Seven Years (12 page)

T
he letter came at the worst possible moment. I had a thousand things on my mind, a building that was supposed to be finished and was going wrong in every way, a builder who kept calling me about some guarantee or other, a contest jury that I needed to prepare myself for. Sonia had been home all that week, she had a migraine and was bedridden, and only got up for a short time in the evenings when I came home, and we had something to eat together, and then she went back to bed.

The mail had been on my desk since lunchtime, but I only got around to looking at it in the evening. The envelope was made out by hand in a clumsy writing that I couldn’t recognize; there was no return address. I pulled out two pieces of paper, saw the signature, Ivona, and immediately had a bad feeling. The secretary had already left for the day, so I went to the kitchen to get a coffee. Then I sat down at my desk and began to read.

Dear Alexander, perhaps you still remember me. After everything that had happened between us, I thought it was absurd, Ivona addressing me formally. Of course I remembered her. I sometimes used to wonder what had become of her, but never made any effort to find out. She wrote to say she thought about me every day, and the lovely time we had together. She had often meant to write to me, to ask to see me again, but then she had learned that I was married now, and she didn’t want to interfere. She was sure I had lots to do, she sometimes saw my name in the papers, and was proud of knowing me.

For a brief moment I had the absurd thought that Ivona wanted to blackmail me, but she had nothing on me. Sonia knew about our affair, and after that night when I told her about it, I hadn’t seen Ivona again, I just stopped going, and she’d never tried to get in touch. Sure, I’d behaved badly toward her, but that wasn’t a crime.

The reason she was writing, I read on, was that she was in dire straits. She was still illegally in Germany, getting by on badly paid jobs off the books, cleaning and child minding and occasional little bits of translation work for a Christian publisher in Poland. The money had always been enough, Ivona wrote, she had even been able to support her parents on it, who had had a hard time after the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, but a few months ago, she had gotten sick, some abdominal condition. She never had health insurance, she had just been lucky enough to stay well. Now she was facing expenses that dwarfed her income. She had turned to God for advice, and one night in her dreams she had seen me as her rescuer. Even then she had hesitated for a long time before asking me for help. If I wasn’t able to give her anything, she wouldn’t bother me anymore. I owed her nothing, she would see any help as a charitable act, and try to pay me back as soon as possible.

The letter was cumbersomely expressed. I was pretty sure someone must have helped Ivona write it. Even so, the formulations were full of that blend of submissiveness and impertinence that had struck me about her from the start. I could picture her face before me, the expression of humility that made me wild with lust and rage. Ivona had signed with first and last names. Below her signature was an address in Perlach and a phone number. I pocketed the letter, shut down the computer, and went home.

The lakeside house of Sonia’s dreams turned out to be beyond our means. Instead we lived in a row house in Tutzing, away from the lake. We had been able to buy the house after an aunt of Sonia’s had died and left her a small inheritance. The first time we looked at it, we wandered into a small room under the eaves with a slanting ceiling and Sonia said, this is the nursery. I didn’t say anything, and we talked about a couple of modifications. But that same evening, Sonia brought up the subject again. She said she didn’t have that much time left in which to get pregnant, after thirty-five things got critical. We had a very objective conversation about the pros and cons of having children of our own, and in the end decided that Sonia would come off the pill.

After some years at the planning stage, the building work finally began on the school in Chemnitz. I rented a room there, and often stayed away all week. It was only on Sonia’s fertile days that I absolutely had to be in Munich.

In spite of, or maybe even because of her beauty, Sonia was pretty inhibited. She was incapable of passion, and I sometimes got the feeling she was watching herself while we made love, to make sure she kept her dignity. Initially, synchronizing our nights to her ovulation had a positive effect on our sex life. On those evenings Sonia was nervous, she blushed easily and upset glasses and knocked things over. Then she would disappear into the bathroom for a long time, and when she came out and joined me on the sofa in her silk wrap, it felt as though she was offering herself to me, which was a thought that stimulated me. Sometimes we made love on the couch, and I thought Sonia was turned on as well, and forgot herself at least for a little while. But when she didn’t get pregnant, my feeling of failure got more pronounced, and I lost all pleasure in this game.

Birgit, who had been Sonia’s roommate in their student days, had opened her own practice by now. She was Sonia’s gynecologist, and ran all kinds of tests, and sent us to specialists. Finally she told us that medically everything was okay, and she urged Sonia to work less, but we couldn’t afford to take advice like that. It’ll be all right, said Birgit. Don’t think about it so much, then it’ll just happen naturally.

After the appointment, the three of us went for a drink together. Conversation turned to Tania. She and Birgit had continued to live in the apartment together for two years after I moved out. Tania’s hygiene neurosis had gradually abated, but she’d gotten crazier in other ways. She subscribed to German nationalist papers, Birgit told us, and expressed extreme right-wing views. I couldn’t invite anyone back to the apartment anymore, I would have been ashamed if they’d seen who I was living with. Also, Tania had grown increasingly suspicious. She had developed a thoroughgoing paranoia. She ended up marrying a Swiss guy who was also a member of the organization she had joined, and she had gone to live with him in Switzerland.

But it was so nice at the beginning, said Sonia, do you remember? How we used to cook meals together? She was always a bit uptight, said Birgit. She took everything so fantastically seriously, and had theories and views about everything. She couldn’t allow things just to be. Like any true believer, in other words, I said. Sonia said that was a mean thing to say. It’s not the worst people who end up in sects, said Birgit. It’s the seekers, the ones who are missing something, and can’t live without it anymore. Then they go and hang their hearts on some guru or some idea that’s in the air just at that time. Something that gives them security. A relationship can give you just as much security, said Sonia. Money gives you security, said Birgit. I said I hoped to be able to endure insecurity. Birgit laughed. If you expect a certain standard of living, there’s only the appearance of freedom for you anyway. Who said that?, I asked. Birgit shrugged her shoulders. Me? No idea. The only alternative is sainthood.

The office did better than we could have dreamed, we had taken on more staff, but somehow there wasn’t any less work for the two of us to do. You can’t plan everything, said Birgit. We’ve got time, said Sonia, and if it’s not meant to be, then it’s not to be. I knew how much she wanted a baby, and I felt bad that I couldn’t make it happen for her. We stopped talking about it, only sometimes Sonia would say she was fertile just then, and I would feel sorry for her, which didn’t make me perform any better. When we moved into the house, we used the room under the eaves as a storage room, but Sonia didn’t stop referring to it as the nursery.

On the day Ivona’s letter arrived I happened not to have my car with me. I had belatedly taken it to the mechanic that morning to have summer tires put on, and had gone to work by subway. It was a fine day, and after work I went to the station on foot, and was thinking about Ivona. The thought that she was still living in Munich was somehow disagreeable to me. I hadn’t seen her for almost seven years. It was surprising that we’d never bumped into each other in all that time, on the street or on a bus or in a store. I was sure I would recognize her instantly if I did happen to see her. Perhaps she was observing me, the way she did back then in the beer garden. I stopped with a jolt and spun around. A man who was following hard on my heels brushed past me and muttered, asshole. Not a trace of Ivona.

It had been my intention to tell Sonia about the letter and ask for her advice, but when I got home I saw that she still had her migraine, and I decided not to. She would only worry herself needlessly, or get all suspicious or something. I would call Ivona, meet her somewhere if it wasn’t possible otherwise, and lend her the money, provided the amount she needed wasn’t too much. And that would be an end to the matter.

Sonia said she was feeling a little better, and tomorrow she would go back to work. She had even cooked something. I’m just going to make a quick call, I said, and went to the basement where we had set up a little office.

I shut the door and rang the number in Perlach. A man’s voice answered. I asked for Ivona. Just one moment, he said, and I heard sounds, a door, a hushed conversation. Then there was silence, and I knew Ivona was on the line. I got your letter, I said. I didn’t want to, said Ivona. Want to what? Ask you for help. Silence again. I’ll see what I can do, I said. I’m not swimming in money. Silence from Ivona. It was no good, I’d have to see her. I asked if we could meet. The man came on the line again, said Ivona was sick, if I wanted to see her, I’d have to go there. His voice sounded dismissive, but I was pleased Ivona appeared to have someone looking after her. I asked who I was talking to. Hartmeier, he said, a friend.

The following afternoon I went to Ivona’s. I told Sonia I had a meeting, and she nodded and said she’d probably stay longer at the office, a lot had accumulated in the course of her absence.

Ivona lived in an apartment building in a characterless sixties development. The buildings stood right on the road, clustered around a green space with a few trees and a neglected playground. The facade was grimy and sprayed with cryptic graffiti next to the entrance, but other than that it was in surprisingly good condition. I rang the bell and after a while a bluff-looking man with gray hair came down the stairs and opened the door for me. Hartmeier, he said, extending his hand. We were expecting you. I looked at my watch, I was only a few minutes late. He took me to the third floor, to a small, cluttered apartment. He knocked on a door and went in. I stayed in the hallway and listened to him say, with false friendliness in his voice, that he had to go. You sure you’ll be all right? Then he came out and held the door open for me. When you leave, make sure she locks the door after you.

I entered the bedroom. The curtains were drawn, and it took me a moment to make out Ivona in the dimness. She was sitting on a chair beside the window. This room too was stuffed with junk. The air was stale and far too hot. I walked up to Ivona and gave her my hand. She had changed in the years of not seeing her. Her face had grown puffy, her hair was thinner. She was wearing an ugly quilted wrap of no particular color, and white socks under plastic sandals. She might be only two years older than me, but she was an old woman.

I had known her body in all its details, the heavy, pendulous breasts, the rolls of fat at her neck, her navel, the stray black hairs on her back, and her many moles. I knew how she smelled and tasted, how her body responded to touch, I knew its repertoire of familiar and less familiar movements, but when I saw Ivona sitting there, I had to acknowledge that I didn’t know the least thing about her, that she was a complete stranger to me.

She told me quite freely, almost pleasurably, about her condition before the impending operation. For some time now she had had very heavy bleeding and cramping during her period. The doctor had found myomas, harmless growths in her womb, and instead of putting her on hormone treatments for years, he had suggested having the womb and ovaries removed. A perfectly routine operation, she said, the removal would be done vaginally, there was no need to open her up. It felt strange to hear the technical medical terms in her mouth. She talked about her body as though it were a malfunctioning machine. She had no fear of the operation, she said, but what made her sad was the knowledge that she would be unable to have children afterward. Thirty-eight is leaving it a bit late for babies anyhow, I thought, but didn’t say anything.

Are you with someone?, I asked. Herr Hartmeier is just a friend, she said. She had the flu, that’s why she was home. And he looked in on her from time to time and checked up on how she was. She asked me if I wanted some tea, and I followed her into the kitchen and watched her heat up water and take a tea bag from one of the cupboards. Her way of moving had something coquettish about it, I could think of no other word for it. Presumably, I was the only man who had seen her naked apart from her father and the gynecologist, I thought. And suddenly I had the overwhelming desire to strip her naked. I came up to her from behind, and opened her wrap, and let it fall to the ground. She was wearing a thin short nightie underneath, maybe it was the same one she had years ago. I pulled that over her head, and took off her underthings too. She turned to face me. Her features were completely expressionless.

I was pretty sure Ivona had never slept with a man, and that her panting wasn’t excitement but fear. I knew I was making a mistake that could not be amended, but I was reeling with desire. I pulled her into the bedroom and onto the bed, and she lay down, and I lay on top of her. Again, I had the sense of Ivona’s body having a life of its own, that when it was naked it was quite divorced from her character, and was capable of unexpected responsiveness, a mute language all its own. While Ivona kept her eyes tightly closed, and her face looked as if it were asleep, her body was awake and reacted to every touch, every glance almost, with a shaking, a trembling, tension or relaxation, in a way that both excited and repulsed me.