Life After Forty

by Dora Heldt

  An hour later I didn’t have the strength left to cry anymore. I felt abandoned, humiliated, and very alone. I thought of calling Ines, but I didn’t want to unload on her again so soon. Then I thought of Antje; she’d have to know sooner or later in any case. I dialed her number. After the second ring I heard her voice.

  “Antje, it’s me. Bernd wants a divorce.”

  The tears were back again.

  “What? Oh, you poor thing. What a shame, but then I always did think you’d end up separating from him.”

  “I didn’t want to. Antje, I’ll probably move to Hamburg. I don’t want to stay here alone. But what about you?”

  “Don’t you worry about me. If it weren’t for the children, then I would have stayed in the city too; it’s what you should do. And it’s not the first divorce that we’ll get through together. I’ll help you; we’ll figure it all out.”

  We spoke for a few more minutes. After I hung up, I felt a little comforted. Then I phoned Marleen. She was the ex-wife of Bernd’s best friend. We’d met each other through our husbands, lived in the same town, and had become close in recent years. Besides that, she was refreshingly robust and practical; I had no reason to fear pity from her. After my short explanation, she asked the reason for the separation, found my answer unsatisfactory, and offered me her guest room. I politely refused, but promised to call her again over the next few days.

  The next few days and weeks passed as though everything was covered in dense fog. Parts of my life were reassuringly normal: I visited my booksellers, kept my appointments as planned, and made no mention whatsoever of what was currently going on in my life. On one of the evenings that I spent with Ines, Leonie came by. Ines had met up with her and told her everything. We had been colleagues for a number of years, and we saw each other three or four times a year outside of work.

  Standing in front of the door with a bottle of champagne, she didn’t beat around the bush.

  “It’s all good: I still have a picture of him in my mind standing there with that vacuum in his hand, he wasn’t interested in your job, he never read any books, and he never came to Hamburg. Just be happy that you’re rid of him and can get out of that backwater. Here’s to the start of your new life!”

  I didn’t yet share her opinion, but I was touched when she—by herself and together with Ines—viewed numerous apartments over the following weeks, whittled them down to possibles, and arranged three or four viewings for me over the weekends. When I wasn’t looking at apartments, I went to visit my parents in Sylt, spent hours running along the beach in the March cold, cried a little, and slept a lot.

  Once a week I had to go back to the house. It was still my address for my office, and all my mail was sent there. Bernd kept out of my way. If he was at home, I went to see Marleen, who had already arranged for moving boxes and a map of Hamburg for me. She had put her divorce behind her, and I found her unshakeable optimism very comforting.

  “Sweetheart, trust me, in six months’ time you’ll look back and laugh at it all.”

  By now, everyone knew. Lots of people avoided me, which I found hurtful. Perhaps they thought separations could be contagious. I hadn’t heard much from Antje either. It occurred to me when Marleen asked after her one evening as we were sitting in her kitchen. It was the beginning of April. Ines and Leonie had found an apartment for me, which I’d managed to secure. Nine hundred square feet, terrace, open fireplace, and a balcony leading off of the kitchen. It was situated almost exactly between Ines and Leonie, a fifteen-minute drive from them both. This made my heart feel a lot lighter, and so Marleen’s question didn’t bother me too much.

  “Antje is so busy. Children, a job—you know what it’s like. She’s helping me with the move. She already booked the fifteenth off work.”

  “I just find it a bit strange. She’s your best friend, and yet you haven’t heard from her in six weeks. Does she even know that you’ve found an apartment?”

  “I’ll tell her tomorrow. I’m going over there for Karola’s birthday. And Marleen, I know you’re not particularly fond of Antje, but you just don’t know her that well, that’s all.”

  She didn’t answer. I had the feeling that she wanted to tell me something. But I didn’t ask, and she said nothing more.

  When I went out to the car the next day with a birthday present in my hand, Bernd followed me.

  “Where are you off to?”

  “It’s Karola’s birthday. She’s ten today.”

  “Do you have time to be going to a child’s birthday party? I thought you wanted to pack.”

  “She’s my goddaughter. I’ll manage the packing in time; I’ve still got two weeks.”

  “Well, you know best, I guess.”

  Bernd turned around and went back into the house. Maybe he was regretting his decision after all. I didn’t understand what had put him in such a bad mood; he usually seemed very happy not to have to see me in the house.

  When I rang Antje’s doorbell, Karola opened the door and flung herself around my neck.

  “You’re here at last! Are you better now? Is that for me? Can I open it now?”

  Answers weren’t necessary; the hallway was suddenly full of ten-year-old girls all shouting at once. I squeezed past them and went into the kitchen. Antje was standing in front of the stove and stirring a pot with a concentrated expression. She only raised her head briefly to nod at me.

  “Hi, Christina, how’s it going?”

  Then she buried her head back in the recipe next to her. I was amazed.

  “Hi, Antje. You know, nothing new. What’s up with you?”

  “Oh, you know what it’s like. These birthday parties always stress me out. I spent the whole afternoon running around town, my feet are sore, and Kathleen, that friend of Karola’s, the fat one, she’s got one heck of a voice on her.”

  She was chattering like a wind-up puppet, loud, banal sentences, not looking up at me even once. I went over to her and pushed the recipe away.

  “Have I done something to upset you?”

  “No, er, it’s just…nothing. So, it’s really great that you’ve got a terrace in your new place. That means you can take the wicker beach chair with you.”

  I suddenly went cold. First it was just a feeling, and then my brain started to work. She stared into the pot.

  “Antje?”

  She was silent, just stirring.

  I took my bag and my jacket and went into the children’s room to say goodbye to Karola. She was caught up with unwrapping her presents, smiling at her friends with her eyes sparkling.

  I left.

  The Beginning

  Ines sat on her toolbox and uncapped her beer bottle with a cigarette lighter. She looked first at Dorothea, then me, with a triumphant smile.

  “Nine minutes.”

  Dorothea nodded at her and rubbed the blister on her forefinger.

  “Under ten—I knew it.”

  I’d come into the living room with a box full of books and had no idea what they were talking about.

  “What’s nine minutes?”

  Ines put the bottle to her mouth, took a few long swigs, put it down again, and then looked at me.

  “That’s a record. We just built the last Billy bookcase in under ten minutes.”

  Dorothea held up her forefinger for me to see.

  “Under ten. With this blister!”

  Years ago she’d been my brother Georg’s girlfriend. After a while their love had faded, but the friendship had stayed. And Dorothea, who had won our family’s hearts with her charm and wit, stayed too. She was very enthusiastic about my plan to move to Hamburg. She lived there as well.

  Ines put her lighter against another bottle of beer, opened it, and handed it to Dorothea. She pushed herself off from the wall, took a chair from where it was stacked, upturned against another, and sat down with a groan.

  “My back! And this blister. And you think I can drink after eight Billys?”

  “After eight Billys, it’s compu
lsory to have a drink. Want one too, Christine?”

  I looked around me. Everything was all over the place. Empty bookshelves, coats, cushions, and curtains all over the sofa, chairs stacked on top of one another, rolls of carpet and moving boxes everywhere.

  “It’s getting worse and worse in here.”

  My heart sank.

  “Well, Christine, I really think you could at least tidy up a little. You used to be so neat, and as soon as you’re in the big city, then bam—you let it all go!”

  Dorothea laughed heartily at her own joke. She tapped the bookshelf that was serving as a table, full of beer bottles, bags of licorice, cigarette ashes, bottle caps, and various screws.

  “I mean, at least put a tablecloth down; then it’ll have some style around here.”

  Ines laughed too.

  “And I’m sure you’ve got some coasters for the bottles. Not that we’re making rings.”

  Dorothea wanted to say more, but she was laughing so hard she was crying.

  “You’re silly.”

  Ines shook her head with amusement and handed me a beer.

  “She’s just exhausted. These artistic types aren’t used to hard work.”

  Dorothea was a costume designer; she worked in television and also painted. Sweeping her dark locks and the tears from her face with the backs of her hands, she put on a hurt expression.

  “Eight Billys, three of which I did with a blister. Not to mention the chest of drawers, desk, and kitchen table.”

  “The kitchen table came ready-made!”

  “Well, I put a tablecloth on it at least.”

  She roared with laughter again.

  Her silliness was catching. We sat for a while amongst the boxes of books just giggling and drinking beer. Eventually Ines got up, dropped the empty bottles into the box, and reached for her drill.

  “Back to work; we’re not done yet. It’s six o’clock and I’ve got to go in two hours.”

  Dorothea held her side, breathing heavily.

  “Christine, just do as I said and have a quick clean-up here—then it’ll all be good.”

  Laughing softly, she followed Ines and helped to hold the curtain rails while she fixed them in place.

  We’d met that morning at my new apartment. My furniture and moving boxes had arrived the day before. Along with Ines, I’d helped with the unloading, lugged everything inside, and then had promptly burst into floods of tears. So Ines had decided that the unpacking, drilling, and screwing could wait until the next morning. Dorothea, who had jumped to offer her help, arrived in the best of moods and could hardly wait to get going. Ines brought her toolbox and oversaw the proceedings, gave directions, crossed things off her list, and screwed and drilled with dedication and no signs of tiring. By midday the kitchen, office, and bedroom were almost finished.

  Ines and Dorothea had built things piece by piece and screwed everything together while I unpacked box after box and arranged everything.

  Georg came too, laden with trays of rolls and cakes and a crate of beer.

  “I couldn’t make it sooner, I’m afraid. Is there anything I can still do to help?”

  We all laughed. Georg was a journalist. According to Ines, his ability to work with his hands was limited to plugging his laptop in. And sometimes he couldn’t even manage that! She stared at him for a while and decided that he could cope with breaking down the empty moving boxes and bringing them up to the loft.

  “I’m sure you can manage that without breaking anything or hurting yourself.”

  Her sarcasm was like water off a duck’s back.

  “Without me you’d be starving and thirsty. I’m perfectly capable of folding and carrying, and besides, you all love me really.”

  He stayed in spite of all the teasing, and Ines gave him job after job to do. Within half an hour he had held lamps, unpacked books, made coffee, and hugged me compassionately at least twenty times. Then he had to go. For the last two hours we worked on under Ines’s command, and then we drank our last beer around the dining table. Ines stretched and looked around with satisfaction.

  “You can sleep properly in your own bed, your kitchen’s ready, all the lamps are up, and the bathroom’s cleaned. The only thing left is the rest of your unpacking and a few odds and ends. But there’s plenty of time for all that. Aren’t we wonderful?”

  Dorothea looked at me with her big eyes and stroked her hand over the wooden table.

  “But still no tablecloth.” She giggled. “My darlings, I’m so done in, I’m getting all silly again. I’d love to have another beer with you, but I have to go to bed. I’ve got a broadcast tomorrow morning at eight.”

  It was eight o’clock in the evening. We’d been at it for almost twelve hours.

  “Will you be okay?” asked Dorothea.

  “Of course.”

  I was looking forward to being alone.

  “I’ll do a little more unpacking and then have an early night too.”

  “Good.”

  Dorothea paused behind me.

  “Remember, what you dream on the first night will come true.”

  She kissed the top of my head.

  “And you really need to get to the salon, sweetie. Graying roots may be okay out in the sticks, but not here. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. Have fun unpacking.”

  I stood up too and kissed Ines on the cheek. She looked at me with a slightly worried expression.

  “It’s fine, Ines. Really. And thank you.”

  “Till tomorrow then. Sleep well on your first night.”

  I closed the door behind them.

  And I was in my new apartment alone for the first time.

  Alone

  I walked slowly through the rooms. I turned the light on in each one, left all the doors open, put a floor lamp on, placed a chair next to it, and smoothed down the bedding. Most of the furniture was new; every free minute of the last two weeks had been spent with either Dorothea or Ines in furniture warehouses and household shops, buying all the things I needed for my new life.

  Georg had offered to lend me money. He earned a lot, spent very little, and always had a fair amount left over. I was touched by his offer and accepted it. It enabled me to feel I could separate from the things that reminded me of my marriage. I looked around me. There were so many things in this apartment that I wasn’t used to yet. It felt strange. Unfamiliar.

  I took a deep breath and decided to unpack another three boxes, then shower and open the bottle of red wine that Dorothea had brought with her.

  Two hours later I was sitting in my bathrobe and with damp hair in my almost-finished dining room. No tablecloth. I thought of Dorothea and smiled. But I did have a candle, a glass full of red wine, and a new CD that Georg had given me today, Sunset Dance & Dreams, free from any memories of Bernd.

  The new lamp cast a warm glow as I looked around the room from the table. I liked the furniture and lamps that I’d bought. It was already shaping up to be a beautiful room; I felt almost content. I’d done it.

  Today was April 16. Day one after the move.

  In the recent days and weeks, I’d been conjuring up this date in my mind like a magic formula. April 16. I just had to keep going until then. After that things would get better. I’d managed all of my business appointments, but it was still demanding. I had stayed with Ines for the last two weeks.

  My move wasn’t planned until April 15; the moving company couldn’t do it sooner. The apartment was available, but it was still empty because the furniture couldn’t be delivered until then. Ines arranged the delivery dates for me. By day I cleaned the new apartment and called insurance, utility, and phone companies. I spent hours sitting in the residents’ registration office. My back aching, I struggled around DIY shops, crossing items off of Ines’s shopping lists. In the evenings I went with my sister—and her tape measure—to furniture shops and back to the same DIY shops to exchange the things on the list I had bought wrongly. I rarely seemed to know what the correct parts were.
r />   Dorothea had us over for dinner and, with the help of lots of wine and her enthusiasm for my apartment, managed to dissipate the dark clouds that were gathering in my mind. I had brunches with Georg, and he brought along the programs for Hamburg theatres and concert halls, marking all the events that he was free for. When I still looked sad, he tried to get tickets for the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.

  I listened to all the plans, wrote Georg’s free evenings in my calendar, let Ines explain the logistics of the DIY shops to me, laughed at Dorothea’s jokes, and thought constantly about April 16. I just had to keep going until then. Then this awful in-between period of homelessness and worry would be in the past.

  Today was April 16. I sat in my almost-finished apartment and waited for the feeling that everything would be better from now on.

  You’ll be waiting a long time. It doesn’t just come by itself, you know.

  I heard the horrible voice in my head.

  In a crisis, my sister wrote lists, while I would have a dialogue in my head between two women’s voices. One was out to cause trouble, and the other to calm me down. For years the two voices had made themselves heard whenever I felt helpless and was alone.

  Our mother had gone to great efforts not to mollycoddle her three children. Which meant there was a certain gruffness in the way she had brought us up. On the other hand, she was always very optimistic and could sometimes be very tender. She had a hyphenated name, which had made a great impression on me as a child. Edith-Charlotte. So when I heard the voices for the first time, I named the mean one Edith and the gentle one Charlotte.

  I pulled up a chair, put my feet up, and lit a cigarette. For the first time in weeks, the voices managed to find some space in my head.

  You’ve never lived so well. A great apartment, chic furniture, right in the center of town. Life’s really starting to get exciting, said Charlotte.