How I Lose You

by Kate McNaughton

  Eva nestles into Adam’s arms, enjoys a warmth that feels familiar already, laughs at the sound of her bickering friends. They are quiet for a moment. They are all glowing in the sun, young, happy, lightly clothed. The college is beautiful; from where they sit, they cannot see a single building that has changed in the past four hundred years. Only the plants, the ducks, the people have changed. There will be nothing today but food, and drink, and conversation.

  ‘This is perfect, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I can’t believe we’re almost at the end of our first year already. It feels like we’ve only just started, but also like we’ve been here for ever.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It feels like this will last for ever.’

  ‘NA DANN, WO war das …’

  Lena – she was ‘Lena’ to Eva now, and despite the absurdity of her situation – a widow following the traces of her husband following the traces of her mother – she could see the funny side of it, how her imaginary love rival had turned into an accomplice sleuth who served her terrible cups of coffee – Lena handed over an open book, a wide spread of photographs.

  ‘Here. This is the family who ran Sankt-Michaelis-Kirche.’

  Eva gasps: inside the book is a photo of her, in black and white, looking very young. She’s gazing straight into the camera, and her eyes are defiant and magnificent.

  But Eva can’t place this photo: she can’t remember it being taken, and she can’t remember the clothes she is wearing.

  And then she realizes her face isn’t quite right, the nose is a little too thin and the lips are a little too full, and the arch of the eyebrows is wrong too, and actually none of these features are quite hers although they look very much like hers, and suddenly Eva sees it’s her mother she’s looking at, her mother aged maybe seventeen or eighteen, she’s never seen a photo of her this young before, but it is her, it’s definitely her, staring into the camera with passionate splendour.

  Next to this is a reproduction of Disputatio – though it is a different edition to the samizdat that hangs on her bedroom wall. But it also shows an article written by LUTHER.

  Underneath the photo was the caption ‘Hanna Stein, die Tochter der Steins, auf der Flucht in den Westen ums Leben gekommen’ – ‘Hanna Stein, the Steins’ daughter, who lost her life trying to flee to the West.’ Either the copy of the newspaper article was bad, or the photo was overexposed from the start, because she was covered in a hazy sheen that made her look evanescent, as though she had always been destined to disappear.

  Eva’s own gaze falls on to the next page of the book: a man and a woman, in their fifties, grinning on a church porch, surrounded by a small group of younger men and women. ‘Johann und Maria Stein, Pastor der Sankt-Michaelis-Kirche und seine Frau, kurz nach ihrer Entlassung’ – ‘Johann and Maria Stein, the pastor of Saint Michael’s Church and his wife, shortly after their release.’

  They were the familiar faces she had looked at so often since her childhood, always set into a single expression in the only photo she had; but here they were different, proud, defiant, but also the same, definitely the same, definitely her mother’s parents, definitely her grandparents, definitely recognized by Adam and handed over to her from beyond his grave.

  ‘You know them?’

  Eva looks up at Lena, dazed, words failing to come out of her mouth.

  ‘Adam said this is not your mother’s family, but it seems like you know them?’

  ‘No – I mean yes – no …’

  She looks again at the photographs. Perhaps she is mistaken? The faces stare back at her, their contours growing in and out of familiarity, shifting between strangers and blood relations, and for a while she thinks perhaps she is mistaken, it is just a passing resemblance and these faces are nothing to her, but no, it surely must be, the young woman is almost her and she can’t believe Lena can’t see it, but she doesn’t seem to, and she can’t believe Adam can’t have seen it, so why did he lie to Lena?

  He must have had his reasons.

  ‘No. It’s not my mother.’

  She and Adam, lying to Lena, conspirators again. They have always been on the same side.

  ‘But … the samizdat. I have a similar one at home. My mother, she wrote articles for them. Under the pseudonym “Luther”.’

  She points at the book, somewhat superfluously.

  Lena smiles.

  ‘“Luther” was the pseudonym of Thorsten Stein – the son of Johann and Maria.’

  Reaching across the desk, she turns over the page to reveal a large portrait of a young man with eyes just like Eva’s.

  ‘He was very involved in the resistance. He still lives in Pankow.’

  ‘And – how did Adam come across these people?’

  ‘He saw these photos in an exhibition and thought they are your family. I can understand why, this woman looks very much like you. But after he went to visit them, he said he had been mistaken. He brought them a photo of your mother and her parents, and it seems he had been wrong.’

  ‘…’

  ‘Maybe he had wanted too much to believe that he had found your mother.’

  ‘…’

  ‘…’

  ‘And – this Stein family – what’s their story, then?’

  ‘As I said, Thorsten and his parents were very involved in the resistance movement – this is why the parents went to prison. They were apparently planning on hosting a journalist from West Germany who the regime thought might be a spy, and Johann and Maria were caught when they met him. Someone informed on them. Their daughter, Hanna, did not seem to be involved in the work they did, though – actually, she was a very enthusiastic member of the FDJ, the Freie Deutsche Jugend, the Communist youth movement. But it seems she was not so happy with the regime either, or she got scared when her parents were taken to prison, because that is when she tried to escape.’

  ‘And – what happened to her?’

  ‘She died. She drowned in the Ostsee.’

  ‘…’

  ‘So, I think it is possible your mother knew her, and took on her identity. Especially now you say your mother claims to have written as “Luther”. She must have known the Stein family.’

  ‘…’

  ‘If you want, I can give you Thorsten Stein’s contact details. Maybe he will be able to help you understand what really happened.’

  THESE ARMS ARE monumental – each one as thick as one of her thighs, almost. She’s never been so close to such a strong man. But he kisses softly. Eva strokes the curve of a prodigious biceps. Ulrich spreads his hands on the small of her back, presses her gently into him. She thinks how many of Adam’s slender arms could fit into this massive one: two, maybe even three. She thinks that Adam kissed differently, tenderly as well, sensually, but differently. Their kisses were sort of on the same wavelength, whereas this kiss is new; it surprises her.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Why?’

  ‘I don’t know, I just … You must tell me if I go too fast, Eva.’

  ‘It’s fine, really.’

  ‘I understand if this feels strange for you.’

  ‘Honestly. It’s fine. I like the way you kiss me.’

  Ulrich smiles. It is a smile that lights up the world. He looks so serious most of the time, earnest, brows furrowed, dark brown eyes watching the world. And then this smile, a flash of Colgate teeth, mischievous crows’ feet.

  ‘I like the way you kiss too.’

  He leans in again, and she tries to lose herself in the kiss, to not compare it to Adam’s.

  Ulrich pulls away, looks at her, traces the curve of her cheek with his hand.

  ‘You are very beautiful.’

  She laughs it off nervously.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Why do you say I am being ridiculous? You are very beautiful.’

  Adam wouldn’t have put it so earnestly. They had a way of communicating these sentiments to each other, through quip
s and innuendo and subtext, saving the earnest stuff for really special occasions. Though, she supposes, this is a special occasion. She needs to learn how to take a compliment.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Would you like something? A drink, maybe?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

  ‘I fetch a glass of water.’

  He gives her another kiss and stands up. Towering. And walks out of the bedroom like a panther, dark and muscular. She is hit by the force of him, and a sudden fear: how much stronger than her he is, and of course he won’t, he wouldn’t, but if he wanted to he could completely overpower her, she wouldn’t stand a chance, and she tries not to think about how little she knows him, how strong he is. She tries instead to look at his bedroom, which she hasn’t really had a chance to register since they tumbled into it snogging, eyes closed. It’s weird – she’s been sleeping in the room right next to this one all this time, and yet all she’s seen of Ulrich’s bedroom have been brief glimpses through a half-open door. And now here she is right inside it. Not where she should be, in her room. Adam’s room. Adam in the room next door. She focuses on Ulrich’s room. A lot of history books. A cluttered desk with an expensive computer screen angled towards the bed. The mattress she is sitting on – does no one have a bed here? – a dark-blue duvet cover, clean but crumpled. This man does not iron his sheets.

  Ulrich comes back in, and again the image flashes into her head of his arms holding her down, and she has to look into his eyes, to remember she has seen them and they are kind eyes, but when she does she can’t read them: they are too busy trying to decipher her. He stands there, she sits there, they try to read each other’s eyes.

  ‘You are sure you are OK?’

  ‘Yes, really. Honestly.’

  Ulrich sits down next to her, and the only way to escape this feeling of how strong he is, is to move into his body. She puts her head on his chest, her arms around his waist, and he enfolds her in his arms, kisses the crown of her head, so strong around her, but now it feels comforting and the fear is gone. She can hear the beating of his heart, his breathing, and she thinks how until Adam died she’d never realized how precious these sounds are.

  ‘I can hear your heart beat.’

  ‘Ah yes? Does it sound OK?’

  ‘It sounds nice.’

  She turns her face up towards his. His eyes have a striking green ring around his pupil that bursts into the soft brown of his iris; they are exceptionally beautiful when you look at them up close like this, a movie star’s eyes. It was the opposite with Adam: the blue of his appeared weaker the closer you got to them, whereas from afar they looked like two dreamy little lagoons against his blond hair. Ulrich kisses her.

  They kiss for a long time, and eventually they fall back on to the bed, trying to pull each other’s bodies as close as possible. Eva is still wearing her jumper, thick and woolly, and she can feel what a distance it is putting between them, how its chunkiness is preventing Ulrich from being able to properly feel the contours of her breasts, but she’s not sure how to get out of their current embrace to pull it off. She’s not sure what the protocol is, really – she and Adam were so young when they got together. She puts her hand under Ulrich’s shirt and feels the small of his back, the muscles that stretch majestically out from it. She wonders what it would feel like to have him on top of her. She turns on to her back, and pulls him over. She lets out a breath of surprise at the full weight of him.

  Ulrich lifts himself off, makes to roll back on to his side.

  ‘Sorry, I am quite heavy.’

  ‘No, stay, I like it.’

  She pulls him back towards her, and he lets himself down slowly, so that she has the time to exhale gently, and somehow she finds a way to breathe under him. She can feel his erection pressing into her through both their pairs of jeans, and how her hips are arching towards him with a will of their own. Ulrich takes hold of her jumper and pulls it over her head, together with her T-shirt, and she undoes the buttons on his shirt, enjoying the feel of their smallness slipping out of the fabric, his warm skin underneath, the black hairs on his chest. Adam had almost no hairs on his chest at all, was only starting, in later years, to develop a few odd, straggly ones. She loved his smooth skin, and always thought that she would find a hairy chest unattractive; but she likes it on Ulrich, this light scattering around his pecs, and the line that leads down to his belly button.

  She fumbles with his belt buckle, and this is just like it was with Adam: the fabric stretched so taut that it’s difficult to get enough give to undo the flies. Ulrich undoes her trousers too, and then they pull them off each other, and the socks as well, and at last here they are, naked, warm skin against warm skin. She breathes him in. Ulrich kisses her mouth, her neck, her breasts, then looks up at her.

  ‘So, what would you like me to do?’

  Eva laughs.

  ‘What?!’

  ‘What would you like me to do?’

  ‘Um. Well. Er …’

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Um. I mean. You’re just sounding a bit – you know – transactional.’

  ‘I am sounding what?’

  ‘I mean – it just seems a bit weird to be – um – giving you, like, instructions …’

  ‘Why? I just want to know what you like.’

  ‘I know. I guess – I’m just used to things being, I don’t know, more instinctive …’

  She bends towards him and kisses him, to put an end to the conversation – and so she doesn’t have to see the confused look on his face. When she thinks about what she might say – well, the words, they’re just so technical …

  Mid-kiss, Ulrich pulls back, puts his hand on her cheek, stays put there. She can feel his face just an inch away from hers, hear him breathing – seriously, through his nose. It’s like the breath of a thoroughbred. He stays like that for so long that she has to open her eyes, meet his gaze. He strokes her face – so lovingly. So earnestly. Lets his eyes rove over her features, then come back to her eyes. It’s the same look Adam gave her sometimes – on the night he asked her to marry him, and then again on their wedding night, on the day she came back from the Congo and they both understood they weren’t going to split up after all – a look that does not try to hide its feelings. It’s extraordinary that Ulrich should have this look on their first night together. He must – he might – she thinks with some surprise – be in love with her. This is a terrifying thought.

  Ulrich kisses her again, so she closes her eyes, and then feels him kiss his way down her body until his tongue is inside her, and she feels an absurd thrill of pleasure at the fact that this would have been exactly what she’d asked for if she’d answered his question but she’s still glad she didn’t actually have to say it, and some curiosity as well because this too Adam did differently, and then she’s just lost in the moment.

  Ulrich kisses his way back up her.

  ‘Did you like that?’

  ‘Can’t you tell?’

  ‘…’

  ‘Yes, I did – I liked it very much.’

  ‘It was OK? How I—’

  ‘Yes! Can we – let’s – can we not discuss it?’

  ‘But why? I just want to—’

  ‘I tell you what …’

  She clambers on top of him, even though she could do with a bit more time to get her energy back. Anything to stop him dissecting his sexual technique with her. Ulrich seems to get the message, or at least to be sufficiently distracted by what she’s doing to shut up. They tryst. He reaches for his bedside table, opens a drawer, produces a condom.

  A condom. The last time she used one of those was, what? Five years ago? That time they were away for the weekend and she’d forgotten to pack her pills. And before that, well – not since the first few months of her relationship with Adam. Now, seeing Ulrich unroll the thing, she feels like such a novice: this is the world of adult sex, of mature partners in pleasure – responsible, guarded. She and Adam were children, really, all al
ong. She wonders how many women Ulrich has slept with, what acrobatics. With the condom on, he tries to push into her, but it’s not working: she can’t open up, or he softens, or both. He tries, she tries, they fail.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Ulrich is lying next to her now, curling a strand of her hair around his finger.

  ‘No need to apologize. I guess we are both a little nervous, no?’

  He squeezes his arms around her.

  ‘I am glad you’re here, Eva.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m glad to be here.’

  He falls asleep so quickly, drifting away from her into heavy snores. She tosses and turns, kept awake by the closeness of him. Sometimes a change in his breathing will register one of her movements, but she never seems to be disturbing his sleep; he is either so oblivious to her presence, or so comforted by it, that nothing can shake him. Eventually she gives in to her sleeplessness and opens her eyes: and she looks at Ulrich, this sleeping man – this story that is about to begin.

  ‘HAVE YOU GOT your video on?’

  ‘Oh, er … Yeah … Hang on …’

  Adam’s voice pixelates into electronic noise, while Skype tries to heave an image on to the screen. It blips into being, blips out again, then Adam’s face is there, frozen with his mouth half open while Eva tries to parse words from the ongoing crackle.

  ‘Ad, on second thoughts I think video was a bit over-ambitious …’

  ‘W … h … a – a … a … t – t – t?’

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  Parts of the picture start to shift, trying to follow his movements, while the rest of him remains stuck in the previous instant of time, so that he looks like he is dissolving into himself. Behind him, in contrast, their bedroom is in perfect focus: the slightly blue-tinged white of the walls they spent so many hours deciding on when they had just bought the flat, the print they brought back from Paris, a corner of the bedstead. Her home seems unreal to her after today.

  ‘I … c – c – c … a … n’t … ####’

  ‘Adam, switch off your video.’

  ‘####’