A Neverending Affair

by Kopen Hagen

  “Olaf, it would be nice if you can come,” she told him. “Come as soon as you can. The autumn colors are just starting to show, and it will be at its best in a couple of weeks. I want you to see when the mountain is on fire and those lovely colors reflect in Lac Bourget. It’s the best time to be here. If you come in November, snow might already fall. Also, I miss you so much that I’m mad. And I’m so horny that I may soon ask the bucks to do me.”

  “Oh, oh, take it easy. Save some for me, honey.”

  The ensuing communication more and more gave the visit a “make-or-break” status, where they were not only to reconcile, but also to draw up plans for their future together. The plan that emerged was that he would come to her in June. They had agreed that they would try to speak through the arrangements for cohabitation at that time.

  The week before his arrival, their communication had ground to a halt. It started when he asked her a month earlier if she knew if she could get broadband access or at least a quicker type of modem, to her email.

  “Why?” she had asked.

  “I need it for my work. A modem connection is just too slow. It’s fine for simple messages, but sometimes I need to send or receive files, drawings and pictures.”

  Now he asked if she had made any progress. When she said no, he was taken aback and asked why. She responded that there had been so many things, so many communications, that she didn’t think it was so important.

  “For me, it is important to know if I can manage my work from your place or not,” he said.

  “Sure, I can understand that,” she apologized. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to look it up.”

  He felt that she either didn’t really want him to move in or that she didn’t think his wishes were important.

  She knew it was a fair request, but still she could not avoid also seeing it as an intrusion.

  In addition, she increasingly felt that she couldn’t envision sharing her life with somebody that believed in God. She understood his perspective, but at the same time, she thought that sharing your life and love with somebody so close, you have to have a common world view. She had tried to discuss religion with him a few times, but she felt that he was just seeking refuge behind his faith, behind his belief, and there was not much to discuss. Sometimes he tried to explain in a rational way what he meant, but as soon as she pressed ahead, he resorted to his belief, stating that you can’t prove or falsify the existence of God by logical reasoning. She felt he was excluding her by his way of reasoning.

  She knew there were many couples of mixed faith or where one believed and one didn't, and it could work well. For them, she thought., For me, it is really much more important. Olaf had once said that it was weird that disproving his belief was much more important for her than it was for him that she believed in God. She thought that it was more a sign of the arrogance that comes with religion, that He is there regardless if we believe in him or not. Olaf once actually said, “He will be there when you need him, regardless if you believe in him or not.” Such a statement just provoked her anger.

  Sitting on the train, Olaf thought about the farm. There was a big chunk of land to Ronia’s place, ten hectares of farm land and fifteen hectares of forest, or for a Swede, it was rather shrub land. Olaf didn’t have much of an idea of farming and forestry, but he saw an interesting challenge in trying to make the shrub land into a forest. The farm land was rented out to a goat farm, and would continue to be. The goats were also grazing the forest, and Olaf knew that cutting down the forest and the goats’ subsequent grazing were supposedly the reason why most of the Mediterranean area today was barren. He had done a bit of reading on the topic to be well prepared.

  Ronia wouldn’t agree to exclude those cute goats from her shrubs, which they apparently enjoyed so much, just because some Swedish goat-hater blamed them for the collapse of the Roman Empire or some other far-fetched ideas. To pave the ground, he brought her a copy of L'homme qui plantait des arbres (The Man Who Planted Trees), the story of Elzéard Bouffier, a shepherd who single-handedly reforested a valley close to Chindrieux. He had come to understand that the story, which is told as if it is true, was just made up—but it is still a very nice story.

  This led him to his belief in God. Is that also just a nice story that I want to believe in? He realized that as the belief in God was the centerpiece of the story, it was just not possible to make the belief itself into something made up.

  He was still upset about Ronia’s lack of engagement in checking the internet connection. Of course, it was a technicality, but a technicality that made a lot of difference to him. While he loved Ronia, there were parts of her psyche that he really didn't understand and that sometimes frightened him. Not many things were sacred for her. He didn't think that she loved him in the same way he loved her. “Sure, she likes me, and she says she loves me. But how could she leave me alone in my hard times with Liv? She takes very rational positions and leaves little space for love.”

  Looking back at his time with Liv, he admitted that he had loved her immensely when they first met, but gradually the love had waned, and differences over life and children had taken over as being more defining than the love. He would never, ever have believed that, when he stood at the altar with Liv. “Perhaps Ronia's view of love is the right one—but I don't like it and I don't want it to be right.”

  When he saw her standing there waiting for him, his fears and sorrows just blew away, and he smiled, rushing towards her. She ushered him to the car, a Renault Espace. Ronia had that kind of car for ease of transport with the bigger paintings. She used it rarely though. She went by bicycle to the shop and by bus and train to Lyon, Grenoble or further afield. She said that she had bought the supplies they needed. He planned to stay for a week. Now she wanted to make a smaller diversion to roads up into the mountains, so that he would see how beautiful it was.

  He said, “Whatever, I have just eyes for you, my love.”

  “That was the perfect answer most of the time, Olaf. You are improving your courting skills,” she said with a laugh, “but at this very moment, I actually want you to look at the landscape. See it as a part of me, if that helps.”

  The landscape was indeed spectacular. They drove over Saint Germaine la Chambote and on winding roads to La Chambote where the view over Lac Bourget was stunning. They got out of the car and stood at the edge of the cliff, looking out. Autumn colors had started, and the lake reflected the sky and the forest in a remarkable way. The sky had scattered clouds in such a way that it enhanced the blue of the sky, and the reflection of the clouds in the water added to the panorama. A couple of hawks circled not far above them. In the distance, the bells of cows were chiming

  “This is indeed beautiful,” Olaf said. “I can understand why you like it here. In a way, it’s hard to understand why places like this are depopulated and people move to cities. The quality of life must be superior here compared to Grenoble or Paris.”

  “Well, that’s why I live here. For others, I don’t know. I’m never sure if people move to the cities because they have to get jobs or education or because they actually prefer to live in the big cities. I guess it’s a bit mix of both. In a few years, half of the world’s population will live in cities, and a lot of them in mega cities with more than 10 million inhabitants. But then, I didn't bring you here to discuss demographics or migration,” she smiled.

  They kissed long. They ran smiling, holding hands, towards a big tree that could give them support.

  Back in the car, Olaf asked her about the broadband access, and Ronia admitted that she had forgotten it again.

  “Don’t you understand it’s important for me?” he said in a very sullen tone.

  “You said so. I’m sorry I didn’t do it.”

  “So why didn’t you do it then, when I asked you, asked you twice actually?”

  “There were so many things to do and organize. Also I don’t understand these technical things. I was afraid of asking the wrong question, then telling yo
u that it will work, or that it wouldn’t work, even if it’s not right. I’m sorry. Let’s call together tomorrow.”

  The magic between them was gone. It’s amazing how small things can affect our mood, Ronia thought. Here is a man in the most perfect mood, whistling while walking in the park, seeing the birds and the beautiful flowers under the canopy of lush green trees. And, oops, he steps into some dog poo. He swears. He breaks a stick from a bush to try to scrape it away. He thinks about the meeting he will have in ten minutes time. “Now my shoes will stink when I get there. It will be so embarrassing. The whole meeting will be a failure.” And there is the woman meeting her beloved. She had look forward to it, full of warmth and expectations. She is a bit late as she spent time on making herself attractive to him and his greeting is, “Why are you so late? I was about to leave.” In that moment, all her cheerfulness is blown away like the seeds of a dandelion. Sure, they will land somewhere else and on somebody else, and that somebody will be happy for a short while until she forgets her glasses on the train, or breaks a nail.

  The descent to the lake was scary, Olaf thought. The road was narrow, curved and steep, but the view remained spectacular. They sat in silence for the rest of the ride until Ronia pulled over to the side after a bend. One could see across a valley, and on the opposite side there was a hamlet.

  “There, the brownish house on the left side with the white silo, with the trees around. That is la Fournier, my home.”

  “Oh, it looks lovely and the surroundings as well. So where is the land?”

  “It is mainly behind the house, up that forested hill. You see the farm further up. That is la Chevreau, the farm of Monsieur Chamareau, the man whose goats are grazing my land. They are there now, but it is a bit to far to discern them.”

  The sun was setting as they entered the compound.

  Rome, April 2013

  She had been thinking a lot. Was it possible to feel friendship after such an ending? And what had really ruined their relationship? Could one love too much, as she had told Olaf, or was that nonsense? Did they blow it? She had long ago told Zlatko and Snežana about her affair with Olaf. She felt it was easier for her to speak with Zlatko than with Snežana. Snežana was just such a hopeless romantic in her eyes, while Zlatko was much more down to earth. So while she told both of them, she had saved the details and her agony of the outcome for a time when she was alone with Zlatko. That must have been in the mid-2000s. Of course, he had sided with his mother, but he also pointed out to her that “Perhaps you are not so easy to live with, you know? You have very strong opinions about most things. You seem to believe you can command love and life in the same way as you control the people on your canvases.”

  She responded, “Zlatko, I wish I could,” and cried, cried openly for the first and last time in the presence of her son.

  Zlatko was mortified. What son isn’t, in the face of his mother crying? It was never the task of children to comfort their parents, as little as it is for parents to bury their children.

  She composed herself. “I’m sorry, Zlatko. It’s not fair of me to burden you with this. You surely have enough with your own life choices and dramas.”

  He had recently ended a relationship with another boy, his first real love relationship ever. He had quite late realized that his interest was more with his own sex than with girls. Ronia had cursed herself for not realizing it earlier so that she could have helped him come to terms with it. It had taken a long time before he even told her. In that sense, she was happy that she had some experiences with other women, as she immediately could tell him that she had done it herself. Even if her final conclusion was that it was nothing for her, it was a signal that she fully could understand him, the signal he needed most of all in those difficult times. Now, years later, he was almost a missionary for homosexuality.

  “You know, perhaps you never let that feeling for women you had bloom. Perhaps you should try it again?”

  “No, Zlatko, it just doesn’t do it for me.”

  “In any case, that guy must be a real idiot to dump you.”

  “He didn’t dump me, and I didn’t dump him, we just marched together, side by side, towards the cliff, and we fell together. We fell long and hard. We were the biggest idiots in history.”

  “But if you feel like that, why don’t you contact him again? Is it really too late?”

  “I don’t think we can undo such things, Zlatko. When you slaughter a goat, it is dead. You can regret it, but you can’t bring it back. When you pull a tooth, it is gone. You can put in an artificial one with a titan screw, but it is not the same tooth any longer. We both behaved badly, we lacked the right perspective, but the damage is done, and what we did would always be a thorn. Even if both of us apologized. Besides, I know he has married again.”

  She thought about that last meeting in Rome. What had gone wrong? Wasn’t it she that made it happen? Yes, it was, but that she made it happen didn’t mean it was her fault. He had let it happen. He was as much cause of the disaster as she was.

  After Olaf left her in the restaurant, Ronia sat there crying. After a while, she composed herself, went to the bathroom, washed her face, looked long into the mirror. “What else could I do?” she asked herself? “Nothing,” she responded. She knew it wasn’t true. Of course, she could have done things a lot differently, but it wouldn’t be her. She could avoid her rationality, she could skip over things, but now when things between them had started to be serious, she found she had to be herself, that violating herself, her personality and her values, just to make Olaf happy would be the first step on a slippery slope.

  Love certainly is great and a great feeling, but it can’t come with a sacrifice of myself, she thought.

  As if in trance, she paid the bill and walked towards the hotel. She picked up the key, the receptionist giving her an inquiring look, but he didn’t ask anything. On closing the door, she burst out into heavy sobbing with no end to it. She cried and cried. She went into the shower, sat down embracing her knees with the hot water flowing, tears still falling. After a long time, she turned off the faucet, wrapped herself in a towel. She opened a bottle of wine, a bottle of Amarone that they bought earlier to share. She drank a glass, emptied another one, still crying. The wine mixed with her tears, which gave it a metallic taste. Still, she could neither stop crying nor drinking.

  “Ronia, you know, sometimes I feel that we are so close but still so far apart. Ninety percent of us are just so much in love. We are on the same wavelength, we have the same values and we like to do the same things. And the love making is fabulous. But then there is the other ten percent, the view of children, the view on religion. Reason, instinct and heart, emotions, seem to blend very differently in our bodies, and both of us are so stubborn that we never let go,” Olaf had said once after a fantastic session of love making. She had objected vaguely, even if she knew he was right. So even if they both knew where the problem was, they didn’t seem to be able to do anything about it.

  And surely, now, almost fifteen years later, was not the time to revisit this, to try to make sense out of what couldn’t make sense then. Or?

  “Dear Olaf,” she wrote.

  Chindrieux, October 1998

  First they looked around in the house. He noted that her bed was rather narrow and not so fitting for them both to sleep in. She showed him the other bedroom with two guest beds, which could easily be moved together. “I thought we could sleep here,” she explained. “It has a better view than my bedroom, but not the morning sun.” In the studio, he for the first time saw her paintings in the making. There was one big painting on the easel.

  There were two more sketches on other easels. One of them had a child in the center. A girl of perhaps six, looking out over a garden where a woman, the mother? was tending her roses and a man, the father? was sitting in an armchair reading. The expression of the girl was one of terror, even if there was nothing in the picture giving cause for that terror. Olaf found himself thinking that pe
rhaps the man was beating the woman, that this was the “lull before the storm.” But there was nothing he could point to in the painting supporting that.

  He realized that it was these kinds of thoughts that made Ronia’s art alive, that it raised more questions than it answered. The paintings didn't leave you alone. He told her so.

  She said that he probably had a point, but that she herself never engaged in discussions about her paintings and their inner true meaning. She didn’t have a particular such meaning formed in her head when she drew the sketches, and she thought that people saw too many different things in them. She also recognized the value that people got all these associations from her art. But she would not be the referee to say what was right or wrong. She herself often interpreted her own paintings in many different ways, and rarely did they mean the same four years after production than at the time of painting. In any case, she was glad that Olaf tried to see something in her art and that what he saw was not too outlandish.

  Ronia pointed to two paintings standing against the wall: “Those are made on order for a client. Mostly I don’t do that. I paint, I expose and I sell, but now and then somebody comes with a special request that I fancy. These two are for the Armenian association of North America, or they are for a private person, but he intends to donate them to the association. The motifs are therefore quite uniquely Armenian.