7III. 21 December 20XX
I guess we were never the type to so easily give in to what was hard. But we were always quite rational. The nature of our break-up confirmed that once discussions had passed, whatever game-theory analysis we could apply, the outcome would be the same. When I turned to see you standing at the kitchen entrance, it felt like someone had thrown cold water over me. It was unexpected. And you looked good; boyish and handsome. And I didn't know what it should mean. There was a time in my life in which seeing you no longer held the same kind of glow. The same kind of rush through my veins. Even after years of marriage one look at you and I wanted to squeeze you. Hold you tightly. Little by little that had been chipped away at, until that feeling was no feeling at all. A sad, grey humming orb that had lost colour and life and happiness and poetry.
Did I give-in to the pressure? Should there have been such pressure at all? I've asked myself this many times, and each time I could find no conclusion. It was easy to blame you, much harder to blame myself. And I think that became my undoing, when I realised the fault I had played. The sense of failure is far more oppressive at the end of the marriage than in any relationship I had been in. Every couple fought, sure, and I realise perhaps it was my own insecurities that contributed to the sum of our problems. That during our marriage I had forgotten parts of myself that were at one point bright and attractive and unique, and I had forgotten all those parts of you too. It struck me as we had coffee at that café on the Schillerpromenade how I'd forgotten how charming you were, and funny, and thoughtful, and cerebral. Though they were tempered by our history and distance – somewhere in the pit of myself I could recall the first impressions and emotions I had when I first met you; a small flicker of light in a large, dark room.
# # #
Since their coffee break, Lola had been feeling a little more thoughtful and optimistic. Perhaps this week together would begin some kind of friendship. She missed him, of course. The steady presence of someone in your life meant their exit left a bigger hole than you would be ready for – even if you anticipated it. Despite the detractors, she loved Berlin in the winter. Summer was always the more popular season, but Berlin in the winter had its charm. The small, forgotten bars as you watched the snow outside. The cosy corner of your bed. She had woken early, uncharacteristically, to get coffee for the French press and pick up some fresh bread for breakfast. The streets were empty and she felt like she had the city to herself.
When she returned, Felix was cooking scrambled eggs. He seemed to notice she was there and he looked up as she entered the kitchen. He was wearing only his striped pyjama bottoms and Lola had instinctively averted her eyes; though she had certainly seen decidedly less on him in their time together. Felix, who was at first confused about her reaction, gave his apology and jogged to the other room to put a shirt on.
"Sorry, just habit," he tried to explain when he re-entered the kitchen.
She only shook her head and continued to unpack the bags and get the plates out of the cupboards. "No, not at all. Didn't mean to seem so prudish." She let out a little laugh. "I mean – I've seen you naked more than enough times!"
Her little exclamation seemed to break the tension and Felix continued stirring the eggs. "No, I get what you mean. It's a bit odd to figure out what's appropriate and what's not."
"You mean you couldn't find the divorcee instruction manual, either?" She asked with a slight arch of her brow. Before he could answer she nodded to the fridge, moving around the kitchen, "Avocados in there, by the way."
"Thanks – you got some!"
"Actually, it was that grocer from the corner who gave them to me… for you."
"That's, creepy…" he looked over to her with a grin, "Do you think he saw this happening? Picked up a tomato and read its bruises and foretold my coming?"
She set the table and pulled out some of the spreads and cheeses from the fridge and said dryly, "No, I just think he hasn't been keeping up with our Facebook relationship status."
He let out a little chuckle and spooned the scrambled eggs onto a plate and joined Lola at the breakfast table. "Bon appetit!"
They ate in silence, more comfortable than dinner the first evening. Lola studied him with her peripheral vision, she was reading the headlines on her tab as he read Speiegel. She had lost count of the mornings they spent like this together, but felt so acutely in that moment how many mornings had passed without him since the last time. For his part, Felix was also discretely keeping his eye on her. He didn't miss the way her eyes had swept over him quickly when she first walked in. He could feel himself burning from the inside out from both embarrassment and a strange, unfulfilled yearning. It was always the quiet moments he enjoyed most in their marriage. Moments like this. Moments that he had not had with anyone since Lola.
"So, what are your plans for today?" Lola asked, realising she couldn't stand these lapses of silence.
"I was going to go for a jog and run some errands. I need to go to the bank to figure out some accounts. You?"
She sipped her coffee and nodded. "Not much, really, I need to buy a new charger for my laptop and check out the Christmas market. I thought about watching a film at the kino tonight."
"What film?"
"I don't know yet." A beat. "You're welcome to join me in all or some of those activities."
They looked at each other over the small table, and neither were quite sure what answer to give and what answer they desired. They had been getting on impressively well given the circumstances and, at the very least, Felix didn't want to destroy that. He had been reminded since his arrival how much he actually enjoyed her company, but he wondered whether their friendly charade could withstand increased time together.
"Do you mind a companion at the kino?"
Lola was satisfied, if not neutral, with his answer. A small part of her didn't want to spend the day together, but another part was gnawing at her, curious as to where their time would lead them. She had read about those formerly married couples who were on good terms, and she felt that perhaps wounds inflicted had taken sufficient time to heal. Scar tissue was always much stronger than the skin and ligament it replaced, after all.
"Of course, I'll check the schedule."
Both satisfied, they returned to their respective reading material and shared a mutual anticipation for the evening.
# # #
Felix blew into his hands and rubbed them as they exited the cinema; Lola rolled her scarf around her and they began to walk back to the apartment. It was only 10:15pm, and it was early, for Berlin. He had told Hannes earlier that evening that he was joining Lola to watch a film. Ever the film buff, Hannes asked which film they'd be watching, first, and giving his opinion, before they had dissected the evening that was to pass. Hannes seemed to think it would be a positive development, and an easy way to determine how the next stage of Felix's relationship with his ex-wife would evolve – if there was to be a next stage at all. Much like a first date, a film required far less investment than dinner or other activity that forced socialisation. A film would provide him an escape hatch, so to speak, if the presence of discomfort or conflict were to make themselves known. For the most part, Felix welcomed the potential development of Lola's place in his life without pressure or regret.
They walked in satisfied silence; they were under no illusion that the positive way their time together had been transpiring was tricky and fragile ground, but both were emboldened (perhaps by the beer they consumed during the film) to carry on with the evening. How to broach the subject of a nightcap when neither were quite sure whether the other felt the same way? There was a strange fluttering that moved through Lola's veins, and she couldn't help but notice that they were walking much slower than usual, particularly considering the biting, winter cold. She knew him well enough that he was thinking something, but with no frame of reference, she was reticent to make the necessary overture. They were nearing the street of their apartment, and both seemed to be paralysed by uncertainty. They turned into the street, anyway, without uttering a word, but by some saving grace, they seemed to linger at the bar across the street from their intended destination. It wasn't lost on either of them how much this bar had played a role in many nights of their marriage.
"Do you want to grab a dri—" Felix began.
"I was just thinking the same thing," Lola admitted with a bashful grin, realising she hadn't allowed him to finish.
Felix seemed to nod and he opened the door and let the warmth of the bar awash them. It was otherwise empty, save for a smattering of guests. It was one of their favourites, which they had discovered a week after first buying the apartment, having only passed it during the day. The area of their apartment was fast gentrifying, and a mass exodus was taking place from the neighbouring Kreutzberg. Not many people, yet, knew of this particular bar and its clientele were a mix of the old locals and those displaced by increasing rent. The lights were turned down low; and candles strewn across the bar and the tables gave it a certain kind of ambience.
The first time they had a drink there, Lola had told him that it reminded her of what Berlin in the Golden Twenties would have been like, from the fittings to its unpretentious décor. She was obsessed with old world Europe. Often in their time together, they would walk down quiet streets in Berlin after nights out, and she would fabricate some story about what had taken place in lifetimes long forgotten. Soul played in the background when they entered, and when the owner looked up a smile of familiarity broke on his face.
"Hallo! Long time," he greeted them, wiping down the surface of the bar as they both took their seats.
They greeted him in kind, and made small talk, what they had been up to, why it had been years since they last visited (though neither mentioned the separation) before the owner served them both Belvedere whiskey – double, perhaps anticipating more than his guests that they would stay longer than either would intend.
"So what did you think of the film?" Felix asked, as much an icebreaker as a genuine inquiry, as he had always enjoyed Lola's interpretation of films, being a voracious consumer of culture – of both the low and highbrow.
She shrugged as she took a sip from her glass before answering. "Very typical Tarantino, don't you think? Even if it's packaging was different. Each character was basically a representation of contemporary American society, and it was a microcosm of current political dynamics that don't seem to have changed much."
"But it kept true to his obsession with pulp and – a whole genre you introduced me to – B films…? Right?"
Lola smiled. "Sure. And I think it's one of my favourites by him. I'm pretty sure, he'll get some pushback, because it's not so straightforward pulp."
"You know, Hannes had exactly the same opinion on it as you," Felix told her. "You two always seemed to have the same brain when it came to this kind of stuff. You're the only person I know who was able to persuade him to watch an animation film, and that he'd admit he cried during it."
Lola was secretly pleased. She had always liked Hannes, and had joked with Felix that it made sense he would date someone who was the female version of his best friend. "How is Hannes?"
"He's doing well. He started a new job recently, has been in a pretty stable and long-term relationship, and it seems like he's got his shit together in general."
Lola nodded, understanding; Hannes was often a lightning rod for drama, and the last she saw him he had been going through a terrible break up and a general sense of listlessness. She was genuinely pleased he was happy and in a good place. "That's nice to hear." She paused before she asked, casually, without judgment but genuine curiosity, "And how about you? Is your shit together?"
Felix knew in the tone of her voice and the way she asked that it was a conversation greaser, and the whiskey was going down nicely that he answered in the spirit of her intention. "Half and half."
She cocked her head askance playing with the rim of her glass. "What do you mean?"
He took pause to ensure he shielded her from an unintentionally loaded answer even if her question wasn't. Because, truthfully, since their separation, he didn't think he had his shit together. He was functioning, sure, and he was happy enough. And while thoughts of their separation didn't weigh on him as all those melodramatic films and books seemed to suggest, and that life moved on, he would be lying if he thought their separation hadn't changed him in some way. Not necessarily for better or worse, but he was certainly different. Even less emotional than he had always been and unmoved. He was blunt, dulled by the realisation he unconsciously avoided meaningful connections anymore, an observation Hannes had shared with him. Hannes, who was quick to love and be loved in return, a quality he admired, but one he was never prone to and now even less so.
"I think I'm just working too much," he said finally.
"And that's different, how?" Lola teased.
Felix smiled despite himself. "I think I'm working too much at the expense of anything – or anyone – else."
Lola nodded, not knowing quite what he was inferring. She could guess the general area of thought he was implying and now that the line of inquiry had opened, she couldn't help but continue. She wasn't sure what she would feel, or how she would feel, should the conversation continue, but she felt it necessary nonetheless. "I don't want to seem so forward, and I preface that this isn't meant to get all weird, you know, but are you seeing anyone?"
She pulled out her tobacco and papers, casually; Felix saw that the evening was heading towards those kinds of conversations and he actually looked forward to it. He took her lead and began rolling himself a cigarette as well.
"I am but I'm not," he told her with a half-smile. Confirming everything he was thinking before.
Lola was relieved that he took the question as she intended. She knew he was giving her space to ask a follow-up question, letting her guide the conversation. He was always good at that, at allowing her to set the tone and pace of conversations, and he would willingly oblige and engage with her, knowing she had enough sense and social intuition to understand the boundaries. At one point they had no boundaries, now he was gracious enough to let her re-establish them, knowing that whatever she would inquire would be open for him to inquire in return.
She lit her cigarette and waved away the smoke before she asked, "What does that mean?"
"Basically, it means, I am seeing someone, in the literal sense, as in there's a woman, but it's not substantial, and we're not really in a relationship, not officially, but she's kind of manoeuvring it in that way, if that makes sense? And even though I've been clear, she seems to think I'll come around."
Lola nodded thoughtfully, and exhaled a puff of smoke. "But it's a thing?"
He shook his head. "No, it's not. At least not on my end. The companionship is nice every now and then, I guess I'm only human. But like I said, work is my relationship, really." He paused before venturing, "How about you?" He took a drink from his whiskey, an unconscious tick to brace himself for whatever she would say; he wasn't sure what to expect in terms of his reaction. It was untested waters.
"I was seeing someone, for about a year."
He swallowed and flicked ash in the ashtray. "Serious?"
"I don't know – I guess in some ways it was? In other ways not so much." Lola attempted to formulate her thoughts before voicing them out. She knew that she had to be cautious, as much for herself and what she may reveal. As open as they were being with each other, she couldn't help being guarded and slowly continued, "I guess after, you know, we separated, I was still trying to figure some things out."
Felix knew the ball was in his court now. He and Lola always had an easy way of speaking with one another, which would make their break-up all the more unnatural for them as a couple, as it would be the things they hadn't spoken about which would become their undoing.
"I think it's pretty normal after a marriage you have to re-orient. At least for me." He paused, letting the whiskey loosen his tongue briefly. "I think I'm still re-orienting," he admitted.
Lola looked at him, even and measured, as he took another drink from his glass and then cradled it in his hand. "To be honest with you," she began, allowing him to meet her eyes, "I think I jumped into that relationship without being all that invested. I was invested in the sense I wanted to prove something to myself, that I could still make it work with someone. I was invested for all the wrong reasons. It was selfish."
Felix swallowed, and the depth of what she told him chastened him. While their marriage didn't go down in an all engulfing fire, the quiet way it ended held a certain sadness. There was no yelling, no boxes of clothes thrown on the lawn, no anger. It had simply faded and emptied until it was only a husk of what they had together. There was something more painful in the way their marriage ended, like someone dying in their sleep after a long disease had finally claimed them in totality. Lola must have made that realisation too, or at least was thinking on similar lines, as they both smoked, looking ahead at the wall of alcohol behind the bar, and letting Marvin Gaye fill the silence. The owner of the bar had refilled their whiskey, both nodded a thanks, and drank a gulp each.
"You know, sometimes I think that we underestimated how strong we were." Felix shook his head. "I mean, I underestimated how strong I was. I took it for granted."
"I took it for granted, on my end, too," Lola returned.
They didn't need to verbalise what they were referring to. When Felix stopped being a coward and told Lola he had cheated on her, more than once, with a consultant he worked closely with, it was in the very bar they were drinking at. She already knew by the time he told her, suspecting it long before his admission; her intuition was attuned to his patterns and she sensed a strong sense of disruption in their rhythm. She had known so long that, when it was confirmed and out in the open, the anger had already left her body. It was easy to project the demise of their marriage on his shortcomings. In truth, hadn't she also cheated? She was not there when he needed her, and before it had happened between Felix and the consultant, rather than broaching the gulf that was growing between them, she was seeking solace and comfort with someone else. It had transpired so organically, though in retrospect Lola knew what was happening was not so innocent, but she was weak, and in later months she would despise this about herself.
It was a special friend who had been the company she craved the lonely nights Felix was out of the country. The late night drinks, the secrets sharing, the inside jokes, the long looks and hands on the knee, falling asleep together as anxieties bubbled and came to the surface. And they got closer still when suspicions of infidelity were creeping into Lola's mind. While she had never gotten physical, there was a type of cheating involved too. And it began much before Felix's indiscretion. And she knew, for Felix, that hurt far more than any kind of physical cheating. He wanted to be that person as he always was in her life. And in her company with this special friend, Felix knew. He saw the chemistry. Was jealous of the closeness this person had with his wife. Sex was a poor surrogate for what he wanted, and Lola was the only person in the world who filled that special role for him. He had told her once, very early when they were dating, that cheating, for him, wasn't quite the same as for most people. He wasn't jealous of the sex, really. He was jealous of that time just before the first kiss, and the conversation that would have happened, the stories and laughs shared, that intimacy. By the final year of their marriage, he had not made Lola laugh.
The consultant Felix fell into bed with was drafting a study for his organisation. He was spending half his time in the midst of a protracted, bloody conflict, and she was the "peacebuilding expert". She had been flirtatious, at first, and Felix had welcomed the attention, rendered insecure by the changing nature of his marriage and the growing proximity from his wife both literally and emotionally. As with most of these cases, alcohol was involved, and it was in the hotel where he would stay on his missions to the country; it had been a trying day, and they were unwinding with a drink at her invitation. He knew what would happen the moment she asked when they arrived back at the hotel; and he kept pushing back the inevitable until he was suitably liquored up so that when she leaned in to kiss him he didn't resist. If sex was a poor surrogate for what he actually wanted, she was a poor surrogate for Lola. But it happened again, because it was easier to be contemptuous of himself and the marriage than to confront the reality he was no longer that person for Lola, it seemed to him; but he could be something to someone else.
"I think I didn't fight for you or our marriage."
Lola was taken aback by what he said. She let the words sink in; as much as they had talked and talked about who-did-what-and-why when they were in the thick of it, they had never really spoken about it from a place of measured hindsight. From a place that put themselves on the periphery to really see and understand the other person.
"What do you mean?"
Felix knew it was the whiskey as much as sharing the thoughts he had played with in his head the last two years. "I mean that, at least on my end, as far as I was concerned I was the centre, I was the eye of the storm and I was screwing everything around me." He turned to her with a sad smile. "I gave up so easily."
Lola shook her head; her lips thinned into a line and she said, "I don't think we gave up so easily. I think we focused on the consequences, on the symptoms, rather than the causes, because then we could shift blame. Looking back at it all, if we had focused on the causes, maybe we could have course-corrected." She shook her head and started to roll a cigarette. "I don't know, it's easy to say now, I guess. But the truth is if I looked at the causes, really looked at the causes, and not so I could use it as a weapon like I did back then, I would have had to confront my role, what I did wrong. And to tell you the truth, I just couldn't do that anymore. We – or, at least, I was too far gone by that point. I wasn't blameless in it all."
"Do you think it was inevitable?"
Lola shrugged, "You always used to say, what's the contra-factual?, right? We can only assume. What if we were older? What if we decided not to do a pseudo-long distance relationship in two of the hardest countries to work in the world," she couldn't help the wry grin, "what if, what if, right? Such lonely words in the English language when you put them together. Could we have done things differently – of course. Would we have done things differently, we can't know. And believe me, I've thought about this a lot."
"It's funny, because we were always so good at talking about these things, about our relationship so that issues wouldn't escalate – look, we're doing it right now," Felix told her. "But why not at that time? Why not for something so important?"
"It was too big for both us, and maybe we didn't have the vocabulary to talk to about it in any meaningful way."
Felix nodded, and he too began rolling another cigarette. There was no malice in the conversation, though it was perhaps bittersweet. It was kind of refreshing, and he felt the world in his mind begin to lighten. This conversation wouldn't necessarily answer all the questions he didn't know he had in the first place, but he knew – he hoped – there would be more conversations to follow. He felt the beginnings of something stirring inside him, radiating from deep in his gut, ever so small, but it was there. He traced Lola's profile with his eyes and truly saw her for the first time in a long time. And he realised with a wretched clarity that she had slowly built a wall around her in the last year of their marriage, lonely and unnoticed, and it was only now that it had crumbled away so he could see her face, its vulnerabilities, its strengths, its soft features. Had he been more perceptive, stronger, back then, perhaps he could have pulled down that wall before it had closed up around her.
"I know I said I was sorry, back then, but I'm saying it again, now. I'm sorry."
Lola met his eyes; he had always had the kindest eyes. Felix had always been self-assured, and he had a strong face that matched his intellect and confidence; confidence in who he was, where he wanted to go, what he wanted to do. It was what had attracted her to him. He would often be described as aloof, because of this, but later she would realise that his single-minded focus was actually a different articulation of someone who was very passionate. He thought before he spoke, and allowed people to speak freely; he didn't need to be heard because he knew when he did speak, his company would listen. Behind the scenes, though, he was a goofball, another version of himself that was secret and only a handful of people on the planet had been acquainted with. But it was his eyes that always betrayed him once you knew how to read him. She was never one to describe the depth of someone's eyes, being the domain of purple prose romance writers, and yet here she was. And here he was, looking at her with such guileless kindness. He could have entered into a long diatribe of why he was sorry, why he was telling her now, and a whole host of other exposition. But all he needed to do was to look at her and she knew all the things that he didn't say. She had the sudden impulse to run her hand across his forehead, sweeping the errant hair away from his eyes like she used to do.
"I'm sorry too."
Something cracked and fizzled in the compact air between them as hurt long repressed began to be forgotten. She raised her glass in that space, and he met it with the clink of his.