Love in Case of Emergency, page 16
She preferred to have him take her in the soft evening light, silently and with her eyes closed. When his breathing quickened and his entire body tensed, then she, too, made a few sounds of pleasure.
In her relationship with Götz the urge to have a child became a powerful instinct, further intensified when Jorinde got there first.
In the shop she found the child’s bed, which had come from an old Bavarian farmhouse. She stroked with both hands the curved headboard, painted with gentians and edelweiss, and when Götz wrapped his arms around her from behind and asked, What are you thinking? she said, Our child will sleep in this bed. Instead of replying he laughed, took her hand, and led her into the workshop.
* * *
Two years later the bed was still in the same place. Everyone could see it from the pavement through the display window. Several customers had asked the price and Götz had always given the same answer: It’s not for sale.
In the meantime, every visit to the bathroom at the end of her monthly cycle had become fraught with anxiety, every tugging in her abdomen a sign of imminent disappointment. And whenever Malika’s hopes for a child were again drowned in menstrual blood, she would lie in bed for hours with the curtains drawn.
So it was on that humid summer’s day too.
Early in the evening she heard, as ever, his footsteps in the hallway. She took the dish of baked eggplant out of the oven, put down the oven mitts, lit a match, and held it to the wick of the candle on the table. In a few seconds his beard would scratch the back of her neck and his warm lips would caress her skin. This would ease the pain.
He put his head in the doorway to say Hello, then went past the kitchen to the bathroom.
Malika turned around.
She looked at the shoes that he’d carelessly left in the middle of the hallway. The bathroom door was locked. Water was running; she stood there silently and listened.
When the rushing of the water stopped, she hurried back into the kitchen. He came in soon after, but instead of the usual display of affection he merely gave her a fleeting kiss on the cheek.
Over supper Götz mentioned that another customer had shown an interest in the bed and told her how a storm broke just as he gave his usual reply: It’s not for sale. He even remembered the name of the young woman and smiled and shook his head when he said it: Brida Lichtblau.
Her pulse accelerated, her mouth turned dry, and her vision narrowed to his facial expressions, his look. She was gripped by a dreadful fear.
Not long after that evening, when she was changing the sheets, Malika came across a packet of condoms in the gap between the bedframe and the mattress. They hadn’t been using protection for a long time as both wanted children. Nothing was more important to Malika, and so without hesitation she threw the condoms away.
That same evening Götz looked for them.
He needed a break from the pressure to conceive, he explained crossly. He felt they weren’t sleeping with each other for pleasure anymore, but only with the aim of getting pregnant.
Again Malika was seized by anxiety. And she was tormented by the suspicion that something else lay behind his behavior.
She said nothing when he began to take more care with the way he dressed.
She said nothing when his trips away became more frequent and longer, and he wasn’t hungry for her on his return.
And when he started putting his phone on silent and always carrying it with him at home, she didn’t ask why.
Nightmares dragged her into dark worlds.
When she awoke she felt sick with fear.
She couldn’t lose Götz.
* * *
Malika!
Viktoria hurries over and hugs her. The hint of alcohol on her breath mingles with the reek of a recent cigarette. She takes the flowers, sticks her nose into a cluster, inhales exaggeratedly, and runs into the kitchen.
There is a manageable number of guests. Some usual faces are missing.
Those are the people who always struggled with Helmut’s way of thinking. The anger when he posed his heretical questions had always been huge.
Is the late-capitalist, Western-liberal social order really the best system? he would toss into a cheerful conversation. Should every idiot be allowed the vote? What do you think of a wise king?
Anyone who declined to debate along such lines would be accused by Helmut of being small-minded, anti-intellectual, or vapid, depending on the degree of their refusal. But it was only when the media lashed into eastern Germany, criticizing the people for taking democracy literally, that the split among their friends led to a number of them breaking off contact. Helmut doesn’t mince his words with those who have remained.
Malika spots Ruth, Viktoria’s best friend, and her husband Karl-Ursus, the Serbian clarinetist Milovan with his wife, Una, and the Russian violinist Vasily with his entire family. She greets the Polish viola player Agata, the music editor Viola Lenz, and Rüdiger, now gray. Nobody calls him Roofing-Felt-Rudi anymore.
In the music room is a small group of nice people. An immaculately dressed man with rimless spectacles, his face devoid of any remarkable features, offers her his hand.
Very pleased to meet you, he says, introducing himself as Bertram Weisshaupt.
She feels a shudder. His voice is like Götz’s. She listens attentively as he tells her how much he enjoyed the evening of chamber music with Schubert string quartets in the Gohlis Palace. Malika was one of the performers. She seems to have made an impression on him and he clearly understands something about music.
While Viktoria circulates with a tray of sekt glasses, Bertram Weisshaupt goes on talking. Occasionally he touches his spectacles with his left index finger and smiles sheepishly. There is something gauche about his posture; he stands as if doubled up. He certainly wouldn’t make impositions on her several times a week with his sex drive. Perhaps this man with slim arms and legs is the best thing that could happen to her.
When her father suggests they continue their conversation at the table, she follows them into the kitchen and takes a seat beside Bertram.
* * *
She waited on a porch.
Residents came and went. Some eyed her suspiciously, others held the door open for her or asked who she’d come to see.
She didn’t let the shop out of her sight. Once Götz came outside with two men and shook hands with them before going straight back inside. Then nothing happened for a long time.
Twice before she’d spent half an afternoon waiting on various porches. On the first occasion it was the rain that caused her to give up, on the second it was her dignity.
This time nothing was going to stop her.
Götz came out before he usually shut up shop. Dressed in a fresh set of clothes, he hung the CLOSED sign on the door, brought his old bike inside, and appeared seconds later with the racer over his shoulder. He leaned it against the wall, put the leather clip that Malika had given him for his birthday around his right trouser leg, got on the bike, and rode off.
Malika struggled to keep up with his pace. Twice she crossed roads riskily to avoid losing him.
She followed him down Giesserstrasse and Karl-Heine-Strasse, hared after him down Josephstrasse as far as Lindenauer Markt, and finally saw him disappear into a building diagonally opposite Nathanaelkirche.
To the rear of the church, between two dense bushes and a wall, she looked for somewhere to wait.
Around an hour and a half later he left the building accompanied by a woman.
Although they didn’t touch each other, they stood very close and stared into each other’s eyes. Then they unlocked their bicycles from a lamppost and rode off their separate ways. Both turned around one final time and waved.
The woman was wearing a colorful, flowery A-line skirt and a low-cut black top. Her dark-blond hair was in crown plaits. Her body was firm and compact, her movements springy. When she stood up on the pedals, her hips moved lithely from side to side.
The woman stopped outside a chemist’s. She leaned the bicycle against a wall, took her mobile from her handbag, read a message, and smiled. Then she typed something herself, put the phone back into her bag, and entered the shop.
She spent time looking at the face creams, opting for an expensive organic product, then went to the hair care section, where she put a hair oil she seemed to know into the basket. She also picked up a bag of mixed nuts and two bars of dark chocolate.
At the checkout, Malika put a packet of chewing gum as well as the exact change for it on the conveyor belt and stood so close behind the woman that she could see the tiny blond hairs on the back of her neck. With her firm, narrow shoulders and slightly hollow back she looked like an overextended bow.
Would you like a receipt? the checkout lady said.
No, thanks, I don’t need it, the woman said. Her voice was rough and deep.
Malika watched her pack the items into a black cloth bag, which said WASH BAG on it, sweep a few recalcitrant hairs from her forehead, and leave the shop with short, capricious steps.
No doubt she was one of those women Götz usually described as high maintenance and yet felt attracted to. Women who were so in need of attention that they didn’t exist without it, that even a visit to the supermarket turned into a stage performance.
Once outside, she put the cloth bag into the pannier, got on the bike, and pedaled away.
Malika wheeled her bicycle. She would have to beg off from her chamber orchestra rehearsal that evening. She would also call in sick to the music school. It was impossible to tell what was going to happen in the next few days.
She climbed the steps to her apartment, opened the door, stepped into the hallway, and stood still.
Götz came out of the bathroom.
I thought you were teaching, he said, giving her a peck on the cheek. A towel was around his neck and his hair was wet. He didn’t avoid her gaze.
Everything O.K.? he asked, rubbing his hair dry.
Malika moved closer to him and to her astonishment said, I’m pregnant.
* * *
Bertram holds a hand over his glass. His fingers are long and thin.
Oh, come on! Viktoria says insistently. She’s suspicious of people who don’t drink. Looking slightly bemused and after a brief fiddle with his spectacles, Bertram mutters, Just a sip, then.
Satisfied, Viktoria fills half the glass with wine and Bertram goes on talking about how naïve the federal government is to believe that the mass of poorly educated immigrants, often insufficiently literate even in their own mother tongue, will generate our pensions in the future.
His factual knowledge is extensive; not even Helmut can follow him. Malika sees the strain in the corners of her father’s mouth, which twitch and droop, then refocuses her gaze on Bertram.
Unlike Götz he merely stirs a cool interest in her, mixed with a faint skepticism. Her father’s new friends have one thing in common: they hold forth and rarely ask questions. Their minds appear to be shut, they seem to have definite answers to almost everything. She doesn’t know how her father fits in, as he’s never trusted people who are too sure of themselves.
She listens for a while, then runs through in her mind what she intends to say to Jorinde later. She’ll start with the No! to the child. From there she’ll set out all the injustices she’s had to put up with from her parents because of Jorinde. And right at the end she’ll say, Why don’t you ask Viktoria? She knows all about getting rid of children.
It’s a pain that won’t go away.
Less than three weeks after Malika was born, Viktoria and Helmut took her with a suitcase full of clothes and nappies to Viktoria’s mother in the Ore Mountains. Malika spent the whole first year of her life with her grandmother. Viktoria carried on with her studies and supposedly visited her baby as often as she could. If her grandmother is to be believed, this happened every three months, so four times in total. After she returned to her parents, Malika was dropped off at the daycare facility at six o’clock every morning and picked up at six in the evening.
The premature Jorinde, by contrast, was breastfed for six months and not once entrusted to anyone else’s care during that time.
Malika’s No! will contain this and much more besides.
Excuse me for a moment. Helmut gets up and goes to the bathroom with his typical shuffle. Malika watches him, hoping he’ll be back quickly.
I admire artists like you and your father, Bertram says, but I’m an economist. I feel more at home in the world of facts and figures.
I’m not an artist, Malika says. I’m a craftswoman of my instrument.
The distinction was important to her even when she was with Götz. He bridged the gap and put their jobs on an equal footing.
That’s interesting, Bertram says and launches into a lecture on art as mankind’s tutor. His talk keeps branching out until Malika can no longer follow. She nods, smiles, and thinks of Götz, picturing his handsome face before her. No effort was necessary with him. She was able just to love him.
* * *
When the magic word had faded away Malika could still hear it. The word had fallen from her lips, but she’d had nothing to do with it.
Pregnant? Götz said.
Yes, she said.
But we’ve been using contraception.
Yes, she said, but sometimes it happens anyway.
He nodded silently, took her in his arms, and held her tightly.
* * *
For a while he came back home at the usual time. He was friendly and caring, albeit quiet and pensive.
The pregnancy was a good cover for her frequent tears. Even her affection could easily be attributed to her hormones.
The child seemed to be the salvation for their relationship.
Only there was no child, and in the hope of transforming her lies into reality Malika slept with him almost every day.
On the day her period began Götz left the apartment early to organize the transport and construction of a wardrobe. Over breakfast he’d raved about traditional assembly techniques. Nineteenth-century furniture could be put together without a single screw. She’d been half listening to him enthuse about grooves and wedges when the familiar tugging in her womb began.
As soon as the door to their apartment closed she lay on the bed and closed her eyes. She could feel the blood flowing out of her in waves, running warm down her buttocks and seeping into the sheets.
Later she took the tram to see her gynecologist. On the pavement outside the building she called Götz and asked him to pick her up.
Back home, he changed the bedclothes, made some tea, and sat beside her. It’ll be fine next time, he said. A miscarriage isn’t anything unusual.
* * *
He began to get home later in the evenings again, and his trips became extended. On more than one occasion Malika was close to confronting him, but the saving grace of love lay in the ability to turn a blind eye. Helmut had done the same: looked away and kept quiet.
While Götz was cheating on her Malika kept putting on weight, and each time she looked in the mirror her hatred for the other woman grew. One illness seamlessly followed another. Suffering became an everyday experience.
One night Malika was woken by a crashing sound. Götz lay in the hallway, blind drunk. He’d fallen against the shoe cabinet and was groaning.
He spent the rest of the night on the floor by the toilet. From time to time he pulled himself up and hung his head over the bowl until nothing more came out. She cleaned the toilet lid and wiped any traces of vomit from his face with a wet flannel.
Götz slept through the next day, and in the evening Malika felt as if she’d awoken from a dream. She stood in the bedroom with her back to the open window. Everything felt close and genuine. The fog that had engulfed her for so long had vanished.
Götz looked at her and stretched out an arm. In his eyes she could see gratitude.
* * *
The following weeks were far too happy.
Since it was summer vacation, the shop was open for only a few hours each day and he didn’t do anything in the workshop. They slept in every morning and had breakfast together, and in the afternoons they cycled to Kulkwitzer See and swam across to the other side. On a sloping meadow with apple trees they lay naked in the evening sun, speaking again about things that lay in the future.
The affair was over.
She was certain of it.
* * *
On their last evening together, Götz put a large hunk of meat on the table.
Can you cook this? he said. It’s venison. Freshly killed.
Where did you get it? Malika asked, unwrapping the meat from the waxy paper.
A customer, he said, heading for the bathroom.
Roe or red deer?
Red deer, I think.
You don’t know?
No.
She hesitated. The Götz she knew would have asked the customer. He would have listened to the story of the hunt in its entirety and asked for details.
When she picked up the meat with both hands, she could feel that it was still frozen on the inside. It couldn’t be freshly killed, as he claimed.
Her pulse quickened.
The only way she knew of preparing venison was to roast it with a red wine sauce and lingonberries. She sent Götz back out to get the ingredients. He put on his dark-green parka, slipped his wallet into his back trouser pocket, and stepped into the stairwell. Then he stopped and came back for his mobile phone, which was on the hall table.
Her mind couldn’t draw any rational connection between the meat and the telephone, but her instinct raised the alarm and she felt a cramping in her stomach as she had when it first began.
She laid her warm hands around the meat. The icy center was thawing. A thin, red trickle dripped from the edge of the table and onto her dress. All her thoughts were pushing in the same direction. And at the end of every thought was an image.
She wouldn’t be able to turn a blind eye again.
Her gaze landed on the clock on the wall. He ought to have been back long ago. The shop was less than five hundred yards away. She stood up, wiped her hands on her dress, took a knife from the block, and stabbed the blade into the meat. Again and again.
