“No, it’s me,” Sandra said. “Sorry, my mouth’s full. Are things okay there?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Are you sick? I thought you’d be enjoying your free time. What’s going on, Nele?”
“I fell in love,” I admitted.
“You . . .” Sandra lowered her voice to a whisper. “You fell in love? Wait, I’m taking you into the water right now.” I said a silent word of thanks. Everybody in Rügen didn’t need to know about my love life. Especially not my daughter.
“Who is he? I mean . . . wow. Falling in love while on vacation? I’ve got to hand it to you. What’s the lucky guy’s name?”
“Mathis. But I’m not really sure if he feels lucky.”
“Wait, but you’re happy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh Nele, stop beating around the bush. Is this going to be one of those beautifully romantic but horribly complicated stories that ends with you crashing and burning . . . again?”
“It looks like it.”
“Great. Okay, start at the beginning. What’s the problem this time?”
“He’s married.”
“Aren’t they all. Any kids?”
“Three.”
“Oh, dear. Now that’s a real problem. And how old is this guy?”
“Late fifties, I think.”
Silence. It seemed that this time I’d really shocked Sandra. I figured she was doing some quick math before she started nagging.
But she surprised me. “So are his children already grown up then, or what?” she asked.
Grown up? I hadn’t even considered this possibility. Children were children, as far as I was concerned. But Sandra was right. If Mathis was almost sixty, they would already be adults. He’d said nothing about the ages of his children. So, maybe . . .
“Huh. Maybe you’re right.”
“What? You don’t know? You didn’t even ask?”
“I didn’t have the nerve.”
“But he wants to keep his wife?”
“Don’t know.”
“Oh, Nele. How long have you known him? Ten minutes?”
“Five days.”
“And in those five days, all you’ve learned is that a woman named Nele has fallen in love with him but is too chicken to learn anything about him.”
“You think I should ask him?”
“Why would you? It’s such a little, irrelevant detail.”
“Okay, okay. You’re right.” Embarrassed, I chewed on a fingernail. I didn’t know anything about Mathis’s situation. This was just like me. I was always getting worked up about things, even when there wasn’t anything to get worked up about.
“When will you be seeing him again?”
“I don’t actually know.”
“Of course you don’t,” Sandra said. “Have you slept with him? And don’t say ‘I don’t know’ again, please.”
“No.”
“Well then, this is serious for him.”
“You think?”
“Just listen to yourself. He could have had you a long time ago if all he wanted was a little adventure.”
“And you really think he’s serious about me?”
“Unless he’s gay.”
“Or impotent,” I countered.
“Or both.”
“Or he doesn’t love me.”
“Or he’s Catholic.”
“Or he’s—”
“Nele, sweetie, why don’t you start with finding out who he is and what he wants from you. Once you know what’s really going on, this love thing might just sort itself out.”
“You’re right, Sandra. I’ll do that. Thank you so much, and I’ll see you soon. Give Paula a kiss for me.”
“Ciao, and good luck! I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you!”
“Thanks. I’ll take all the luck I can get.”
“You really love him?”
“I actually think I do.”
“All right then. Go find out whether or not he deserves you.”
Of course, none of this really changed anything. But Sandra was right, as usual. I couldn’t just sit around and pretend I didn’t have urgent questions that needed answering before I rushed into something that might hurt me in the end. But how should I go about getting answers? I didn’t know whether Mathis thought about me when we weren’t together, or if he felt the way I did.
I hated being so cowardly! It had always been this way. I’d lived my whole life by the motto that what I don’t know won’t hurt me. Things always looked clearer in hindsight, and living in a dream world seemed less painful than falling flat on my face, especially when it came to romance. My early love life had been such a mess, I now privately called myself Germany’s Greatest Loser.
Take Heiner, for example. My face flushed at the memory of him. How had I ever let myself end up with a guy like him? Even in bed he’d been a disaster. It had taken me nearly six years and a few hundred terrible sexual encounters with him to figure this out. Yet, I’d been sure I would marry him. My prospective in-laws had bought us a beautiful set of silver—the best quality that money could buy. I had the pieces engraved with the initials of my future married name, then packed them in my hope chest along with similarly monogrammed towels and bed linen. I had resigned myself to the idea that the ultra-erotic sex scenes in novels and films were the things of fantasy. I believed that, in real life, orgasms were for men and were intended primarily for the purpose of reproduction.
That was before I met Jean-Michel in the Caribbean, where I’d gone to study for six months. He was almost constantly stoned, yet I was helpless under his beautiful dark hands. I’d gone to the island to study local urban planning but wound up devoting most of my time to studying the wonders of the male anatomy. The trip was worth every minute. “Ici, tu es devenue femme,” Jean-Michel said just before he put me on the plane back to Germany. Here you became a woman.
Ludger, too, had been taken with my femininity when he selected me as one of the women he’d chosen to receive his affections. With his good looks and apparent future as a wealthy doctor, I figured I’d hit the jackpot. Then he began using my savings to buy the silk blouses and underwear he insisted I wear, even as he complained about the size of my thighs. I never had the sort of legs that looked good in short skirts and fishnet stockings, but if I wasn’t wearing these items, he informed me, he simply couldn’t take me to the oyster-and-champagne parties held on the yachts of his colleagues, who would be world famous one day and might even invite him to the Nobel Prize ceremonies he was sure were in their futures.
Perhaps that’s why I fell for Paula’s father, who loved the way I looked in the clearance rack men’s shirts I favored. He had no desire to show off his millions, he said, because he was a communist and a fighter for social justice. He was so determined to hide his alleged wealth that he decided instead to live on my meager salary. If the tax office became aware of his fortune, that would cause a financial setback to the imminent socialist world revolution. He became fairly sedated by drug use and believed he was a target of both capitalists and Nazis. He wanted to keep Paula and me in the apartment so his enemies couldn’t kidnap us—and so no other men could approach us. We should need no one but him, he said, and if we talked about this with anyone, he would make sure our telephone was disconnected. I couldn’t let Paula grow up with such a crazy person in her life, so I kicked him out. A thousand euros and at least ten pounds lighter, I began my new life. He insulted and threatened me for a while, but eventually he left us alone and found another sucker willing to believe his stories and join him in preparing—and paying—for the world revolution he saw coming.
It’s no wonder, then, that after this relationship, I ascribed all the world’s evils to the presence of men and gave them a wide berth. At least, I did until St
effen reappeared in my life. We lived together in a shared apartment during college, and he felt something for me even then. But at the time he was in a relationship with another woman, and I was caught up in my own ongoing relationship drama. A few years after graduation, we ran into each other again in the city. We started having coffee together, and this progressed to movie dates and then parties. Eventually, Paula and I moved in with him—to the delight of my mother, who had always wanted a doctor as a son-in-law. Steffen was a member of a successful local practice. Again, I thought I’d found the man of my dreams. But then he wanted me to quit working since he could provide for Paula and me, and he wanted more children—but I wasn’t ready. I felt trapped. Although I still loved him and found him sexually irresistible, the pressure drove me crazy, and eventually Paula and I moved out.
I hoped things could be different with Mathis, but if I was going to move forward, I had to be assured of his good intentions—assuming that he had any. I decided then and there that the next time I saw him, I’d ask questions until I was completely satisfied with his answers, and if he didn’t cooperate, I’d walk out and never look back. If he didn’t come clean, I’d be done with him for good.
Of course, things didn’t go quite as planned. For two long days, I didn’t hear from him. It was like he’d vanished from the earth. I stared at my silent phone and even had Sandra call me to make sure that it was still working. It was. But where Mathis was concerned, it remained silent.
In the end, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore and turned my phone off altogether. Alone again. No cell phone, and no man.
The next island ferry was scheduled to leave at eleven a.m. On my way to the ferry terminal, I passed the newspaper kiosk and bought some daily papers. For more than a week, I had remained ignorant about world events, and I figured that reading a newspaper would be a good way to return to harsh reality. I was right. Nothing had changed. Murder, manslaughter, and other catastrophes, both political and natural, still ruled the headlines. Unmoved by my personal disasters, world events continued their relentless march, and no one seemed able to make things better. Did anyone even want to? I wondered. I looked at the other ferry passengers, but nothing I saw changed my dubious view of the ability of humans to coexist peacefully.
In the battle for a coveted spot at the bow of the ship, it seemed there were no rules. Knees collided with strollers, sharp elbows poked ribs, and hostile children pulled on other little girls’ braids while outraged parents furiously defended their children’s right to a spot at the railing. When it was time to disembark, the scene repeated itself in reverse, as those at the bow shoved past the other passengers in order to be the first to reach solid ground.
I spent a few hours at the island’s beach, sunbathing and missing Paula. I wished she was with me so we could build a sand castle or have a picnic. I thought about driving to Rügen, but it was too late in the day to start. When my stomach started to growl, I decided to go look for something to eat. The small island town was thick with tourists, but finally I managed to get a small table in a terribly overcrowded restaurant. At the table next to mine, a child’s voice started to whine.
“Paul always gets his fish sticks first!”
“Yours will be here soon, Carla.”
“But I want to be first!”
“Daniel doesn’t have his food yet, either.”
“Who cares? He’s still a baby!”
“No, I’m not! I’m three. Momma, I’m not a baby. Emma’s a baby.” The boy pointed at a child around the age of one who had just wiped mashed-carrot-covered hands on her father’s shirt. Emma began to scream and spread carrot puree all over the table. The mush sprayed onto Carla’s pink summer dress, as well as onto a poodle belonging to an older couple at the next table. Over the general chaos, the children’s father met my eye and gave me a look that seemed to say, Stay single. Whatever else you do, do not do this.
Feeling thankful that the disaster had nothing to do with me, I got up and left, bought a fish sandwich at the next corner, and strolled back toward the port.
Stay single, huh? Well, I was on track for that, at least. One thing was certain: I was done with diapers! Had Mathis experienced the same joys of fatherhood as the stressed-out man in the restaurant? I wondered. Undoubtedly. Having three kids meant that he’d had an eventful life. There are plenty of reasons why a person might want to vacation alone. For Mathis, this week was probably just a nice interlude. Maybe he needed a distraction while fresh paint dried on his boat, and that’s all I’d been. “Hi, Nele” . . . “bye, Nele,” and then he untied his boat and sailed away. I suddenly felt terribly alone.
On my way back to the rental, I made a quick decision: I would leave the next day. Screw the rest of my vacation! Even sitting through a meeting with building department directors and mayors was better than moping around the North Sea feeling sorry for myself. I was able to make a living, and I could choose to be happy with that. What was with my ridiculous obsession with the horizon, anyway? What could possibly be beyond it that was so important? That was one good thing that had come from this vacation: I was getting over my illusions.
“Thanks for that, Mathis,” I said as I unlocked the door to my apartment building.
“You’re welcome. For what, though?”
My mouth fell open and I felt my heart drop. I turned around. There he was, right in front of me on the sidewalk, a big grin on his face. “Have you eaten dinner already?” he asked.
“Well, no. Actually, I was just going to . . .” Say it! I told myself sternly. Tell him you were just about to pack your things and leave. Say good-bye and never see him again. “Uh . . .”
“Shall we go back to The Skipper?”
Crap. Why did he have to show up now? I felt overwhelmed by an urge to tell him off. What was he thinking, leaving me alone for days without calling? Leaving me alone on that overcrowded ferry to the island, and in that restaurant with the carrot-smeared children. He’d made me suffer through sleepless nights and filled my well-deserved vacation with confusion. And . . . I looked into his beautiful blue eyes. Oh, I wanted to tell him off all right. But why did I think I had the right? He hadn’t promised me anything. In fact, he wasn’t guilty of a thing—not even of kissing me. He’d been nothing but a perfect gentleman. That was the problem.
“Nele?”
“All right. Just give me a minute to change.”
“I’ll wait out here.”
I flew upstairs and through the apartment, barely able to think. Mathis was back! I scrambled to figure out what to wear, trying to imagine what he’d like. I tore through my clothes and picked the cheeriest thing I could find, a summer dress, but it looked like it had spent the week wadded in a ball. Quickly, I dug out my travel iron and sang my mother’s praises. (When will I ever use that? I thought when she gave it to me for Christmas.) Feeling better in my fresh clothes, I ran down the stairs, forcing myself to take them one at a time despite my excitement. My suffering of the last few days was forgotten. Mathis had remembered me and returned. I could see the beauty in life again.
At The Skipper, I ordered both an appetizer and an entree to celebrate. All of a sudden, I felt like I was starving. Mathis, too, seemed famished and dug into his food.
“How were the last couple of days?” he asked.
Lonely, I thought to myself. “Pretty uneventful,” I said. “I mostly just vegged out. I went over to the island on the ferry. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“What happened? Did you get seasick?”
“Seasick! On a ferry? Please. I may not be a local, but I’m not that bad.” I told him about my experience at the restaurant.
Mathis laughed. “Oh, yes. I remember. You need to be brave to take kids on vacation, especially to a restaurant. I’ve been there. Kids take a lot of work, but it’s all worth it. I spent as much time with my kids as I could, whenever I could.”
; I swallowed hard. So much love emanated from his words. I could tell he was the very best of dads. I wished he could have been Paula’s.
“How old are your children? Still little?” I couldn’t believe I brought myself to say the words.
“Not quite. Lars is thirty, so he’s out of the woods. The other two are younger. Arne is nineteen and in college. Malte’s fifteen.”
So, the children weren’t all adults yet, as I’d been hoping.
“I imagine Paula’s dad is very proud of his daughter.”
I could tell he really wanted to know the truth.
“I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“Why not?”
“He hasn’t seen her in five years.”
“Ah. Because he didn’t want to or because you didn’t want him to?”
“A bit of both.”
“I see. I suppose he doesn’t pay child support, either.”
“Definitely not.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“It’s fine, honestly. I’m thankful for every day that I don’t have to see him. He can keep his money, as long as he stays away.”
“That sounds pretty bad.”
“Really? It sounds wonderful to me. One of the best things that ever happened in my life was getting separated from him. I’m better off on my own.”
“Sounds like you’ve had it with men.”
“I thought so until pretty recently.” I couldn’t believe I’d dared to say such a thing.
“So, what’s making you reconsider?”
I tried to figure out how to steer the conversation back onto safer ground. “Uh, do we want another dessert?”
“You decide. You’re in charge.” It was clear that he meant the change in topic and not just the food. This was my big chance to tell him that I loved him.
“I think I’ll have the vanilla ice cream with hot cherries,” I said.
“I’ll join you.”
Mathis ordered, then turned his gaze on me. The look he gave me made me feel hot, then cold.
“My boat is ready,” he said at last.
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