Snapshots
________________________________________
by
Natalie Herzer
Copyright © 2012 by Natalie Herzer
eBooks by Natalie Herzer
Snapshots – A Collection of Short Stories
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The Patroness Novels
Blue Moon Rising
The Hunt is On
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Table of Contents
Snapshots
Braving the Storm
Try the Door, John
Despairing Hope
Live
The Glass In Between – or The Wonderful Freedom Of Delivering Pizzas
Excerpt
Blue Moon Rising
The Hunt is On
Braving the Storm
She sat still on the wooden bench behind the house, looking out over the tidy garden. The air was hot and close. The heat and humidity oppressive. Swallows chased each other through the sky, zigzagging between the carefully selected and lopped trees, and buzzing bees flew from one neatly planted and arranged flower to another. The flowerbeds were the right size, the tutored lawn mowed at just the right height. Everything was as it should be, or almost. She hadn’t pulled the weeds today.
From the west she saw clouds coming in. Slowly gathering, thickening, and billowing high into the sky like giant cotton balls. But for now, the birds were chirping, and the bees were busy. It seemed peaceful, this natural tranquility. The quiet before the storm.
She heard the car coming up the driveway and park beside the house. He came home from a hard and long day of work. His work was important. He was an important man. She heard him get out of the car and shut the door with a hollow bang. He walked towards the front door, rustling with his keys, inspecting the lawn and the dream house for the slightest blemish with a sweeping glance and whistling. Always whistling. She heard him get in, could see it clearly in her mind when and where he put down his leather briefcase.
“Darling, I’m home,” he announced cheerfully. “I brought you a wonderful dress. I want you to wear it tomorrow night.”
She could see him hang up his stylish coat onto the right hook of the rack and the dress hanger onto the left one. He pulled off his shoes, storing them properly away in the little cabinet.
He went into the clean, stainless steel kitchen, and she could see his quick, scrutinizing look as he inspected everything, from the smooth, clean surfaces over the arrangement of the dishtowels then to the already laid table in the dining room. Everything was just right, she knew it, just as she knew he moved either the silver candlestick or the crystal vase standing on the table a hairbreadth to the right or left; accurate to the millimeter. She knew, could hear him in her head as he muttered about her inability to arrange even the slightest things and as he started to wonder, displeased, about her absence.
The sun was low in the sky and as the storm clouds blocked its shining disk from the world they gleamed in an eerie red changing quickly to a sickly dark violet. Ominous and foreboding. The air thickened with electricity, seemed to crackle with it along her skin. The buzz of busy insects, the chirp of birds ceased. Eerie silence followed, waited.
She could sense it when he went into the bathroom, shaking his head out of wistful pity for her. He used the same inspecting look there before he bent over the marble sink to scrub his hands. When he straightened and looked up into the mirror, she could see him freeze. She hadn’t cleaned it today. The smallest beads of water had dried on the smooth, cold surface; had left a trace, had marred what was his.
Outside the blanket of storm clouds, heavy with trapped rain and lightning, settled over the house and with it a dark, threatening gloom. The first thunder rolled. The birds were nowhere to be seen, the insects were in hiding and the neighbor’s horses whickered in dismay and pranced in their caging enclosure. She was sitting motionless on the bench, looking out over the garden.
“Where are you?” he bellowed, then checked himself. It wasn’t seemly to shout. But, by God, how often did he have to tell her? She knew the consequences. He was an important man, others depended on him. “Is it too much to ask of my own wife to just take care of the house, of the things I gave her?” he muttered.
Where was she? She should have come down to greet him properly by now. Was she off, to a damn friend? But no, she wouldn’t dare, not if she knew he came home at seven and wanted dinner to be served thirty minutes later. She knew the consequences. Then again, women were stupid, foolish, not sparing a mere thought about who and what hard work put food into their mouths. Ungrateful bitches.
Anger boiling, thunder growling, he went back into the kitchen, looking for a sign of her. The oven was on. He opened the door and saw his favorite meal, roast rabbit marinated in rosemary – with the wrong vegetables.
She knew mushrooms and shallots went with it, but had chosen string beans for today instead. He roared, slamming the door shut, and the first lightning split the sky. She could see in her mind the anger distorting his features.
“You bitch! How stupid can you be?” Wild now, loud enough for her to hear him outside, he paced the house, “Where are you? Where are you hiding? You know it’s useless. You know the consequences. I even think you like it. Why else would you disappoint me so much?” He checked every room for her. “You won’t ever get away from me. You’re my wife!” he snapped, his voice like a whip. He rolled his sleeves up, automatically fumbling with his leather belt.
She sat on the bench behind the house, still, looking over the tidy garden, listening to the rolling thunder. Her hands didn’t even tremble. The horses whickered, prancing, caged. Lightning flashed.
He was upstairs now. She looked up to the window.
She had left the light on in their bedroom today.
Wild with rage, his blood bubbling he wanted to go and find her and drag her home, that deceitful bitch. But he couldn’t afford a public scene, and so he would have to wait until she returned to the privacy of their home. She would be punished for that, too, for letting him wait. With a howl of fury he slammed his hand onto the light switch.
Outside she saw the flicker of lethal, bluish light in the room, felt the electricity in the air, and heard – dead silence. Peaceful quiet.
Rain started to pour down, and the woman sitting on the wooden bench behind the house got up slowly. Lifting her arms high, she turned her face into the reviving rain, her silent, freeing tears mixing with it. Smiling now, she felt the warm droplets trickle against her marred skin like a loving caress. Sensed the relieving breeze awakening. She bathed in the beautiful rain and let the water cleanse her bruised body.
Her heart beat strong and fast.
Finally, Sarah was alive.
Try the Door, John
A knock sounded at the door. He lay on the couch, not caring over much and continued staring at the ceiling. The banging persisted and got even louder until a woman’s voice called out, “Hello? I know you’re home. Your cars still parked, and you sure haven’t moved your butt outside.”
Frowning at the unusual disturbance he got up and dragged himself towards the door; oblivious to his disheveled appearance in his old, crumpled jeans, unshaved and unkempt.
A tall woman with short blonde hair and green eyes smiled at him, “Hi! I’m Cara, your new neighbor.”
He leaned against the door frame, tired, “Yeah. I’m John. Nice to meet you. No, I have no salt, milk, sugar or whatever it is you need. Bye, then.” He was about to shut the door in her face, pretty sure she would leave in a huff, but he didn’t get the reaction he had hoped for.
She didn’t go away, but chuckled instead, “Forgot your manners, huh? Lucky you the neighbors warned me and told me of your loss.” She stepped forward and with one hand pushed the door open so
she could brush past him and go inside.
“Sure, come on in,” John remarked, not closing the door.
She looked around, “Jeez, since when’s your wife dead?”
He gritted his teeth, “Ten months.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” She turned to look at him and let her gaze travel the length of his body, “Not big on personal hygiene either, huh?”
John just stared at her. This woman was nuts. What did she want here anyway? Surely with her direct way she would spill it out soon. In the meantime he lightened up a cigarette, took a pull and enjoyed its tarry taste before filling his mouth with the delicate flavor of tequila. He squinted at her through the cloud of smoke.
“You shouldn’t do that,” she warned him, pointing towards the cigarette and the bottle of tequila in his hands, “it will kill you.”
He raised a mocking brow, “So?”
She snorted at that, “Oh, come on. Stop acting the poor, hurting widower. Your wife’s dead. I’m sorry, everybody’s sorry, but that’s life, damn it.”
“What the hell? You’ve no idea what you’re talking about, and no right. What the hell do you want anyway?”
“Checking out my neighbor, of course.”
He put the cigarette out, “Well, you have done that. Now I’m really, really sorry but I’ve to ask you to leave.” He went to the door, holding it open for her. Smiling sarcastically he showed her with a sweeping move of his arm the way out. “Goodbye, forever!”
She stopped in front of him, grinning, “For now. But I promise I’ll soon be over again. I might come back on that offer for milk or so.”
“That wasn’t an offer. On the contrary, I was just notifying you that it would be useless to ask for such things since I haven’t gotten any around.”
“So what do you eat?”
He held up his bottle of tequila, “I’ve got all I need.”
She shook her head and her eyes filled with mocking pity, “Oh, poor Johnny boy! There’s much work ahead of us.”
Without another word she turned and bounced down the stairs. He looked after her, shaking his head in utter disbelief before finally closing the door on the world again.
The next morning John woke to the sounds of a hammer, then a lawn mower and back to the hammer again. He got up from the couch, groaning and muttering and walked to the window. Just as he was about to close it, he saw his new least favorite neighbor jumping up and down, moving her hand wildly and screaming, “Ouch, ouch, ouch.”
With a curse he snatched up a shirt, which he wasn’t sure was actually clean but pulled on anyway as he ran out the door and over his unkempt lawn towards his neighbor’s house. Cara was her name, he remembered.
“What the hell are you doing?” he snarled as he grabbed her hand and inspected it. The cut was bleeding but not deep.
Cara smiled sweetly, “Well, good morning to you, too.”
“Being rudely awakened by hammers and stuff isn’t good.”
“So sorry I disturbed your beauty sleep. I know how much you need it.”
John shot her a glance that bordered on murder. This woman was friggin’ unbelievable. “Do you have a first-aid kit?”
“No.”
Without a word he turned and headed back for his house, tugging her along. He told her to sit down in the kitchen while he searched his own kit. When he finally found it he sat on a chair in front of her and taking her hand in his he began to clean the cut.
“You came out of your shell,” she remarked.
He looked at her, irritated, “I don’t live in a shell.”
Cara chuckled, “Sure you do. Look around you. You’ve holed up in here ever since your wife died.”
“And I came out because my dearest neighbor screamed her head off. Over a little scratch at that,” he grumbled in a voice that made it quite clear that he doubted he had taken the right decision.
“A little scratch it might be, but enough to make you come running and offer help. Though in a rude cave man kind of way.”
“You of all people want to tell me I’m rude?”
“Yeah, but that’s beside the point. What’s important is, I think, deep inside of you, you want to participate in the world again, but feel guilty about doing so. Though there’s nothing you should feel guilty about, believe me. The world moves on, it always does, and so one day you should, too. You won’t ever forget your wife and-”
“And our child.” He didn’t know why he told her, but it was too late to take it back now.
Cara leaned forward, her green eyes soft and gentle. “She was pregnant?”
John nodded and swallowed the lump in his throat, “Four months.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and when he looked at her he knew she was sincere.
He cleared his throat, applied a plaster to her cut and straightened in his chair, “This shouldn’t give you any trouble.”
She stood, “Thank you.” When she past him, she laid a hand on his shoulder, giving it a light, comforting squeeze.
John listened to the sound of her receding footsteps until she was out. Then, in the utter quiet of the house he sat in the kitchen, thinking back on their conversation. Cara was a strange woman, without a doubt one of the strangest he had ever met. And yet she made him wonder about what she’d said. John watched her through the window as she continued to plant red and yellow blooming flowers into pots.
He took a look around him. Empty bottles of tequila and pizza boxes lay scattered on every available surface, all of it coated with dust and cold ashes.
With a long sigh John stood and began rummaging through the cabinets until he came up with a roll of bin liners. Filling one bag after the other he cleaned the kitchen, wiping it down from top to bottom before moving on to the next room, where he did the same. His clothes, and there wasn’t one clean thing left, were immediately thrown into the washing machine. On a pad he noted down what he needed to buy and restock, and soon realized that grocery shopping was a top priority.
After he had taken a hot shower he stood in front of the mirror and looked at his reflection, shaved and clean. He felt human and alive, something he hadn’t felt in a long time. And after honest introspection, he found that, much to his own surprise, Cara was right, there was guilt mixed in between.
He left the groceries for tomorrow and with one beer in his hand settled on his couch. There was only one room left he hadn’t touched. Their bedroom. He hadn’t stepped one foot inside it since his wife’s death. Well, there was only so much one could do in a day.
When his door opened, he didn’t bother to look who it was. There was only one so bold enough to come not knocking on his door.
“Come on in.”
Cara crossed to him, her eyes scrutinizing the room with an approving gaze before landing on him, “You’ve done quite a lot here. You’re actually handsome without the dirt.”
He laughed, shaking his head at her.
A little hesitantly she added, “I wanted to see whether you’re alright, or whether I… My mouth often gets the better of my mind, you know.”
“You don’t say! Everything’s fine, though, don’t worry.”
“Good. So do you have some salt?”
John got up, leading the way into the kitchen, “Try tomorrow. I just might go grocery shopping.”
“No kidding?”
“Until then I can only offer you beer or water.”
“Beer.” She took the bottle he held out to her and asked, “Do you mind sitting down out on the porch? I spend the entire day inside, painting the kitchen and the living room. A little fresh air would be great.”
He had noticed the dabs of paint on her clothes and the splatters in her hair. “I can imagine.”
They went out, and set down in the wicker chairs, overlooking the back yard. The lawn was unkempt, the weed growing rampant between rosebushes and lavender. Once it had been his wife’s haven, and now it was utterly neglected. He would have to see to that, too, John mused.
&nb
sp; “So you decided to redecorate the house? Well, I guess it does need a little renovation. The Campbells, the previous owners must have lived there all their lives. Kate and Tom, you never saw one without the other for long. Their grandson, Sean, works in the food store, but you probably know him already. So, you chose that green there for the kitchen or the living room?” he asked, pointing towards a dab on her blouse.
Cara looked down at herself and laughed, “The kitchen. I like strong colors.”
They drank their beer as they watched the sun gliding lower through drafting clouds, tinging them with a first orange hue.
“Do you believe in God?” The question surprised John, and angered him somehow. He lifted an eyebrow and after a long telling look, she bit her lip, “Well, I guess with what happened you aren’t fond of Him. And who could blame you, right?”
She looked at him from the side, observing him closely, as she continued. “On the other hand it seems your faith just wasn’t strong enough to help you through your trials.”
John snorted at that, “I take it you believe in God.” When she nodded, he asked, “And for you, losing a loved one is a trial? For me, it was the end of my world, our world. The world we started to build together crumpled in a blink of an eye, when I opened the door to find a police officer standing there.”
Cara put a hand on his shoulder, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to anger or hurt you. I just believe that everything is a great puzzle, greater than we could ever understand, and only God knows the resulting picture of it all.”
John took a deep breath that now spoke more of sorrow and desperation than anger. Leaning back in the chair he looked out over the garden, into the distance, and he remembered how he had talked to God, screamed at Him, to be exact. But answers hadn’t come, and he had felt more deserted and alone than before.
Cara’s voice pushed through his thoughts, and he noticed she continued talking. “My dad, you could say he was a man of the church, he liked to tell us, me and my sisters and brothers, about the wonders of the world. He was kind of preaching the choir, actually, but we had questions of course, and he would take the time to answer us. Once when I was a kid I wanted to know, why God didn’t answer us, at least when it was really, really urgent. And he said, ‘Well, the world is mighty big and complex in so many ways, and sometimes God just doesn’t answer us in a way we expect. There are more than voices to be heard. So for example, the next time when you’re sad, and think there’s a big fat rain cloud over your head, watch if there’s not a rainbow nearby, too.’ And I did. Whenever I was sad or needed an answer I would watch whether there wasn’t something around that made me smile or simply feel better.”
He surely could have come up with a nasty remark, but didn’t. She looked peaceful and for once less annoying as she sat in the wicker chair, facing the setting sun with a sweet smile on her lips, full of memories. “Your dad must be an interesting man.”
“Indeed, he is.”
John took a pull from his beer, “So where is he?”
She waved a hand, “Oh, further to the north. I travel and move a lot, but we always keep in touch. Not a day goes by without us talking,” she grinned at him, “or getting on each other’s nerves.”
When he found himself smiling back at her, he wondered at this exasperating woman in front of him. One second he was angry and about to wrap his hands around her throat, and the next he was smiling. Maybe he shouldn’t have opened when she came knocking on his door, John mused. But then again, it felt good, to sit out on the porch, watch the sun light dance through the trees and to talk about, well, everything under it; even with, or maybe because of, the forward, no-nonsense woman beside him.
The next morning John got up, showered and planned his day. He would finally go grocery shopping and afterwards he would attack the lawn. And maybe he would even find the nerve to go up, into the bedroom.
The grocery store hadn’t changed much, but he noticed that Sean, his former neighbors’ grandson had decided to grow a goatee, probably in an attempt to look manlier and to distract from his lanky frame. At least the distraction was a success.
John tried his best to suppress a smile as Sean put his food through the till. “So, you managed to let the house?”
The young man looked up, a little surprised, “Yep, a writer from London wants it. She didn’t even want to look at the house, just paid for it. But how did you know? Word travels fast, I guess.”
“I already saw her.”
“Oh, I thought she said she would still need a little longer taking care of things in London? Well, since we settled everything I told her I left the key under the doormat, so she could come by whenever she wanted. That’s £55.36, by the way.”
John paid and accepted the change, wondering what else his new neighbor had kept from him while ruthlessly poking her nose into his life. He wished Sean a nice day, and drove back home. As he put away his groceries, he contemplated inviting Cara over for a couple of barbecued steaks. She might have been a little too nosy and cheeky, but she was also new in the neighborhood and he could at least welcome her properly.
His mind set John went over to Cara’s. He knocked and waited. When no one answered he squinted through the windows trying to look inside. What he saw didn’t make any sense at all.
Remembering what Sean had told him, he flipped back the doormat and found a key. Opening the door he stepped inside.
The wooden floor creaked under his careful step. Sunbeams streamed in through the back windows, and stunned he saw the light dust covering the shelves and the old furnishings that stood where the Campbells had left them. No fresh paint, no blooming flowers.
He swore he heard the rustle of spreading wings. And then he saw the single white feather wafting through the air, swaying gently, before landing in a pool of light on the floor.
Despairing Hope
The air was filled with incessant chatter and laughter, and hinted at mouthwatering promises as the barbecue was getting started. The family had met at her in-laws’ place and was enjoying the late afternoon sun out back in the blooming garden. The women set the table and carried out different bowls of salad and bread that everyone had brought along. The men enjoyed a fresh beer and stood debating around the grill.
Kate liked being here. She loved the abundance of sweet-scented flowers, the occasional neigh of the horse grazing in the neighbor’s garden and baaing of the sheep across the street. Irene, her mother-in-law denied having a magical green thumb but somehow that woman could bring any plant or flower to thrive and to bloom, and even those she would sometimes forget out in the frost didn’t wither.
Since the grill needed a little more time, the women decided to walk through the garden, marveling at its beauty and occasionally plucking a twig of rosemary or lavender, while nursing a glass of cool white wine.
Her sister-in-law, Marie came up beside her with her little daughter in her arms, “Can you hold her a moment? I have to pee.”
“Sure,” Kate took the gurgling package with a smile. “Hey there, are you having a nice time?” Of their own accord, her eyes searched her husband. Their gazes met.
They had always thought it would be easy to have a child, but after five years of trying they knew better now. At first the doctor had said not to worry, a bright smile on his lips, and that it was normal after taking the birth control pills for a few years. He said that the body needed time to find its own rhythm again. Then the smile had become forced and less reassuring as he’d told her that her ovulation was irregular and sometimes even absent, but that they might be able to fix that with the help of a hormone therapy.
After endless syringes and doctor’s appointments without improvement, her husband and she had decided to stop the treatment, since their love life, which was supposed to be a way to live and show their love and pleasure and a shelter where words were needless, had become a duty, a timed task. Now she wanted to scream every time she saw her monthly blood flush away another chance of life. She starte
d to hate her failing body, her flat stomach.
Her sister-in-law and her fiancé, Thomas came back, holding hands. When they reached Kate, Marie started making funny faces at her daughter, which the child stared at with big loving eyes. Thomas took his beautiful girl and held her above his head and she giggled in delight while Marie put one arm around his waist. A happy family. Jealousy sparked, unwanted and uncontrollable. She knew the baby hadn’t been planned. And guilt speared her as soon as the thought arose, because Kate knew they loved her and treated her as such.
Watching the mother and father playing with the gurgling child, a fist squeezed her heart tight until it broke, and inside she was screaming and crying.
Kate had heard that some people, scientists even, say that sometimes a child simply wasn’t meant to be between two people. Others said that love was just chemistry, the result of the body searching for and reacting to the most suitable of partners. So then how could it be that, when she loved her husband with all her heart and wanted to carry his baby, it wouldn’t work? They both wanted a child so much, to love and care for it, to see it grow. Could fate, or whatever power responsible, really be so cruel? And bring together two loving souls and deny them their greatest joy to be as one?
“Dinner will be ready soon,” her husband, the master of the grill called out, and pulled her from her dark thoughts without knowing it. The family gathered and sat down at the table. Platters and bowls and bread were passed along without conversation pausing for even a moment.
“Your potato salad is delicious, Kate. So fresh.”
“It’s the capers,” she explained, forcing herself to smile brightly.
Later that night she lay in bed with her husband, naked and out of breath. His arms held her close, and she could hear the strong beating of his heart. A silent tear slipped away and ran down her cheek. For she knew the time of waiting began again. And, even though she tried to stop it, she knew that with each day that passed frustrating hope would eat away at her more and more.
Live
Once again I woke in a body claimed by death. My mother was hovering over the bed, my medicaments and a glass of water in her hands. The sheer terror and fear of the possibility I might not awake was still plainly visible behind the relief in her eyes. I groaned. It was no bad dream, no tear-jerking Hollywood movie, just goddamn plain reality. It was unfortunate and a real shame.
“Honey, how are you feeling today?” my mother was fussing over me again, and though I could never have imagined such a thing it got worse with every day that past. With each day that meant there was one less for her daughter to live. But then again I guess it wasn’t easy for parents to helplessly watch their child fade away. It wasn’t the natural order of things. And so I endured the sometimes suffocating mothering, fixing a somewhat faint but hopefully reassuring smile onto my lips. Then I got up, popped the various pills she gave me, and swallowed them down with a gulp of water.
“I’m fine, mom. I’ll just grab a shower.”
Worried eyes fixed me as if trying to keep me from vanishing into thin air right then and there. “Sure. But breakfast is ready, hon.”
“I’ll make it quick,” I promised and gave her a little peck on her cheek and tried that reassuring smile again. It must have worked this time since she nodded and the corners of her lips curled slightly.
In the bathroom I stripped out of my pajama. And for the first time in quite a while and for whatever the reason I turned around to really look at my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t like what I saw. Some women wanted to look like anorexic sticks, I wasn’t one of them but I certainly could join the club now. I was skinny, in an unhealthy bones-and-angles-showing kind of way. But that wasn’t even the worst of it all. My skin wasn’t just pale, it was gray. I looked like a walking corpse, and to my horror pretty much felt like one as well.
I was going to die. I knew it, and with each day that passed there was one question in my mind that pressed ever harder to be heard.
Pushing away the thought, I stepped under the spray of warm water, let it caress my sensitive skin, let it wash over me. When I was finished I toweled off, and rubbed a hand over my bald, scarred head.
Dressed, I went downstairs. My father was sitting at the table, reading the newspaper, of which one corner nearly drowned in his coffee.
“Morning, dad.” I sat down. I wasn’t hungry, but with the inspection of my corpse still fresh in my mind I grabbed a roll.
“Morning. How are you feeling?”
“Good.” I sighed and let the roll drop onto my plate. I couldn’t put it off. Time wasn’t on my side. And so I took a deep breath. “I want to stop the treatment.”
The resulting silence was absolute. And then came the storm.
“What the hell are you talking about?” my father’s face was red with sudden fury and his eyes huge with helplessness at the prospect of losing his daughter. “Are you out of your mind?”
“The treatment isn’t working. I don’t respond to it.”
“Then we can still try that new one.”
“No,” I shook my head and looked at him, utterly calm. “No, dad. We won’t, because I can’t take it anymore. The treatment is killing me, the doctor told me so. My liver is shit. We have to stop. And what’s the use anyhow? What would we win? A day? I don’t even know what I’m fighting for anymore. I don’t feel good. Look at me. I’m numb, I don’t feel anything. Even with the treatment, all we would do is stall. The treatment won’t heal me, we all know it. So, please, let me have the time I have left.” I got up and headed for the door, and out. I needed to get away. I got in the car and just drove, blindly, to wherever it would take me.
After some time I stopped and really looked out the windshield, and saw my old school. It hadn’t changed much. Some signs of old age here and there, but the schoolyard in front was still filled with squealing, talking or quarreling children. And those who were hiding out to have a smoke and thought that made them pretty clever and cool. There were places where time preferred crawling to flying. With memories filling my head and an idea forming in between them I pulled away. I knew where to go now.
I drove nearly two hours to see a friend I hadn’t met in a long time. I parked the car, got out and walked to the door of the five-storey building. After searching the name, I rang and waited.
“Yes?”
“Delivery,” I said into the interphone. With a click the door was opened and I got in, heading up the stairs.
She stood waiting in the door. The last time I’d seen her she had short blue and red hair, now it was brown and flowing past her shoulders, but the rest, complete with the black clothes and spiked bracelets, seemed the same. Her face wasn’t what one would call beautiful or pretty, with a sharp nose and strong chin, but the chocolate brown, almond-shaped eyes gave her a certain interesting attractiveness. That typical expression on her face, that others might identify to be one of boredom but which was a careful study of faked indifference and what-do-you-know, hadn’t changed either.
When recognition dawned, her eyes went wide with surprise and her eyebrows went up. “What the hell? Charlotte?”
I came to a stop in front of her and grinned, “Hello Bea!”
The smile that spread across her face was one of those that always reached the eyes, an honest and beautiful smile that made guys and sometimes even women look back at her.
“Can I come in?”
“Sorry. Sure.” Bea stepped to the side to let me in, before she closed the door behind me. The living room looked nothing special except for the mural painting covering the length of the wall. It showed a magnificent black dragon, crouching with its wings about to spread above its back – and it made the flat all hers. Bea loved dragons and painting, and pissing off her landlord surely played a factor as well.
We walked into the kitchen. “Well, if that isn’t a surprise I don’t know what is. What are you doing here?”
I walked to the glass door that opened to her balcony. Instead
of answering her right away, I asked, “How are you? And how is it going, at the university and with the family?”
She sighed, “Ah, well. You know how my folks are. I don’t like it. My parents keep an eye on my studies, and look at me with disappointment and pity while wishing for me to be a little more clever and better. But otherwise they don’t give a shit about my mental state, nor my general well-being come to think of it.”
Bea had thought about suicide while we’ve still been in school. The scars were still there. She’d been living in a prison her parents had forged out of their own unfulfilled dreams, high-wrought expectations and a scary indifference to their youngest daughter’s personality. I had told her to hang on in there, that graduation and a flat away from her folks was just around the corner, and invited her over for half of our last summer holidays.
She shrugged, “Otherwise I’m fine. And you?”
“I’m dying.” I turned around, “Cancer.”
For a moment she just looked at me, speechless. “Want a beer?”
It felt as if I hadn’t had one in years, “Yeah.”
She grabbed two green bottles out of her fridge, uncapped them and gave me one before she motioned for me to sit down on one of the chairs. She grabbed the only other one, turned and straddled it. “I’m all ears.”
Turning the sweaty bottle between my fingers, I told her of my disease and that my own body now forced me to end the treatment. When I was finished, she took a long gulp of her beer and then said, “Well, that certainly qualifies as bad news.”
I went out onto the balcony and took a deep breath. The air was fresh, and I smelled that unique salty yet also sweet scent of the Baltic Sea on it.
Bea followed me out. “What do you want to do now?”
“Can I crash here?”
“Of course.”
I nodded in thanks. For the rest of the day we turned to other superficial subjects and just enjoyed brushing the dust off the bond between us. The two of us hadn’t seen each other for nearly six years and were rather different, and somehow not. We could talk about everything, in the fashion of old friends, as if time hadn’t passed and at the same time accepting the changes it had brought.
At some point I called my parents so they wouldn’t worry about my whereabouts. After the sun had set I made myself comfortable on the couch as Bea walked towards her bedroom. In the door she stopped and turned around, “How long do you have?”
“A couple of months,” I answered honestly. With a thoughtful nod she disappeared, and I lay down, turning onto my side and looking at the dragon on the wall. I hadn’t talked about my disease in such an open no-nonsense way with any other person. It was nice and relieving. Soon I was fast asleep.
“Hey, wake up!” Someone was shaking me. My eyes opened. Bea was leaning over me. “God, you sleep like the dead. Practicing already, or what?”
“What? What is it?” I scrambled to get up.
Bea plopped into her black arm chair beside me, a notepad on her knee and a pen in her hand. “Top three places you want to visit?”
I shook my head, trying to clear it from lasting scraps of some dream. “What?”
She shrugged, and explained a little impatient in a voice reserved for the mentally challenged, “You’re dying, and I want to know where you would like to go before you snuff it.”
Right. “Um. Jeez Bea, I don’t know.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and looked at her without a clue, “Paris, Canada maybe.”
She scribbled away on her pad and muttered, “Okay. What do you want to do? Some reckless stuff, I mean.”
“Escape death.” When she gave me one hard look, I recognized that Bea wouldn’t go away any time soon and that she was earnest about this and so I tried to get in a more comfortable position and sat cross-legged on the couch. I blew out my cheeks, rubbed a hand over my face and concentrated on what she was asking me. “To swim with a whale. I always wanted to see a whale, in the wild, not in a tank.”
Bea looked up again and grinned, “Ah, that’s more like it. Now we’re getting somewhere. What else?”
I smiled back at her, and finally in the mood I gave it some thought. “Can we go back to that first question? Do you remember the pub we used to go to in Rostock? And the pact we made there?
The smile widened on her lips, “Yes. We swore that if we’d ever go to Ireland, we’d go together the first time.”
“Yeah, Ireland, that’s my top one place I want to visit.”
“Okay,” Bea jotted it down, and then stopped. Looking up again, she leaned forward, a daring gleam in her eyes, “Let’s go there tomorrow. We’ll take a plane and be there in a heartbeat.”
Of all the people I knew, Bea was the only one I could imagine to do such a thing - to drop everything and fly to Ireland with me. She would do it, because no one else would dare to and probably panic at the idea of missing out on University.
When I hesitated, she lifted one of her eyebrows and asked, “Got anything better to do?”
No, I hadn’t.
“Alright,” a nearly hysterical laugh tickled my throat and bubbled out.
The next day we were on a plane, destination Dublin, where we rented a car. Since Bea didn’t have a driving license, I got to sit behind the wheel. It took me a while to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road which resulted in some scary and damned funny moments when turning at junctions, but eventually I managed. We had brought CDs and we listened to U2. It seemed to be a cliché but we didn’t care then the music was good. For a while we followed the M7 but then turned onto back roads that led us through Templemore and Newport. The air seemed so clean, and scented of grass and lakes and the sea. The rise and fall of green hills and the silvery ribbons of clear streams were breathtaking. The vine-covered houses and churches and the stone bridges were beautiful. We stopped at castle ruins, reminder of times long gone that made me think of rainy nights and sieges and the noise of clashing swords. Others I imagined caressed by sunshine, buzzing with busy maidens and filled with the sound of children’s laughter as they chased fairies. A little ways before Limerick we stopped and had a picnic by the River Shannon.
“Do you think it’s an advantage to know when you will be pushing up the daisies?” Bea asked.
We were sitting on the grassy banks of the river and I had been watching the glittering sunlight dance upon the water. At her question I turned my head to look at her, caught between laughter and disbelief, “First ‘snuff it’ and now ‘pushing up the daisies’?”
She nodded, grinning widely, “Or bite the dust or kick the bucket. I prefer those to the good old ‘die’.”
So did I, I suddenly realized. It held less of that feeling of impending doom. She finished off her sandwich and nursed a bottle of Harp, “But don’t change the subject here. Back to my question!”
I sighed, “Maybe it is. I mean, others just suddenly die in a car accident or they have a heart attack, and most of them are alone. They have a family and friends but they are alone in the car or out on the street or wherever, and they die. I don’t want to die alone.”
“You won’t.” Bea toyed with her second sandwich as she cocked her head as if in deep thought and tried to get back the beforehand cheerful atmosphere, “Shouldn’t dying people be all accepting, really wise and philosophical and all?”
I shrugged, “Yeah, well. I guess that’s just another pretty but fake little picture Hollywood likes to draw. In reality we’re as clueless as any other and angry at the world and pissed off with the universe in general and scared shitless.”
“Ah well then, that’s comforting.”
We looked at each other and snorted with laughter. Any other, after what I had said, would have patted my shoulder awkwardly, trying to get out some nonsensical ‘don’t you worry, it will all be fine’, but not Bea.
She got up, “Come on, lazybones. We need to head into Limerick. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Bungee-jumping. The woman who wanted me to
have some fun and live before I die wanted me to jump from a ramp sixty meters above the ground, free-falling headfirst. Sure, why the hell not.
Her arms were wrapped around me, mine around her. “You said you wanted to escape death. Dropping out of the sky, literally hanging by a thread - if that isn’t escaping death, I don’t know what is,” she announced happily grinning.
Right. My heart beat somewhere in my throat and I didn’t dare looking down. Then we both jumped off the edge, and screamed.
The next day as we headed towards Cork I was sure I still had adrenaline pumping through my veins. But I had to give it to Bea - I felt alive. I drove through the probably most beautiful country ever to have existed, full of laughter, joy and life. That morning my cheeks had been rosy, and I had even taken the time to moisten my skin with a sweet-scented lotion and applied some mascara, going against a lately acquired habit.
While I drove, we listened to music and Bea pulled out her notepad again. “You ever had sex?”
“Sure. Why?” I asked.
“Damn.” I looked at her as if she had suddenly gone insane. She shrugged, “What? It would have been so sweet and tragically romantic to set you up.”
“Being my deflowering pimp would have been sweet and tragically romantic?”
Bea nodded, grinning, and I shook my head, laughing. She was incredible.
With a carefree smile on my lips we drove into Cork – where Bea had organized for us to go on a whale watching tour. When she told me her plan, I hugged her to me, tears, of joy and of thanks and of sorrow, filling my eyes.