Munich Airport (27 page)

She put her hands on her ears until she could see I'd stopped talking, and I decided not to continue giving her a hard time. I was so happy to see her, and I told her I was happy to see her, and she should smoke as many cigarettes as she liked. We ate dinner in a little Lebanese place down a gray, soggy backstreet. Most of the people there looked like regulars. It wasn't full of shouting. I ordered a big platter of food. Miriam got a glass of wine. To make the evening more comfortable, she ate some bread and hummus. The night finally picked up. This is great food, I said. It's wonderful, she said. After that we went to a cocktail bar, then we drunkenly wound around the streets, taking it in, before returning to the hotel. The next day, she would travel back to Berlin, and I would fly back to London. The conference had been a waste of time, but the trip had been worth it. We had to stop before crossing a street because a yellow streetcar went by, and I put my arms around her, kissed her hat, and thanked her for coming out. I hadn't realized how badly I needed to see you, I said.

Dolores didn't stay too much longer. When she left, Ulrika said, That, too, I find very disconcerting in this country, too much starvation has happened here, I think it makes a wrong statement. Anna went to the bathroom and Ulrika said, I have to go, but perhaps you'd like to come over and have dinner with me and my husband. I said, I have a feeling they're releasing Miriam's body tomorrow, and once that happens, we'll be very busy. She said, My husband is completely open-minded, he's also an artist. I had a feeling he might be, I said. I could call him now, she said. We're only distantly Jewish, very distantly, we're anti-Semitic Jews, I said. She said, Well, that's sometimes as good as you can get around here. I said, No thanks, really. She said, It's a pity, anyway, sorry about Miriam, have a nice journey back to the States. Thank you, I said. She stood, and Anna arrived back. Good-bye, everyone, said Ulrika. Good-bye, I said. Good-bye, said Anna. Anna plopped down in her seat. I'm quite tipsy! she exclaimed. Then she looked at me, frowned, and said, Oh, you're not tipsy at all. She decided to move closer, or I asked her to move closer, because she was far away and she was the only one left. We stuck around for an hour longer. I spoke some German with her, just to get an objective assessment of my language skills. Even though I had done nothing at all to improve my German, except to speak it badly, I felt I was on the verge of fluency. I don't think that's German, she said. In the Rhineland, I said, everyone understood me perfectly. Then I told her all the stories from my trip from Walluf to Koblenz. And then we talked a little bit about Miriam.

Anna lived not far from our apartment, so we decided to accompany each other on the underground. It turned out to be my last time on the underground. I thought it might be. The very next morning, Miriam's body was released, and from that point forward, Trish took care of almost everything, but we had to travel around a lot with her. One of the embassy drivers escorted us—we spent the last two days in Berlin in a black bulletproof Audi. The underground wasn't busy, and Anna and I got seats beside each other. She was smart, witty, and optimistic. Her accident had left her in a coma for almost six months, then she couldn't do much for a year after that. Seven years had passed, and only now was she starting to get her energy back. But I am forty-two, she said, so it's not like there's a lot of energy available. I asked her what had happened. She said, I don't really remember. I saw it on CCTV in the courtroom. I was riding my bike and a truck came from my side and hit me. He was traveling very fast. The court decided it was my fault.

Why?

I have no idea. But I got no money from it. I remember being in the hospital and being told that I'd been in a coma for six months, and I remember thinking, At least I'll get a load of money, I won't have to work anymore, I can travel. But now I still have to work.

Germans are intrepid travelers, I said.

It's true, we love to travel, all day I do nothing but talk to Germans about traveling.

The journey was over very quickly, probably because I hoped it would last a long time. We arrived at Rosenthaler Platz, which was a five-minute walk in one direction from Anna's and a five-minute walk in the other from my apartment. I have a rooftop terrace, I said, would you like to come see it? If I start going up on rooftop terraces, she said, I'll never be able to live in my tiny little flat. I said, Well, it's been nice to meet you. I shook her hand, and she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. We stayed very close. I put my arms around her back. She put her hands on my shoulders. We looked at each other. I said, Do you want to see something? Okay, she said. I can't show you in the dark, I said. She thought I was joking.

We stepped inside her apartment, first her, then me, pulled our gloves, coats, and hats off, and she turned on a dim lamp with a copper-colored cloth lampshade. Then I closed the door behind me. Her place was very small, half the size of Miriam's. But it was clean. It looked like an oriental-themed railroad car. She said, I could get a bigger place in a different part of town, but this is right beside the travel agency. It's a two-minute cycle. I don't have to take public transportation. You still cycle? I asked. Of course, she said. She offered me a glass of wine. I declined, but she poured me one anyway. I walked to a glass door overlooking a balcony. It was a little bit hazy, white, and there were no cars on the road, even though it was a main artery—the road out to the big loop and the airport. I really wish I had met you at the beginning, I said. She sat down on her couch and I walked around her little flat, looking at the paintings on the wall, and looking at the books on her shelves. You like India? I asked—because there seemed to be a lot of books about India, and the paintings on the wall seemed possibly Indian. I love India, she said, and Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and Nepal, and China, and Vietnam. I never traveled, I said, I always figure I'll get some incurable disease, or have to sleep with bugs, or be mauled by wild dogs, or get bitten by a snake. That's really strange, said Anna. I'm not finished, I said. I'm also afraid of having to eat insects, or monkey brains, or the heads of birds, or drink filthy water, or be kidnapped. I'm afraid I'll be framed for a crime and end up in jail, I'll be beaten in jail, I'll be executed or raped. I'm afraid it'll be too hot, I hate the heat, I'm afraid I won't be able to take showers, or find clean bathrooms. I will get diarrhea and there won't be toilet paper. I'm afraid of riding in buses. I worry that the buses will be full of mice and chickens. I worry I won't understand how to buy tickets for the bus, and I'll get stuck in the rain in the jungle. I sat down across from Anna and slapped my legs. That's pretty messed up, huh? She said, But you traveled to London. London isn't traveling, I said, at least for Americans it isn't traveling—it involves flying but it isn't traveling. She said, One of the things I love most about traveling is the journey to the airport, by taxi or train, going by all the places you know, the bakeries and markets you visit, the buildings, the streets, the landscape out of town, even the clouds, or the color of grass, or dirt, and the shape of the earth, and I have some music with me, or some books, and I think, This is where I am from, I am only going away for a little while. I said, I could never have that conversation with myself, I could never tell myself such a thing. She said, I suppose I'm just being sentimental, banal. I said, No, not at all, that's not it. My entire life relies on the principle that people really do spontaneously look out the windows of trains.

And have feelings, she said.

If you say so, I said.

You need a vacation, she said.

I leaned back and sank into the low chair. I put my arms out. I was totally at ease there. I was totally at ease with Anna. I said, I
am
on vacation.

She stood. She had finished her glass of wine—I hadn't even noticed her drinking—and was going for more. I picked my own glass up to check it, but I hadn't even had a sip. I put it down. Anna was standing over me. Her hand was dangling right beside my arm. Maybe it was accidental and maybe it wasn't. Maybe she was thinking about patting me on the shoulder, or placing her hand there. Maybe she wanted to say something sweet about Miriam. Or maybe it was something else. I took her hand in my hand. She didn't pull it away. I examined the scar—it went all the way past her wrist, down into her palm. It forked up toward her elbow, and met again above it, then up to her shoulder, where it disappeared inside her clothes. It was a thick scar, with deep indentations where the muscle was gone, depressed lengths of scar tissue. Without another word—and perhaps to avoid further examination—she got down on her knees, so that our eyes were level. We kissed for a while. Then she said that her knees were hurting, so we stood and I followed her into the bedroom. She closed the door and pulled the curtains closed over the white light from the street, over the white haze that had settled over the road, and the room went absolutely dark. I was disoriented and felt for the bed, and sat down on it. She began to undress. I could not see her, but I could hear her. I got undressed, too. She got on the bed and we met at the center of the bed. She put her arms out. I reached out. She held my arms. I think she was trying to avoid being touched while naked. But finally she let go and I touched her. I felt the huge grooves on her body. She was covered in them. The accident must have skinned her alive. I could not get aroused. Finally she stopped, crawled under the covers, and sighed. She pulled the covers up to her eyes. You don't have to explain, she said. I said, It's the darkness, I cannot do this in darkness, I can't see your face. She didn't say anything. I said, Do you know what the darkness makes me think about?

What?

About Dolores.

The woman from tonight?

I said, Yes. Can I crack the curtains just a bit?

A bit, she said, and her reluctance gave me something like a thrill. I got out of bed and walked to the window. I opened the curtains, and I saw that the haze was moving, just a tiny bit, but it was lifting, rising, like a very light but uniform snowfall rising slowly back into the clouds. Check it out, I said. Anna looked but she didn't say anything—I guess it probably wasn't a big deal for her. The room was full of white light now, and Anna pulled the covers up higher. I looked around. So this is your bedroom, I said. She looked around. There wasn't much space. The bed filled most of it. There was a wooden dresser with a mirror on it, but it didn't seem like the bottom drawers had the space to open fully. This is my bedroom, she said.

I said, Bedrooms are strange places.

How do you mean?

I don't know, they're strange. You never know how strange they are until a stranger comes over and gets in your bed. But they are always strange.

What's the bandage for? she said.

This? Nothing.

On her walls there were more paintings, Hindu, spiritual, full of purples and golds and bright reds, and also a big corkboard full of photographs—people in sunny, green places, near beaches, wearing sunglasses and bathing suits. I got back in bed. She said, I thought you were just going to crack the curtains. I said, I didn't expect the view to be so nice. I got under the covers beside her. We began to kiss again. Everything was fine. She gave me head for a long time under the covers, and then I pulled the covers off her, to see her. Then I pulled her away and got on top of her. She looked just as I had expected. She was pretty badly sliced up. Some of the scars were so deep that they seemed like disfigurements. But it didn't look or feel unnatural to me. It was nice. But then I started thinking that it shouldn't be nice, and that I ought to feel disgust or pity for Anna—not the human being but the mutilated shell of her flesh—instead of pleasure. It got heavy and rough. My scar started bleeding. By the time Anna and I had finished, my bandage was soaked through with blood, and the sheets were bloody, and our hands were bloody, and we had bloody fingerprints and handprints all over. Whoops, I said. She got up and immediately put a dressing gown on. What happened to you? she said. I said, I don't dare admit it. She told me to follow her to the bathroom, and sat me down on her toilet and took the bandage off. She looked right at the wound without flinching. It's not so bad, she said, but you need stitches. Forget it, I said. It'll never heal properly, she said. I'm too old for this to heal properly, anyway, I said. She wiped it clean, then put some alcohol on a swab, and applied it. I'd been doing the same thing twice a day. She was about to put a new bandage on it when she looked up at me with sudden alarm.

Is this what you were going to show me?

I couldn't think of anything to say, so I said, Well, um…

She stood and threw the bandage at my face.

Were you trying to be funny?

No, no, not at all, not a bit, no, I'm sorry, I hadn't even thought of that.

I took her hands. I apologized again. Then I said, I did it myself, with a knife. She looked at the wound and said, What kind of knife? A steak knife, I said.

Why?

I have no idea, I said. I was in Luxembourg with my father, we'd been arguing.

Anna's eyes got very wide. Then she put her hand to her mouth. I thought, Now I had better get dressed and get out of here. But she started to laugh, she laughed through the hand that was covering her mouth. I'm sorry, she said, I don't mean to laugh. And then she laughed some more. That's okay, I said. She knelt back down, picked up the bandage, and taped it to my body.

I got home—to the penthouse apartment—at around two a.m., and my father was awake. He had gone to sleep around nine, but, he said, he woke at eleven, and now he couldn't sleep. He was sitting in front of the television, watching a dubbed Hollywood movie. He turned it off. I had a glass of water. I had such a headache. I could taste blood in my mouth. I felt like my teeth were going to fall out. I felt like if I brushed them, they would crumble out like teeth in a dried-up jawbone. How did your drinks go? he asked. I said, They went well. He said, I'm sorry I didn't make it, Trish came over, we didn't have the energy to travel across the city. That's fine, I said. He said, You meet anybody interesting? I said, I met an artist who wanted to sleep with me because I lied and told her we were Jewish. He said, That's a funny way to play a trick on somebody. Then he disappeared into his room.