sure I’m ready for this….”

  “Sssshhh. Don’t say more. Let me continue. I know you aren’t fully ready, even if I find that we come closer and closer by the day. I believe that we are meant to be, Olaf, and I’m sure you’ll get there too, quite soon. But even if you didn’t, I would still like to have your child. I won’t have any expectations on you as a father. If you don’t want the child, I can register it as ‘father unknown,’ but of course, what I wish more than anything else is that you would also want it, that you want me. I have no pride. I don’t have to play games. I love you from the bottom of my heart. I know you still don’t love me in the same unreserved way, but I think and hope it will come.”

  Olaf was completely defenseless to this. He thought Monika was a brave woman, braver than any he’d met, and he fully admired her for that. And in that moment, he felt all his reservations or second thoughts just blow away. He felt that he loved her, not as he had loved Ronia, but he surely could envision a life with Monika. It would work.

  “Monika, I do love you. You’re a great person, you’re smart, you’re sexy, and we share the same values.”

  “Olaf I don’t want to hear the ‘but.’”

  “There isn’t really a ‘but.’ But—now I still said it—but how could you trust me, when I don’t trust myself?”

  “Olaf, nothing is forever. We will all die. I could be run over by a car tomorrow; you can die from prostate cancer. I don’t ask you to promise me anything. I just ask you to make your heart fully open without reservations, without fear that you will let me down.”

  “Monika, you are simply irresistible—emotionally, sexually and logically. When I hear you and your confidence in me, in us, I am more than willing to live with you. I also want a child, and I can’t see anybody better than you as the mother of my child, our child. I don’t want to hear a word about that child not having a father.”

  Though pleased with his response, Monika logically requested, “In order not to rush things, especially not a child, can we let this sink for a few weeks and then decide? I think we have the responsibility to our child that it is welcome not only at conception, but also after it is born and for life.”

  Back in the hotel after his walk, Olaf did some exercise, took a shower and spent quite some time examining his tummy. It was clearly more marked now than a year ago, wasn’t it? Would this continue? Like most physical inspections of ones own body, it led nowhere in particular, and he eventually dressed and went down to the breakfast room.

  Sandra was already there. He told her that he had something to speak with the manager about, something of a rather private nature. Sandra lifted her eyebrows in surprise but didn’t say anything. He found a table and then called the waiter and asked for coffee. When the coffee was brought, he said he wanted to speak with the manager, Signor Andretto. The waiter disappeared, and after a while Signor Andretto appeared. Olaf asked him take a seat. They exchanged the normal pleasantries about whether Olaf was enjoyi
ng his stay, how nice the hotel was, etc.

  “I wonder about those paintings you have here, the three of them, the one above the buffet and the two at the entry. Don’t you find them a bit daring for a hotel breakfast room?”

  The manager appeared a bit baffled. “Oh, those. Yes, I guess you’re right. I did buy them, or rather my wife bought them, at a bazaar for a center taking care of war-children from Bosnia here in Italy, in Bari, I believe. My wife thought they were very good. I don’t consider myself a connoisseur when it comes to art. They all three had certificates saying that they were sold in support of that center, which meant we could buy them as a fully deductible expense for the company. Of course, that also assumes that they are hung here in the hotel and not at home. To make a long story short, they are now here. Every now and then, some guest inquires about them, but nobody has complained so far. Do you object to them?”

  “No, not at all. I honestly think they’re good, very good. They’re a bit outside of what you normally see in a breakfast room. I mean, the music you play is soft and standardized, the same as in a hundred other hotels. The paintings are a bit unsettling, but they are great pieces of art, in my opinion.”

  “You’re the first one to realize that they’re all from the same place, from the same painter, which is amazing considering they’re quite different and that they lack signatures.”

  “There are signatures there; they’re just very hard to spot,” he said. “Did you meet the artist? When was this? Do you know her name?”

  “Her name was Marie something, the papers said. I did meet her at a later occasion. My wife spotted her, at a gallery. She appeared to be French. This was around 2004, I think.”

  “And it was here in Rome?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she a rather tall, voluptuous woman with high cheeks, green eyes and good looks? Curly hair?” Olaf asked.

  “I couldn’t say much about the hair. She had a scarf tied around her head so that no hair was visible, but for the rest, yes. I remember that my wife remarked gruffly afterwards that I had stared at her, so I guess she was attractive, or at least interesting.”

  “Have you seen her after that?”

  “No.” He looked a bit bored now, “and now that you’ve asked me so many questions, perhaps you could tell me what this is all about.”

  “Sorry,” Olaf rose, made a sign of wanting the manager to join him and went to the three paintings, where he showed him the R and the D in one after the other.

  Standing in front of the one with the coastal landscape, he explained that he had known that woman, that de Grove was her mother’s name and Marie was her second name, but that her real name was Ronia Davla, that she was an old friend of his. Olaf told him to take out insurance on the paintings. He could look her up on the internet and he would see how much her paintings were traded for. She had released no new paintings for more than a decade, and it had increased the interest in those few that were in the market.

  Surprised, the manager said he had paid 1,500 Euro per piece and that he had thought that was on the high side.

  On the way to the conference, Olaf found himself thinking of Ronia again and again. He made a possible link between the painter and the woman organizing the bazaar of the local chapter of HRI. He would ask Diana more about it when they met. Sandra, who normally never inquired about private matters, asked if he had tried to buy those paintings from the hotel, as she had observed him with the manager. He said that they were painted by a friend of his that he lost contact with, and he had asked the manager about where he bought them. But that it was long time ago.

  “I can see that friend meant a lot to you,” Sandra said, perhaps the first time ever she commented on something personal.

  “Yes, she did,” he agreed. He saw how Sandra startled from the “she.” He continued, “I assume you will you brief Andrea on the situation for the informants.”

  “I already did yesterday evening,” she responded; Sandra, always the efficient and correct one.

  The day went well. The Padanian government had, not surprisingly, staged a counterattack. In a four-page statement they claimed that HRI was strongly linked to suspect elements. For instance, the Manager—that was Olaf—had a background as a human trafficker; the key mission of HRI was to destroy the civilized world by promoting a tsunami of immigrants, criminal and violent immigrants, referring to the proposal of HRI Rome as something that was already adopted by HRI; and the main income from HRI came from one of the oil-producing states that held the rest of the world at ransom. In addition, they collected quotes from a number of somewhat respected citizens in Padania that opposed the allegations in the HRI report. Those quotes were most likely not associated with the report at all, but made in a completely different context, some of them many years earlier.

  Most of what they wrote about HRI weren’t blatant lies. They were just heavily distorted facts. For instance, that the “oil producing state” was Norway was not stated, which meant that most of the readers assumed they were financed by Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia or Russia—God knows which one was the worst. Olaf had once been charged with human trafficking in Sweden for hiding illegal immigrants, charges which were soon dropped. The immigrants in questions, a male homosexual couple from Sudan, facing death on return to Sudan, were granted asylum.

  The press conference went well. Of course, there were provocateurs from the Padania government there, and representatives of the Padania media took every opportunity to ask questions about the allegations from Padania. But allowing Olaf to tell the story of hiding illegal immigrants in an attic for four months didn’t exactly put him in a bad light, rather the opposite.

  Apart from the usual friends at the press conference, there were correspondents from Le Monde, 20 Minutes, Der Spiegel, Dnevnik, Delo, Die Presse, Der Standard, Corriere dela Serra, La Stampa and La Republica, as well as several news broadcasters, all of them posing well-crafted questions, allowing Olaf to convey a somewhat sharper message than what they could write. On the direct question from Le Monde if “fascism has returned to the heart of Europe,” Olaf said a short and simple “yes.” The press from the two countries neighboring Padania, Austria and Slovenia, wanted to understand if there was anything of relevance for them. Olaf explained that the focus of HRI was human rights and human rights only, and that it was not within his mandate to have opinions about other political issues. But as a general statement, he said that there were clear correlations between countries that are aggressive towards their neighbors and those that are aggressive towards their own population, even if there are exceptions, such as China and Belarus.

  At the end of the day, they met the inner core of the chapter for a debriefing. Some of the members of the chapters asked about the counterstatements from Padania. They just couldn’t believe that a democratic government in the center of Europe could lie like that. Sandra did a good job assuring them that the basis of the report was solid, that there could be some minor errors, but that any such error did not invalidate the rest of the report.

  June to September 1996

  After the Geneva encounter, Olaf and Ronia were in very close contact. Email started to play a big role in their relationship. This was more natural for Olaf. His business contacts had slowly started to use emails. Even some of the African contacts had it, as the costs were tremendously low compared to faxes and phone calls. Still, emails often got lost, or so his business associates claimed. There were viruses and there were lost internet connections.

  Ronia had no other reason than social interaction to start using email. The truth is that she hardly ever used the computer, as it had very little to offer her work-wise, and socially she never saw any value in it. Now she realized how cheap it was to keep in touch with Olaf and others. Email was also a kind of communication that suited her quite well. Letters took such a long time to write, and when the other party got them, the situation described and the feeling expressed in the letter was perhaps already gone. And then the other
party wrote a response arguing or discussing something that was important weeks ago.

  Telephone, on the other hand, was so immediate; it gave no time for reflection. At the same time, the bandwidth of a telephone conversation felt so narrow compared to personal encounters. There was no body language, no way to see the face of the other person, which said a lot more than the words. Of course, a telephone call has more information than an email message, to some extent, but an email message was more reflective and you knew, like with a letter, there was some thought behind the words. At least, that was how Ronia’s generation used email, as a kind of letter.

  She noted that her niece, Sara, used email in a much more casual way. Her messages were so full of typos that she clearly never read through them before sending them off. And she didn’t respect grammar at all. When Ronia sent a message to Sara, the response was normally delivered within five minutes. Ronia typically read her email once every second day. And when she wrote a note, she very rarely sent it off the same day. She was still hesitant how the message would be received at the other end. But she had to admit to herself that the prospects of an email from Olaf made her inclined to check her inbox more often. Much more often.

  1996-06-20

  olaf@rattvisarevarld.se wrote:

  Hi Ronia,

  It has now been several weeks since we parted in Geneva. I hope you had a good trip home, that you are making progress with your paintings. From Geneva I went to Milano, to a fashion company that wants to use bracelets and necklaces from my Ethiopian group for their next fashion catalog. It will be a great boost for us. They get them for free, but we get a clear reference to them and to our web site on every page, and half a page for free in the back of the catalog.