by Violet Shaw
And as if he had sensed her insecurity, and registered her still hesitant, watchful stance, he reached for her right hand to strengthen his words, looked deep into her eyes, and declared:
“I’ve had so much stress at the bank lately, and tomorrow morning at 6:00 o’clock I’m flying to Eastern Europe with six other people. I’m under such pressure, you can’t even imagine.”
The expression on her face, in the meantime, was changing into a milder one. She smiled at him. He had won again, as he had so often. His earlier words had softened her and engendered a mild and satisfied mood.
And actually, in such moments when they held hands and she looked into his blue eyes, she was lost.
Despite all good intentions, she was under his spell.
She was completely enchanted by him. There was no better, let alone more handsome, man in this world.
And now, in light of his meaningful words, she became more confident, and stroked his muscular right upper arm while giving him a saucy, provocative look.
One could see joy, and a small triumph, on her face, and a challenge for more.
They kissed one another intensely and passionately.
In the pit of her stomach, the familiar tingling was taking place, which demanded more, much more, from him.
“Come, get out of the car, come inside with me!” she whispered imploringly in his right ear.
“No, I can’t today unfortunately; I have to get up tomorrow at 4:30 a.m.,” he tried to lend verbal expression to his panic.
Resigned, Valerie continued holding his arm fast, as if she at least didn’t want to give up this last piece of him.
“Don’t look so sad!” he advised her and wanted to perk her up a little bit.
“Next week I have a business appointment in Munich again, and I’ll come to visit you and we’ll make more time for us.”
He looked at her in anticipation.
But her face had grown dark again. She was disappointed. Disappointed that today nothing had happened between them and that everything was being postponed until an indeterminate day. She didn’t quite believe that the business appointment in Munich had actually been scheduled.
In response to her visible skepticism, he said:
“Valerie, I promise you that I’ll come for a visit next week! He looked at her encouragingly.
Now she had to smile about the comic aspect of this tragic situation. Woman loves man and possibly vice-versa. Both of them want to sleep with one another, but they can’t and make a date for the future. That was strange and tragic at the same time.
She was still skeptical, although she now agreed, and seemed in a little milder mood.
They held hands again and said good-bye with a gentle kiss.
They looked into one another’s eyes, as if each one wanted to check if the other was to be trusted.
As she wanted to open the car door, he pulled her to him one more time, and gave her a last kiss, tapping her lovingly on the bridge of her nose. “‘Til next week; sleep well!”
“You too, ‘til then!”
She remained standing in front of the building and could observe how he turned and drove by her at walking speed. Through the closed car window she noticed that his right arm was raised to signal a discreet, hardly noticeable wave good-bye.
Then he disappeared into the night.
It was a wonderful, mild June night. An ideal night to make love, as she determined in a fit of melancholy upon entering the lobby of the building.
What a pity it is to love and desire a man so much, but not to have sex with him soon again.
She sat on the balcony to smoke a cigarette and to enjoy the mild June night. And besides, she had to think calmly about Jason and herself.
On the one hand she was eternally happy about his words, which were almost too beautiful to be true and, which she, despite all of her skepticism, wanted to believe.
For a long time, for quite some years now, Valerie was driven by a fear of losing Jason.
It was curious, but she feared the loss of the little that she had of him.
It was always heaven and hell at once with him.
And in her imagination, the fear prevailed to a great degree that he would simply disappear from her life without saying good-bye. Simply so. And without a specific reason.
Now, after he had sworn something like eternal love for her, the fears began to disappear. First she sensed that he also had a deep commitment to her. He would come back to her again and again, but also go away again. It was an eternal circle.
She meant a lot to him. And he would never give her up.
She could hardly believe it. Finally the moment had come that he no longer wanted to do without her.
And again, also not. For on the other hand, she was terribly unhappy about the unsatisfactory, in the truest sense of the word, leave-taking. That they didn’t have sex with each other tonight, and that everything had been completely different before. Exciting and passionate without end. Then he wouldn’t have done without sex because of a business appointment. Under no circumstances whatsoever.
She missed him already although she had just seen him five minutes ago, and in the two-sided emotional situation that she found herself, she sent him a text-message:
“Dear Jason, it was a very beautiful evening, I love you very much. Your Valerie”
After she had sent the message, she immediately regretted her exuberant expression of feelings. Now he had brought her to the point that she was no longer in the position to protect the occasionally necessary discretionary distance that made her interesting to him now and in the future. While she was still at odds with herself, her i-phone sounded:
“Thank you Valerie, I love you very much too! Please excuse me for wanting to come home to bed; but we’ll make up for it. Promise!!! Kiss, your Jason”
He was like a drug for her. The Jason drug. If she didn’t get enough of him, she felt ill. And if she had too much of him, she felt ill as well.
She was addicted. A love junkie.
And often a love junkie in withdrawal: when he wasn’t nearby or she didn’t hear from him, she almost went crazy.
In her innermost being, she knew for certain that he would only hurt her and destroy her; nevertheless, she couldn’t manage to free herself of him, to bring it to a close. Separation. Final. End. Period.
She had always imagined something different under the heading of “love.” In the broadest sense, she expected meeting a man who would cause her to glow. She was far removed from such a state.
Her affair had little to do with love. It was better characterized as a love/hate relationship.
On the one hand, she was crazy about him, on the other she hated him because he wasn’t worth her love.
He, himself, was incapable of loving. In this regard, he was ineptitude personified, a veritable egoist and narcissist. Investment banking had destroyed him as had his revolting drug habit. The miserable, constant coking-up.
The one necessitated the other because the work and the pressure at the bank became worse and worse. To compensate, to remain strong and able to produce, one sought a remedy in drugs.
He often snorted the first line early in the morning, before he boarded the next flight. It was a vicious circle. It wasn’t worth all the money that he made.
And love for him only pointed the way to self-destruction. Her affair had brought about a highly nervous condition and a constant feeling of disquiet. She was unable to find a way to rest. She pursued sports excessively, providing at least some relief to her strained nerves.
Valerie burned for Jason. Never before had she felt so much passion for another human being.
He personified a shooting star for her, elevated above everything, incorporating the deepest of feelings. She wanted to reach for him, but couldn’t. He only rarely appeared in the heavens and then extinguished immediately.
Jason was like a bouncing ball. He seemed to call out “Catch me if you can,” repeatedly, knowing full well th
at she couldn’t.
Her longing for him was always so great, especially when he was away in some foreign country. And while a long way away, he ignited her longing anew, again and again.
This time Jason was with his mother and her new husband on an expedition in Antarctica. He sent her a text-message:
“Regarding my trip: Yesterday we celebrated Iceland-Day and paid a visit to the Blue Lagoon, among other places; it’s a volcanic pool which rises to the surface at 212 degrees, surrounded at its edge by dark lava stone. Because of unique algae, the water is light blue . . . as if laundered by a detergent ☺. Last evening we headed south of Greenland, two days on the water, I think . . .The time change was four hours, and we were somewhere in the middle of nowhere . . . clouds and sun, water everywhere, no people, no land in sight ☺ Miss you, Kisses from far away, your Jason”
“Wow, that sounds fantastic!!! A real performance by nature like out of a fantasy-novel! ☺ Enjoy the silence and the time to finally unwind and release the tension, and relax! And last but not least: Reflect, and think of me ☺ Kisses, your Valerie”
“Hmm . . . fantastic, but it would be more exciting if you were here and we could revisit a few very lovely memories together!☺ Temperatures here are slowly falling and we’ll soon be arriving on Greenland’s southern shores. In the afternoon we’ll board the Zodiacs
and head to the depths of the Christiansund Fjord. It’s true, with today’s technical and navigational know-how, all of this can be done. But one has to have respect for the men who, a hundred years ago, fought the powers of nature! I’ll see how I’ll perform later in my Polar equipment; immediately upon landing, I’ll probably fall into the water with a splash, then be saved by the emergency crew and quickly resuscitated by an Alaskan nurse, I hope! Kiss, your Polar-Explorer, Jason”
Valerie was fascinated by his presumably complete lack of dependence on the rest of the world. He seemed to lean on nobody else, was only responsible to himself, and accepted no other responsibilities.
Conversely, one couldn’t depend on him at all. Whatever he said or promised at a particular moment, had no meaning whatsoever the very next day.
He was a people-magnet. He picked up fellow humans and played with them according to his own rules, as long as he could use them or as long as they remained interesting to him.
Their intention was determined by their decision to enter into his life. He must have felt that, for he was always prepared to flee – in a permanent state of flight-readiness. In that regard, he had various pieces of luggage in the trunk of his car, fully packed. An appropriate packed-bag was ready and waiting for whatever opportunity could possibly arise. Officially, he had a permanent address, but he was always traveling. His whole life was actually a never-ending trip, which he was taking alone.
He was constantly restless and seemed to have been born in transit. Remaining in the same place for a week seemed to be an almost unbearable burden for him.
He avoided building deeper relationships or friendships with other people, so that most of the contacts that he had were of short duration and consequently superficial.
He had no well-grounded ties to other people and actually didn’t want to establish any, even though he would never admit it. Facebook and Instagram were the ideal media for him. On the one hand, on those sites he could represent himself in an ideal fashion, namely as a cosmopolitan, successful playboy, and on the other hand, initiate superficial, short-term friendships, so that he didn’t have to really show, or “un-mask” himself.
It was as if no one really knew him; he was only ever prepared to reveal a superficial, shadowy part of himself.
He remained elusive to everyone else who might attempt a deeper relationship.
And as long as he was still so young, good-looking, cosmopolitan and professionally successful, he could continue playing his game, bringing it to an end as he wished, or starting up again from the beginning.
He was the modern version of Don Juan, without apparently being aware of it.
From all external appearances, his life was like a never-ending, inescapable circus-festival. And it was a circus. He was the director and wild-animal trainer at the same time. But in his innermost self, he was empty and alone.
Jason almost never spoke about his childhood. In this regard, he was as tightly closed as an oyster.
Most of what Valerie knew she had gleaned second-hand.
It was his best and oldest friend, who had spent his childhood with Jason in Croatia, who tried to explain the difficult and traumatic circumstances to Valerie. But she had to promise Mirko on a stack of bibles that no matter what, she would never mention anything of what he said to Jason. Jason would have probably decked him, and in any case, would have ended the friendship of the two men in light of the betrayal of confidence and breach of faith.
In such an instance, Jason could be extremely hard and brutal. And under no circumstances, whether in front of Valerie alone, or in the eye of the public, did Jason wish to be perceived as a victim.
No, quite the opposite as a matter of fact; to the outside he always played the role of the impenetrable womanizer who was really tough, and who was impressed by nothing and no one, much less inclined to be dependent on someone.
His mother was still quite young and pretty as a picture when she met his father, who was originally from Croatia, in Munich. He was physically attractive, smart and a successful business man, who pursued his work primarily in the underworld rather than being seriously on the up-and-up.
With his stubbornness, his cleverness, and also his money, he soon wrapped the young Anita around his finger, so that she fell head over heels in love with him. Anita became pregnant sooner than expected. She was only 18 years old at the time and had only begun her schooling as a seamstress. When her friend found out about the pregnancy, he offered her a marriage contract immediately, a romantic, old-fashioned gesture. Before Jason was born, they celebrated their wedding and Anita was overjoyed.
After Jason was born, however, tensions between the couple quickly arose. Anita was still almost a child herself, and completely overtaxed by her role as a mother. Much sooner than she had thought, she found herself bored as a young married woman and longed for change.
She had actually always expected more from life than simply being a wife and mother. It certainly wasn’t the life that she had imagined for herself.
More and more tensions developed in their marriage because of her dissatisfaction. Her husband, whom she had loved so much up to this point, showed his forceful and brutal side more often. He wanted to dominate his young wife, which he was unable to do, and which caused him to become aggressive toward her.
After a hotheaded argument, one of many, between the young couple took place, he beat his wife unmercifully. Her injuries were so grave – she suffered a broken nose among them – that she had to be admitted to the hospital.
At that point Anita reached the decision that the situation couldn’t continue as it was any longer. In the meantime, she had begun to hate her husband from the bottom of her heart and wanted to leave him.
And, of course, she wanted to take her little son with her. Jason was now six years old.
After his atrocious behavior, her husband was extremely rueful; he was infinitely sorry for what he had done to his wife, “simply in an outburst of emotion,” as he said. He didn’t want to lose her under any circumstances. But his regret came too late. Anita wouldn’t be persuaded; she wanted a divorce. But now she was about to learn the true nature of her husband. He couldn’t accept the possibility of being left by a woman, and the mother of his son to boot. He threatened her. But Anita, in her youthful naiveté and stubbornness, remained solidly against him; she definitely wanted to see the divorce go through.
In the meantime, Jason had very little contact with his father. He had been aware that his father had brutally beaten his mother, but he couldn’t reconcile this behavior of his father with the man that he so dearly loved.
&nb
sp; At six years of age, he was still much too young to understand the facts of the case, and he loved and missed his father every day. But Anita, although she knew that her son missed his father, denied him his company. She felt it was for the best and wanted to protect him.
She was also afraid that her still-current-husband would become violent with his small son, which, however, he hadn’t done up to this point.
One day as Jason was leaving school, his father was waiting for him at the school’s gate. He was overjoyed to see him and jumped into his arms with excitement at seeing him again. Jason sensed no danger and was just as happy as a child could be.
His father told him that they were going to visit his grandparents in Croatia and kidnapped his son on the spot, taking him away to his homeland.
In Croatia, he left Jason with his relatives, whom Jason had never seen before. The relatives were strangers to him. The next day his father returned to Germany; he told him that he would be back in two days.
All told, Jason remained in Croatia for almost twelve years, until his 18th birthday. His father didn’t visit him once during those years.
In the meantime Anita had, of course, tried to bring Jason back, but her ex-husband threatened her with, among other things, the long arm of the Mafia.
In Croatia, life for Jason became a great endurance test; he was forced to survive very difficult times.
He was very lonely, he had no friends, felt extremely intimidated, and at the beginning didn’t even know what it all meant, for no one had really explained to him what had happened. All they ever said was that his father would come soon, and no one spoke of his mother at all. Then suddenly he was told that she had died in an automobile accident.
For the first few years, it was as if Jason had lost his mind. He understood absolutely nothing, and had lost his parents, his mother and his father, in one stroke.
Now he had to live with relatives who were strangers to him.
Until this point in time, he had always been a happy, cheerful child, but now he withdrew into himself more and more. He let no one come near him. He was deeply insecure and unbearably unhappy.