Entangled
Page 2
“Hello, it’s Aaron. Can I speak to Jessica please?” he asked, trying to sound as calm as possible.
“Just a second... Jess, it’s the phone for you.”
He could hear someone approaching walking barefoot on floorboards. The footsteps went quiet and Aaron heard a barely audible whisper.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Aaron!”
It seemed she remembered his name, that she had mentioned him even. That was a good sign. Maybe.
“Jessica speaking,” said the voice that Aaron had been unable to get out of his head for the last few days. He almost lost the power of speech.
“Hi Jess, how’s it going?”
“Fine. You?”
“Great. Are you ready for the exams?” asked Aaron.
“My eyes can’t even focus on a book anymore,” replied Jessica.
“Do you feel like taking a break? It’s easier to study with a fresh mind.”
“I don’t know, I’ve got a lot to get through still...”
“Not for ages.”
At this point he again heard someone whisper something. Evidently her flatmate had listened in to the conversation and was now whispering advice into Jess’s ear. He could not make out the words, she probably had her hand over the receiver.
“Well maybe then, as long as it’s not for ages. Shall we meet by the fountain?” she suggested.
“Great!” replied Aaron instantly and then almost as quickly checked himself, trying not to sound too overjoyed. “The one next to the School of Medicine?” he asked in a calmer voice.
“That’s the one. Do you know where it is?”
“I know it. When?”
“Let’s say in an hour?”
“OK, see you soon.”
Hanging up, Aaron jumped with delight and almost knocked over the lamp next to him. The phone number had been real and Jessica was not averse to the idea of meeting up with him again! Could it have gone any better? Whooping with delight, he ran into the shower to make himself more presentable.
3
The rehabilitation process went well. Aaron had been lucky that there had been people nearby who knew first aid when the heart attack had happened. Before the ambulance arrived, they had not allowed death to take him away.
After a few days, his doctor, seeing that his patient was on the road to recovery, gave him permission to go for a stroll around the hospital grounds. Walking proved more difficult than he would have liked, but it was much better than just lying in bed and breathing the hospital air that was permeated with the smell of despair, disease and medicine. A nurse accompanied him on his walk, but that did not bother him at all. In fact, it was quite the opposite. She had a cheerful temperament, and he found chatting with her extremely pleasurable.
With her vitality, she reminded Aaron of his youth. Getting to know her a little better during his next walk, he sometimes even forgot he was not talking to someone his own age. His grandchildren were more her age. He amused her with his jokes, and her laughter gave him an energy boost for the forthcoming evening, when the hospital quietened down and he was left alone with his thoughts.
He was still haunted by his first disturbing memories of hospital, when Jess had been seriously ill with pneumonia. At that point they were not yet married, but had been seeing each other for a few weeks, their first moments of tenderness and intimacy already behind them. It was the day after their first argument. Jessica’s flatmate called him to say that she had been taken to hospital in the early hours of the morning after her temperature had shot up.
“What has the doctor said?”
“Double pneumonia.”
Aaron set off for the hospital immediately. Standing next to her bed and staring down at her blanket, which was rising and falling in time with her breathing as she slept, he realised he loved her. The period when he had mostly been interested in physical intimacy had passed. He was hooked. Imagining just for a second what it would be like if she died made his eyes well up. It took everything he had not to burst into tears. Aaron did not want anybody to see him in such a state. There was nothing to be ashamed of, but he felt embarrassed. Until very recently, he had not even known that Jessica existed, and now she was the person who mattered most. Of late, his whole life had revolved around her and nobody else.
His sniffling woke Jessica up. She opened her eyes and saw him standing next to her bed. At that moment, she looked particularly weak and defenceless.
“Hi, how are you feeling?” he asked.
“A little better now.”
“The doctor says everything’s going to be fine.”
Hearing this, Jessica felt for his hand.
“I know. You’re here.”
Having said this, she fell back to sleep. Aaron spent the next few days by her side, never letting go of her feverish hand.
When the danger period had passed, he strolled with her through the grounds, supporting her gently. She was so weak that she could barely stand on her own two legs unaided. It gave the impression that she had become quite fuzzy, as if the illness had squeezed all the juice out of her.
“When I’m discharged I want to introduce you to my parents,” Jessica said one day, looking Aaron directly in the eye, afraid that he would not like the idea. To her relief, however, he was nothing but pleased.
“OK. Then I can introduce you to mine!”
Jess laid her head on his shoulder. She had not been mistaken that evening at the student party. She had found the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
Meeting Jessica’s parents had turned out to be extremely chaotic. Aaron, who was not known for his carefulness at the best of times, was exceptionally clumsy that evening. He managed to knock a small vase to the floor as he tripped up walking past. It smashed onto the parquet floor with a terrific crash and shattered into a thousand tiny pieces. Jessica’s father looked at his wife pointedly, but said nothing.
Despite the rather unsuccessful start, however, her parents turned out to be quite pleasant. Her father spent the first half of the evening boring into Aaron’s eyes, as if checking whether he was getting ready to play some kind of trick.
Aaron, meanwhile, trying to conform to expectations, behaved properly and was more serious than usual. He did not dare touch Jessica once, but spent the whole evening trying to keep a bit of distance between them. From then on, it had grown into a habit.
After the second bottle of wine over dinner, however, the ice gradually began to melt. Aaron’s sense of humour even came back to him. Jessica’s mother was not a problem. She accepted Aaron into their family from the outset and visibly enjoyed his company. Her father, however, was a slightly harder nut to crack. But at some point after dessert, he finally smiled. The unassailable fortress had been conquered. The rest was just a matter of technique.
After her stint in hospital, seeing how genuine Aaron’s concern for her had been and also his anxiety about meeting her parents, Jessica finally removed the invisible shell protecting her heart and placed her trust in him completely. Aaron knew that one careless gesture or deed from him could hurt her deeply. Realising that he had been entrusted with Jess’s soul, something so soft and delicate, he subconsciously decided that he would never do anything to cause her pain.
Not everything goes smoothly in life. Human nature is such that people tend to quarrel or say things in the heat of the moment they will later regret, but despite all that, Aaron kept his unspoken promise. For the rest of her life, he never caused Jessica any real pain.
4
Another day in the hospital was drawing to a close. The noise of footsteps and conversations in the corridor was gradually quietening down, patients were dispersing to their wards, and visitors and medical personnel were getting ready to head home, passing the baton on to the night shift.
Aaron's ward was in a section of the hospital where most of the patients were of a certain age. Many of them could barely get out of bed without help. It was barely dark when the few who wer
e still able to walk went to bed, and they did not get up again until early the next morning.
Aaron could not sleep, however. He was not used to going to bed at sunset. Night time was also something to be enjoyed. The air was filled with the aroma of night flowers and the chirping of crickets. This bouquet of nocturnal smells and aromas reminded him of the times when a good half of his waking hours were spent in the hours of darkness. On the one hand, the night is disquieting, but on the other there is something enticing about it...
A gust of wind burst into his ward, making the night light hanging from the ceiling swing to and fro. The crash of a window slamming shut reached him from somewhere in the depths of the corridor, and rain threatened. The noise of the first few drops could be heard hitting the leaves and the window ledge outside, sporadically at first, but then stronger and stronger until they became a constant murmur. It is always nice listening to the sound of rain at night when you are lying in a warm bed.
For some reason, when you are in hospital, little things in life like this acquire a particular significance, they are filled with a deep meaning. Trifles like these give so much pleasure.
The wind suddenly blew stronger and Aaron's face was sprayed with a cool mist of rain carried in through the open window by a gust of wind. It took him back to the time when he had seen Jessica home after one of their first dates. They had been coming back from a midnight showing at the cinema, and every now and then the sky, which was somewhere far behind the city, flickered with lightening. There was still no audible thunder, but the storm was moving quickly. They still had a fair way to go and the chances of them reaching home before the rain starting pouring down were not high.
A night-time storm with rain seemed like a gift after the mugginess of the day, but they had absolutely no desire to get soaked to the skin. They quickened their pace, but the rain caught up with them half way home in huge, heavy droplets.
"Let's wait it out over there," suggested Aaron, pointing to the doorway of a nearby building.
"It could last for ages," Jessica objected. "I don't want to be waiting that long."
"A downpour like this won't last long. Let's wait it out for five minutes or so and when it starts to ease, we'll carry on."
They stepped off the pavement and, after running down a short maple-lined avenue, sheltered themselves beneath the ledge above the building's front door. There was not a soul on the street, just the two of them and the strengthening storm.
"It's typical. If you forget your umbrella then it's sure to rain," said Jess, quietly.
"You think an umbrella would be able to save you from rain like this?" Aaron laughed.
The peals of thunder were getting closer and closer, and the downpour was getting stronger. The heavy rain was starting to turn into a waterfall. A bright flash suddenly lit up their surroundings for a brief moment, followed a few seconds later by a deafening clap of thunder. Jessica instinctively grabbed Aaron's hand in fear.
For him at that moment it was as if the rain had stopped altogether. What had been causing him discomfort just a few seconds before, as his face became drenched by the cold spray being carried into the doorway by gusts of wind, suddenly became the greatest thing that had ever happened to him. Until that moment, Jessica had not allowed herself to be touched, but now she had taken hold of his hand herself.
Aaron froze for a moment, expecting her to open her fingers and release his hand as soon as she realised she was gripping it tightly. But she did not snatch her hand back. He took her gently by the waist and pulled her to him. Through her thin summer dress, he could feel Jessica shivering from the cold. He held her more tightly. Timidly, Jessica put her hands around his shoulders and leaned into him with her whole body, her face nestled against his shoulder. Aaron looked up at the thunder-lit sky and rejoiced in the rain more than he had ever rejoiced in anything. Let the storm rage louder and the downpour continue all night, he thought, standing under the ledge and embracing Jess, shielding her from the cold rain and the thunder.
After a few minutes, the rain began to ease. The storm moved on carrying the peals of thunder along with it, which got quieter and quieter until they turned into a subtle rumbling. They remained as they were, holding each other in the darkness without uttering a sound. There was no need for them to say anything.
Finally, Jessica lifted her face from Aaron's shoulder and looked him in the face. The darkness was so thick that it was impossible to see anything. But at that moment he could feel her looking into his eyes. He leaned his face towards her slightly and their lips met for a few moments.
Jessica finally drew back, but she did not remove her hands from his shoulders.
"The rain has almost stopped," she said.
Aaron recovered himself.
"Yes. Time to go," he said, almost whispering.
A car drove past the building where they were sheltering from the foul weather. In its headlights, he could see Jessica looking at him, her head tilted slightly to one side. Her silhouette, with her long hair falling onto her shoulders, was perfection itself.
They retraced their steps along the maple-lined avenue and stepped back onto the pavement. Both of them had just experienced a moment that happens maybe once in a lifetime and will never be forgotten. They walked the rest of the way home in silence, taking pleasure in the rain as if thanking it for the magical moments it had given them. They held hands and simply walked along, noticing nothing else. That evening, it was as if the world around them had ceased to exist for them both.
A few minutes later, the rain stopped completely, having cleared the air of dust and blown away the mugginess. The city seemed to have been cleansed of everything in it that was unpleasant. That evening, it was as if the rain had also washed them both clean of everything that had been preventing their two souls from becoming one.
5
Their children grew up before Aaron even had time to realise it was happening. One day their son went to university, and before he and Jessica knew it, it was the following year and their daughter was next to go. After their children left to start their own lives, their house suddenly felt too large and too quiet.
They had only just managed to get used to the peace and quiet when their first grandchildren forced them to remember their youth, when their own children had been babies. At the weekends, when their now already grown-up children came to see them with their own families, their house was once again filled with the noise of children. It was exhausting but wonderful at the same time. When he played tag with the toddlers, Aaron felt like he was playing with his own children, they looked so alike.
Their happiness continued until Jessica felt a lump in her left breast. She spent the next few months between hospital and home, but it was all in vain. They had caught the disease too late. One autumnal evening, Jessica fell asleep and quietly slipped away from Aaron forever.
Everything had happened just as the doctors had predicted. Jessica had had no chance at all and Aaron knew it. He prepared himself for it, but Jessica’s departure still plunged his life into impenetrable darkness.
His children helped him as much as they could. They took it in turns to stay with him at first so that they could at least in some way fill the emptiness growing in his soul. Time heals all wounds, however, and after about a year, maybe a year and a half, Aaron was able to return to his former life, as much as that was possible.
The years passed. The layer of time between the last evening he had spoken with Jessica and the present became increasingly solid, and his memories faded. He sometimes felt as if it had been a different life that had happened to somebody else.
Aaron did not feel regret for how things had turned out. He understood that that is how life works, and there is nothing that can be done about it. The only thing he reproached himself for was that there were so many things he should have said to her that he never did. Sometimes this thought ate away at his insides. He would have given anything for the chance to speak with her just once more.
After Jessica passed away, he had been unable to live in the house alone. Everything there had reminded him of her. Every nook, every scratch. At first he had not wanted to leave, but he was simply unable to bear being faced with memories of his wife every single day, as if she were still alive and had just gone away for a while.
After consulting his children, he sold the house and moved to a small flat in the city centre. Everything felt alien to him there, but at least he was able to live there without the constant lump in his throat. Since then, very little had changed. The flat still felt alien to him. He himself felt completely alien, not just in the city, but in the world generally.
His only joy in life was his children, who visited him regularly. When it happened and the whole crowd of children and grandchildren used to tumble into his flat, the entire space was filled with pandemonium, just like old times. At the weekends, when his children and grandchildren stayed with him, he was able to forget.
After Jessica’s death, he had had many heart-to-heart conversations with both his son and his daughter. Time and again, they suggested he should find himself a partner.
“Papa, you’re not that old yet. Meet somebody. Maybe go on a round the world cruise, enjoy life!”
It was painful for them to look at the sad and lonely old man he had become. Generally speaking, Aaron himself agreed it was probably the way to go forward. At the very last minute, however, he always changed his mind. He did not feel that by allowing another woman into his life he was in some way betraying Jessica. He knew his wife, and he knew that she would have been happy if he was able to live a normal life again. Neither of them had been able to bear the idea of someone they loved suffering.