Next World Novella (11 page)

Is it surprising that things turned out as they were bound to? At only our second meeting she asked me, mockingly, whether my lover did the housework while I was out – not my husband, you will notice. How do you like that? It surely
must
be confusing, don’t you think? Once, you will hardly believe me, she bid me goodbye with the words, ‘Tonight I shall dream of you again.’ Admit it, that wouldn’t have left you cold either. Then it all happened very quickly, but not the way you’re thinking. Much worse: it became a real friendship.

Or perhaps not entirely a real friendship.

It’s difficult for me to write about it. Put into words, it would all suddenly seem so trivial, so ordinary, yet it really was something special.

I have paused for a while in writing this letter; I still have three days, three mornings when I can sit here and finish it. Almost like old times. As far as Dana and I are concerned, I will spare you the details; we met up as often as circumstances allowed, and that was often. I would not say that I kept her financially, like all the others before me; our relationship was fundamentally different from the one you dreamt of. Besides, we are reasonably well off and secure ourselves, a little money more or less makes no difference. Hadn’t she endured the shipwreck of her life? Wasn’t she doomed to be shipwrecked again and again? Was it not
incumbent
upon me to help her whenever I could, if only out of simple humanity?

I have paused again in my writing. Dr Regelsberger says I should not – get so het up. Yes, my relationship with Dana soon became – how shall I put it? – soon became very close. Not that you should think I had no pangs of conscience; I did. But wasn’t it you who started it? Should it not, consequently, have been up to you to put an end to it, or at least try to, you whom I have always loved faithfully? But even during those emotional times you didn’t change, following your gloomy course without sparing a thought for me. I felt so lonely when we were together! You should have realized that I desperately wanted to talk to you, if only because I avoided it so persistently. Instead you let your hair grow out again, as if that would change something inside your head. When we drank our tea in the afternoon you went back to stroking it over your bald patch just as you had done before. Yet nothing was the same. Nothing.

Isn’t it outrageous, positively detestable, that you never noticed that anything was wrong? How could you be so indifferent to me? But you only ever loved me as you might love a perfect flower arrangement, a beautiful accessory, an arabesque in the margin of your life. For years I tried to reconcile myself to that, to adjust to it. After your operation it was harder and harder for me, and then overnight it actually became impossible. Our time together had run out.

Did you know that her name is really Danuta? I always called her Danka, which she liked. I think it was what she had been called as a child. No, I never told her about my dark thoughts, simply because when I was with her they did not exist. She was so lively that there was no space left for the melancholy that has afflicted me all my life. Within the first few weeks she did what you have been unable to do for thirty years – you have no idea how I can laugh. As if her mere presence released me, relieved me of the burden I have always carried. All that had made my days so quiet and hard to bear had turned to air.

Then came the moment when she disappeared from my life too. Not entirely without trace, as she disappeared from yours. Tomorrow will be the first anniversary of her farewell, and I look forward to the day with great joy. At the time, however, although I had always expected it to happen, I was rather distressed, and I was still distressed weeks later. You never noticed; I had already kept my illnesses from you: the neurologist’s diagnosis, the results of the CT scan. For you, after all, I was always to be the woman you married twenty-nine years ago, anything else would just have been a nuisance. So now, as the old Doro, I will say goodbye.

Well, Dana left me too, just as she has left everyone. So in the end you and I have something in common again, Schepp, who would have thought it possible? But while you have only one evening to remember for the rest of your life, I have four years. Four wonderful years. She had to move on, who knows why, the confused circumstances of her life were never entirely clear even to me. I had only just lent her a little money, but that can’t have been the reason; I did not even mention it when we parted. The only explanation she gave was that it was never too late to make the right decision, she had to go back to where she came from, it was high time she did.

I asked no further questions. You know that wasn’t the way to get anything out of her. She was planning to leave in a few days anyway, her decision had been made. What a look she gave me when we parted, so full of the tender affection that is possible only between women. Not in the way you may think, but – more comprehensive, more final. A look that I shall never forget.

It was nearly a year before I could bring myself to make my decision. After all, we have a family, an apartment, destinies to be disentangled. Above all, I had, and have, a conscience! How quickly the two of us, you and I, have grown apart. It began when we stopped sharing a bedroom, and went on from there. But how well we managed, all the same, no upsetting scenes, no major discord, almost perfect – if it hadn’t been for Dana it would have gone on until death did us part. Now life is parting us, and I feel ashamed not where you’re concerned but for myself. I did not
want
to write to tell you that I am leaving you – I have always thought of marriage as a sacred bond. Only Dana’s farewell look gave me the strength to do it.

Just as I was the one who took her away from you, now she is taking me away from you. Yes, our ways part tomorrow, Schepp. What would we humans be without the freedom to set out somewhere whenever we want, anywhere, against all reason? At least I have a path to follow, at least I can say that I shall be going to a place where I may perhaps really arrive. Or where I belong. You know, heavy hearts sink faster, and I want mine to be light again, at least as light as it was when we first met. If everything that happens to us is really only an echo of what we carry inside us, then in the end that path will lead me to where I can discover my innermost, deepest, most hidden being, all that I have forbidden myself in past years.

So much for my confession. I am under some pressure because I must finish my farewell letter tomorrow. When you come into this room, I expect around eleven, I shall already be on my way. Around two or half past someone will call to take away what I have packed over the last few days. Please be sensible and do not cause any unnecessary difficulties. For the moment, anyway, I am taking only the bare essentials. You don’t have to worry about telling Pia and Louisa; they already know. Of course in the next few days you will be hearing from my lawyer – no half measures any more, what must be must be. I assure you that he will soon come to an agreement with you. At least, it has all been discussed and prepared, with the requisite powers of attorney.

Do you think me cruel? It is only logical. What you did to me all these years was cruel, as was, even more so, what you did not do. But I never complained; if you will be kind enough to look back, you will realize that I was always at your side. Or at least you lacked for nothing. You will keep the books, the texts, the source materials. You will go on living in the same way as before. At worst, you will have to look for some other, shall we say, female companion to drink tea with you in the afternoon. According to Dana you have plenty of choice.

By now I hardly even care. The one thing that still matters to me, as I think for the last time about the two of us, is that I want to have a clear conscience before I leave. The lack of clarity that has come to exist between us over the years is more than I can bear. But how could I have told you, how could I have explained it, when you would have been sure to interrupt me with your constant
hair-splitting
, or made fun of me in some other way? When I came upon your little story about Marek – for the second time – I finally knew how to clarify matters. What can you do if you no longer have the strength to say something straight out? You find a roundabout way to say it.

It is never too late to begin a new life. I have felt truly euphoric for the past few days. Today the time has come. I have set the date for my departure so that in future I will still have good reason to rejoice on this day. Before I go, it’s true, I would like to slap your face, but instead I wish you, with all my heart – what? A long life in which you will have plenty of time to think about these things.

No, that’s not true. After all, I did love you, at least until you had your operation. Of course I wish you, with all my heart –

No, that’s not it either. From today you are dead to me; don’t think I will come back. And after death I won’t wait for you either. I will tell you something so that you do not even hope for that. It has to do, and this should not surprise you, with Dana and the sign on her throat. At our first meeting we simply forgot to discuss it, we were busy talking about quite different things, other subjects entirely. Strange, don’t you think? Afterwards we never got around to talking about it, although I can hardly believe that in retrospect. Perhaps because there was always so much to laugh about, and the
Kan
character would only have got in the way.

I suppose it must have been as simple as that. Only when we met up one last time to say goodbye did we get around to the sign that had brought us together and that, we were sure, would bring us together again. I told her, and it was high time to do so, what it means, what danger lies within it, and how you can face it by never standing still and staying in one place, by always turning in towards that same danger until you are clear of it, and facing the next one. I don’t have to explain to you that
Kan
is a sign that is best – at least according to the Southern Commentaries – left behind as quickly as possible.

Even if one is as magically attracted to it as you or I! That is the teaching of the I Ching: you can never stay with any one of the signs. You must keep abreast of changes so that, within the flow of all beings, you become someone else. You, pursuing your indifferent atheistic train of thought, will never understand this. But even for you, Dana’s decision to adorn herself with the sign of the abyss cannot have been pure coincidence. A clear sign of danger, every yang stroke already fallen between its two yin strokes. Most important of all, it consists of water both above and below, water everywhere, a huge lake, almost a sea, I explained to Dana, rather a lot of water for a single lifetime.

‘Water, water, water.’ Dana’s glance was vague – we called it her Galician look. ‘I’m usually up to my neck in it, but I’ll never drown, I was always a good – ’

‘I know.’ I waved that comment away, she’d often said it before. ‘Like a fish in water.’ Only then did I realize what had brought us together, and I knew I had to tell her about it, about the cold, dark lake, and how it frightened me.

As soon as I had finished my confession, Dana took my hand. She had an idea, she said – I was so surprised I couldn’t protest, let alone withdraw my hand from hers. So much water for her and for me, for both of us, she said, we ought to share it.

How, I asked, did she imagine that might happen?

Oh, it was simple. At last she knew how she could thank me: by repaying me in kind. She actually used that phrase. She had nothing else to offer, she said. Imagine, she suggested spontaneously; no, she decided, how can I put it, she made up her mind to wait for me beside the lake. If she were to die before me, as she was convinced she would. Then I could still decide whether to swim across the lake with her to Paradise or wait for my husband in spite of everything, but then I’d be sure to go to Hell with him.

In fact, Schepp, she made the same pact with me as you once did. With the difference that she has no doubts about reaching the far shore. How firmly she pressed my hand! More firmly than you, that’s for sure.

So let’s be clear: when, one day, you set out on the journey to the next world, I will not be waiting for you at the threshold. Ditto the other way round. No need for you to wait for me. You have silently terminated our marriage in the Here and Now, I free you from your promise for There and Then. As far as I am concerned, and Dana is right there, you can go to –

No, even now I don’t wish you that, I will concentrate entirely on what the signs, each in its own way, have shown me. The clock on the Church of the Good Shepherd is just striking
eight-thirty
, and my taxi will be coming in an hour’s time, so I must hurry. My heart is thudding with anticipation, can you imagine that? Over the past year I’ve consulted the coins of the I Ching almost daily and have received all sixty-four signs as an answer to my only question. Each sign contributed to my decision. Think of the Wanderer, or the Breakthrough, or Liberation. ‘When there is nowhere left to go, then returning will save you. If there is somewhere you must go, then speed will save you.’ How inspiring the signs can be. I never thought so before.

Yesterday evening I consulted the I Ching one last time, and – no, it did not give me the
twenty-ninth
sign as my answer; that would have been too much of a coincidence. It gave me Number 61, Inner Truth, a happy, cheerful water sign. As if everything from which I have suffered all my life will now be turned into its opposite, the gentle wind above, the rejoicing lake below. ‘It is good to cross the great water.’ But without you, Schepp, do you understand, without you. As far as I’m concerned, and now I will say it once and for all, you can go straight to Hell! Along with

Hanni and Nanni and Lina and Tina and

whatever they might be called. Your

I’m sorry, my head

suddenly hurts again

like when I

Yes, Doro had actually written that. The spaces between the words had become longer and longer, and at the bottom of the page they were in an entirely different handwriting. Schepp had already deciphered them: