Everything There Was

by Everything There Was (retail) (epub)

  The classroom had clearly been left in a hurry: ripped trash bags everywhere, stray strips of scotch tape on chairs, the red cloth wadded up under a table.

  It took a while before we found what we came for.

  The camera light was tied to a broom leaning against the teacher’s desk. The desk itself looked remarkably clean, considering what must have happened on it. As Barry started to untie the camera, I walked to the window.

  “Look, here,” I said. “A piece of curtains is missing.”

  I let my fingers slide over the exposed blinds.

  “Don’t do that, dear,” Barry said.

  “But Natalie looked through them too.”

  “We don’t know that for sure.”

  I let go of the blinds, Barry clicked on the camera lamp. “It still works.”

  “Yes,” I said, shielding my eyes with my hand, “it sure does.”

  Barry laughed. “Sorry.”

  He wanted to turn the light off again, but I realized something.

  “Wait!” I pointed to the camera. “That light; it’s shining on the window.”

  “Sure, if you prop it up.”

  “Suppose I pushed away the blinds, and it’s dark outside…”

  “What then?”

  “Then the light would be reflected in the windows.”

  “So?” asked Barry.

  “Streetlights…” I said softly.

  Barry picked at a knot in the rope around the broom. He didn’t seem concerned by my observation. Only said, “Shit, this thing is tight.”

  Only later did I realize why Barry had ignored me. It was his remedy for the “if/then” thoughts.

  If Barry hadn’t shown the pill bottle to Natalie, then we could’ve kept talking to her calmly. If we had talked to Natalie, then we could have convinced her to stay another night. If they had stayed another night, then we could’ve looked out the window together. At the streetlights that weren’t there. To then point to the camera light. Yes, if Barry had kept the pills in his pocket, then things would’ve gone differently. Although none of us have ever said that out loud. And when I kept standing at the window that afternoon in Kaspar’s classroom, Barry just said, “Where did that piece of the curtains go? Do you know?”

  Again we looked around us.

  We saw stacked chairs. A toppled table. On the sink was the cutlery Kaspar had gotten. And next to it a trash can. A trash can with white fabric poking out.

  “Ah,” Barry pointed, “so, there.”

  With a quick jerk he pulled the piece of fabric out of the can. Careless. But I understood. There are people who will always pull the cord hanging by the door: People who are convinced deep inside that there’s a bucket of confetti waiting above every doorway. And who are surprised every time when it’s just the light that goes out.

  Barry stood next to the trashcan, the fabric in his hand. And suddenly we understood why the teacher’s desk had stayed so clean. The curtain was full of spatters, dark brown streaks, and red stains that had soaked right through. Yuri must have spent his final hours on it.

  Now we also realized where the stench was coming from. The source had been wrapped in the curtain. And was now lying on the floor in front of us.

  Retching, Barry threw the curtain over the pallid lump.

  “We can’t leave it there,” I whispered when we left the classroom.

  And that’s why we put the trashcan in the gym that afternoon. We’d stuffed the curtain back in, laid Yuri’s arm on top. With some printer paper to help everything burn.

  I still remember blisters appearing on the arm, disappearing again when the skin charred black. I also remember that the gym smelled like meat the rest of the night. And that that made me hungry.

  * * *

  And so now we light the fire every day. Ever since we ran out of printer paper, we use origami paper or books we’ve already read. And every time I see the flames, I very briefly think about Yuri, Kaspar, and Natalie. And about how different it was when they were around.

  In the beginning we might have been slightly cheerful about their leaving, somehow. We envisioned more food, fewer arguments, and more privacy. The first was right; it is thanks to Kaspar and Natalie’s departure that we still have pasta now. There are also fewer discussions. But there are also moments when we miss them.

  To miss someone means: someone’s absence proving more unbearable than their presence. I hardly ever missed Kaspar that way. And Natalie only since I’ve learned you’re on your way, because I’d have liked to talk to her about you. But Yuri, we missed Yuri immediately. Or really: We missed his presence, and what that presence did to us. Because to miss someone also means: Grieving the loss of who you were with someone else.

  With Yuri we were people who read to each other, who threw dice for as long as it took to move four identical pieces to the other end of a board. Who sometimes did origami for a whole afternoon, forgetting about the time or circumstances. Yuri was a catalyst for all those things; he started them or someone started them with him. And when he was no longer there, we stopped doing them. Because it reminded us too much of an blistered arm and a black baby carrier. But also because reading to each other and playing games suddenly no longer felt appropriate for our age.

  Later we realized: Age is nothing but a circumstance. One which, along with other circumstances, can create an extraordinary situation where childish behavior is no longer childish but necessary. And so we’ve started playing games again. But no Memory or Monopoly anymore, only card games really, and then just card games we never taught Yuri. We play poker a lot, these days.

  And then there was something else we underestimated right after Kaspar and Natalie’s departure. We thought: It’ll be calmer, soon we will no longer be breathing down each other’s necks; fewer people means more privacy. We were wrong.

  Put eight people in a bank and the man behind the security monitor won’t know where to look. Put four people in a bank and the man will intervene as soon as he sees someone make a suspicious move.

  Fewer people: less privacy.

  And since Kaspar and Natalie left, I felt exactly when Leo left the ground floor. Then I wondered where he was. And with whom. And what they were doing there, together.

  Day 107

  I dreamed I was dreaming. And in this dream – that I dreamed I was dreaming – we were all sitting around the fire. Leo, Barry, Kalim, and I: We stuck sticks in, like we were playing the fishing game and the flames were plastic fish with little magnets in their throats. There was the smell of smoke and charring: the smell of barbecue, the smell of vacations in Italy with my mother until I was eight and no longer had a mother.

  And I dreamed I was dreaming that I thought: Barry’s still here, he’s still sitting here and he’s still talking, so this has to be a dream. And after I’d thought that, Leo started preaching: God bless this meal that art in heaven, and then something bit and we pulled up our sticks to see what we got. Blisters, threads, tendons from Yuri’s arm; each a quarter, I believe I got a wrist. “We should at least try it,” said Kalim, in a language I didn’t know, yet understood. Then we all put a piece in our mouths and things ran down our chins.

  And then I dreamed that I woke up. And that everything was only a dream. And then I woke up. And most of it turned out to’ve been real after all.

  Day 70

  “Just stay for once.”

  “I’m looking for my skirt.”

  “You’ll never find it in the dark.”

  “Then I’ll light a candle.”

  “Shame about the candle.”

  “Are you lying on top of it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Get off my skirt!”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll go without.”

  “That’ll get you funny looks at the office: A skirtless woman at the coffee machine.”

  “Not at all, they’ve seen worse. Lily from the People and Paraphernalia department often shows up in bare feet.”

  “Is
that the Lily who always drinks the Café Vienna?”

  “With one Sweet ’n Low, yes. And now I’m leaving.”

  “You’ll get a yeast infection, biking like that.”

  “I’m taking the Maserati.”

  “Can’t. I drove the Maserati against a tree.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I thought: She can’t escape without the Maserati. Besides, you also can’t take your bike, ’cause that’s in the trunk. At least, if they haven’t stolen it out of there at the shop. They didn’t necessarily seem all that trustworthy, and mountain bikes do really well at the Vogeltjesmarkt.”

  “At the Vogeltjesmarkt?”

  “At the Vogeltjesmarkt.”

  “Fine, then I’ll walk to the Vogeltjesmarkt to buy back my mountain bike.”

  “Going down the street without a skirt on? They’ll call you names.”

  “Don’t care.”

  “They’ll call you a whore.”

  “Fine.”

  I got up, Leo sighed. “Here,” he said, “don’t forget your blanket.”

  “That won’t get me anything at the Vogeltjesmarkt.”

  I listened. But didn’t hear Leo laugh the way he had about the other jokes.

  Sheet in hand I shuffled through the dark to the door of his classroom.

  “I still don’t get it,” Leo mumbled. “Can’t you just stay here until it’s light out?”

  That’s exactly what I can’t do, I thought. And I pulled the door shut behind me.

  Had I stayed, I might not have lain awake now. Leo stays warm at night, doesn’t cool down like I do. Better circulation, more fat maybe. And with his arms around my waist, my butt against his abdomen, my thoughts automatically wander towards the dreams I had the night before; memories like a gateway to sleep.

  The routine now is: The four of us have dinner; the two of us go downstairs. To my classroom to get the sheet, to his classroom to put down the sheet, have sex, sleep. Real sleep. And: leave before six. That last part was only added after the fourth night. I mean: the fourth night since the first I spent with Leo.

  “No,” I said when we got downstairs. “Tonight I’ll sleep alone for once.”

  “Ok,” Leo answered, “whatever you want.”

  I wanted to go with him. But I thought: What if I don’t want to tomorrow? Or I don’t next week, or I don’t in nineteen days? The more often I go with him now, the stranger it would be not to go with him at some point. Because if I slept with Leo every night, then it would become habit. And breaking a habit means something. I didn’t want things to mean anything. So on day four I said no, that way “sleeping alone for once” would also become part of the routine. I was soon sorry. By the time I was alone on my mat, I was longing for Leo, or, in any case, for the habit. Maybe we sometimes confuse longing for someone with longing for habit.

  And I was also just horny. Yes, just the thought of Leo grabbing me from behind, pressing himself against me, and resting his chin on my shoulder already turned me on. Oxytocin, I knew; one of the most addictive substances there is. The first weeks after the bang, after fifty-three days without being touched, I had completely kicked the habit. But use makes a user; the essence of every addiction, of which lust is just a symptom.

  So I masturbated, that fourth night. Without the result I’d hoped for; whatever I thought about, whichever story I imagined, I didn’t come. Because suddenly I saw myself lying there. Like lifting off from my own forehead in a little helicopter; there I was, eyelashes whipping in the wind of the propellers, cold and alone, fingering away. And I saw myself laugh. Up in my helicopter that made me laugh as well. So I laughed because I laughed because I saw me finger myself when I could’ve also just been lying next to Leo. But I also laughed because all this meant I was playing the game again. The game that used to start as soon as I decided I had been alone too long. The game of not immediately going home with someone after the first date. Of only replying when he sent something. Of taking things easy, playing hard to get, not wanting so he’ll start wanting: the game of playing that you’re not playing the game. A silly game, really. Especially here, under these circumstances and after everything we’d been through. Exactly that was what made me laugh. The futility of what I was doing. But especially because I was doing it, I was playing the old game again, and that made me happy. And although it was against the rules of the game, I decided to share that happiness.

  I got up, yanked the sheet off my mat, found my door by touch.

  Leo’s door was closed. Strange, I thought. Normally Leo always sleeps with the door open.

  I looked in, seeing nothing, but hearing a man’s voice.

  A second man’s voice.

  Heavy breathing.

  And as I went back into my own classroom I knew: Today I lost the game. Because, apparently, there still are other players.

  * * *

  Was it a coincidence that Barry had come to Leo’s classroom the very night I wasn’t sleeping there? Or does he walk by every night only to turn around when he hears me breathing? That’s what I do when I see Leo sitting in Barry’s classroom. If they’re in the showers together, I pick a different time to wash my hair. And when I can’t find them for a whole afternoon, I don’t ask what they did when I see them later that night. That’s why I don’t know whether Barry and Leo know that I know. Or whether Barry knows. Or whether Leo knows whether Barry knows.

  But as long as none of us know what the others know, nothing needs to be explained.

  And so that’s why I leave Leo’s classroom before it gets light. So everything stays the same.

  People who want everything to stay the same are happy.

  I realized it the day before yesterday; we were playing poker. We’ve been doing that a lot, for food or services. Our chips – discs from Connect Four – represent an eighth of a piece of pasta, a massage, a night under the thick red sheet, or, in Kalim’s case, a song. U2, Bon Jovi, Springsteen; this is the best prize because it benefits us all and, as long as the three of us can keep from singing along, it sounds fantastic. Luckily Kalim is not a very good poker player; poker has different rules where he comes from. At least that’s what he says. Maybe he makes mistakes because he just wants to sing. Only Leo loses a little more often than Kalim.

  “How is it that you can’t play poker?” Barry wanted to know.

  “Never learned,” said Leo, “my friends didn’t play poker.”

  Leo’s first games went arduously. Learning requires glucose. It’s on every box of cornflakes, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. A lack of carbohydrates wreaks havoc on your short-term memory. And so Leo kept looking at the list of card combinations, confusing full house and trips, forgetting that there’s a straight flush as well as a flush, bluffing when everyone had long figured out which cards he had. Then he was visibly annoyed: about poker, about his cards, about the fact that he didn’t know what to do with those cards. He squeezed his lips together and clenched his jaw. And when I see that, Leo’s useless attempts to hide his frustration, I feel something. Tenderness. Affection maybe.

  I know, I know: It’s got everything to do with that oxytocin in my blood. But maybe it’s also seeing someone fail. Faced with helplessness, we often experience affection. When I see Leo flounder with his cards, he feels closer than when I’m lying next to him at night. Closer than when he’s still inside of me.

  The day before yesterday, Leo was about to lose again. He hardly had any chips left; the corners of his mouth fell at my second four of a kind. “Crappy cards” we all heard him mutter. I looked over at Barry. To figure out what he was holding. But what I saw was something else. I saw Barry looking at Leo, his head slightly tilted; an unconscious smile. And I also understood what Barry saw: The same thing I saw looking at Leo. And now I saw that, exactly that, in Barry too. And as Kalim revealed his cards, Leo mumbled, “Yes, yes,” because those cards were just a little worse than his. Barry looked at Leo tenderly, and I played my winning hand, I thought: I love you. I
love all three of you and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but here right now.

  Day 135

  “Good morning, beautiful!”

  “You sound excited.”

  “Yes, because it’s Sunday.”

  “And what are we doing today?”

  “I’m going to make you soup…”

  “And then?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Scrape the frost flowers off the window?”

  “Mwah, I kind of like them like this.”

  “Alright then. Is there any meatloaf left?”

  Day 72

  I’d circled today. I used to always do that as a teenager too, as soon as I got my new diary at the start of the school year. Strange really. I’d easily remember the date without the red circle around it. November 12th. My birthday.

  In all those years of circling my birthday, I rarely celebrated it. I really only started doing it when I joined our show, mostly because Cora from the network kept track; she made sure my desk chair was decorated, took care of the little forks and plates. The pastries you needed to bring yourself. Many editors would then decline those pastries: People working on science and health issues all day think twice before they stuff a greasy clump of empty carbs into their mouths.

  I remember a year ago, exactly at this time – four thirty p.m. – I was on the train. I had a half-full box of cupcakes on my lap and thought: The difference between being a child and an adult is that as an adult you’re only given cake on other people’s birthdays. I sent that to Barry too, along with a smartphone picture of my sweaty cakes. I got back, “Not really, Merel. People who organize their lives differently still get cake on their twenty-eighth birthday.” I didn’t ask what he meant, because I didn’t think the answer would be very festive. And when Barry sent a video of a tickled kitten a few minutes later, I’d already forgotten about the message.