For you, in the name of the suffering we shared, I will always keep the faith of those who have come through the same ordeal with greater wisdom than anger.
Fraternally yours (in Africa, we are all brothers)
Bruno
At the bottom of the page, there was an email address and a telephone number.
Claudia insisted that I emerge from my ‘lair’. ‘You look like a peasant,’ she said. Not having the strength to resist her, I gave in. She took me to a restaurant just outside town. The subdued lighting soothed me. We sat down at the far end of the room. There were only three other couples having dinner. Nobody recognised us. Claudia ordered the dish of the day for both of us. We ate in silence. She seemed hesitant. Every time she was about to say something, she changed her mind and dropped it. We were in the middle of the meal when a dapper, plump-faced middle-aged man came and said hello. He was wearing tortoiseshell glasses and a gold wristwatch. I didn’t know him. Claudia invited him to join us. He pretended to hesitate before accepting. The smile he gave me went right through me. I didn’t appreciate the liberty Claudia had taken in imposing a stranger on me.
‘Let me introduce Dr Brandt, an eminent psychologist.’
The man hastened to hold out his hand. ‘I’m delighted, Dr Krausmann. Claudia assures me you’re reacting very well after what happened to you.’
So she had told him about me.
I signalled to the waiter and asked for the bill. I couldn’t stand the thought of spending a minute longer in the company of someone who had a head start on me.
Claudia realised she had upset me. In the car, she sat silently, wringing her fingers. I drove carefully, but inside I was seething. When we got to her building, I switched off the engine and turned to face her.
‘That shrink of yours wasn’t there by chance.’
She dabbed her forehead with a small handkerchief, convulsively swallowing her saliva. ‘You’ve been through a lot, Kurt. You’ve had a terrifying ordeal. But being a doctor, you should know as well as I do that there’s nothing humiliating about consulting a psychologist.’
‘What I find humiliating is that you assume the right to decide for me. You could at least have said something. You know me, I prefer swimming to footbalclass="underline" I don’t like dribbling, tackles from behind or dives. I’ve always swum in my own lane and taken care not to stray into anyone else’s.’
She was on the verge of bursting into tears. Her face was twitching. ‘You’re not the same as you were before, Kurt. And every day, you give the impression you’re becoming someone else. You tell me off for staying too long in the shower, for wasting water needlessly. You get angry with people who leave food on their plates. You almost threw a fit when you saw that giant poster of that pop star in a dress made from animal skins. You’ve been back a month, and all you’re doing is making your case worse …’
‘My case, Claudia?’
‘Yes, Kurt … You worry me. I’m only trying to help you. Dr Brandt is an old friend. Trust me, he’s a good person … Please, tell me what’s wrong, Kurt.’
‘Why, do you think there’s something right?’
‘Don’t you?’
She clenched her fists. ‘You’ve changed a lot, Kurt.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘I see it.’
‘And what do you see?’
She weighed up her answer, and said, ‘A man who’s been through a terrible experience and refuses to move on.’
‘And what is he like, this man who’s been through a terrible experience and refuses to move on?’
My questions threw her; she hadn’t anticipated that I would badger her in this way. Caught by surprise, she had to think fast to avoid making things worse. She had surely not been expecting to find me with my guard up and ready for battle. That morning, when she had phoned to invite me to the restaurant, I had waited calmly for her to hang up so that I could get back to my old demons. Solitude suited me. I had private conversations with myself, and there was nobody to question me. For some weeks now, holed up in my house, I had been spending my time pulling myself to pieces, and this unconstrained exercise perfectly suited my state of mind. I conducted my trial in total freedom, being the judge and the defendant best suited to this kind of therapy. There was a sense in which I could no longer bear to listen to other people; they were crowding me, denying the essence of me. When I was alone, I could choose to tell myself all or nothing, without the need to weigh my words or suffer because of them; I was in my element and had no desire to share it or reveal it to anyone.
Having thought over my question, Claudia had to admit defeat. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she sighed.
‘Then don’t say anything.’
She must have been wondering why I was behaving so unreasonably. Seeing no justification for my rudeness, she retorted, ‘You left Africa to its wars, and brought its misfortunes with you.’
‘You’ve never been to Africa, Claudia. What do you know?’
‘I know what it’s done to one particular man.’
‘A man who’s seen what you’ll never see.’
‘I’m not blind,’ she said in her defence. ‘You’re the one who’s become blind … You remember the other day, on the terrace of the restaurant, that drunken beggar who stood there watching us eat until a waiter chased him away? You put your fork down on the table, you wiped your mouth with a napkin, and then what did you do? You shook your head irritably, ordered a beer and carried on with your lunch as if nothing had happened.’
‘It isn’t the same.’
‘It’s exactly the same, Kurt. Except that in that restaurant the world was reduced to the four of us: you, the beggar, the waiter and me. And it happens the same way all over the world. On a larger scale. That’s the way the world is, and nobody can change it. There are people who suffer, and people who get by as best they can. That’s the nature of things. Nobody’s supposed to take other people’s misfortunes on himself, because everyone, rich or poor, has his share of them. Good luck and bad luck are both tests we are destined to get through. Nature has its rules: we don’t blame a millipede for having more legs than it knows what to do with while a worm doesn’t even have a claw to scratch itself. And a turkey can’t claim it’s unfair for a partridge to fly away when a predator approaches while he can only stand there like an idiot. There’s a morality in what we consider unfair, Kurt. The real question is whether to deal with it or ignore it. Your problem is that you think you embody that morality when you have neither the calibre nor the weight to do so. You’re one person among seven billion other people, with no special authority to demand a fairness that nature itself can’t conceive of.’
‘There’s an African proverb that says: “He who doesn’t know that he doesn’t know is a disaster.”’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Exactly what it says, but I assume you’re not one for riddles. Don’t you see, Claudia? What happened to me in Africa has at least taught me something, something that may seem like nothing to you, but to me is very important.’
‘I wish you’d enlighten me.’
‘Sorry, I’m all out of enlightenment.’
I leant across her thighs and opened the door for her.
She pursed her lips, sniffed loudly and got out.
I switched on the engine and drove off.
The wind blew along Schaumainkai. The neon signs streaked the river with different colours. A few islands of greenery stood out on the soot-black river banks. I walked as far as Theodor-Stern-Kai, wandered through Niederrad, then returned to the river. I couldn’t accept what Claudia had done, let alone forgive it … I felt alone. My legs were like lead, my breath like fire. Jessica’s ghost was pursuing me. It had been limping behind me since I had got out of my car. I was downcast, but I kept going, swept along as I had been the day I decided to confront the valley of shadows rather than rot in Gerima’s jail. I had the feeling I was changing …