Inseparable

by Heldt,Dora

  She was too old for these escapades. She pictured two middle-aged women, babbling to each other and with their mascara running, either falling asleep in a taxi or falling over stumbling out of it. Ashamed, she pulled her duvet back over her again and held her hands against her head to stop it from exploding. Just the thought of getting up to grab some aspirin made her feel sick again.

  After half an hour, she forced herself to get up. But very slowly. She gingerly made her way into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She always took her makeup off before going to sleep, even when she was drunk. So it could have been worse. Her gaze fell on her jewelry, lying on the table. She felt overwhelmed by relief. At least she hadn’t gotten married. Falling out of a taxi wasn’t that bad after all, not in comparison.

  She reached for her toothbrush. She had the day off today. She didn’t look as bad as she felt, and she hadn’t accidentally gotten married: maybe she’d have a good day after all.

  “The Aging Game”

  Last week I went to the hairdresser. My stylist’s name is Holli; he’s good-looking, charming, gay, and very young. Thirty years old at the most. Holli cuts and washes hair with passion and love, and gives his female customers the feeling they’re the hottest chicks in town. He makes them beautiful and confident; both men and women leave his salon with their heads held high and a swing in their step. Including me. That was, until the bliss came to an abrupt end the Wednesday before last.

  On that day, Holli bent over to peer at my hairline before washing and gave me a reproachful look. Then he smoothed my part down, gave first my roots then me a strange look, and said in a sympathetic tone: “Christine, honey, this won’t do. You were only here six weeks ago and now look at your part. Gray. Really gray. You can forget the highlights now. Either we color for real, or else…”

  As he stood behind me, his arms hanging helplessly and a distraught look on his face, I felt guilty. Yes, I’m over forty, I’ve inherited bad genes, and I’ve had gray hairs since I was twenty-five; and yes, I’m now so old that—bad genes or not—all my hairs are getting gray, and very quickly at that. I apologized, Holli accepted my apology, and since then he no longer gently highlights but colors forcefully, so forcefully in fact that my scalp has been itchy for the last two weeks.

  But that’s the only way my stylist can take control of my roots; it’s a matter of professional pride after all.

  Two days later I had an appointment with my chiropractor. My neck was hurting me, which I put down to stress and my old pillow. My chiropractor, Michi, is in his late thirties, very fit, equally charming, and has a twenty-six-year-old beautiful partner, who sits in reception with her model figure and makes all the female patients feel old. Particularly as most of them walk awkwardly or with a stoop; I mean, otherwise they wouldn’t need a chiropractor.

  Michi thought it strange that I kept getting tension in my neck, so he sent me to a radiologist. This very young, very attractive doctor bundled me into his X-ray machine. After that forty-minute-long ordeal he beckoned me into the consulting room so he could explain the results.

  I sat opposite him with my colored but smooth hair and wrinkles, and discovered that I have arthritis. Apparently it isn’t serious, just part of getting older—after all, I wasn’t exactly thirty anymore. At a certain point, the consequences of your youth start to show their face. With dignity, I stood up, ignored my backache, and got the address of a physiotherapist.

  I broke off my treatment with him after the third session. At the very moment when he explained to me that his goal was to take the tension-related pain away, and that my flexibility wasn’t the top priority anymore since I didn’t exactly need to go dancing at my age. He was roughly thirty.

  As it seems that I’m now of the appropriate age for it, I made an appointment with the most expensive beautician in my neighborhood as a form of consolation. She was very nice but somewhat horrified when she looked at my skin structure with the magnifying mirror. She said that I was clearly looking after my skin—in a tone that implied she thought I was only using water, a washcloth, and soap—but she strongly recommended ampullae treatment for the eye area. Very strongly indeed.

  Two hours later I left the salon, one hundred and twenty-five Euros poorer. It turns out that I must have reacted to something in the beauty products though, because my friend Karola, whom I saw that evening, thought I looked like I had a nut allergy. Pimples everywhere.

  We spent the whole evening in the Italian restaurant and drank red wine. Karola had no problem with getting old, she said, but just sometimes got annoyed when something new started to ache. The reaction on my face got worse, and my eyes were slowly starting to swell and close. Karola pointed out that it stopped anyone from noticing the wrinkles, and that it hardly showed anyway, only if you got close. And no one would do that. Then we giggled like girls, raised our glasses, and made a toast to the fact we would never be as young as we were in that moment again.

  When I woke up the next morning, I had a pounding headache, and the pimples had spread to my neck. I could hardly move, and my stomach was in a state. I staggered over to the bathroom mirror and concluded that I didn’t look as bad on the outside as I felt inside. I could care less about the pimples anymore, my eye wrinkles were still there even after the expensive ampullae, and my neck wasn’t too bad.

  What does really annoy me, though, is that I don’t seem to be able to handle red wine now that I’m older. Now, that does make me mad.

  Karola called at lunchtime. She reckoned the wine was bad; it was often a problem at that bar. Only cheap hooch, she’d heard. And she asked if I wanted to meet for a beer this evening. After all, yeast is supposed to be very good for the skin. Especially at our age.

  Cuxhaven

  Marleen looked up from her shopping list as she heard the sound of a car door slamming outside. She looked at the clock. Five p.m. She wasn’t due to open the bar until an hour later, but despite that customers often banged away on the door long before, pushing past Marleen with a cheerful, “Come on, we could see you were in here!”

  Today she had come in early especially to do the drinks orders and prepare the table decorations for a family party being held there the next day. Her waitstaff didn’t start their shifts until a quarter to six. She wasn’t in the mood to be looking after customers already.

  She looked at the car to see if she recognized it. It was a black BMW cabriolet with a Berlin number plate, and she’d never seen it before. In front of it stood a blond woman, locking it with a remote-controlled key. Her hair was piled high, and she wore black trousers, a light brown suede jacket, and high heels. The woman swung her purse onto her shoulder and walked slowly toward the bar. Marleen sighed and stood up. Women like that with cars like that around here were either real estate agents or selling insurance. And Marleen needed neither a house nor an insurance policy, just an hour of peace.

  The cabrio driver pushed down the handle of the locked door as Marleen was still two steps away from it. Marleen mumbled an annoyed, “Yes, just a minute,” before turning the key in the lock. As she opened the door she said, in as friendly a tone as she could muster, “I don’t open until six.”

  “Hello, Marleen.”

  The brown eyes under the blond bangs; the wry, slightly embarrassed smile; the voice. Marleen searched her memory.

  “I got your letter.”

  The penny dropped. “Dani! Heavens, I didn’t recognize you! Were you always this stunning?”

  She stepped aside to let Dani in and reached for her hand.

  “So, hello, first of all, I haven’t even greeted you. This sure is a good way of answering a letter! What are you doing here?”

  “Well, I had to go to Cuxhaven anyway; it’s my mother’s birthday tomorrow. My parents still live here. Yesterday when I was packing, it suddenly occurred to me that I could come early and give you the questionnaire myself. Besides, I’m curious and wanted to hear all about the search. All I know is what you told me in the letter.”


  Marleen led Dani into the bar. “First have a seat and tell me what you’d like to drink.”

  “Oh, anything, I don’t mind. What do you have?”

  Marleen went behind the bar and laughed. “I have a bar, so I have everything. What would you like?”

  Dani had to laugh, too. “So you do. I’d like a coffee please.”

  As Marleen started up the coffee machine, Dani looked around her.

  “It’s lovely here. How long have you had this place? Didn’t you used to work in a hotel back then?”

  “Back when?” said Marleen, putting some cookies onto a plate.

  “When Christine got married.”

  “Ah, well, that was fifteen years ago now. That’s right, I was still in the hotel back then. I bought this place with a friend five years ago. It used to be a country café that only opened on weekends. We renovated it, put in a new kitchen, hired a chef, and then slaved away like mad. But it was worth it; it’s all going really well now.”

  She came over to the table with the coffee and cookies and sat down opposite Dani.

  “You and that car of yours, you look every inch the high-flying career woman. When I last saw you, you’d just finished studying and were looking for a job. It must have worked out by the looks of it!”

  “Yes, really well in fact. I started in a small software company in Bremen, which was then sold to a big Berlin firm after three years. I followed it to Berlin and got really lucky. I’m now the personnel manager.”

  Marleen whistled appreciatively. Dani waved it away.

  “It sounds much more exciting than it is. It’s hard work, but the pay is good, and I enjoy it. But I can’t seem to get my private life together. Never mind.”

  Marleen laughed. “I think Christine said the same thing recently. You still have some things in common, it seems.”

  Dani looked up curiously. “Yes, come on, tell me. I haven’t heard anything from Christine in around, well, eight years or so. We spoke on the phone now and then after her wedding; then she and Bernd sold the house. I got a change of address card from her, but then nothing more. Five years ago she sent a card with her new address in Hamburg, and since then, not a word.”

  “Well, did you try to get in touch with her?”

  Dani smiled, embarrassed, and wiped invisible crumbs from the tablecloth.

  “No, not really…no, I didn’t contact her. I didn’t even know she was divorced. I just imagined her sitting happily on the sofa with Bernd and figured she wouldn’t be able to relate to the chaos in my private life. And after a while you get past the stage where you can just pick up the phone.”

  Marleen raised her eyebrows. “Sitting happily with Bernd on the sofa? You really weren’t up to date, were you! So how did you find out about the divorce?”

  “It was really strange.” Dani shook her head. “It was last year, and I was here for the festival with my sister. Suddenly I saw Bernd in front of me, seemingly overjoyed to see me. When I asked after Christine, he said she was in Hamburg. I didn’t really think anything of it. Until he started flirting with me. Saying that he’d always thought I was great, and asking whether I wanted to meet up sometime. I thought I was going crazy. Then suddenly Antje barges between us and starts acting like some hysterical housewife. That’s when I realized. But by then I’d unfortunately lost Christine’s new address in Hamburg. Since then I’ve thought about her a lot. That’s why I was so happy to get this invitation.”

  Marleen looked at Dani thoughtfully. “So, let’s get you up to speed on everything that’s been happening, and then I’d like to take a look at that questionnaire.”

  While Marleen brought her up to date, Dani’s facial expression shifted between horror, amazement, relief, and contentment. Once she’d finished the story, Dani was rubbing her forehead. “God, and I thought she wouldn’t be able to relate to my personal life! How dumb am I?”

  She leaned over and took an envelope from her purse, which she handed to Marleen.

  “The questionnaire. I spent ages brooding over it, and it unleashed loads of thoughts and memories I had suppressed for years. There should be some kind of law that people have to fill out a questionnaire every five years to make them confront the old times. You forget so quickly about the dreams and hopes you once had. And about how many of them you’ve managed to fulfill. It did me so much good.”

  Marleen picked up the questionnaire. “Is it OK if I read it? The plan is for Christine’s sister, Ines, to put them all together and then give them to Christine at the party.”

  Dani hesitated for a moment. “I think I’d really like to read the other women’s answers. What does friendship mean, what makes a friendship? I don’t know if I’ve ever grasped the importance the different women in my life hold. And how much we take things for granted. Go ahead, read it. But I’d like to see yours, too.”

  Marleen put her reading glasses on.

  Questionnaire

  Name, age, and place of residence?

  Dani, 43, Berlin

  When and where did you meet Christine?

  In 1984 at a house viewing. We were both looking for a new place and decided to rent the old house together.

  What was your best experience together?

  The first New Year’s in our house. We’d been renovating for three months and threw a housewarming party on New Year’s Eve. It was like sharing student digs with lots of other women; everyone loved it. We danced in the kitchen until 7 a.m. Life was great back then. I felt invincible.

  What made your friendship stand out? And what sets Christine apart as a friend?

  We each grew up and found our independence while we were living there together. And that made us feel invincible. Christine was always so gutsy; she was so daring in every thing she did.

  What’s your motto in life?

  Don’t settle, you deserve more.

  A friend is…?

  Someone I don’t need to make an effort with.

  What was your first reaction to this invitation?

  It’s wonderful. It was all so long ago now, and I want the feeling from that time back again. I was very pleased to receive the invite, and have been thinking of old times a lot since then. Some things really were better back then, and often a lot more exciting, too.

  Hamburg

  Christine looked at Gabi, surprised. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to have the day off.”

  Gabi went over to her desk and pulled her chair out.

  “Oh, you know, I just had so much paperwork to do I thought I might as well get it out of the way today.”

  Christine fixed her with a steadfast gaze. But Gabi looked away and shrugged her shoulders. “And besides, everything is just crazy at home.”

  Gabi pulled her jacket off and hung it over the back of her chair. Christine looked at her. She suddenly noticed how thin Gabi was. She must have lost at least ten pounds, was very pale, and had dark rings under her eyes. Christine started to feel pangs of guilt; Gabi had been very quiet in recent weeks, and Christine had gotten the feeling her colleague was troubled by something. She had wanted to talk to her about it but kept putting it off. Gabi hadn’t said a word either, and before long the moment had just passed by.

  Christine liked working with Gabi. They got along well but had always respected each other’s privacy. Christine had once said to Dorothea that the nice thing about Gabi was that she had a male attitude toward the working relationship.

  “Work is work and champagne is champagne, as my old boss used to say. I work so well with Gabi. We’ve never bothered with that girlie nonsense of trying to make your colleague into your best friend. She’s been to my apartment just two times, after giving me a ride home. I’ve never been to her place. I don’t have anything against colleagues being close friends in principle, but it has to develop naturally. You don’t have to be like two peas in a pod just because you’re doing the same job.”

  They did, of course, know a certain amount about each other’s liv
es outside of the office. Christine had told her about the divorce, and Gabi had once come with them for coffee when Ines and Georg had picked her up from work. Christine knew that Gabi lived with Thomas, who had been working in Frankfurt for the last year, and that she had two cats and went jogging every morning.

  Any conversations they had that weren’t work related normally centered around books and films, or sometimes harmless tidbits of gossip about their colleagues.

  Christine watched Gabi as she turned her calculator on and pulled her filing tray toward her.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked, as she saw Christine’s expression.

  “That’s what I was just asking myself. You don’t look too good. Would you like to talk?”

  Gabi looked briefly at the open office door, then back at Christine. “I don’t know, well, not here at any rate. What are you doing at lunchtime?”

  “We could go and get some food at the café on the Alster.”

  “Yes, that sounds good. Let’s do that.”

  The telephone on Gabi’s desk rang; she nodded at Christine and answered in a practiced tone.

  Two hours later they were sitting in the café waiting for their food. Gabi was already on her second cigarette, which surprised Christine. Until today she’d only seen her smoke just once, at the Christmas party.

  When the waiter brought their cheese and vegetable bakes over, Gabi stubbed her cigarette out and looked at her plate, her face looking strained. She trailed her fork around the edge of the plate, took a small bite of pepper, let her fork fall again, and pushed the plate away. Christine started to eat and waited. Gabi didn’t hesitate long before speaking up.