Sea Air

by Meeringa, Jule

  “Come on, Paula, we can do it without the men.” I resolutely pulled her math workbook toward me.

  I tried to stay upbeat while we worked on her homework, but it was difficult for me. Paula calmed down after a while, and she even seemed to be having fun—unlike me. Though outwardly calm, I fumed on the inside. It wasn’t unheard of for Mathis not to get in touch with me for a whole day, but my intuition told me that in this case something was really wrong.

  It was bad enough that Mathis was isolating himself again, but how could he do this to Paula? What kind of situation was this, when a little girl wanted to call her friend and math hero, and her mother had to forbid it? The more I thought about it, the angrier I got, and the harder it was to resist the urge to hurl plates and cups at the wall. In the end, I’d only be hurting myself—Mathis wouldn’t care. I’d be the one having to buy new dishes—he’d just say that the situation was what it was, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

  Utterly infuriated, I decided to do what I should have done long ago. I was fed up with bending over backward, offering sympathy, and playing the role of occasional wife. The time had come to say what was on my mind, send Mathis packing, and live my own life. I didn’t need someone else’s husband, a man with another family, a no-time-for-you kind of guy—or the stress of that kind of relationship. And why was Steffen creeping into my thoughts now? The hell with that!

  On an impulse, I grabbed the phone, went into the living room, and found a number in the phone book. I’ll teach you to leave my poor child hanging . . .

  “Hagena,” a female voice answered.

  Oh my God. His wife! I had actually reached his wife . . . My face grew warm and I felt my knees buckle.

  “Hello?”

  “Yes. I, uh, would like to speak with Mathis.” As I spoke, all my rage disappeared and misery took its place. My God, what was I doing?

  “He’s not here. Can I give him a message?”

  “No!” I cried out without thinking.

  “Excuse me?” She sounded like she thought I might be deranged.

  “Uh . . . never mind. I’ll call later.”

  “Better not.” The line went dead. Clearly in my mind, I saw Mathis’s wife shaking her head at me. Of course, she thought I was stupid. In a panic, I tried to remember if I’d said my name. I couldn’t remember. Probably everyone in the Hagena household was laughing at me now. What had I done?

  I hung up and lowered myself onto the sofa, wanting to die from shame.

  “I’m finished, Momma.”

  “With what?”

  “With my homework—duh!”

  “Oh, okay. Let me see it.”

  “Can I check it with a calculator first?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Who did you call?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Then who were you talking to?”

  “To myself.”

  “Really? That’s pretty dumb of you!” Paula giggled.

  “Believe me, Paula, your mother is even dumber than you think!”

  The next day my phone rang off the hook. Everyone was looking for Mathis, Christoph, Marco, the mayor—even Mathis’s secretary called me in the hope that at least I would know how to find him. Mathis was missing and seemed not to have left even the smallest clue. His secretary said she’d try him at home one more time. I waited impatiently for her to call back, and when the phone rang, I grabbed it in the middle of the first ring.

  “Did you find out where he is?”

  “Where who is?”

  “Weren’t you . . . . Mother?” Too late, I realized that it wasn’t Ms. Brenner, but my mother calling—at the most inconvenient moment, as usual.

  “Mother, not now. I’m expecting an urgent call.”

  “Who are you looking for, your architect? Child, I told you to not let yourself—”

  “Stay out of my business. And now, please get off the phone. I don’t have time to talk.”

  “Nele, I’m just saying that—”

  “Good-bye, Mother!”

  I wondered when I would ever have a phone conversation with my mother that didn’t end with me having to hang up on her.

  The next time the phone rang, I was careful to check the caller ID. Mathis’s office number lit up in my phone’s display window.

  “Ms. Brenner?” I forced myself to speak in a calm voice.

  “Yes, Ms. Martens. I just talked to Mrs. Hagena. I’m afraid she doesn’t know where her husband is, either. She hasn’t seen him since last night.”

  “That’s weird. And now she’s worried.”

  “Worried? No, she didn’t sound like it at all. She said to be patient and that Dr. Hagena would eventually contact me.”

  “But it isn’t normal for a person to simply disappear without a word. I mean—”

  “Actually, this isn’t that unusual for Dr. Hagena. He usually checks in by the second day and tells us when we can expect him back.”

  “But that’s not right!” I said. “He can’t just leave everybody in the lurch and leave.”

  “Oh, but, Ms. Martens, Dr. Hagena can.” Ms. Brenner sounded completely unconcerned. “He’s always had his freedom. All we can do is wait for him to report back. But don’t worry—I’m sure it won’t be much longer. I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything.”

  All we can do is wait . . . I stared at the phone in my hand after she’d hung up.

  “But I don’t want to wait!” I shouted, pounding my fist against the table. Not anymore. I’d already wasted too much time waiting for Mathis Hagena.

  The next day I invited Paula and myself to dinner at Sandra’s. There was still no word from Mathis, and I didn’t want to spend the evening alone, obsessing. I’d done that all day at the office, and I’d found nothing that could distract me from my gloomy thoughts. I’d hoped that chatting with Sandra would cheer me up. But as soon as I saw the look of pity on her face, I felt like turning around on the spot. It was true my guy had skipped town and left me without a word. That was bad enough. But the Oh, you poor girl, he left you hanging again and the I told you so looks made me wish the ground would just open up and swallow me. To admit to myself that the skeptics had been right and that I never should have gotten involved with Mathis made me feel a pain that was almost physical.

  “Still no news of Mathis?” Sandra asked when I was just barely through the door.

  I shook my head. “No—nothing. It’s like he’s disappeared from the face of the earth. I went to see Lars yesterday, but he didn’t know anything, either.”

  “And what does he have to say about his father’s disappearing act?”

  “The same as Ms. Brenner, that Mathis just does this sometimes and not to worry.”

  “Still, you never know.”

  “Never know what?”

  “Whether something happened. Later, we might look back and realize we did him a disservice, and that the whole time he was lying somewhere in the gutter—helpless, injured, or dead.”

  “I feel so much better.”

  “You can’t just ignore the possibilities, Nele.”

  “Of course not. But if anything like that happened, someone would find him and help him.”

  “Probably. Unless it was a crime, and somebody buried him?”

  “Oh my God, Sandra—stop, already! You don’t just bury a guy like Mathis. He’s taken off—it’s that simple. He’ll probably show up in the next few days and then act like nothing happened.”

  “Which I hope you won’t let him get away with.”

  “Of course I won’t.”

  Sandra gave me a doubtful look.

  “You don’t believe me,” I said.

  “Do you believe yourself?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know what I believe anymore. I know what I need to do, but I don’t know if I’ll be able t
o resist him once he’s standing in front of me. Anyway, I knew what I was getting into with him from the beginning. What happened with the mayor and Schlüter was a shock for him . . . it was a shock for all of us. And he’s always had this need to—”

  Sandra set herself squarely in front of me, gripped me by my arms, and looked me deep in the eyes. “Hello? Earth to Nele! He left you without a word. Did you hear me? He left you without a word. People can’t just do things like that to each other—not even the great Mathis Hagena.”

  “But—”

  “No, Nele. No buts this time.” Sandra let go of my arms. She’d squeezed them so tightly, I would probably have bruises the next day. “Trust me: if Christoph pulled something like that, he’d find his suitcase packed when he came back.”

  “I don’t know what to do!” I sank down into my chair and buried my face in my hands. Saying nothing, Sandra began the process of preparing dinner by cutting tomatoes into tiny pieces. After a while, I stood up, took out a wooden cutting board and started to help her.

  “Today we’re having bruschetta mista.” She pushed a spoonful of chopped tomato into my mouth.

  “It’s good,” I said in a weak voice. I felt tired, drained, and longed for my bed.

  The bread for the bruschetta had been toasted to perfection when Christoph arrived home. I hadn’t seen him since he’d stormed out of the meeting. He looked pale and tired, but I didn’t comment on his appearance. My God, I thought, all this has hit him the hardest of all. For months, he’d been riding an emotional roller coaster, alternating between fear and hope—just to have it all end like this.

  “Hi, Nele. How are you?” he asked when he saw me. He appeared so apathetic; I was surprised he could register my presence at all.

  “I’m okay,” I said in a feeble voice. I gave Sandra a questioning look, but she shrugged as if to say, Don’t look at me—I’ve already tried everything I can think of to pull him out of this.

  Christoph grabbed the newspaper and leafed through the pages so fast, he couldn’t have read a single headline. When we sat down to eat, he listlessly examined the tomato bruschetta. “Have you heard from Mathis?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Christoph nodded, then he stood up and left the kitchen without saying a word. Pretty soon, he started to swear loudly, and I could hear a banging noise coming from the hall closet.

  “What’s he doing?” I asked.

  “Probably looking for his running shoes. I guess he forgot that he put them in the basement.”

  “He’s going running?”

  “He’s been going every night. It’s probably the only thing that’s kept him from losing his mind,” Sandra said. Then she shouted toward the hallway, “Your shoes are in the basement, sweetheart!”

  We heard more banging sounds in the hallway and Christoph swore a few more times. This was followed by the sound of footsteps padding down the basement stairs, and then nothing more.

  “Mathis’s disappearance hit him hard,” said Sandra, once she was sure he was out of earshot. “He’s horribly disappointed.”

  “Of course he is. It has to be so hard for him.”

  “At this point, he’s only going to work to wrap up a few loose ends. He needs his friends’ support right now. Marco calls every once in a while, but he’s dealing with a lot himself.”

  “Yeah, he is. He’s second-guessing everyone and everything—and he’s still mad as hell. It’s not like Marco to be this upset for this long. If he’d been the one to take Schlüter’s call today, who knows what he’d have done. Luckily, Vera thought to put the call through to me.”

  “Schlüter actually had the nerve to call you? What on earth did he want?”

  “He’d mislaid a project sketch for the day care center that he needed for a meeting tonight and he wanted me to send him a copy. But . . .” I lifted my arms in mock regret and gave Sandra a look of fake desperation.

  “You couldn’t have possibly lost it, too?”

  “It’s so stupid of me, but I’m afraid it just disappeared. Maybe it will show up first thing tomorrow morning —you know, just one of those things.”

  Sandra gave an exaggerated sigh. “He’ll probably be quite embarrassed this evening. This is going to make him look really bad. I almost feel sorry for him.”

  “Yeah, he felt sorry for himself, too.”

  “Do you think he believed you?”

  “Of course not. But he didn’t have the guts to call me on it.”

  “And he didn’t say anything about the cancellation of the other project?”

  “Of course not.”

  “What a coward. At least you got back at him a tiny bit. Is that your new approach to dealing with Schlüter?”

  “I don’t know. Game playing isn’t really my thing, and my maneuver today really was a bit silly but . . .” I folded my arms behind my head and grinned.

  “But?”

  “It felt so dang good!”

  I woke up the next morning with eyes puffy from crying and a head that ached terribly. I’d spent half the night crying and thinking about Mathis. My tears were caused by sadness, yes, but they also came out of anger. At first, this anger had been focused entirely on Mathis and his failure to be responsible, dependable, and present. But, the more worked up I got, the more my critique turned toward myself: Why couldn’t I make myself walk away from this man? Why hadn’t I recognized the early signs that said he would always hurt me, especially after he dumped me the first time? Why had I let myself get talked into working with him, instead of trusting my own intuition, which had said to stay away? Why was I always getting mixed up in some situation involving a man? I wrestled with one question after another throughout the night, but I didn’t come up with a single good answer.

  As I got out of bed, one more question struck me: Why did my reflection in the mirror make me think of The Rocky Horror Picture Show? I splashed cold water on my face, but it didn’t help—I still looked like a monster.

  “Whoa, you’re so pale! Are you getting sick, Momma?” asked Paula when I saw her in the kitchen.

  “No, just tired.”

  “You look pretty sick. You’re superpale,” she insisted.

  “I’m fine, Paula. Just believe me, all right?”

  Paula puckered up her mouth in an expression that seemed to say, you don’t even believe that yourself. “This is because of Mathis!” she said in a solemn voice.

  “What’s because of Mathis?”

  “He’s why you look so pale. Am I right?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I said weakly.

  “You’re sad because he just disappeared.”

  “Who said that he disappeared?” I hadn’t spoken a word to Paula about what was going on. As far as she was concerned, he was supposed to be traveling for a few days.

  “Oh, Momma, it’s so obvious. Everybody knows!”

  “Everybody knows what?”

  “Come on. That Mathis has disappeared and nobody knows where he went.” Paula spoke each word carefully.

  “And who said that?”

  “Sandra said it to Christoph, when Anneke was accidentally standing at their bedroom door.”

  “Accidentally.”

  “Yes. Benedikt says it’s not so bad that Mathis disappeared because his grandpa disappears every once in a while, too. But they always find him again, standing around half-naked at the train station, or something like that.”

  “Yes, but doesn’t Benedikt’s grandpa disappear because he’s old and sick and confused?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh, and I thought, since Mathis is also already so old, maybe we should look in the train station, too, and—”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” I said. “How did Benedikt know that Mathis was gone?”

  “I said so in our morning circle.”

  Terrific. Undoubt
edly, the whole staff at the school now knew what was happening at our crazy house.

  “All right. Well, do you want to take a salami sandwich to school?” I asked, trying to distract her.

  “Are you very sad that Mathis is gone now, Momma?” said Paula.

  I nodded. “Yes, Paula, I’m sad, but I’m also angry.” Why should I continue to fool my daughter?

  “Do you think he’s coming back ever again?”

  “He’ll be back soon, I think.” I sounded more confident than I felt.

  “Then you’ll be happy again, right?”

  That was a good question. Would I be happy if Mathis came back? I would certainly be relieved to know what had actually happened. But—happy? I wasn’t sure.

  “What about you? Will you be happy if he shows up again?” I asked the question without responding to Paula’s.

  “I think so. Mathis can be a lot of fun and he’s really nice. And he’s really good at math problems.”

  “One might even think he was the perfect man,” I said as I stuffed pieces of salami into Paula’s sandwich.

  Marco studied me when I came into the office, but he said nothing, even though he could see that I was miserable. He had fully recovered from his drinking binge and was working that morning on a plan for our company’s future. I sat down and tried my best to join in. I’ve always enjoyed goal-setting, because it gives me such a sense of possibility for my life. But this time I had little to contribute. After a while, Marco dropped the pencil he’d been chewing on.

  “You’re not helping, Nele.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s hard for me to concentrate at the moment.” I sounded as sheepish as I felt.

  “Understood. But moping around all the time isn’t going to help.”

  Thanks so much for that insight, Captain Obvious! I wanted to say, but I stayed silent.

  “Do you want to take a couple vacation days?”

  “Vacation? So I have even more time to mope? I know you mean well—but no. Thanks anyway.”

  “Come on now, Nele. Don’t take this so seriously. You know what everybody’s telling us: Mathis just does this every once in a while. He’ll resurface soon enough, and then life will go back to normal.”