That’s what people say. I’m not really sure …
He gave her a short look and then turned away.
Your friend said you and Matthias had had a fight.
Maybe, said Gillian, maybe we did.
Matthias had found the roll of film and taken it to the photo shop to be developed. Just before they were due to drive to Dagmar’s to see in the New Year, he had slammed the prints down in front of her.
Who took these?
Gillian had taken the pictures without looking at them and slipped them back in the envelope.
That’s nothing to do with you.
Matthias gave a humorless laugh. Of course you think it’s perfectly acceptable to appear in photographs like these.
You can rest assured, she said, they’re not going to be published.
Oh, so you took them for fun?
Maybe they were going to be a present for you, she said.
For a moment Matthias didn’t say anything. What if the guy in the photo lab kept a set of prints? he asked. But then you don’t seem to care who sees you like that.
It was you who took the film to be developed, said Gillian, I never asked you to.
Matthias walked out. An hour later he was standing in the doorway in his dark suit and asking if she was ready. It was at that moment that Gillian lost all respect for him.
Okay, she said, we’ll go. I’ll just get changed quickly.
She went to the bedroom and put on her shortest dress, black fishnet stockings, heels. She put on scarlet lipstick and applied a little scent behind her ears, a sultry perfume Matthias had given her that she hardly ever wore. Matthias stood impatiently in the corridor.
When she passed him on the way to the front door, he hissed after her, where do you think you’re going, a party with friends or a brothel?
Neither of them said a word in the car, and at the party he did his best to stay away from her. Gillian saw him in the distance with his gelled hair and shiny suit.
By two a.m. there was just a hard core of partiers left sitting around the big table, which was full of dirty plates and empty glasses. Matthias was the only man, he stood off, glass in hand, staring through the patio door into the dark garden. Dagmar, who had recently broken up with her boyfriend, was saying she was finding it increasingly difficult to see men as erotic objects. Even though the agreement had been that Gillian would drive them home, she had had a fair bit to drink. She agreed with Dagmar and said women simply had nicer bodies than men. Dagmar got up to go to the bathroom. She stopped behind Gillian, placed her hands on her shoulders, and kissed her on the cheek. Matthias opened the patio door and stalked out into the garden.
Matthias was arts editor of a magazine that was not noted for its coverage of the arts. When they first met, Gillian was still working for the local TV station. She had been impressed by the way he seemed to know everyone in the cultural scene. Their paths kept crossing, Matthias introduced her to people and talked her into going to openings and premieres. One very cold winter day they met at the premiere for a musical in a small theater in the city. After the show they sat together with some of the cast. Gillian talked to the composer for most of the evening. He had asked her what her name was, and she explained her mother was English. She had a sense the composer knew something about her that she herself was unaware of. When they all left the theater a little after midnight, the streets were full of snow, and an icy wind was blowing. Matthias said he had something he wanted to tell her. While the others walked to the funicular, he took her across the street to a small belvedere. The lights of the city glittered in the cold; even the stars seemed unusually close. Matthias showed her a memorial stone under a big linden tree and told her this was where Büchner was buried. He put his arm around her shoulder and told her the story of the poor child in Woyzeck, which Gillian dimly remembered from school. And the moon was a piece of rotten wood, the stars were little golden midges and the earth an upside down harbor. And then they kissed.
That was as far as things progressed that evening. They had parted at a tram stop and gone home their separate ways. It wasn’t until the spring that they first spent a night together. Gillian had a couple of difficult relationships behind her and was glad that Matthias was straightforward and seemed to like her. He was very tender, but over time they slept together less and less often. They were both so busy that Gillian kept putting off the conversation she meant to have with him about it.
When he dropped to his knees and asked for her hand in marriage, she laughed and tousled his hair. It was in an expensive restaurant where they knew her and greeted her by name. First, the situation felt embarrassing, then she enjoyed it. Over the course of the following years, there had been a good many carefully orchestrated candlelight dinners and champagne breakfasts, and a surprise party for her thirty-fifth birthday with the guests in masks, weekend outings to spa hotels, overnight trips to specially decorated rooms for romantic couples.
Then she got the job as host, and suddenly she was making as much as Matthias. What really seemed to get to him, though, was the fact that when they were both reporting on the same events, she was the one who seemed to matter. Only now did Gillian understand that he might know everyone by name, but no one really took him seriously. When she did interviews, she sometimes out of the corner of her eye saw him standing around nearby. No sooner was the camera switched off than he would turn up and jump into the conversation. He would demonstratively throw his arm around her, or kiss her.
Is he really offended? asked Dagmar when she came back.
We had a fight this afternoon, said Gillian. She got up and went out into the garden. Matthias was on the terrace, smoking. What’s the matter? Her voice sounded harsher than she had intended. Come back in, it’s freezing out here.
He claimed she had been flirting with Dagmar. Was it her who took the pictures? he asked.
That’s enough, said Gillian.
We’re going, said Matthias, as though he hadn’t heard her.
I’m not good to drive, said Gillian, and she traced a one-fingered spiral in the air. We can always stay with Dagmar.
You’d like that, wouldn’t you, he said.
She left him and went back into the house. Someone spoke to her, but she didn’t reply, and poured herself a glass of grappa, knocked it back, and then another. Are you planning on staying the night here? asked Dagmar. Perhaps we’d better, she said with a laugh.
Yes, said Gillian, we had a fight. But that doesn’t matter now.
Her father stood up. Take some of the flowers, why don’t you, she said. I’ve no idea who sent them all. Do you want me to read the cards? he asked. She shook her head. I feel like I’m a corpse in a mortuary.
That afternoon her mother called to thank her for the flowers. She asked when she could visit Gillian.
Ideally never.
Every intact face reminded Gillian of the destruction of her own. And she had the feeling she had to bear the horror of the other person, and comfort them with her own bravery. The only thing she could endure was the presence of the doctors and nurses.
Her mother didn’t push it. She said she had been to the apartment and cleared out the fridge and done the laundry.
Thank you, said Gillian, there’s no need. My operation’s tomorrow, and then we’ll see. She said she was tired.
Take care.
You too.
She tried to sleep, so as not to think of the crash, the operation, Matthias.
In the afternoon her father came by again. He was very matter-of-fact. After the first operation she could theoretically go home, he said.
But it’s probably advisable to stay in the hospital until you’re half —