A Neverending Affair

by Kopen Hagen

  The Kamahi Lodge was wonderful; small with only the cottages. It was run by a New Zealand man and a Tanzanian woman. The cottages had lovely front porches with two divans and a small table in between. The decor was a clear blue, reflecting the ocean, and terracotta. There was a full moon, and even if they were hungry, they decided to take a swim in the calm ocean in the moonlight, after inquiring into the safety of the sea. The ocean was warm, perhaps 30 degrees. Some twenty meters from the shore they kissed. The water was still not deeper than just above their hips. They kissed intensively, hands all over each other.

  “Did you ever do it in water?” she asked.

  “No.”

  The food was excellent. There was no choice, but that didn’t matter. Inez, the mistress of the place, came to greet them, asking for what kind of activities they had planned. Ronia and Olaf looked at each other, “We don’t need much of a program. We want to walk around, swim, enjoy the landscape.”

  “Not interested in snorkeling?”

  “Oh well, that could be interesting,” Ronia said with an inquiring look at Olaf. She knew he had been snorkeling at least once, and she herself had done it a few times off Corsica and Sardinia.

  “How far is it?” Olaf asked, signaling that he was also interested.

  Inez said that it was off an island twenty minutes away by speed boat.

  “What kind of deal is it? You have all the stuff? How long is the trip? Are others also going?” Ronia asked.

  “The trip is normally for three or four hours, including the boat ride, so it gives you a minimum of two hours snorkeling. The boat driver will point you to the place. It has to be high tide, so it will be between ten and two. The boat leaves from here and takes a maximum of six passengers, only our guests,” she said gesturing towards the other tables, underlining the familiarity of the place. “Total cost, including equipment is 80 dollars per person.”

  “Ok, let us discuss it while we eat and we’ll tell you afterwards. Are there any wandering paths around except for walking on the beach?”

  “Yes, you can walk to the fishing village 1 kilometer further south. You can walk along the road one way and take the beach the other way.”

  Ronia asked her how she ended up in the hotel.

  “I met Jim at a disco in Dar ten years ago. We fell in love. We had this plan almost from the onset. We went two weeks camping on the stretch of beach south of Dar. For me, that was strange. I mean, I heard about camping, but in my context, the only people seen camping were refugees from Congo or Rwanda or people who had lost their homes. First, I was scared of wild animals and other people and whatnot, ghosts perhaps. Well, in the end, I loved it. He went back to New Zealand to work and earn more money, while I was scouting for land. We knew we would get it a lot cheaper if I was looking for it by myself instead of a musungu, a white man. After two years, I had found the ideal place, this place, and he had enough money for starting capital. We bought it eight years ago and built it up. We want it small, like this, perhaps five more cottages, no more, a boutique hotel, as they call them nowadays. We want to be personally engaged in the business and in each one of our visitors.”

  “It’s a lovely place,” Ronia said.

  They decided to go snorkeling the next day.

  But in the morning, the rain was pouring down and the snorkeling would be no good. They took an early morning swim. It was so warm that the rain was mostly pleasant when in the water or just out of it. However, it did make walking difficult, except for on the beach. They agreed to just sit and read together. He read Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg and she read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. They related the stories for each other. They each sat in a divan. Once in a while, they looked up at each other and smiled.

  “It’s good that we also can enjoy reading side by side. It feels more normal than all this love making,” Olaf said. “Don’t misunderstand me, I love making love to you. Don’t think you have to doubt that.” He looked inquiringly at her and she smiled her consent. “You know, I want to cook for you. I want to serve you coffee in the morning while you are still in bed. I want to mend your shirt. I want to live with you....In addition to making love.”

  “It’s a bit hard as long as you live with Liv, or do you envision us all converting to Islam?” Ronia said. She cursed herself for saying it as it came across as a challenge. She had decided that she would not pressure him to leave Liv, so that if he left, it would be his decision and he wouldn't leave Liv for Ronia. “Sorry, Olaf, I don’t intend to pressure you on that. But then please don’t speak about a normal life for us, when it is not possible.”

  “But it is possible, Ronia,” he said but didn’t expand on it.

  They spent two very lazy and relaxed days at the Kamahi. Mostly it rained. They swam, walked along the shore, read and played chess. Neither of them was good at it. Ronia won most times, perhaps because she was more focused on the game, while Olaf tended to get distracted by looking at her. For some reason, chess games almost without exception ended in bed, a strange kind of foreplay they both thought, but didn’t object to. On the second evening, when they sat at the ninety degree angle they normally sat in, Inez said, “You guys look more in love than any of the honeymooners we have here, and there are many of them. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I ever saw any white people with the same love in their eyes and in their bodies.”

  “Well, that is sweet of you to say,” Ronia said. “What about black people? Do they love more, you mean?”

  “Well, I don’t know for sure,” Inez said. “I just have the feeling that for us, love and the relationship with our spouse and our family is in some way more important, more fundamental for us, and the love is an integral part of that. For you white guys, love can be separate from all that, from family, from children. Well, that’s what I have thought at least. Since I’ve lived with Jim, I’ve had to modify my views of whites a bit, and he his views of blacks,” she said.

  “Interesting perspective,” Ronia said when she left them alone again, “but I guess she has a point. We have separated both love and sex from regular life into separate pleasures, and of course people like us having affairs is the prime example. Still, interesting that she thought our love was stronger than others, don’t you think?”

  “It is indeed very hard to understand love,” Olaf said.

  They planned the coming meetings. They had no legitimate reason for meeting until May 1998, more than half a year ahead. That sounded unbearable for both of them. Olaf had some contacts in Paris that he would have to visit, and they agreed to try to meet in conjunction with them, in January or February the coming year.

  Rome, 2013

  She looked at his hands. How she had adored those hands. There were many things about Olaf that were appealing, but his hands were the jewel in the crown. It wasn’t the look of them. They were just ordinary looking hands, the skin smoother than one could expect of a male almost fifty, nails not particularly well groomed, but clean. No, the real thing with those hands was the touch and feel of them. They communicated in a way Ronia had never experienced. They gave, but they also took. She could see the joy in his face when they felt her nipples, trailed her lips or twirled her hair. It was not only that he was giving her pleasure. He himself enjoyed it just as much.

  She didn’t think her own hands were in any way as sensitive as Olaf’s. He said more with his hands than his words could ever express, and even for sex, his hands were certainly superior to his penis, even if she had liked it being in the place where it belonged. It was, after all, just a lump of meat compared to the fingers, she thought, but shrunk from her own vision of a steak hanging between his legs

  “What were you thinking?” Olaf asked.

  “I shouldn’t tell you. It’s embarrassing.” Ronia blushed.

  “Try me.”

  “Well, I thought about your hands…”

  “And…”

  “Yes, the touch of them, the feel you have in your fingers. Have you ever reali
zed that you have unique hands?”

  “I remember you saying something about my hands before, that you loved when I touched you, things like that. I liked that you told me so, because also for me the hands were, they are, important. Liv mainly bossed them around to ‘do this and do that, touch me here and touch me there’ and it made me feel like they were just dead tools. Monika, on the other hand, also says that my hands are special.”

  “Exactly. That’s the point. For most people, the hands are just tools. Of course, that’s not fully true, but they tend to disregard the sensations from the fingertips. People are so obsessed with sight and hearing. Smell is about sweat and perfumes, taste is for food and wine, but doesn’t play much role for the rest. And touch is just neglected—on both sides. You know some of these artificial flowers are so good, and there are only two things that make it possible to determine whether they are plastic or real. The smell and their feel. I guess the taste would also do it, if you dared to chew them.”

  “Personally, I believe that if we were trained, we would hear the difference as well. Life is action. Life is aspiration, transpiration, perspiration,” Olaf interjected.

  “True, but back to the feel. If you touch an artificial flower, you always know that it is dead. And your hands seemed to have their own life, and they also gave me life. That particular part of my body that you touched suddenly became the center of emotion. Your touch on almost every part of my body sent me shivering from sensation, mostly from desire, but now and then also other feelings, such as comfort and consolation.”

  “Thanks for those nice words about them. I have to take better care of them in the future.”

  “I wished I knew how to make a painting that touched people in the same way your hands touched me.”

  “Oh, you do, you do,” Olaf said. “I guess that thing with the hand is communication. It was not only me touching you; it was your skin touching my fingertips. I think I take in a lot through my fingertips as well....Like you do with scent. I never met anyone as sensitive to smells as you are, or were at least.”

  “Yeah, smell and taste are strong for me. If I close my eyes, I can feel the smell of your armpits, the wax taste of your ear, the overcooked cabbage smell of your breath in the morning, the smell of the feet. The taste of…” She stopped, looked him in the eyes.

  “We aren’t going that way. This was a mistake. Olaf, I wish you a nice life, a good life and happiness with your wife and daughter. It was nice seeing you, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea that we ever meet again.”

  “Ronia, please don’t do this to me again. I don’t mean we should start up a new affair. I just want to know you again.”

  “We never managed that friendship thing very well, have we?”

  “True, we haven’t, but it’s now been almost fifteen years since we broke up. Things are different now. And honestly, you never gave friendship a chance. You never responded to any of my attempts to renew contacts or my clumsy ways of saying I’m sorry.”

  “You never said you were sorry!”

  “Well, I didn’t say it, but I certainly let you know through the books and music I sent you, didn’t I?”

  “Didn’t I?” he repeated.

  “I guess you did.”

  Geneva, May 1998

  The week before they were to meet again in Geneva, Olaf decided to leave Liv and told her so, but he didn’t tell Ronia in advance. They were in close contact before meeting. Ronia arrived first in Geneva. Olaf came to the hotel and sought out her room. She opened the door. They hugged and kissed, and Olaf almost began to cry.

  Ronia sensed it. “What is it, honey?”

  “Just hold me…tight.”

  They embraced harder. Within a few moments the embrace was charged with lust and desire. They ended up against the wall and on the floor, a swift greedy affair. Afterward, they dressed and went to eat.

  At the end of the meal, Olaf told her. “I’ve decided to leave Liv. I told her about us. She was very angry and sad. But she didn’t want to give up and leave it at that. She said we should try. I agreed to see a therapist. Perhaps it will change something, but I don’t think so. We’ve been there before, so to speak. This is more for show, to show my good intentions and my willingness to work for the relationship.”

  “Was it really smart to tell her about us?”

  “I don’t know. I felt I wanted to be honest.”

  “Is such honesty for her benefit or was it for you to feel good yourself?”

  “I never thought about it like that. But what do you suggest, that I lie?”

  “Not outright lying, but keeping quiet is not lying unless you are confronted with a question,” Ronia said. “But frankly speaking, I don’t know. I mean, I’m not a specialist in personal relationships, and my track record is not particularly impressive. I just speak from my own feelings. So what will happen now?”

  “As I said, we will seek a therapist, and then we will see what comes out of that.”

  “I hope you’re aware that that can take months, if not years. Once these guys have you by your balls, they don’t want to let go. That’s what keeps them in business,” Ronia said. “Those shrinks mainly help themselves getting rich, while they make normal people so confused that they don’t believe they can solve their own problems. People even go to shrinks because they’re afraid that they aren’t treating their dogs or cats or even goldfish in the right way. It’s like a drug. I have acquaintances that have been seeing shrinks for years for some nondescript condition, and it hasn’t made them any better. Elise has been seeing a shrink for two years, although I think in her case it’s mostly that she has a crush on him, a very expensive way of courting in my view.”

  “I heard your view on this before, Ronia. You know that I’m also a bit skeptical, but for Liv, these guys are experts, in the same way she’s an expert in cybernetics, and to question them is to question the whole system of learning and education, the system of science and the experts that such system produce; it is to question the core of her existence, so to speak.”

  “Yes, it is. I guess that’s why I resent it. The system of science and most experts are for me just frauds. Almost no important event was predicted by these scientists and almost no important event was as a result of experts and science,” Ronia said. Olaf never ceased to be surprised how a person so committed to logic and rationality could have such a strong bias against formal schooling, and such disrespect for experts of all sorts.

  “Anyway, where does this leave us?” she continued.

  “I’m making myself ready for you,”

  “Is that so?” she said thoughtfully. “It could as well be the opposite.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She didn’t respond.

  They went back to the hotel.

  “Can I stay in your room?” he asked. They still booked separate rooms, even if they always ended up staying in one room together.

  “Olaf, I need to be alone with my thoughts,” she said.

  “I don’t understand. What’s the matter?” he asked. “I’ve taken major steps to make myself ready for you, for us, and it seems to me that you’re displeased with it. I thought you would be happy. I always thought that’s what you wanted.”

  “I did. I mean, I do,” she said. “I didn’t say it was wrong. It’s just a bit overwhelming; give me some time to digest all this. You’ve had time to digest it. I didn’t want to think about this possibility, as I thought it would never happen. I didn’t want to be disappointed, to be hurt. Let’s meet for breakfast, around eight. Is that fine?”

  “Make it seven-thirty.”

  “Ok.”

  Ronia read a piece in a novel she brought with her, A Ship Made of Paper, a discomforting love story ending in disaster. Like they mostly do, she thought. Trying to sleep, she thought about their relationship. On the one hand, she was happy that Olaf was leaving Liv, even though she still feared it might not happen in the end or that the process would be very protracted. On the o
ther hand, she wanted him to leave because he didn’t love Liv. She didn’t want herself to be the reason, or excuse, for him leaving Liv. If that were the case, she would not trust him as much as if he first broke up with Liv and then came to her, to Ronia.

  Also, if he ever regretted leaving, it would not be projected upon Ronia. It would be totally of his own making. Of course, Ronia was already there. She had been a trigger to all this. But she convinced herself that she could be a trigger, but that she wouldn’t be the reason or an excuse. If Olaf wasn’t happy with Liv, then he should leave her regardless of if there was a Ronia or not. And the only way to be sure of that was breaking up with Olaf.

  So be it, she thought and slowly phased out into sleep. But her sleep was worried and frequently interrupted. When she woke at five, she realized that there was no point in trying to fall back in sleep, so she went for a brisk walk. She stopped by a house with some beautifully flowering wisteria and made some sketch of it and many more mental notes as it was a motif she could use in her work. She felt sad but determined to move ahead.

  They met for breakfast but spoke only about work and superficial things. During the day, they had meetings. At the afternoon break, Selma pulled Ronia aside and asked her if there was something wrong between her and Olaf.

  “No, why?” she said.

  “I just felt there was something. Before I always thought you were so close. You were always sitting next to each other, your body language mimicking each other. You mostly agreed and even used the same expressions. Frankly speaking, I suspected you had an affair,” she said with a nervous laugh, “but now you seem to be cool towards each other. Not that it’s any of my business…”

  “There’s nothing like that between us, and there’s nothing wrong between us.” Ronia laughed.

  After the meeting, they decided to walk back to the hotel. They stopped in a café and ordered some espresso. They sat next to each other, silent. Olaf felt her hand on his thigh. He patted it lightly. After a while, it wandered towards his groin. He responded with the same touch. Soon they were both excited and looked around.