It was a time when everything seemed possible, but freedom unsettled and scared her. She didn’t suffer from stage fright, oddly, she never had, but a sort of fear that was worse after the show was over. Her boyfriend had been taken on at another theater, but they had never bothered to break up. They telephoned less, and then stopped entirely. Gillian was left to her own devices, she lived over a pizzeria in a little apartment where it was always too warm. She had no friends outside the theater, and none in it really either.
It took her a while to discover that she wasn’t a good actress and never would be. She played women who gave themselves, who loved unconditionally, who sacrificed themselves, but she couldn’t take any of the roles quite seriously. A part of her always watched herself acting. I can’t regret, or flee, or stay, or live — or die! The little miss marched resolutely out the door, but the audience surely realized she wasn’t going to the barn to hang herself, but to the dressing room to take off her makeup.
Only after she had entered journalism did she start to feel more secure. She got the job in television and then she started playing the beautiful and successful cultural correspondent for the viewers, for the media, for Matthias, and for herself. She avoided making crass mistakes, Matthias played along, basically he was the better actor. They were continually in demand, giving information, playing themselves. Their voices were louder, they moved differently in public. When they got home, half soused and tired, and stood side by side brushing their teeth in the bathroom, Gillian sometimes had to laugh at the two faces in the mirror. Even the laughter was part of the performance.
Gillian felt slightly sick from her cigarette. She put it out and went inside. She stopped briefly in front of the coffeemaker, then she went into the bedroom and lay down again. The window was open a crack, and the rain was audible only as a steady hiss. She spent all day in bed, delaying trips to the kitchen or bathroom as long as possible. Her pains had let up, but that didn’t make it any easier, they had battered her back into her body, had made her boundaries all the more distinct. Gone with the pain were her points of reference, and now Gillian had to go to the trouble of finding them all again. She leafed through old photo albums. There were family albums, with pictures of her as a little girl, photos of holidays and birthdays, family portraits that barely changed over the years. These albums held the first pictures of elementary school productions, Gillian as Mother Mary, as Snow White, as a cat in a musical. Eventually her story detached itself from the family’s. Everything concerning her profession was in a separate album, which Gillian had started. Theater programs, interviews, photos taken at parties, reviews, all clipped and pasted. The first page, the one that in the other albums bore a name or dates, was empty.
She read an interview she had given shortly after she had taken on the television job. Every week the same questions were put to a different person. The journalist had been perfectly pleasant, they had met in a café. Each time Gillian was stumped, they had made up the answers between them. When did you first make love? One afternoon. What would you most like to know? What my friends really think of me. What was the saddest moment in your life? They were both stumped by that one. Then the journalist had suggested: My death. And that had to do.
The life in those magazine pictures was inexplicably more personal and more concrete than the interchangeable family snaps in the other albums. In the interviews Gillian was asked about things she never discussed with her parents. Alongside these compressed and edited conversations, those she had at home seemed alarmingly banal. Sometimes her mother would talk to her about things she had read her daughter saying. Is it true that you don’t believe in God? Gillian didn’t know. It’s just an interview, she would say, you have to tell them something.
Once or twice she had complained about becoming a celebrity, but in fact she had loved being recognized on the street.
At the back of the album were some clippings she hadn’t stuck down yet. A write-up of her wedding, a double-page spread with photographs of the service and the party afterward. Gillian was astounded that Matthias hadn’t made a fuss. The journalist and photographer hardly stood out, they integrated themselves better into the wedding company than some of Matthias’s friends or Gillian’s relations. And they were restrained too, only asking for the occasional shot or a few words. When Gillian saw the piece in the magazine a week later, she had the feeling the whole celebration had been staged. After that she became more wary. But then, after she had been gone from the magazines for a while, she missed the attention, and she agreed when asked for a feature about her home life. Matthias and her in their tidied apartment, reading, cooking, eating, or standing dreamily out on the balcony. We’ve been mugged, she thought, this isn’t our apartment, that isn’t Matthias, this isn’t me. When she saw Matthias’s expression, it suddenly seemed to her as though he was a part of the conspiracy, and had known about it all along.
The following day the sun shone. It was cool outside but almost too warm in the flat. The doctor had told Gillian not to go out in the sun, but she didn’t want to go out anyway. For lunch she cooked some pasta. Afterward, she ordered food from an online grocery. She filled her virtual basket with things she had steered clear of so far, frozen meals, sausages, potato chips, pastry, white bread, ketchup, and mayonnaise. She bought enough to last her three weeks and paid with her credit card. Gillian started to sort through Matthias’s clothes and shoes. She stuffed them into big garbage bags. It was difficult, on crutches, to get everything into the spare room. She emptied the contents of Matthias’s desk into a cardboard box. Margrit had told her to do whatever she thought best. Sometimes she sat there for minutes, staring at a piece of clothing or some other item.
The deliveryman from the online store came toward evening. There was a ring at the door, and Gillian buzzed him in. When he rang again at the top of the stairs, she called through the door to leave the things outside. The man stood there for a moment and then went away. Only when Gillian heard the engine of the delivery truck downstairs did she cautiously open the door.
She ate a lot over the next weeks. She watched TV, surfed the Net, slept late. Her parents called her on the landline, and when she didn’t pick up, on her mobile. Gillian said she was fine, she needed quiet, and she promised to visit them, next week, or maybe the week after.
Will you call if you need something? asked her mother.
I need time, she said. It’s not about you.
She stopped answering the phone, she didn’t even look at the display when someone called. She deleted her e-mails as well, without bothering to read them. She waited for Hubert to get in touch, but he didn’t. Presumably he didn’t even know anything had happened to her.
At night, Gillian dreamed of men attacking her and raping her and violating her. Her body exploded, her flesh flew in scraps through the air, the walls were stained with her blood. It was dark in the rooms, and yet everything could be clearly seen. In the middle of the night she woke up. She listened to the darkness. It was perfectly still, but she heard the emptiness just the same. She thought about the times at the end of recording sessions when the soundman said, atmosphere, and everyone froze, so that he could record the silence for a minute.