A Neverending Affair

by Kopen Hagen

  “I don't want it to sound as if I got the art as a reward for my sacrifice. Things only work like that in the Bible or other sagas.”

  “I guess it depends on your perspective. It’s a general observation that pain, hardship and sorrow can open up our mind for other experiences.”

  “But I love you so much. There can be nothing wrong with love, can there?” he asked after a moment of silence.

  “Ask Liv and you will see.”

  “But my heart is big enough for both of you.”

  “That’s just what you think now, because you don’t want to face the consequences of your life situation. In theory, we can have all kinds of ideas about loving many people, and I’m sure we humans can love many people. I mean, it’s possible to love your spouse, your parents and your children, and a few friends at the same time. But our deepest love relationship is too obsessive to be shared. Or at least it is for me.”

  “So what do you mean? Can we never see each other again?”

  “I’m sure we can meet as friends, but we need to kill off this emerging love affair—now. When…if…we still can control it. If we continue, I think we are doomed.”

  “I don’t get your logic. I don’t like it. I just want to meet you and love you. There can be nothing wrong with that,” Olaf said, but it was clear that Ronia was going to stand her ground.

  “I’m sorry, Olaf. I will not change my mind.”

  They went in silence to the airport.

  When Ronia's plane took off, they rose above the clouds and the snow cap of Kilimanjaro was clearly visible. She was lucky to have a window seat on the right side. She looked out with awe and cried. It was so beautiful, and she was so miserable from leaving Olaf and from breaking up with him. She wanted him so badly. She wanted him to break up with Liv and choose her.

  “Why didn’t you tell him?” a voice whispered to her.

  “Didn’t I?”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Perhaps not explicitly, but surely it was clear from the context, wasn’t it?”

  The dialogue within came to no conclusion—not on this flight, nor on the long night flight from Nairobi to Zurich, nor on the flight from Zurich to Grenoble, nor on the train and bus from Grenoble home to Chindrieux, where her car was parked to take her the last stretch home.

  Ronia was mentally, physically and emotionally on the brink of collapse when she came home late in the afternoon. She poured some wine, emptied the glass and then another one and yet one more until she passed out on the bed, a half glass of wine soaking her sheets. She used them later for painting cloths as they were stained forever, and they reminded her of that dreadful moment.

  Rome, April 2013

  She asked him about his breakfast ritual at home

  “Uh,” he said, “It goes like this. I wake up. I put on the coffee and set the table with the most popular items. I go into my daughter’s room three times to wake her up. The first time, I whisper in her ear that it is morning and time to welcome a new glorious day; the second time, five minutes later, I stand in the doorway and tell her that she should get up. Breakfast is ready. You now have twenty minutes before you have to be out the door. Five minutes later I come in and pull the duvet off her, take her foot and bite it, in passing also pressing a little kiss on the big toe. I tell her, ‘Will you get up or do we have to implement step four?’ ‘NO, NO, not step four,’ she cries and gets up.”

  “And step four is?”

  “Oh, it is simply pieces of ice under her nightgown.”

  “You sound like a loving father.”

  “Wait till you have a twelve year old yourself. How were you at that age? How old were Snežana and Zlatko when you adopted them?”

  “I adopted them when they were fourteen, but they actually stayed in the orphanage until they were sixteen, at which time they went to higher schools. They didn’t really live with me.

  “Do you realize that I asked about your breakfast rituals that first time in Geneva, that very first morning? That was that time you tried to show me the positive news. I fell for you there and then.”

  “We all make mistakes, Ronia.”

  “And your wife....Monika, where is she in this ritual?”

  “She exercises with one of these torture machines that are so popular nowadays, and she is normally done with that when Rebecca has brushed her teeth. Frankly, mother and daughter don’t get along so well in the morning, and it is much better they are apart.”

  “And what about love and family for you now?” he asked.

  “Do they have anything to do with each other?”

  “Could have, but ok, I admit you can have one and not the other either way. Anyway, I think you know what I mean. You told me what you did after we split, but you didn’t tell me how it is today.”

  “I don’t have any man in my life, no boyfriend, not even a toy friend. I haven’t had sex with anyone but myself for half a year, and the last five years I have only had pure physical sex without emotions with guys I picked up in a bar, in the checkout of the supermarket, in the metro, or wherever, and whenever I am bored of doing it myself. But it is hardly different than masturbation. They are sometimes better than the toys and sometimes worse. You always have to worry about disease or that the guy will turn out to be a pervert. And some guys want to keep contact. They are like a piece of tape you never can get rid of.”

  “Zana and Zlatko are my family. Of course, they are both grown up now, twenty-three both of them. They are both artists. Zana, that is Snežana’s nickname, is in London at the City and Guilds of London Art School and Zlatko is based in Sarajevo. He paints murals and tours most of the world. We see each other every month or so. I love them, and they love me. I have kept the house in Chindrieux, but more as a retreat. I got a bit attached to Italy now.”

  “Funny how life goes. You were the one that didn’t want children,” he said with a bitter tone.

  “Olaf,” she chided, “don’t go there. We couldn’t make each other happy. We couldn’t live together. We were perhaps a great match as lovers, but as a couple we were a fucking disaster. We should both be happy that we didn’t produce any children together! And I stuck to what I said, that it was better to adopt one of the many needy than to produce more.”

  “Sorry.” After a short pause he continued, “So what do you do now?”

  “I have continued my painting, but under another name, my maiden name. I was away from the conventional art scene for a long time, and I wanted to put my talent to the test by starting anew. Not using my previous fame. But it has been very slow, I must admit, and many times I thought about getting back to my previous career, marketing myself. Some years ago, I made a few paintings that I signed off with my own signature, RD, in my own way. I made five paintings in total. But then I had second thoughts and stopped. I didn’t want to change them, though, and decided to sell them through the bazaar. And the people buying there had no idea who I was, and as you know mostly people can’t spot my signatures anyway.”

  He felt bad about revealing her true identity to the hotel manager and contemplated telling her about it, but ultimately ruled against it. It probably didn’t matter at all.

  Geneva, May 1997

  Olaf landed in Geneva and was eager to meet Ronia at the hotel. After they parted in Arusha, there had been very little contact the first month. Olaf mainly sent work-related messages, while Ronia hardly responded at all. He tried to call a few times, but she never picked up. Olaf could not know if she refused to pick up or if she simply didn’t hear the calls. She had no cell phone and no phone in her atelier. Olaf tried a few times to express how much he loved her and said that he wanted them to re-engage romantically, telling her how wonderfully alive he felt with her and how dull and grey life was without her. At the end of March, he wrote:

  Ronia, there is not one single hour that I don’t think of you. You fill my heart and my brain all the time. I realize that perhaps you want me to leave Liv. You hinted at that. But I need to be i
n contact with you to have the courage to do that. When you leave me (alone), I am terrified, and it paralyses me. I think what if I leave Liv and then you don’t want me. What was then the point?

  Love,

  Olaf

  In April, Ronia suddenly sent the following message to Olaf.

  Dear Olaf,

  I miss you a lot. I am sorry that I have been distant, trying to break up for good, but I have not been very successful in that. It is now two months since we parted in Arusha, and there is not one single hour when I don’t think about you—perhaps I think about you every minute. I do feel that it will not work to be your lover as long as you stay with Liv, but I realize now that there is no point in all this suffering. I hope that you will leave her, but for the time being, I will not push you. You must want it yourself. You must choose me over her.

  I am embarrassed by my lack of pride. I mean, what woman would accept being treated like this? My only defense to myself is that love beats pride, and my love for you is certainly great. Pride was never a strong attribute of mine anyway. If you still want us to meet romantically in Geneva, I am all yours. If not, I can try to be your friend, but that probably will take some time for the worst longing of love to subdue.

  Much Love,

  Ronia

  After that, their communication heated up. Ronia expressed how much she loved him and how much she missed him, and he did the same, again and again. Occasionally, they were almost delirious, and there were dozens of messages per day crossing over the nodes in a cyberspace neither of them really knew much about, even if they were happy that it existed. Olaf wrote:

  so far away

  far from touching you

  far from hugging

  far from kissing

  far from fondling your breast

  far from ravishing you

  so close

  close to my heart

  close to my mind

  close to my soul

  close to my fingertips

  close to my body when I close my eyes

  we are

  so far

  so close

  so far

  we are

  but soon....

  They rejoiced over the chance to spend three nights together. Olaf told Liv that he had more meetings and business scheduled than he had. He had suggested that they should go to Ronia’s place in Chindrieux; it was not more than two and a half hour’s drive from Geneva. But Ronia felt that it was too close, that she needed that space for herself for the time being. If she let Olaf come there, she would miss him even more when he wasn’t there. Now her farmstead had its own memories, such as those of Antoine, the goats, all her paintings. That gave her a bit of resistance, a wall behind which she wanted to be able to retreat.

  She didn’t explain this to Olaf. She didn’t really formulate it like that for herself either, even if that was what she felt. Telling Olaf would indicate a lack of confidence, or could at least be interpreted as such. Instead, she told him that it was a rather long drive and that there was some refurbishing going on there, so they would not be alone. It was true that a builder was working on her studio, which was on one side of her house, but he managed himself fairly well and the studio had its own door. So after the one-day meeting, they stayed in Geneva.

  For once, they did something other than making love or talking, besides their work. Back from a day tour in the Alps, they had a dinner in a pension-style restaurant. They both had asparagus soup with a rocket and bacon salad. Ronia had some white wine, but Olaf, who drove, just had water.

  “How do you find this Blair guy?” Olaf asked, referring to the British Labour party leader who had just won a great victory with his New Labour concept.

  “I don’t know really. He has a boyish charm, I must admit. As a female I am attracted by the combination of that and his energy. It reminds me of you, you know?” she said with a smile.

  “He certainly has charisma, whatever that is. Policy-wise I’m not sure. Sometimes he almost sounds like Thatcher. No, that is completely wrong, he doesn’t at all sound like Thatcher. He says many of the same things but in a much nicer way, and he says different things but means the same.”

  “That’s how I feel too. On ethics in trade and environment, he says good things, so at least England might cease to be one of the real stumbling blocks for tighter environmental standards. And I heard him on Northern Ireland and that also sound promising, but for the normal political issues, it sounds like more of the same…

  “Guess we have to wait and see what comes out of it,” Ronia concluded. “Do you think there is a risk that the war in Congo will spill over to other countries?”

  “Yes and no. I mean, you already have at least Uganda and Rwanda active in the Congo, perhaps Zimbabwe as well, and the place is just imploding. Mobutu just took off and this Kabila guy, who is backed by the Rwandans, is on his way to Kinshasa. Unfortunately, I think this is just the start of a long period of unrest, the same thing almost always happens when a dictator leaves after a long reign. You know, Mobutu held the place for thirty years, he was originally an American puppet by the way. In addition, it is such a vast territory, with almost no links between the capital and the Atlantic coast and the densely populated and mineral rich provinces in the East. It was never a country before the Belgian king grabbed it and made it his personal playground—one of the most horrendous reigns in modern history. I guess you heard about it?”

  “Yes, I don’t even want to think about it,” she said.

  “Anyway, it will be a disaster–it is already a disaster—but I don’t think it will spill over. If it will, it would be that Uganda and Rwanda mistrust each other and the others’ intentions in Congo, and they would start to fight. On the other hand, there are very strong links between the elites in Uganda and Rwanda, so I doubt there would be a war between them. In addition, I think the Americans would pull all sorts of string to avoid that happening,” Olaf said. “But for the Congolese people, I am sure it will be hell once more. You know, I was about to start there. They have beautiful art in Congo, most of the stuff you see in Uganda and Tanzania is actually from Congo. I was in Kivu four years ago, but then there was first the genocide in Rwanda and that conflict spilled over into Congo and still does. It feels bad to leave them when they need our support more than ever, but there is no way to have any business going under such conditions. You know, fair trade is good, but peace and basic security are essential things that must be there before we can speak about fair trade and almost before any other efforts make sense. Congo is living hell, and it just goes on and on, just like Sudan. The impotency, or perhaps simple indifference from the rest of the world, to this is just incredible.”

  “Since Bosnia and Rwanda, there is a lot of talk about ‘the international community,’ but I never understood what that was or is. It seems like they only put out the fires that threaten their own interests. like in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Ronia said.

  They ordered a dessert, plums in brandy.

  “Did you ever think about children?” Olaf asked.

  “You mean having children?” Ronia said cautiously. She was not enthusiastic about the topic. Olaf had told her that Liv didn’t want any children, how she put that as a condition for their relationship and that Olaf had agreed to it in the illusion that her view would change, but it didn’t. And how Olaf had regretted it.

  “Yes, have you ever wanted that?”

  “I wouldn’t say I ever wanted it. I wouldn’t say that I ever not wanted it either. It’s just not something I spent a lot of time thinking about lately. I guess I want to find a guy first in any case. A guy I could trust and rely on,” she said and looked intensely at Olaf. “I told you about my abortion, didn’t I?”

  “Do you think I’m that guy?” he asked.

  She avoided giving an answer and asked Olaf, “Do you really see me as a mother? Do you think I could be a good mother?”

  “Of course, Ronia. You are fabulous, any kid would be happy with you
as a mother!”

  “I’m not so sure about that, Olaf. I’m sure that you would be a great father though, loving, easy going, open and much more present than most males.”

  “But why would you not be a good mother?”

  “I think I have my bad days, dark sides emerging now and then. I get absorbed in a painting, or in a thought, and I can sit and stare in front of me for an hour for no particular reason.”

  “Hey, come on, Ronia. You would be a great mother.”

  “And then I also think that there are already so many unwanted children in this world, and that the world is overpopulated, that it is better that we adopt them rather than making new ones.”

  After paying, they drove back to the hotel in silence. They went to bed early. They made love. For the first time, the love making was not frantic and hungry, but rather soft and homey. In a way, Ronia liked that. It was a bit more normal, a kind of love that could last conversely to the passionate love. But she also realized that a homey and soft love wouldn’t keep her satisfied. It frightened her.

  When Olaf woke up the next morning, he reached out for her, pressed his body against hers, took her breasts in his hand. His penis was hard from desire, and he helped himself in. It was hard to know if Ronia was awake or not. He moved slowly; she responded vaguely. He rested often, just being there, holding her hips, pressing hard to come in as deep as possible. Without forewarning, she contracted intensively, and Olaf felt like she was sucking his sperm up. Afterward they fell asleep again. When Ronia woke up, she felt his sperm float out of her. She turned, looked at him and smiled. She slipped out of the bed and went to the bathroom.