Text for You

by Sofie Cramer

  “You never brought anything to leave at Dad’s grave . . . ,” Clara suddenly hears herself saying.

  Her mother looks taken aback. “But for a long time I had that place on the dresser in the bedroom where I would put everything.”

  Clara feels a twinge of pain. Except for the photo on her nightstand, she doesn’t really have any place dedicated to Ben or her memories of him.

  Carefully Clara’s mother puts her arm around her shoulder. And after they’ve stood there for a long time staring in silence at the inscription on the gravestone, Karin says quietly: “You know, I loved him, too. Ben really came to be quite dear to me. You’re not alone in your grief.”

  Clara doesn’t know what to say. She feels a knot in her throat and swallows hard, but she doesn’t let anything show.

  * * *

  • • •

  Only looking back at it late that night, after she and her mother had had a very relaxed dinner together—just some spaghetti with pesto and parmesan—and talked a bit about how bad the mood at the agency had been of late, does the day Clara spent with her mother seem to have turned out halfway bearable.

  Clara had imagined the trip to the graveyard going much worse. But today she had even admitted to her mother that she was very glad, thinking back on it now, that she had taken the opportunity to say goodbye to Ben in the chapel on the day of the funeral. It had been Karin who had gently encouraged her to do so. She said it would be very comforting for her to be able to see with her own eyes that the soul had left the body. Having to get through the funeral and to see the casket being lowered into the ground was bound to be less painful for Clara if she knew that it was “only” the body that was being buried.

  And in fact Clara had scarcely been able to recognize the Ben she knew so well. Despite the head injury that he’d suffered, succumbing immediately upon impact, he looked unhurt and very peaceful, almost relieved even. But on the other hand Clara wasn’t able to see anything in his face that could have revealed something of his true personality. It was only his hands, lying folded across his chest, that left Clara with a pain that is still with her, that she can still feel deep down.

  Even though she misses the smell of him, his voice, his warmth—even though she misses everything so much, it is his hands that are most symbolic to Clara of the unspeakable loss she suffered with his death. They’re simply no longer there for her to touch, they’re no longer tender, they no longer provide comfort—they no longer move, even though, lifeless as they were that day, they looked nearly as gentle and familiar to her as before.

  So many times Clara had watched Ben play guitar, his beautiful, strong, and yet somehow delicate fingers plucking the strings. There were times when he would sit for hours on the floor in the living room and just play. Favorite songs that he’d play from memory, more difficult pieces that he’d pick out with the help of sheet music, and above all little disjointed parts that he would play over and over again, working through countless variations, till finally he had shaped them into a new, wonderful song that was wholly his own.

  Clara can’t help but smile when she thinks of it now. She makes a plan for this coming weekend to listen to all of his CDs, organize them, and maybe give a few of them to Knut and the guys.

  She feels like it’s getting to be about time for her to tell Ben a little about the difficult but also kind of nice day she had. Clara turns on her phone—she’d kept it off all day today—and with a sad smile, starts typing.

  sven

  There are few things that Sven hates more than stuffy hotel rooms. Which makes it all the more annoying that his old college buddy Philipp from Berlin picked this of all weeks to be out of town. If he were here, Sven would no doubt be out hitting the bars in Friedrichshain with him, despite having an early meeting tomorrow, and not here in this faux-fancy dump near Kurfürstendamm. Really Sven should be preparing for the two interviews he has tomorrow, which, between the preparation, the interviews themselves, and all the work to be done on them afterward, are bound to spoil his whole week. But on the train ride here it had been impossible for him to concentrate on anything. And now, too, his thoughts keep drifting off.

  He’s rather on edge, and he couldn’t even say what the reason is, whether it’s this small room and the far too greasy dinner he just had or the fact that it’s raining and he can’t motivate himself to go out and get a bit of Berlin air in his lungs.

  He hasn’t been in the best of moods lately anyway. It’s clear to him that the lack of texts from Lilime is making him nervous somehow. It’s been days. During the train ride he was this close to sending her a text, just a polite note to ask why he hadn’t heard from her in so long. But he couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t have immediately scared Lilime off.

  He wonders what could have happened. Maybe she finally discovered her mistake and now knows that the texts aren’t going to the person they’re meant for. Maybe her boyfriend is back from his trip and there’s no reason to keep fawning over him. Or maybe something happened to her. Maybe she’s fallen out of love. Maybe . . .

  Maybe he couldn’t care less about any of it!

  Sven sits down on the hard bed, reaches for the remote to turn the TV on, and at the same time gets out his notes and the research he’s put together. He’s a bit angry at himself for not bringing a good book with him. But he knew that if he had he wouldn’t concentrate on his actual job.

  After ten minutes of trying in vain to give the notes his full attention, he puts the TV on mute. Time keeps slipping past, and Sven’s uneasiness grows.

  He reaches for his iPhone and scrolls through his contacts. Maybe he should call David again to ask how things are going with his new flame. But the truth is he’s not at all interested. And that’s exactly what he most dislikes about himself these days: Whether it’s his friend David or Hilke at work, he has a hard time being happy for other people. He used to be far more easygoing; envy wasn’t a big thing with him. If something really great happened to somebody else, he was of course a bit envious, but he never felt any resentment. The way he’s been lately, though, if he were to ask David about his new girlfriend, he’d secretly be hoping that she was out of the picture.

  Thoughts like that are just sick, he rebukes himself. And this is even sicker, he thinks, as he reads Lilime’s number off his phone in order to dial it on the keypad of the phone in his room. He does it very slowly. Like a little boy playing with fire. First he hesitates, then he takes the bold first step, only to immediately shrink back again, second-guessing—until finally courage and curiosity win out.

  Sven doesn’t understand why he feels such an urge to make contact with an imaginary woman.

  But he can’t help it. It’s time to finally take action instead of constantly weighing all the arguments—rational, minutely detailed—that speak for or against it.

  It’s ringing.

  Sven can feel his heart pounding. He sits up ramrod straight on the bed, clears his throat, and feels completely ridiculous.

  “You’ve reached the voice mailbox for: 0172 . . .”

  Disappointment and relief flood through him. Voicemail again, popping up like an insurmountable barrier between reality and the world of illusion. Like a sign telling him he’d better forget Lilime.

  Sven sits there thinking.

  Suddenly he jumps up, pulls on a hoodie, and heads outside—he will take that walk after all.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Great. So our sushi place in half an hour?” Sven asks his friend David on the phone the next afternoon.

  “Sounds good. Looking forward to it!” David replies.

  Even though Sven is totally wiped after the train ride back to Hamburg, he just has to talk to a halfway rational person, someone he can hash things out with. Today was a sheer nightmare. Two long interviews with pompous CEOs who talked his ear off. One of the interviews took place ov
er lunch, just to make things more stressful. Meanwhile his thoughts were only ever on Lilime and her text and this very strange moment that occurred after his walk in Berlin last night.

  Almost as if he’d been expecting it, the first thing he did when he got back to his hotel room was glance over at his phone. He couldn’t find the nerve to really look at first—it just seemed humiliating to him to wait around for a text that wouldn’t come. And how could he actually feel hurt or disappointed when the texts were clearly meant for someone else? But when he was holding the phone in his hands, Sven suddenly had a feeling of certainty. Almost like when you feel relaxed going into a job interview or an exam, sensing that things are guaranteed to go well.

  When he saw that it actually was a text from No Name, he felt a mild shock at first—he was simply taken aback by this giant coincidence. The apt timing made it seem almost magical to him. After all, just moments before, as Sven was walking down Ku’damm, he had sworn to himself that he would finally ditch this fantasy named Lilime unless he heard from her this same night. And then the next thing he knew, all he felt was joy and excitement—the long radio silence had been broken.

  But when Sven read what was written, he was confused at first. He had to read through a second time before he finally realized what had just been revealed to him. Lilime wrote:

  I went to see you, at your grave. And yet you were so far away. Can things ever be good again? Without you, your hands, your music? With love, L.

  Now Sven, still wearing his suit, sits at home on his roof terrace. He stares up at the deep blue sky, at the white shapes of the clouds floating past. He loosens his annoying tie and takes out the list of all the texts from the past few months. Even if he’s speculated dozens of times about whether the man Lilime loved might no longer be alive, it seems eerie somehow to see his hypothesis confirmed, as if he himself were solely responsible; as if his fantasies had made it happen.

  Maybe this is my conscience finally making itself heard, he thinks. Because during the train ride back from Berlin he definitely started to experience something like joy. Joy at finding out that Lilime wasn’t spoken for.

  But her heart is. Her heart is clearly spoken for! And this again becomes very apparent to Sven as he reads through all the texts one after another.

  He stands up and leans against the railing. From here he has the best view over the rooftops of the city.

  It’s unusually warm this evening, and Sven hopes he’ll still be able to snag a table outside for him and David. Otherwise he’ll suggest they give the sushi bar a pass and head to a beer garden instead. The main thing is that they stay out in the fresh air and don’t waste this balmy night being cooped up inside some stuffy restaurant.

  Sven is thinking about what to wear tonight when suddenly he realizes that he’s breathing heavily; it’s like he can’t get any air in his lungs. He’s noticed himself having these bouts of shortness of breath for some time now. At first he thought it happened today only because he’d climbed the stairs a bit faster than usual—he was in a hurry to get to the list of Lilime’s texts. But his breathing should have gone back to normal by now. And still he just feels keyed up inside, nervous almost.

  There’s nothing for it. Even if it means looking ridiculous, Sven thinks, he has to talk to David about this whole thing. He’s spent so much time thinking about it, going back and forth and back and forth, that he simply doesn’t know what’s what anymore. He just hates being in situations where he’s not in control. And this situation is too much for him.

  What should he do? Should he try to ignore Lilime? Should he ask her—politely, but firmly—to stop sending him texts? Should he get a new number so he can just contact her out of the blue? But what then? Should he just call her up and ask her out for coffee so they can have a completely absurd and unwanted chat about how she lost a person she loved? Should he track her down in secret and make a fool of himself that way?

  For a brief moment Sven hesitates. Maybe he’d better tell David he can’t make it tonight. But if he doesn’t leave the house now, he’s just going to wallow in the same wearying thoughts that won’t get him anywhere.

  Newly determined, Sven marches into the bedroom. He gets undressed, hops into the shower, and tries to figure out the best way to update his friend in on the situation—hopefully he won’t look like too much of a dope.

  clara

  Lüneburg is actually wonderful, thinks Clara as she rides her bike through the Kurpark on Friday evening. It might take a lot longer than her usual route home from the agency, but on a warm summer evening like this one, it’s totally worth it.

  Up until recently it was very hard for her to leave work in the evenings and head back home, knowing that no one was waiting for her there. But at this point the mood among her coworkers is so strained and hostile that she doesn’t like being there at all anymore. A few important commissions have fallen through recently, and a lot of her coworkers are starting to get seriously worried. Maybe she should start sending out a few applications herself? She has been seeing occasional job postings online and in the newspaper, which suggests that the market for graphic designers maybe isn’t as overrun as she thought. Who knows what might be out there? On the other hand, though, Clara doesn’t have much experience outside the agency, so she can’t boast of having worked on big campaigns for prominent clients.

  Besides, she would much rather earn her money painting. That’s not especially realistic, of course—there’s no doubt about that. But she could try to make a little money on the side. She could hold courses to teach painting to people who are interested in doing it as a hobby. By this point Clara has developed her own technique using a special kind of sheet metal and other materials from the hardware store. The combination of oil paint and metal elements lends her paintings a very special quality. Katja and her mother have said so, too. Not that their opinion is particularly objective.

  And now it’s finally the weekend! And Clara is looking forward to having two days off. It’ll be the right mixture of excitement and relaxation; other than going to see her grandparents she doesn’t have anything planned except to paint as much as she feels like—hopefully this way she can stop brooding, for a while at least.

  It’s still very hard for her to switch off. Normally there’s something in her head that just puts her on alert about ten times every hour. Out of the blue, her brain will start flashing a message in big bright letters in front of her mind’s eye: “Ben is dead!”—as if the regular reminder were at all necessary.

  But even if she really wanted to, it would be simply impossible for Clara to consciously put what happened and what she’s lost out of her mind for even a short period of time. This is her “life” now, and in all likelihood it will be this way till the end. Like having tinnitus and hearing a shrill ringing in your ears that is only drowned out on rare occasions. Supposedly it only stops completely when you’re sleeping, if that.

  There just has to be another way in this life, Clara thinks. Even if Ben couldn’t find it, I have to do everything I can to make sure his death doesn’t end up being even more senseless.

  On bad days when she was a child, she would always create something pretty. She would crawl into the little fort she’d built for herself under the roof beams in the corner of her room and would sit there for a long time, dreaming: of a bigger room, a pet, a racing bike, or a princess dress, anything, until her tears dried up and she felt like taking her crayons and putting all the dream images in her head onto the page.

  That’s exactly what she’ll do this weekend. She’ll complete her seventh painting while listening to all of Ben’s music, and in the time she has to spare she’ll treat herself to lots of sunshine and fresh air and do a little research into ways she might be able to approach her painting a little more professionally.

  sven

  How romantic!” cries Hilke as she looks dreamily out the window. Then she lets out a ra
ther loud sigh.

  “What’s so romantic about a young woman losing the love of her life?” Sven asks angrily. Dinner with David was pleasant enough, but didn’t produce much in the way of results on the Lilime front, and so, on this Friday morning, Sven has swallowed all his pride and asked Hilke to give him her opinion.

  “Ugh, it’s so typical that I have to explain this to you yet again. You simply don’t have a clue. This is pure romance. This is life!”

  “I’m not so sure how death and life are supposed to link up here,” Sven responds in a tone of voice that he hopes will put an end to this tiresome discussion of the latest news from Lilime’s parallel world.

  But apparently it only makes Hilke feel even more inspired to dispense her clever bits of wisdom about life and love. She leans back and breathes in deep: “Svenny!”

  “What, Hilkie!?”

  “Stupid man! Okay, so Lilime is basically, like, ultra-romantic. Just think about it for a second! How much pain and longing must she feel if the only remedy she can think of is to send messages to her lost love somewhere out there in the beyond?”

  “It’s bonkers and corny, if you ask me.”

  “Well, I didn’t ask you! Because you have no sense of what truly matters in life. And you don’t even deserve Lilime!”

  Sven almost drops his coffee mug. He stares at Hilke in bewilderment. “I don’t what? Now you’ve gone completely nuts!”

  “Don’t you see that fate has served you up a dream woman on a silver platter?!”

  “A dream woman whose heart will be pining for someone else for the rest of her life.”

  “How do you know that? My cousin married again after her first husband died in an accident, and she’s happy. But people like her take much more care with their newfound happiness, because they know how precious it is.”