There were fewer and fewer students emerging now. Soon there wouldn’t be any more. Had she passed him?
Slowly Frank Frølich stood up. He walked warily towards the door and opened it.
He was at the top end of the auditorium, behind the rows of chairs looking down on the lectern. There were two people down there. Elisabeth was one of them. The other woman was talking to her in a soft voice. She was in her fifties with black hair in a kind of page-boy cut, wearing a long black dress.
They were standing very close to each other. They may have been very good friends. They could have been mother and daughter. But mothers don’t caress their daughters like that.
He was spotted.
The two women looked up at him. Both very calm, as if they were politely waiting for him to retreat. He searched for something in Elisabeth’s eyes, but he found no signs of recognition, no suggestion of guilt, no shame, nothing.
They stood like that for several seconds, three pairs of eyes meeting across rows of chairs, until he backed out and left.
2
From time to time he tried to see himself from the outside. Focus on the subject – which caused his cheeks to burn with anger and shame. His brain dominated by one single desire: to rewind and edit out everything, to escape such an embarrassing, abject condition. So, Elisabeth was no more than a student involved with a lecturer – who, furthermore, was a woman. Frank Frølich made up his mind: never again. Never go near her again.
But the rational voice inside him protested. Why? Because she is dangerous? Bisexual? Mysterious? Because she had pretended not to know him? Because he had been snubbed in such an ignominious way?
No, thought the scorned voice, not to be silenced. It was because she had put him in a fever. Because she had rendered him incapable of action, and weak – turned him to jelly.
When she rang him next time he didn’t answer. He sat there with the mobile phone in his hand. It vibrated as if a little heart was beating inside it. Her name glowed in the display. But he didn’t stir. Ignored it every time.
Soon she began to ring him at home.
It was a farce. Running to the phone and reading the name in the display. Not answering it if it was her. Definitely not touching the phone if it was an anonymous number. Thus he sat at home late one evening letting the phone ring and ring. He didn’t get up because it was her calling. That was how much power she had over him – even when he was alone, he struggled to extricate himself.
A week went by. Frank Frølich felt that the fever had almost run its course. It was Thursday afternoon now. He had finished work, endured the mind-numbing journey on the Metro as usual and strolled up to the front door. One of the elderly ladies living on the seventh floor of his block was going through her post box in the entrance hall. Frølich was still in his Metro state. He held open the lift door for the stooped woman, who was no different from all the other stooped women he occasionally met in the lift. As the door closed he pressed the button. He stared vacantly in front of him at the floor dividers on his way up.
He got out of the lift.
He heard the bump as it continued on its way upwards while he fumbled in his pocket for his keys.
He froze.
A tiny detail about the front door stopped him in his tracks. The peep hole in the door glowed yellow. It was usually dark. Had he forgotten to switch off the light in the hall this morning?
Finally, he slipped the key into the lock, hesitated, then turned it. The door opened without a sound. He sidled in. Closed the door quietly behind him. Held his breath. The lights in the hall, that was one thing, but the door to the living room ajar – that was quite another.
This moment was to imprint itself on his consciousness ever after.
Someone was in his flat.
He stood still, mulling the notion over and over again as his body slowly went numb, his mouth dried and he lost sensation in his hands. Without considering what he was doing, he noiselessly glided two metres across the floor to the living room door. He was no longer in control. It was as if he was watching himself from the outside: he saw himself lift one hand and cautiously place it on the door and push it open.
Sharp intake of breath. His body still numb, as though from shock.
She was sitting with her back to him. On the floor. Undressed, wearing only turquoise underwear. The delicate back bent forwards. Two prominent birthmarks beside her spine. From a distance her tattoo looked like a long, dark pen stroke. She was sitting cross-legged in front of the record player and stereo unit. She couldn’t hear him. Over her ears she wore his new headphones. The music in the room sounded like wind rustling dried leaves. She seemed very much at home. She had intruded into his space and then encapsulated herself in her own world. CDs and LPs were strewn across the floor.
His emotions formed a knot in his stomach: tension, fury, curiosity. She had forced her way into his flat – his mind raced. One thing was the physical intrusion – the practical side, her ‘actually doing it’. The other was the mental intrusion, forcing her way into his innermost sanctuary, his home – simply performing this act without asking him, usurping the right. He was unable to break the spell. A flood of emotions had him in thrall.
Perhaps it was the draught from the door, perhaps a glint in the glass door of the cabinet, but suddenly she gave a start, ripped off the headset and jumped up.
‘My God, you gave me a fright!’
The next moment she was close to him. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi to you, too.’
She looked up, sensed the agitation, the well of conflicting feelings besetting him.
‘Aren’t you just a tiny bit… happy?’
‘How did you get in?’
‘I borrowed a key.’
‘Borrowed a key?’
‘When I was here last.’
‘So you’re a thief?’
An echo of an earlier conversation. Utterly composed, she looked into his eyes and said: ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ Provocatively at first, but then she lowered her gaze – as if ashamed.
As if, he thought repeatedly: As if!
‘I borrowed it. From the bowl in the kitchen.’
‘Borrowed the key?’
‘Are you annoyed?’
‘Did you take the key from my kitchen last time you were here – without mentioning it to me?’
‘You’re annoyed.’
‘Far from it.’
‘You don’t like this kind of surprise?’
‘I’m not sure if “like” is the right word.’
‘I meant well, though.’
‘Why aren’t you wearing more clothes?’
Her voice darkened. ‘So you can see me better.’ She feigned a giggle when he didn’t respond.
There was an inherent vulnerability in her awkwardness. But she sensed that he noticed, and smothered this mental nakedness in a tighter embrace, quickly adding: ‘No, it wasn’t that. I took a shower. I was so cold.’ She tugged at his body and stiffened slightly when she felt his reluctance. ‘I know it was wrong. Borrowing the key without asking. Sorry.’
She let go of him and marched through the room, towards the kitchen.
Her jacket was on the chair under the window. She bent down for it, keeping her legs straight – a living pose from a glossy men’s mag. She looked through the pockets and showed him the key, flicking back her dark hair. The pearl in her navel glinted and then she was back close again. ‘I won’t ever do it again.’ Then she marched into the kitchen. He heard the key clink against the foreign coins and the odds and ends in the bowl. She straightened up, rested her head against the door frame and studied him. He had to swallow. When she moved towards him, it was as though she was walking on a catwalk, one foot in front of the other. She held his eyes the whole way. Her lips said: ‘I thought you would be happy. Probably because I like surprises myself.’ Her hand groped and she glanced up at him. ‘You are happy. Your body is happy.’