by Heldt,Dora
She disappeared into the changing room, yanking the curtain shut behind her with much more force than was necessary.
Gabi gave the saleswoman an encouraging smile and gestured toward the changing room.
“She’ll be back in three months. I promise. Perhaps you can hold the pants until then?”
“Oh, we can’t do it for longer than two, three days…”
“It was a joke.”
The saleswoman looked at Gabi uncertainly. Ruth, who had just come out of the cubicle, laid an armful of pants and jackets down on the chair.
“Unfortunately, the pants were cut badly, and I didn’t like the rest. Good-bye for now.”
She linked arms with Gabi. “Come on, let’s look for a café. I need something to drink.”
As they left the shop, Gabi stretched her hand out behind her and held up three fingers. The bewildered shop assistant shook her head thoughtfully.
Half an hour later, Gabi and Ruth were sitting in a small café. Ruth stirred sweetener into her espresso and lit a cigarette.
“I have never been a size ten in my whole life. She’s crazy.”
Gabi unwrapped a cookie from its aluminum foil. “Of course. But Ruth, for heaven’s sake, you’re so slim and willowy, it doesn’t matter in the slightest what the label says.”
“It matters to me. I’m getting fat. That’s what happens when you’re over thirty and in a relationship. It’s a statistical fact that women in relationships put on weight quicker than single women do.”
Gabi shook her head. “Well, then maybe you should separate from Karsten; then you’d lose weight.”
“So you think I’ve put on weight, too?”
“Ruth, please! No, at least not that I can see. I only said that because you’re obsessing about it.”
“Maybe I really should separate from Karsten,” said Ruth, then looked into Gabi’s amazed face. She started to stir her espresso again. “No, I’m serious. The putting on weight is just symbolic. I’ve had enough. We’re like an old married couple. Karsten spends the whole day in the clinic with his X-ray equipment, looking at strangers’ insides. But he has no idea of what’s inside me.”
Gabi unwrapped Ruth’s cookie. “And, what is?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just that life has gotten so boring. Karsten comes home, cooks, eats, sits in front of his computer, then goes to bed. We don’t go to parties anymore or meet new people; we don’t do anything exciting at all. Every day it’s the same old shit. I’m tired of it.”
“Ruth, you go on vacation twice a year, you have an apartment on Sylt, a 1500-square-foot apartment in Eppendorf, and he’s a really good guy. What more do you want?”
Ruth looked at Gabi, irritated. “Sure, the holidays, great. Two weeks in Tuscany in the summer so Karsten can recharge, and skiing in winter, always with the same group we’ve been with for the last five years. The apartment on Sylt belongs to him and his brother, and we have to arrange everything with him. And the ‘good guy,’ as you call him, is always dog-tired.”
Gabi wanted to say something in response but stopped herself. There was no point. Ruth looked at her thoughtfully.
“It’s fine for you. You can do whatever you want. Your husband works in Frankfurt and you only see him on weekends. You have no idea how much I envy you; Karsten is under my feet every day.”
Sometimes Gabi had the burning impulse to give Ruth a good slap. Yet again, she resisted. Instead she said, in her nicest “friend” voice: “It’s not easy for me either, especially during the week, when…”
Ruth interrupted her, not even seeming to realize that she had. “A few weeks ago I met a really nice guy. Markus. He’s a photographer from Cologne. We both went to the exhibition I wrote about in that article. His pictures were exhibited there—it was really intense.”
“Him or the pictures?”
“Both. Anyway, we went for a beer afterwards. He was staying in a hotel, and well…we both got pretty smashed, so I went back with him. Gabi, it was the best night I’ve had in years.”
Gabi took a cigarette from Ruth’s pack. She had actually given up three years ago, and now only smoked in exceptional circumstances. She had a feeling she knew what was coming next.
“I didn’t think you smoked anymore. Never mind, anyway, I wanted to ask you for a favor, between friends, as it were.”
So that was the reason she had wanted them to go shopping together. Gabi had been surprised when Ruth suggested it. They hadn’t seen each other outside of work for a while now.
“Markus has just gotten a commission with a Hamburg ad firm. He’s starting on Monday and will be there for three weeks. I’ve told Karsten you’re not doing too well at the moment, because you’re by yourself during the week, and that we’re meeting up regularly again. And that I’ll be staying overnight with you sometimes.”
“And he believed that nonsense?”
Ruth looked at Gabi reproachfully. “Why are you getting so aggressive? Of course Karsten believes me. You know what a dope he can be sometimes. Come on, Gabi, you’re my friend, and I need some fun in my life again. You don’t have to worry about me; I’m not in love with Markus. He’s just so exciting, and my sex life has gotten so awful. I’m too young to be put out to pasture.”
“Ruth, I’m not worried about you, I’m worried about Karsten. He doesn’t deserve this.”
“Karsten won’t ever find out. And maybe a little affair will do our relationship good. All you have to do is say the right thing if you run into Karsten and he asks you about it. Come on, Gabi, please, help me out.”
Gabi stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette. She felt sick. She had known Ruth for over ten years, had been working with her in the same publishing house all that time, and she had wanted them to be friends from the beginning. Right now though, she had no idea why.
Ruth’s voice sounded almost pleading. “Gabi, I know what I’m doing. I’ll owe you.”
She reached for Gabi’s hand, looking excited and ten years younger. Like she used to.
“And you probably won’t even run into Karsten, so all you need to do is keep this to yourself, OK?”
She gestured to the waiter and ordered two glasses of champagne. Once it arrived, she passed Gabi a glass, then raised her own.
“And? Say something.”
Gabi cleared her throat. “I think it’s terrible, but I’m not your conscience, and you’re old enough to make your own mistakes.”
Ruth smiled contentedly. “Gabi, thank you. Here’s to our friendship. This is what friends are for. Cheers, sweetheart.”
To Gabi, the champagne tasted flat.
Cuxhaven
Marleen put the third bowl of ground meat on the table and, hearing a noise, looked out the open window. They were already there. Three older women, leaning their bicycles carefully against the wall and locking them up.
“Mathilde, aren’t you locking yours?’
“No, my son got me this insurance policy, so if my bike gets stolen I get the money to buy myself a new one. And this one is getting old.”
“But it won’t get stolen here.”
“So why are you locking yours then?”
Marleen couldn’t hear Anneliese’s answer. A moment later the door opened and they were standing in the pub.
“Good morning! Is it just the three of you today?”
They stopped for a moment in front of the cloakroom. Inge hung her coat neatly on a hanger and stuffed her colorful neck scarf into one of the sleeves.
“Morgen, Marleen. Gerda has sore feet or tired knees or something like that. She’s becoming quite an oddball in her old age, always complaining about something or other.”
Mathilde shook her head. “And Gerda is the youngest as well; not even seventy-five yet and she’s letting herself go already. She always did whine about the slightest thing. I told her, she just needs her hands to roll the meatballs, not her knees, but she wouldn’t listen.”
Anneliese took a white apron from her bag and p
ut it on. “Leave her to it, she has her funny moments, there’s nothing you can do about it. And we’ll manage with the three of us, won’t we? Marleen, how many people are you making the soup for?”
“For fifty. You can make a start right away; the meat’s on the table, and the coffee’s ready. I’ll just finish off the table decorations; then I’ll join you and lend a hand.”
“Take your time, child, we’ve managed much more than that before.”
Inge sat down, buttoned up her flowery apron, and reached into the bowl of meat.
Half an hour later, Marleen sat down next to Mathilde, who was rolling out small meatballs at an astonishing speed while holding forth on the latest neighborhood gossip.
Marleen tried to figure out how to bring the conversation round to Lena. But Mathilde took the decision away from her. She looked briefly at Marleen’s hands, then nudged her with her elbows.
“You’re not making rissoles, sweetie: use less meat. You young women have no patience. I was at Lena’s last week, and she made onion soup with meatballs, and they were huge, too. All so she could get it done quicker, but they don’t taste as good.”
“Where’s Lena living now?”
Inge took one of Marleen’s meatballs from the plate, divided it in two, and said in a lecturing tone: “Don’t change the subject. Look, they should look like this.” Marleen nodded briefly and looked at Mathilde expectantly.
“Lena lives near Kiel now. They bought a house there last year. Jürgen is so good with these things; they redid the whole place. He’s really on the ball, my son-in-law.”
“Say, Mathilde, do you remember Christine?”
“The brunette who married Bernd Kruse?”
“Yes, that’s the one. But they divorced five years ago now.”
“No, really? Young people nowadays, they’re all splitting up. Do they have kids?”
Anneliese pulled the second meat bowl into the middle of the table. “Claasen’s daughter is divorced now, too; her husband was a total drunk. It’s awful.”
Inge looked up, interested. “The red-haired girl? She was confirmed with our Katja. Just imagine, and she’s divorced now?”
Marleen tried again. “Weren’t Christine and Lena friends? They used to play handball together, didn’t they?”
Mathilde thought for a moment. “That’s quite a few years back, but yes, they were friends. Lena took some photos at Christine’s wedding; I saw them.”
Anneliese wiped her hands clean. “Was her wedding dress nice? I’ll get more coffee.”
“I think so, yes. It was a long time ago.”
Marleen turned back to Mathilde. “Do you know whether they’re still in touch?”
“No, something happened there. I’m not sure exactly what; they never said. I think it was something to do with Bernd or Jürgen. I try not to get involved. Why do you ask?”
Marleen stood up and grabbed four glasses and a bottle of advocaat. “I’ll tell you in a moment. By the way, I need Lena’s address.”
Hamburg
Christine was sitting on her balcony and staring at the empty notepad in front of her when she heard Dorothea’s voice in the hallway.
“Hey, where are you?”
“On the balcony, bring a chair out.”
Dorothea was already at the door. She put a bottle of champagne and two glasses on the table, then grabbed herself a chair. Christine looked at the bottle, then at Dorothea.
“Do we have something to celebrate?”
“Not really. I just thought we should drink some champagne together. We haven’t done that in months. And I’d like to know why.”
Christine looked at her. Dorothea collapsed back into her chair and untwisted the wire on the champagne cork. “Ready, set, and tschüss…” she said, her gaze following the cork as it flew in a high arc over the balconies and plopped down onto the street below.
Christine looked at her, shaking her head.
“Someday you’ll hit someone, and then you’ll get it.”
She reached her glass over. As Dorothea poured, Christine tried to decipher her facial expression. Something was up; she seemed annoyed, or at least indignant. Christine wondered what it could be.
“Cheers, Christine, to us.” Dorothea looked at Christine, raising her glass and her eyebrows, which gave her a mocking expression. “And to friendship.” She drank half of her glass in one gulp and put it down on the table.
Christine out her glass next to it.
“So, what’s up?”
“What do you mean, what’s up?” Dorothea’s voice was louder now, and she was looking at Christine with an almost enraged expression. “You’re not seriously asking me what’s up? We hardly see each other, we only speak on the phone occasionally, you never have time for me, you don’t confide in me anymore, I have to ask your brother to find out how you are, and then you want to know what’s up? If I’ve done something to annoy you, you could have said something. But what I can’t stand is this silence. I’m really pissed off.”
Christine was amazed. It wasn’t like Dorothea to have outbursts like this. She wondered for a moment whether she was joking. But the look on her face made it pretty clear she wasn’t.
Christine started to feel uncomfortable. She felt that Dorothea was being unreasonable, but she felt guilty at the same time. She tried to defend herself.
“I’m not ignoring you; it’s just that I have so much going on at the moment. I underestimated how much time I’d need for the columns, and it’s taking much longer than I thought. And there’s so much going on at work that I rarely finish on time nowadays. Last month I was away a lot, and when I was here I didn’t have much time. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Oh, come on, you can find the time to give me a call now and then. You always managed to before. If I didn’t contact you nowadays, we wouldn’t ever hear from each other.”
Christine took a deep breath. The accusations weren’t entirely unjustified; she hadn’t been putting much effort into their friendship recently because she was always busy, with work, with Femme, with the columns for Ruth, too. And, of course, with Richard.
“And it feels like you’re keeping something from me. You only make small talk; you never really share anything with me anymore. That’s not how close friends should be with each other.”
Dorothea stared at Christine angrily. Ever since she’d heard Richard’s voice on Christine’s answering machine, she’d felt like she was being deceived. It had been Dorothea and Georg who had invited Christine to that party all those years ago—the one she’d met Richard at. And when their affair started four years ago, it was Dorothea who had encouraged Christine to go with it because she’d noticed that he did her good, that she was beaming with happiness and deeply in love. After the first easy months came the difficult ones. Christine wasn’t cut out to be a mistress; the lonely weekends and holidays without Richard were hard on her. So Dorothea had been there for her on the emotional roller coaster. On bad days she uncorked wine bottles, handed out tissues, declared married men to be cowardly idiots, swore vengeance, and told Christine just how much Richard would suffer when she left him to live out the rest of his miserable existence with his horrible wife. On good days she listened patiently to the Richard-is-the-best-thing-that-has-ever-happened-to-me stories and encouraged Christine to stick with it: “Just enjoy it and see what happens.”
What happened was a two-week skiing holiday Richard’s wife had surprised him with last Christmas. Christine was bewildered when he went ahead with the holiday and the pretence of marital togetherness. Every night he sent longing texts to Christine, while she endured two weeks of veering between rage, jealousy, and devastation. Dorothea, in solidarity, got drunk with her, tried rather unsuccessfully to cheer her up, and cooked for her every night, just to end up freezing almost all of it every time. After a while, she had had enough, and told Christine exactly what she thought. She had ended with the words: “Now start using your brain again finally, and take a good look
in the mirror. Look at what you’re doing to yourself. Sweetie, you’ve accomplished so much in your life; why are you letting some asshole make you feel bad about yourself?”
It seemed to do the trick. When Richard got back from his holiday and came by to surprise Christine, she was unsure at first; then his good mood enraged her. He didn’t attempt to offer any explanation, and was just pleased to see her. But that wasn’t enough anymore. At the end of their argument, she gave him his apartment key back. Richard left, and Christine collapsed into tears and rang Dorothea’s doorbell in desperation.
That was six months ago now. After several weeks and various rescue attempts, Dorothea had managed to calm Christine down. After that, she had thrown herself into her work. Dorothea was relieved that chapter was at an end and Christine was back to her old self. Then, suddenly, she heard Richard’s voice on the answering machine.
Christine’s voice brought her back from her train of thought.
“OK, so, you’re annoyed about something, I can see that. But will you please spit it out—instead of beating around the bush we could actually be talking about it.”
Dorothea took a sharp intake of breath. “We could talk about it. Great. That’s what I thought, too, that we could talk to each other, but clearly I was mistaken. You’re not talking, you’re keeping a secret from me, and do you realize how stupid I feel?”
Christine looked confused. “I really don’t know what you’re upset about. What’s happened?”
Dorothea finished the last of her champagne in one gulp and slammed it down in the table. She tried hard to stay calm.
“Fine. Then I’ll tell you. While you were on your way to Sylt, I brought your mail up for you. At exactly the moment when Richard Jürgensen was blathering away on your answering machine. Super, I thought, his royal highness is trying to get in touch again. But it didn’t sound like that. It didn’t sound at all like you weren’t in touch anymore. In fact, it sounded like completely the opposite. But you don’t have to tell me about it. After all, I’m just your dumb neighbor who gets to clear up all the mess Mr. Jürgensen leaves behind him. It’s not like you need to tell me about anything. Thank you, Christine, thank you so much for your trust.”