by Ruth Gogoll
"She paid me. She even set up a bank account for me. And it was always well-filled." She just didn't want to accept the truth!
"Yes, of course. Because she didn't want to lose you." I could easily understand that!
That word finally brought her to a boil. "Lose? Didn't want to lose me?" She looked at me with extreme aggression. "Do you all believe you can own me?" She turned away from me again with a jerk. "You pay me, and for that, you think you can treat me like an object. Buy and use. Own and lose." She laughed contemptuously.
I could not and would not allow myself to be drawn into that discussion. I knew that much of this could be attributed to pure anger. I stayed calm. "Who is ‘you'?" I asked.
She turned around so quickly, she almost tripped. "Well, you," she shouted. "My -" she stopped as quickly as she had begun.
"I'm not a client," I said. I tried to answer calmly. "I don't pay you, and I don't want to own you either. I love you." It was very hard for me to say that so calmly. I felt the fear climbing up my throat. She seemed to have lost all connection to and all feeling for me. Could I get through to her at all? She was still standing there, mute.
I had to say something, or else I would break into tears in desperation. "I'm convinced that she felt the same way." She didn't appear to hear me, or at least didn't comprehend what I was saying. "And I feel exactly as she did. I don't want to lose you." I didn't know how much of that was getting through to her. I hoped she would answer.
She didn't react right away. It seemed to me like an eternity before she spoke again, very quietly. "I don't want to lose you, either."
For the first moment, I felt like I'd been struck by lightning. I hadn't expected that. What was going on inside her? Was this just a temporary glitch, or did she really mean what she said? Did she even realize that this was the first time she had confessed her true feelings to me since we had met?
I went slowly to her and stood before her. I didn't touch her. She stood there, unmoving, staring blankly past me. She obviously no longer saw me or anything else that existed in the present. The images that played before her ghostly eyes had long since been burned into her consciousness. I waited.
"She was so good to me. And I needed her so much." If any voice could be called toneless, it was hers. "And then she left me."
I reached out my hand and touched her arm. Very softly, I began to speak. "She stayed with you as long as she could. She never would have left voluntarily, you know that."
"No, she went voluntarily!" She obviously heard my words, but they had a different meaning to her. "She just left me in the lurch!" Her rage seemed real, but it was still a bygone reality against which it was directed.
I held her arm tighter. "No, you know that that's not true. She thought of you right up to the end. She gave you the apartment, so you'd be taken care of." Actually, I knew that it was pointless to discuss anything with her in this condition, but I didn't want her to fall deeper into these absurd thoughts. That couldn't be good for her.
"Gave! She never gave me anything! She just left." Whoa, something didn't fit here. She had just told me something entirely different. And it had sounded very believable. What was the truth?
"Without a word. From one day to the next. Without a word." She sounded like a broken record. "I don't know what to do." The record went on, and she was obviously immersed completely in the past now. I could only guess what sort of horrible disappointment she was talking about now, but I began to suspect something. Could it be that she spoke of two different people? And two different times?
Maybe I could make a cautious attempt to find out what exactly she was talking about. I didn't move and spoke very softly. "What happened?"
It seemed to me that she wasn't even aware of my presence. She was talking to herself. "Gone. She's gone. How can she do something like this? I have no one but her. We've known each other since we were fifteen. I love her!" Her voice had a painful, almost whining, undertone, like a child who's been hurt and doesn't understand why.
She spoke of a woman she'd known since she was fifteen years old. That couldn't be the same woman who'd left her the apartment. But who was it then? In any case, she had left deep scars behind. Such deep scars that she did not appear today, so much later, to be over them.
"I love her so." She repeated what she had just said, this time with the most despair I'd ever imagined. It stung me. Desperation over one and then the other... Yes, I had to admit that I was jealous of them. I was ashamed to feel that way, but I knew I couldn't change it. Then she could still say it. She'd probably said it to her hundreds of times. And because of her, she could no longer say it. Vengeance filled me. Then I pulled myself together. That wasn't important now. What was important was to bring her back into the present, if possible, without falling apart completely. I smiled soothingly at her, even if she couldn't see me. "Love is so fragile," I explained, "but the memories remain. The bad ones with the good. Time makes the bad ones pale, and you remember the good ones your whole life. Don't you think?" I hoped to help her recall a more positive experience with this kind of gentle suggestion, but I had my doubts.
She laid her head to the side a bit and looked down at me, although I could've sworn she was talking to a ghost. "I was looking forward to this evening so much. And now...? What should I do now? The apartment is empty. She's gone. She can't have just left. Without saying anything to me." She sniffled, but I could see no tears. Then she repeated softly and disbelievingly, "Without saying anything..."
I felt so much sympathy for her that the tears almost came to me that wouldn't come to her, even though I didn't know exactly what was going on. Her voice had such a different sound from the one I knew, a sound that shook me at least as much as the whimpering in the clearing in Paris, when she'd told me the most frightful of stories. The recollection of that scene brought me back to reason. There was no sense in letting her languish in this state any longer. It didn't serve either one of us - her even less than me - and gentle coaxing from the outside seemed not to reach her, or worse seemed to make the journey into the past even worse. I looked at her. Her eyes were still blurred, not necessarily in the same kind of pain as back in the clearing, but she was obviously not there. I reached out a hand and touched her arm. Dazed, she looked down at me. Then a smile began to lighten her face. "You're here!" She came up to me and hugged me forcefully - not passionately, but more like a young, strong teenager who doesn't yet know her own strength and expresses her joy at seeing you again. I gasped for breath. It was clear to me now that she wasn't hugging me. And at that moment, jealousy caught me completely unprepared. I reacted automatically. I raised my hand and smacked her. I really got her. Totally shocked, I stared at my hand, which still hung in the air, and at her face, which was beginning to redden. I'd never done anything like that before, for as long as I could remember. I began to stutter. "I ... I'm sorry. I..."
She stared back, at least as shocked. Our gazes met in the air and didn't seem to be able to decide to whom they should return. We were both paralyzed for a second. Then - all of a sudden - she began to laugh. It was more than a hysterical giggle. It grew a little, then stopped as suddenly as it had begun. I was relieved. Completely irrationally, I'd gotten the idea that one had to give hysterical people a good slap in order to return them to their senses. And I was by no means capable of repeating that at the moment.
She stood there and looked at me seriously now. Her eyes appeared to be clear again. "You hit me," she stated calmly.
I squirmed. My God, what could I do to make up for that? "I don't know what to say." My stuttering returned. "I d-don't know how that c-could have h-h-happened. I'm - I'm so sorry." I could only repeat myself, so I remained silent. This was really a hopeless situation. It seemed that there were never two free minutes in which we could just be together calmly and happily. Every time, something unpredictable happened.
This time also. She laughed, as if I'd said something humorous. "Do you know what's funny about that?"
I shook my head. I couldn't imagine that in my wildest dreams!
"That I thought, in the first moment, that she was really here. She did that often."
The astonishment must have been written across my face. "Hit you?" I couldn't believe it.
"Yes," she said plainly, and turned around. She went to the sofa and sat down. Expectantly, she looked up at me. "I'm glad you did it," she remarked, very calmly again.
I was amazed. This calm, this sudden change in her behavior. It had only been a couple of minutes since... Nonetheless, I still couldn't agree with her. "I'm not," I replied sadly. "I hate violence. It's not me." I looked at her and awaited her reaction.
"I know that," she said. She smiled gently. "Come here."
I shook my head. I wanted to go to her, but I didn't want all of this to be swept back under the rug. If she just wanted to celebrate our reconciliation again...
She smiled again. "Come," she repeated. "You've brought me back to my senses; now let's talk about it. You want that, don't you?" Her expression took my answer for granted.
"Yes." I agreed, but although it was my wish to learn as much about her as possible, I hated the thought of being forced back into the role of the voyeur. Until now, that had always come to a very unhappy ending. I asked myself if it was worth it. To satisfy my curiosity. She was still looking calmly up at me. The danger did not seem too great, but still... "You don't have to tell me."
Her head moved slightly, as if she couldn't decide whether to accept the offer of freedom. Then she fixed her gaze on me again. "I've already told you so much..." She hesitated a little. Did she think it was too much? She sat up straight on the sofa. Her shoulders were even. "Would you like to hear it...?" She looked at me questioningly again, but she didn't look upset. Should I risk it?
I came to a decision. "Yes," I nodded briefly. "I'd like that." Was it just my curiosity taking over, or was it something else? I didn't know for sure. But shouldn't I also understand and be accountable for all of my actions? Everything I learned about her could help me to understand her better. And that was, in the end, what I wanted. I went slowly over to the sofa and sat next to her. This piece of furniture belonged in a museum. All the things that had happened here...
"You're dismayed at what I showed you, right?" She looked down at the floor in front of her, although I was sitting right next to her. For her, this was all probably quite normal, but in my world - I corrected myself: before I got to know her. Since then, a lot about the world I claimed as my own had changed - it certainly wasn't.
"Well, yeah." I tried to speak as carefully as possible. She recognized immediately what I was thinking about.
"You don't have to make such an effort at being tolerant." She turned her head and looked at me. "It is awful."
I sighed. "Yes, you're probably right." I didn't exactly think it was a question of tolerance. More of the capacity of my imagination. Mine was sometimes overloaded by what she offered. It was unimaginable. At least for me, who had so obviously led such a "harmless" life. Even if that had not been clear to me until recently.
I looked into her face, and a question forced its way out of me. "You were talking about two different people just now, weren't you? The woman from whom you inherited the apartment wasn't the same one who..."
"Who hit me, do you mean? No, she wasn't." Her face softened again. "Maria was a wonderful woman. She would never have done anything like that." She got up and positioned herself opposite me behind a chair. "That only now became clear to me." She looked right at me. "After you insisted on it so much." I shrank my shoulders a little. Had I had the right to do that? I didn't know anything about this woman.
"And you were right." She propped herself up with both arms against the back of the chair and bent forward. "She was no client." I could've been proud of my victory, but I wasn't. "I've always tried to convince myself that she was. Especially then. Then, when she didn't come back and I was firmly convinced that she'd left me. It was easier for me that way. I could place all of the blame on her." She turned around, so she didn't have to look at me anymore, and leaned her back against the chair. "Although I knew it could only be my fault." She went silent.
I stood up. "That's not true either! Does everything always have to be black and white?" She was making me angry again. I didn't want that. I went over to her, but stopped behind her. I spoke to her back. "Was anyone at fault for anything? She was sick. You couldn't help that, and neither could she. Can't you understand that?"
She turned around. There were tears in her eyes now. "Yes," she said softly. "Yes, I understand it now." That probably made her miss her even more. I wasn't particularly happy with my role. I wasn't exactly playing the advocata diaboli, but that's what it felt like. I laid a hand on her arm. "I think I would've liked her a lot, your Maria." For a moment, she looked at me calmly, and I was afraid the whole river was going to burst out of her. There wasn't a sound to be heard anywhere in the room. Then the corners of her mouth twitched a little. "Maybe," she said. "You have some things in common." The pull on her mouth grew stronger. "But with your jealousy..." She frowned a bit unhappily. I wanted to protest, because I felt, despite her sadness, that she was picking on me a little, but then I let it be. She was probably right.
She came over and hugged me. It was like a goodbye - but not to me. Now Maria could rest in peace. In her and in her heart. She pulled away from me and went back to the sofa. She sat down with one leg under her body. Then she looked up. "That was the one."
A shudder ran down my spine. I'd almost forgotten that there was another one. And I was convinced I'd already heard the less painful part. Maria was the good; now came the evil. Everything tensed inside me. I didn't know how evil. When I thought about the day outside Paris... I wasn't at all sure that I even wanted to hear it. I caught her eye as I went back to the sofa. But she was obviously prepared to tell me. So obvious that I didn't dare say no.
"The other one was my first great love - my first woman. Did I tell you that already?"
I shook my head slightly. I'd only guessed at that from the confused phrases she'd thrown at me earlier. She leaned back a little. I sat next to her and waited.
"She was a school friend. We'd known each other for quite some time. Really, since we were little kids. But then, we hadn't had much to do with one another." She looked at me briefly. Her eyes were clear and unclouded. Almost a little introverted. Nonetheless, she was completely there. "So it started when we were thirteen or fourteen. That's when we got closer. I don't even remember why. Suddenly, we did everything together. And everything meant going dancing, drinking, smoking: anything to avoid being ‘good.' I think that's still reasonably normal." She looked at me inquisitively, as if we were on a TV talk show and she'd just made a statement that required my support. I nodded in agreement. That had surely just been the usual teenage rebellion. I had some of that behind me as well.
"At fifteen, we slept together for the first time." It came out quickly and briefly. That didn't require any confirmation. It was simply a fact. "That is to say, she slept with me, not the other way around. And so it went on. I was barely allowed to touch her, never to enter her. She only did that to me."
I had to swallow hard. It wasn't easy to listen to a description of the things she'd done with other people. Somehow, that always felt like it should be our own private territory. Despite her occupation and despite all jealousy. And our relationship was different. She was describing the classical butch-femme relationship, very classical. Two women who played the man-woman game. Every relationship contained some of that. Even my own had had it. But not in this extreme form. That was strange to me.
I had been staring ahead, musing, while she said nothing. When I looked around, I noticed her eyes. She was waiting for my reaction. She was trying to guess how much she could tell me, how much I wanted to hear. I couldn't say anything, but at least my expression had told her that I wasn't terribly shocked. "I thought it had to be like that. I couldn't imagine any other w
ay. I only knew her." She laughed briefly. "Then again, that's not very different from the little straight couples at that age, is it?" She looked at me. I nodded. She was definitely right about that. "She began to talk about it more and more often, that she'd rather be a man. But I didn't find that particularly odd, either. She was always a very masculine sort."
I looked down at myself involuntarily. She punctuated that with another bit of laughter, though more cheerful than before. "No, there's no comparison to you. You don't need to worry about that." She smiled to herself a little. "She had tattoos. A lot." I wrinkled my face in a hint of disgust. She leaned over me. "In case it makes you feel any better: I find you very feminine." She kissed me on the nose and gave me a playful little look. "Although maybe a little -" she made a dramatic pause. "- tomboyish?" She acted as though she were really considering it seriously. I groaned. I really couldn't stand that word! She laughed when she saw that she'd hit the nail on the head. I didn't think that there was any doubt that she would. With her sensitivity to those things... Then she got serious again and brushed my cheek with her hand. She touched me briefly and then leaned back into the corner. "The interesting thing about it is that today, she really is a man."
"What?!" She said it so naturally, as though one was the automatic consequence of the other.
"She had an operation. But that was much later. By then, I was no longer in contact with her. Anyway, she'd already - back then, when she was still a woman - behaved along that vein. She had a group of girls, for instance, who were panhandling and turning tricks around the bus station. She lived that way for awhile herself. And from drugs, but I didn't find that out until much later. She spared me that for quite awhile. I don't know why. I'm sure it would've been easy. I would've done anything she wanted then." She looked at me again with that clear expression that seemed to say: you can go any time you want to. I wondered what she expected of me.
