Maybe This Time (3 page)

The smell of freshly baked bread drew him to the kitchen, where everything had been prepared for dinner. On the table stood two glasses and an opened bottle of wine amidst pans and plates and fruit and vegetables and meat.

On the sideboard lay the flowers from the market. He put them in a vase with water and read a note listing the day’s schedule. The names and addresses were written in a hand that was not hers.

On the side of the stove, arranged in a sort of cone shape, were several of the stones they had
collected
on hikes along the river or brought back from trips. He had often warmed his hands with them. One after the other, he held them and thought of the places they had come from.

Photographs of children being hugged or kissed or held out to another adult were taped on the glass panes of the dresser. On the door out to the balcony, the angels painted by the previous tenant’s son had been replaced with beetles. They were no doubt meant to kill the flies.

From the balcony he looked down on the street he had taken to get to work. In the distance a traffic light turned red, and he remembered how she had stood at this light and he had crossed it in the other direction so that he could turn around and watch her from a distance. The light had stayed red for a long time. She had waited, lost in thought, and he had said to himself, she’s the one.

The bedroom door stood ajar. He closed it.

Footsteps approached in the corridor, stopped and withdrew again.

There was a pile of letters and some were from him and some of these were unopened. He opened them and laid them, unread, next to the others and near the pictures he had drawn of her when
thinking
about her or speaking with her on the phone.

There was also a box of photographs. He
rummaged
through them and took pictures out of the box and returned them without looking at them. Then he took them out again and examined them more closely. The photos dated from their time
together
, yet he didn’t appear in any of them.

The phone rang. He had his hand on the receiver when the answering machine came on and he could hear the sound of hesitant breathing.

The more recent pictures were of people he didn’t know. They weren’t always the same people, but some reappeared frequently, showing their varying degrees of intimacy with her. Most were of
celebrations
– birthdays, Christmas, Easter – or were taken on holiday on different coasts, always in places that had once been theirs. They showed her
leaning
against a tree or with her head framed by the branches, at a concert or in an art gallery she had discovered. From the variety of places and people in the pictures, you could tell how much time had elapsed, and he noticed how much her face had changed. In many of the pictures he only
recognized
her after scrutinizing them carefully. But he avoided looking into her eyes. He remembered how he had once wanted to take a picture of her and how long he had waited for a moment when she didn’t look tense and how difficult he had made things for himself because the child in her arms refused to wait any longer and wanted to be photographed immediately. He put the photos back in the box and looked at all the pictures up on the wall, expecting to find himself in them. But only the same faces he had just encountered in the photos from the box looked back at him from the frames.

He didn’t recognize many of the places, but some of them he did associate with her – a lake, a forest clearing, a meadow – places he thought were known only to the two of them. However, there she was, reclining or standing with others in these places, laughing and serious and mischievous, alone or with someone or in a group.

He let his gaze wander, again and again, from person to person, looking for her or for the one whose eyes she sought. One picture showed the two of them in a group. They looked startled, as couples always are in such situations.

Water dripped in the bathroom. He followed the sound and sat on the side of the bath.

Drops fell from the shower head. She had taken a shower before leaving the house. He turned the tap on and off, and on again, and held his hand, and then his arm, under the stream of water. He looked at the dress she had worn to work and thought of a time they had gone to the zoo, when they had seen a lamb being born. She had drawn his attention to it, calling him by the wrong name.

It was dark now. He turned on the light and then switched it off when he realized that it could be seen from outside.

Perhaps she was out there just then, perhaps she was crossing the park or sitting in the café, looking up towards him, right now, at this moment. Perhaps she had been doing so the whole time, just as he had often done when he had arranged to meet friends at the café so that he could sit with them on the terrace. But in truth it was only to be near her or simply watch the light in her window go on or off.

He often followed her right up to her house. He watched her go through the door and disappear inside. He sat beneath the willow or in the park waiting to see if she would come to the window and pull the shades or open the window and smoke a cigarette, looking down on the square or over to the playground, the swing or the boat, wherever.

Once he actually passed the house and, by chance, looked up as she stood by her window. For a second he thought she had waved to him or made a sign. But since he couldn’t be sure whether it was meant for him or not, he continued on his way without looking back.

He had been drawn to the places they had shared and had returned to them again and again. But that was years ago.

The phone rang again. An irritated man’s voice on the answering machine asked how much longer she intended to keep him waiting and whether he should come up to her flat.

She didn’t come and at this stage surely wouldn’t. It was impossible to say what she had planned for him or why she had wanted him to see what he had seen here.

She had rung him a few days earlier. Her voice had been clear and matter-of-fact, as it always was when she was nervous. She had asked him to come at the exact time when she was out of the house.

One day he left, without planning and for no reason. She didn’t ask why. She just let it happen.

The phone rang again. It stopped after the first ring. There was the smell of fresh paint and bread. In the bathroom the water was still dripping. He thought he could hear a key turning in the lock.

The woman stopped me on my way to her
neighbours.
They were friends of mine who had invited me to visit. She waved me over to her house next door to theirs. From a distance, she had probably
mistaken
me for someone she knew. That, at least, is what I thought. Yet, even in her living room, she looked at me as if I were a long-overdue guest. Whenever I took a step back, she came closer again. And even though she seemed somewhat confused, I could sense how keenly she watched my every movement.

A huge array of dolls sat, lay and stood on shelves that lined the walls and jutted out into the room, as well as in niches set at regular intervals. On the sofa and all over the floor too, the dolls stood and lay in a jumble, old and new, clothed and naked, but all of them intact. Young, middle-aged and old. A few of them seemed to take pride of place. They sat on their own seats or in their own spaces. Set apart, they stood out from the crowd.

My children
, the woman said. Reaching for them one after the other, she hugged them briefly, then returned them where they belonged. They all made something of themselves, she said. Each one is
successful.
Salon Annie, Salon Elly, Salon Gerda.
And they’re all here with me. She sat down on the sofa and combed their hair with a clothes brush.

I stood watching her for a long time until she asked me to sit down too. Grooming her children distracted her, but every now and again she looked at me, steadily and attentively, sympathetically even, and with a level of scrutiny I hadn’t experienced for ages. She couldn’t really have been interested in me. After all she seemed to think I was someone she knew well, someone who was close to her, someone she was seeing again after a long absence.

The affection in her gaze was hard to bear because I had already decided to leave.

We sat facing each other silently for a while. Then she said, I’ll get Karl. Isn’t that why you’re here?

I had no idea what she was talking about, but she obviously didn’t expect an answer. She stood up and walked out of the room, leaving me alone, surrounded by all her dolls. I heard furniture being pushed aside, chests being opened, and now and again the creaking of a cupboard door or window. She left me alone for an uncomfortably long time, alone with her dolls. I considered the best way to escape without offending her unduly. After all, I was expected elsewhere.

Just then I heard her through the door. Karl would never forgive me if he missed seeing you. I don’t want that responsibility, you understand. He’s been waiting for you such a long time, ever since he was a child. All these years he has been asking and
asking
for you.

I got up and leaned against the door to hear better.

Why did you leave him, she said, he’s always
asking
me that.
I
certainly can’t explain it. He waited all this time, and now, finally, here you are. He’s just getting ready for you, she said. You know, in the end he didn’t believe me any more. He didn’t believe in you either. Believe in you being there
for him
, I mean.

For a moment there was silence in the room and I already had my hand on the doorknob when the woman returned. She was holding a doll in her arms like a child. She came over to me and took me by the hand. She looked at me in embarrassment, but not without a certain pride. Then she led me back to the sofa, sat down and asked me to sit too. I took the chair facing the sofa. I had no idea how I would ever escape.

This is Karl, she said, and gently stroked the doll’s hair. Without thinking, I brushed the hair off my forehead in a matching gesture. Look at his face, she said.

The doll had my name. And now, as the woman drew my attention to the doll’s face, I noticed how much it resembled me.

He’ll come back one day, I always told him, she said straightening the doll’s rumpled waistcoat. He will somehow have to come to terms with you. Why you left him and why you are here now, she continued. It’s a bit much for him. That’s why he’s not saying anything. But you’ll get used to each other. It’s not always easy with him because he keeps asking questions. She suddenly stopped and stared into space, staring right through me as if I were no longer there.

My name is Karl, I said, but the woman didn’t answer. I didn’t know how to handle the situation or how to deal with my new
friend
– a friend I was obviously starting to accept.

He’s not a bad kid, she said. Peculiar, yes, but you already knew that and, let’s face it, you’re all he’s got. And he’s been waiting ever since you abandoned him. That’s when he came to me.
He
can’t talk to you about it, at least not yet. But things will work out now you’ve finally come back. And now I’ll leave the two of you alone, she said, and stood up and left the room.

She had sat the doll on the sofa, right where she had been sitting. I noticed it looked exactly like me and wore the same clothes. It sat facing me on the sofa and stared me in the eye with interest. I was tempted to reach out and touch it, but at the same time I recoiled from it.

The resemblance was already striking, but it seemed to increase the more I looked.

Karl, I thought. The little fellow had my name. I looked him in the eye and at that moment
remembered
how, when I was a child, my mother would call me by my brother’s name whenever she was upset or wanted to punish me. Over the years I had got used to it. Now that she was in a nursing home, she did it often, and it was hard to tell if this was a slip of the tongue or if she really took me for my brother.

This memory recurred as vividly as if I were
experiencing
it for the first time. A noise in the next room startled me, and I suddenly realized how late it was. I had completely lost track of time. I called out and knocked on the door but there was no sound of movement behind it, so I wrote a quick note promising to return, placed it on my double’s lap and finally left the house.

It was too late to visit my old school friend, and in any case I no longer felt in the mood. Not after this. The woman obviously had no family and was lonely and forsaken. No matter how much she told me about her children, I didn’t believe a word. That is until I crossed a few streets and passed a
Salon Annie
that I had never noticed before, and then, a few streets further on, read the name
Salon Elly
on a hairdresser’s window. I was no longer so sure. In the following days and weeks I couldn’t forget the old woman. I kept remembering her even in situations that had nothing to do with her. It became harder and harder for me to resist the temptation to go back and see her, as I had promised to do. I felt sorry for her and assumed that was why I couldn’t stop thinking about her. But I soon realized that I also wanted something from her. After all, I had been in her house when I saw myself, through
Karl
, in a way I had never done before. And it was this encounter that drew me irresistibly to her. I thought of her at every conceivable opportunity. If I saw an old lady being helped down from a bus, I thought of her and how she could probably no longer drive anywhere alone. Or in the café, when the woman at the next table smiled at me, no doubt because she had seen me watching her. She had only just managed to catch the ring she had been toying with before it slipped out of her fingers. Embarrassed, she flashed me a smile which I returned, though I was really thinking of the old woman sitting at home surrounded by her dolls and holding Karl on her lap. I couldn’t decide if Karl belonged to her or to me.