Frau Keller sighed. “Four weeks later Nora, her husband, and the second child were dead. They were killed in an automobile accident on the way to the maternity hospital. They had the right of way, but a truck ran right into them.”
I turned cold, picturing the awful accident. Only then did it hit me that she’d mentioned another, second child.
“Nick had a sibling?” I asked, agitated.
“Yes, Nora was expecting twins. Her husband was killed instantly and poor Nora was dying when they got her to the hospital. The doctors tried an emergency cesarean operation to save the babies. But they could save only Dominick. His brother died in the womb. His injuries were too serious.”
Nick’s description of his nightmare flashed through my mind: “I watch myself dying.”
Maria Keller spoke in what seemed a faraway voice: “Luise was his only living relative. Nora’s husband was an orphan, so there was nobody on his side of the family who could take care of Dominick. The little tyke lay in the hospital for weeks before she took him in. To this day I don’t understand why she didn’t put him up for adoption right away. It certainly would have been a better solution. She kept him fed, of course, and dressed him decently, but he never received any love or affection from her. He was a quiet baby, and I always felt terribly sorry for him. His grandmother made no bones about the fact that he was a burden to her, even saying it when he was right there. She told me in the corridor once, with the baby over her shoulder, that he had no right to be the only one to outlive his family. It would have been better for him if he had died as well. I was shocked at her heartlessness. You know, I would have gladly taken care of him myself, but we had other things to worry about at the time. My husband was unemployed, I had three cleaning jobs, and my daughter, who was a few months younger than Dominick, had croup. I can honestly say I was relieved when Luise suddenly died of a heart attack a couple of months later, and the little one was taken away by Child Welfare.”
I said good-bye to Maria Keller in a daze, promising her I’d come to visit her with Nick sometime. I saw the little baby before me all the way home; in a single stroke he’d lost everyone who loved him and belonged to him, and then he had to live with a woman who claimed he should have died, too. As I sat in the commuter train, I wept and didn’t give one whit that some passengers gave me peculiar looks.
Fortunately, Nick wasn’t back when I arrived. I had to compose myself before I could tell him his story.
I stood at the window and watched as his car came down the street and he parked it in front of the house. It was hard for me to square the grown man who got out, waved at me, and walked to the front door, with the pathetic child I’d seen before my mind’s eye all day long. He kissed me passionately right in the doorway, and then we went upstairs.
“You’ll be glad to hear that this doctor and I are on the same wavelength,” he said. “His ideas are very reasonable. I told him the whole story.”
When I looked dubious, he explained further. “It’s everything, really, that you already had surmised. He suspects a childhood trauma. He explained that every experience unbearable for the psyche is stored in the unconscious even if you aren’t aware that you remember it. And that you unconsciously and repeatedly put yourself in similar situations to fight against the pain you felt back then. We’re going to use some techniques of hypnosis and behavior therapy to try to change or eliminate my self-destructive behavior, even though we don’t know what event triggered it. This will take some time. He told me quite frankly that he cannot guarantee success, but he’s helped many people who’ve experienced some awful things. You know, the man’s not the type who treats you haughtily or claims your problems can only be solved by talking about them long enough. And he doesn’t recommend medications in my case.”
“So you’ll be going back?” I asked, wanting to assure myself.
He took me in his arms. “We made more appointments, starting tomorrow.”
“Nick, would you please come downstairs with your parents and Hanna? I have something I must tell you.”
I’d spoken to his parents in advance and asked them and Hanna to be there when I recounted to Nick what I’d learned that day. I hadn’t the foggiest notion how Nick would respond and wanted everyone who was important to him to be there.
They had already gathered in the downstairs living room and looked at us in expectation. Nick jokingly asked if he was in trouble. When we were all seated, I explained that I couldn’t stop thinking about Nick’s story, so I’d gone to Neuperlach again that morning. I ignored his appalled objection that I was crazy to go to that disreputable area alone, and continued.
When I’d finished, Angela and Hanna had tears running down their faces and Jürgen looked shocked. I glanced anxiously over at Nick. He’d been listening attentively. When I told them about the accident and his dead twin, he spontaneously slumped back in his chair. He also clenched his fists when I mentioned his grandmother and her unloving behavior. Now he looked at me as if he’d awoken from a profound dream.
“You’ve found what’s been tormenting me! Maybe I can overcome it all the more quickly because of it.” Turning to his parents and Hanna he said, “Now I know at last why those twins in my class affected me so intensely. They didn’t really bully me; they were just a couple of rascals who played tricks on me and other pupils all the time. But seeing twins together triggered an inexplicably deep sadness in me. I simply could not tolerate their presence.”
We’d tacitly agreed, Nick and I, not to tell his adoptive parents and Hanna about his suicide attempts. Nick explained that his weird and dismissive behavior during our marriage made it impossible for me to stand him anymore. That was close enough to the truth and still a defused version that could spare them unnecessary pain.
At Nick’s session with his new doctor, Dr. Marquard explained that he thought Nick was having an unconscious, recurrent trauma of being the only one to survive the accident. He lived out his sense of guilt over it through his suicide attempts. But because he really wanted to live and not die, he needed somebody who loved him enough to rescue him, to give him “permission”—as my client Tamara had indicated—to keep on living. That was why my appearance on the scene escalated the problem.
Nick went regularly to the doctor over the next several weeks. When I was sure he finally had his emotions under control, I moved back in. Occasionally, he was still plagued by dark moods that came out of nowhere—but they no longer overpowered him. He was able to use breathing and behavioral techniques to get a grip on himself. And then—his words—he had a breakthrough session. He and the doctor were now completely certain that he’d been able to overcome his trauma using the methods he’d learned.
“I know this will sound zany, but you’re the only one I’ll tell it to. Under hypnosis Dr. Marquard took me back to the time before I was born, shortly before the accident. I talked to my family and asked them questions.”
We were sitting side by side in the living room, and I gawked at Nick.
“You’re not completely carried off, as people think. You’re still in the present but you feel completely relaxed and you can see yourself and other participants in your problematic situation and hear in your mind crystal-clear answers to your questions.” He shook his head thoughtfully. “You have to experience it yourself to believe it. At any rate, I understood that my parents and my brother would never have wanted me to die with them. And the situation was just too much for my grandmother to manage. That’s why she reacted so cruelly. There’s no reason now for me to want to follow them.”
After his last session with Dr. Marquard, Nick had no additional psychic collapses, and after several months, during which I still couldn’t believe my good luck, I began to ease up, too.
Even his father was getting noticeably better. The chemotherapy was having a positive effect, and Angela and he decided to go back to Spain for the summer. Before going, Jürgen made Ni
ck an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“Mira phoned me yesterday to tell me about a book where two young men go on a search for Saint-Exupéry’s missing plane to solve the mystery of his death. There are frequent flashbacks to Saint-Exupéry’s life. The author’s just writing the screenplay now and wants to have it shot. If you’re interested, we’ll manage the sales negotiations and look for more sponsors to finance the film. You could play one of the two main roles.”
The project took shape rapidly. Nick would play one of the young men, and his colleague Robert, who was perfectly suited for the part as far as age and looks went, played the French pilot and writer in the flashbacks.
The only fly in the ointment was that the filming was to take place largely by the sea in the south of France, and Nick and I would be separated for several weeks until I could go on vacation and meet him there. But at the end of July, I’d finished up my work and was ready to join him. We were reunited at a villa in Cannes, which he’d rented for the filming. We thoroughly celebrated the chance to be together again.
I savored the wonderfully incomparable landscape. It had everything for a memorable vacation: a rocky coastline, sandy beaches, and forests dotted with lakes. Even the summer heat was quite bearable thanks to the steady, light sea breeze.
Lounging outdoors magically turned my skin a superb, shimmering, golden-brown. If we wanted to go shopping or step out, Cannes, Nice, Antibes, and Monaco stood waiting. Hilltop villages above the coasts, like Èze, Saint-Paul de Vence, or La Turbie, invited us to stroll down medieval alleyways and offered breathtaking views of the sea. On the days Nick wasn’t shooting, he showed me the wonderful region himself. We rented a car and drove over the switchback mountain roads, swam in the warm sea, had delicious fish dinners in restaurants right on the beach, and acted like two high-spirited and happy-go-lucky kids on vacation.
One warm August evening we stood by the bay at Cannes in a crowd of good-humored French people and tourists from all over the world. The Croisette, the four-lane boulevard separating the grand hotels from the beach and the sea, was closed to traffic that evening and brightly illuminated. The road, the beach, and the marina were filled with people. Everybody was waiting for the fireworks that were part of an annual festival that featured the world’s best pyrotechnicians.
It was staged out on the water. When the first rockets painted a colorful, shimmering veil on the sky, there were initial shouts of excitement and then a reverent silence that was broken only by the rattling, hissing, and swooshing of the blazing fireworks. The show escalated from minute to minute. Entrancing artworks of colorful sparks illuminated the black night sky and were reflected in the water. The fireworks culminated with an all-too-rapidly-extinguished bouquet of giant sparkling sunflowers in red, purple, blue, and yellow. Nick and I stood in an embrace, as did many other couples, both marveling at and moved by the fascinating spectacle. We were happy to be able to enjoy something so wonderful together. When it was over, the crowd slowly dispersed. Shoes in hand, we walked barefoot along the beach. We found a table for two in a little bar on the wooden deck right on the sea and concluded the day with a glass of crème de menthe and bowls of ice cream.
“We’re finally catching up on our honeymoon,” Nick said fittingly as we held hands and looked out on the mysteriously shimmering sea. And I agreed with him—I was deliriously happy.
The next morning he had his accident.
Chapter 24
I waited hour after hour in the austere room, clinging with all my strength to the hope that Nick’s operation would go well and he’d be healthy again. At the same time, I was plagued by my fear: that he’d had a relapse and tried again to carry out his grandmother’s wish and join his dead family.
Had he and his therapist ended his treatment too soon? He was doing so well, and we were so certain that his dark moods were finally behind him.
I was jolted from my ruminations when the waiting-room door opened after a brief, brisk knock. My heart sank to my stomach as a doctor entered in operating-room dress with a face mask bouncing on his chest. Luckily, Robert was right behind him. Otherwise we might have had to communicate with sign language. I looked at them, filled with fear. I’d steeled myself for the resigned shake of the head that would have marked the end of everything vital to me.
Instead, I stared, stunned, at the doctor, who said hello in accent-free German and told me that Nick had survived the operation. He must have seen from looking at me that I wanted to throw my arms around his neck at the good news, and he raised his hands protectively.
“He’s in Intensive Care. It will be a while before he wakes up, and I must tell you, his life’s not out of danger. You can see him briefly. Then it’s best if you go home and get a little rest. We’ll call you immediately if there’s a change in his condition.”
His last words sent an icy shiver down my spine.
Some time later, I stood by Nick’s bed and observed my husband deep in his narcotic sleep. His entire body was covered with bandages, but by some miracle, his face was uninjured. I kissed him gently on the cheek, gingerly squeezed his hand, and whispered how much I loved him. He needed to fight for both of us.
The nurse came in and asked me to leave, which I reluctantly turned to do. Just then, Nick moved his head restlessly back and forth and began to breathe hard and irregularly. The regular peaks on the heart monitor beside his bed changed to a flickering, gradually flattening zigzag until it was only a flat green line. The piercing sound of the alarm cut through the quiet of the room. I leaned over his immobile figure in desperation, calling his name. In a split second, the room was filled with people, and I was jerked away from him and adamantly shoved out into the corridor.
Three months later, November 2012, Munich
Tired and worn out, I unlocked the front door, took off my scarf, hung my heavy coat on the rack, and rubbed my ice-cold hands, shivering. Although I’d eaten almost nothing that day, I didn’t feel hungry; it had been that way for the last several weeks. The latent feeling of nausea was particularly strong again. I felt weak and lethargic and just wanted to lie in bed the next morning instead of picking myself up and spending the day in the office without letting anything show.
A large, battered brown carton stood in the middle of the living room. When I’d arrived home, Hanna told me that it had come by courier that afternoon and that it contained personal effects that Nick had kept in his trailer on set in France. The box probably got lost in the shuffle at the end of the shoot and had just resurfaced.
Something white peeked out of the half-torn covering flap. I hesitated, then leaned down and pulled the flap aside so I could see inside. Whoever packed it up had carelessly stuffed everything into the box. Some jumbled-up clothing caught my eye, and Nick’s well-worn Exupéry books lay on top of them in disarray.
The corner of an envelope—the white piece of paper I’d noticed—stuck out from the pages of the topmost book, a recent edition of The Little Prince. I carefully opened the book and saw an envelope with “For Laura” written in blue ink in Nick’s handwriting. My heart skipped a beat and then stumbled on. Although my sense of reason warned me not to, I slipped the letter out of the book, stood up because my back was hurting, and opened the envelope. A page in Nick’s jaunty handwriting fell out. I read the first lines and went weak in the knees. I sank down on the couch and absorbed his words with an intensely bittersweet feeling. Inside I turned ice-cold.
Laura darling,
Saint-Exupéry was right: “In the end, you always go to where you are being pulled.”
When you read this letter, my dark moods will have been stronger than me. If I know you, you are inconsolable, mourning for me, and blaming yourself bitterly for not preventing my death. But, Laura, to be committed for life to something does not mean you have to preserve it from mortality. Every living creature must die, sooner or later. Even the little prince had himself bitten by the snake so
he could return to his planet. And you, dear heart, have extended my life anyway by sharing it with me and by taking so much upon yourself. Without you I probably would have died the night we met. Thank you for the wonderful time with you. You are the love of my life, and this love is stronger than death. I wish you all the happiness in the world.
Forever,
Your Nick
By the time I got to his signature, my hands were shaking so much that I let the paper drop and bitterly regretted opening the envelope. I stared ahead with unseeing eyes and was startled to hear the sound of a key turning in the lock.
“Laura? Are you home already?”
He entered the room and came toward me, smiling, while I was still lost in thought. I looked at him in bewilderment.
“What are you reading?” he asked. When he recognized the letter, he carefully sat down and put his arms around me. “Hey, you were actually supposed to get that letter after my demise. I wrote it during our bad days and hid it in my books. Where did you find it?”
I was profoundly grateful that Nick had arrived home at that minute to extricate me from my dark memories: I did not want to relive those terrible moments in the hospital before the doctors were able to shock his heart into beating again, nor did I want to relive the all-consuming anxiety that had slowly diminished as he got appreciably better. Five weeks after his operation in France, he was transferred to a Munich hospital. He still wasn’t fully recovered three months after the accident, but he was making good progress. I admired his iron discipline in spending hours doing physiotherapy and training on the machines every day.
As soon as Nick had woken up in the hospital and could talk, he’d assured me that he actually did have an accident and by no means had he deliberately driven off the road.
November Sky Page 23