7I: 19 December 20XX
Do you remember your present for me the first time we spent Christmas in Berlin? We would attend the Opera, drink red wine, and you promised a "public reading" of any 19th century text. We watched La Boheme, it was a pinot noir (though I forget the bottler), and I chose Pride and Prejudice – of course. I am amazed at how far away that time seems. Was it really, only, seven years ago? I could have sworn that I'd lived several lifetimes between then and now. I'm unsure why I decided to spend this Christmas break here, again. Somehow, you'd think, this city would remind me of you. It does in some ways, but not quite how I thought it would. The city is its own character, and it was good to be reacquainted with an old friend.
When I alighted the bus at Alexanderplatz, I stood under that world clock and rolled myself a cigarette. You were the farthest thing from my mind. There was a busker and high schoolers on a class trip; I think they were British. And people meeting; I find that clock so romantic, you know? I navigated the familiar arteries of that U-bahn, which never ceases to be confusing, and arrived at our apartment at the Schillerkiez. The apartment was draught, unlived in, which meant you hadn't been here a while, too; and even in the cold of that afternoon, I opened the windows to allow some fresh air as I changed the sheets, dusted, and took stock of the groceries and supplies I would need for the week. The grocer enquired where we'd been; the last time was three summers ago, he told me, and gave me a couple of avocados – on the house – to give to you.
I didn't have the heart to tell him that we'd separated.
That evening as I prepared dinner, I listened to a podcast, poured myself some wine – pinot noir – and then it began to snow. A soft powdery snow that seemed to fall in slow motion. The kind that twinkled. I remember when I first saw it falling from the sky. I had shrieked with excitement, and then ran outside and stood under it for ten minutes, still in my pyjamas. You came out to meet me with your cup of coffee, and took my hand in yours, and we stood there looking skyward together as people regarded us curiously. Tourists, they probably thought. And you dropped a kiss atop my head as feather-lite as the flakes falling on us. No, not tourists, just amazed at earthly magic.
# # #
Felix didn't know why, but every time he returned to Germany during the winter, he would forget how prohibitively cold it could get when not attired properly. He ran for the bus that would take him to Alexanderplatz and no sooner had he got on that his phone rang. Work. It was always work. He picked up and it was another crisis at the office. Some financial fuck-up that always seemed to occur when he was out of the country. After realising that the accounting didn't balance because there was a mix-up as to which columns of the Excel sheet to refer to, he clicked off his phone and exhaled, running his hand through his dark, blonde hair and looked out the window without really registering what was passing behind the snow. He felt so tired; so old, for some reason.
It had been almost two years since he and Lola had decided to separate; it had started as a trial before it inevitably led to a realisation that being permanently separated was best for both of them. It was a conclusion that took him longer to arrive to, though. They were as good as divorced had it not been for geography making legal matters difficult. He hadn't told anyone he would be in Berlin, let alone the country, for the holidays, except for his best friend. He felt that he needed some kind of space. When his phone indicated a message, he looked down and saw it was Abbie. They had been fooling around – could he still call it fooling around at 35? – for about four months, and he was under no pretences that it had no future. Their status as a couple was a non-status, as it were, though Abbie pressed for something more substantial. It had been the longest dalliance since Lola.
He definitely needed space away from her, and he figured it would be good for her as well. He had been upfront; in fact, when he left for the Christmas break they had agreed it would also be a break from each other. Though he suspected she thought he would willingly return to her. It wasn't meant to be complicated. Though he had not made it a habit in his romantic career, he had invited Abbie to his apartment for a nightcap one evening after drinks, which became – or he intended it to be – a one-night stand. But one night became two and then several more, and somehow they had slipped into one of those messy, modern arrangements of not being quite a couple but exclusive by default. They were invited to dinners and parties and brunches and a whole host of social functions together, even as he made it as sensitively, and tactfully, clear as he could that they were not a unit. He noted Abbie didn't correct anyone when they assumed as much. When he arrived at Alexanderplatz he finally felt at ease. As if he was as far away from work and Abbie as he could be.
He had scarcely had time off in the last eight months. There was really no need to, considering the volume of work. In the last two years he had shed all but what was essential, and immersed himself in work. Had his boss not ordered him to take the Christmas break off, he would probably still be in South Africa. In retrospect, as was always the case, he was glad that he had been forced. Part of the reason he hadn't told anyone he would be back in the country was because he knew this would also be a good period to really unwind. He already looked forward to runs at Tempelhof and reading in the apartment. He hadn't been in that place since… well, the summer he and Lola had The Talk. He remembered it vividly; the resigned look on her face sitting at the dinner table. It was two in the morning and they had been no closer to resolving their issues than when they had started the conversation months earlier. He remembered reading at that time that married couples no longer had the seven-year itch, but a five-year itch. And they had unwittingly become part of that sad statistic.
Of all the things he expected, though, what he didn't expect was walking into a heated apartment, This American Life on speaker, the smell of coriander and laksa, and Lola in the kitchen stirring a pot. Her back turned to him, jeans hugging her lean legs, and dark hair haphazardly pulled into a bun on her head, none the wiser he had just arrived. He felt pulled back to another life; a bittersweet knot settled deep in his gut. So familiar and yet so remote this whole scene was. He half thought he was being visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past. It was too vivid to be a hallucination, and when she turned, he was struck with how her warm, brown eyes flared with surprise. He swallowed; was it the shock that made her seem so clear and sharp to him – like he had been seeing the world around him with the wrong prescription until that moment? She licked her lips and finally whispered, Felix.
It was hearing her voice that he realised he hadn't dreamed her alive.
# # #
A/N: It has been a while since I've posted here, and I realise I have all these unfinished stories. I apologise that those will most probably be left discontinued, but recently I had been thinking about marriage and relationships - how they can break and, maybe, how you put them back together again. I thought this would be a good outlet to get feedback and play around with some of the themes. Let me know what you think. The title is taken from a David Bowie song about Berlin.