Why do people shut their eyes when they kiss? Is it because they are too close and everything becomes blurred? Do they need to eliminate the faculty of sight to open up that vast landscape of lips and tongues in the mind? The unlimited distances of the human mouth. Like travelling in space. Infinity. Like walking into Einstein’s library.
And how do you describe love?
Fontane kept it short. His description of Effi Briest’s frozen fingers being gently prised apart with kisses does it all. Another German writer once cut it down to a single line – then for a while it was nice. A British writer reduced it to a brief tangle of pubic hair. A female author living in the USA describes a woman waking up after a year spent in a drug-induced sleep with the vague memory of her boyfriend’s testicles sweeping across her face.
What more is there to say?
It’s only afterwards, looking back in words, that anything becomes memorable. How it came to a decision to sleep with Armin is not something Lena discussed with anyone. It may have been a spontaneous thing. It may have been coming down the tracks ever since Lena’s bag was stolen and Armin found her discarded book lying on the ground in Görlitzer Park.
She did say one thing. While they lay still afterwards with the light from the street spilling across their bodies and some late-night voices coming in from outside, she told Armin that she had felt something sharp digging into her back. It gave her the feeling that one of the shrapnel pieces inside his body had come loose. She laughed and said it made no sense. It was one of the fridge magnets, of course, but she continued to believe it was one of his shrapnel fragments that had been dislodged by all the movement and she didn’t want to remove it. She was not sure it could be described as pain. A sensation that kept coming back again and again as a reminder that what was happening was true, it was not imagined.
Look, she said.
She pointed to a bruise low down on her back and said that was certified proof.
Armin patted his hands up and down along his body as though he was checking for his wallet.
They laughed.
She placed her head on his shoulder and they lay silent for a while, dreaming with open eyes.
Inside her bag on the floor of the living room, her phone buzzed a couple of times. The messages were coming from far away, from another time zone.
It was Mike.
Are you still up?
It was early evening over there in the US and he was calling to see if she was awake and up for a chat. He eventually assumed she was asleep and left a message saying he would catch up with her in the morning. A short while later he followed on with an audio message which she only played back to herself the next day when she was alone again.
It was Mike saying – I’m here in a gas station outside Des Moines. And I’m looking at this man sitting in front of me and he’s got three double burgers on a tray and three boxes of fries and three large Diet Cokes on another. Like he’s gone for the Mega Meal three times. He’s making his way through them all and I’m wondering why he doesn’t just get one at a time, it’s not like he’s getting a reduction. And while he’s eating, he’s looking straight ahead without seeing me. Like he’s completely focused on the food. Going through the whole lot as if it’s his job, lifting the hamburger to his mouth, then picking up a couple fries with his fingers, then taking a sip of his Coke through the straw. Every now and then he swirls the Coke around to hear the ice inside, or maybe to guess how much is left.
And it looks like he’s not really thinking about anything. It’s hard to know. Anyway, Mike said in a low voice that had the restaurant house music playing in the background, you know the way you look at somebody for long enough and you gradually become them. You kind of imagine you are that person. You take on their mannerisms.
Here I am, he said, and I think I’ve turned into this man in front of me. Like I’ve just made my way through three of those double burgers and all the fries and I’m just washing it down with the last of the Coke, waiting for that slurping sound to come up through the straw at the end. And you know what, I bet he’s desperately lonely.
Jesus, Lena, you won’t believe how much I miss you, here in this place on the highway, and I’m not able to say exactly why, but I feel like that guy eating just to stay in the world.