Judith Hermann: Nothing but Ghosts

I thought about the fact that Ruth had never been alone, one affair or relationship or friendship had always merged into the next, and when one love ended, there was always a new one, a greater one, a better one in the wings. It seemed that now she would be alone for the first time. I said, ‘Is it worse than usual?’ and then Ruth did laugh, softly, and said, ‘No. It’s the same as always. But in spite of that it’s shitty, isn’t it?’

They had argued, she said. He had felt hemmed in, almost threatened, she had come on too fast, too close; he wasn’t as much in love as she was, basically he wasn’t in love at all. Drunk and desperate, she had called him at his hotel one night; she knew he was there, but he didn’t answer the phone for an incredibly long time and, when he did, he said only, ‘You must be out of your mind,’ and then he just hung up.

Now he was avoiding her; in three days he’d be gone for good. She didn’t know which was worse – to see him and not be able to be with him or not to see him at all any more. She said, ‘Somehow the awful thing is that I think he didn’t recognize me for what I am, you know? He sent me away before I could show him what I’m really like; he didn’t let me get close to him, he didn’t give me a chance. That’s what’s so terrible, do you understand?’ I said, ‘Yes. I understand.’ And I really did understand. Only I thought that he had recognized her quite well, and maybe she knew that too. Ruth was silent.

Then she sighed and said, ‘Actually nothing happened, nothing at all. We kissed a little, we told each other two or three stories; once we walked through town holding hands. That’s all there was. But I fell in love in spite of that, and he didn’t want me, and that makes me furious. You said he wasn’t right for me.’ I didn’t say anything, and Ruth repeated, ‘You said that, didn’t you?’ I had to laugh, and she said seriously, ‘Actually, why wasn’t he?’ I could have said, because he’s the right one for me. Under different circumstances Ruth might have laughed at that. I didn’t know how to answer her. I said stupidly, ‘Maybe he’s a size too big for you,’ and Ruth asked, understandably nonplussed, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

I got up and walked through the apartment, taking the telephone along – Ruth’s room at the end of the hall, dark and wide; I still expected to see her bed there whenever I went in, her desk and the chair on which she sat when she was sad. Now the chair stood next to a window in her apartment in another town. I said, ‘Ruth, I don’t know either; I don’t know him at all; he’s good-looking but more than that I can’t say, except I had the feeling that you didn’t understand each other.’ ‘Yes. That’s possible,’ Ruth said simply.

In the hall I leaned against the wall, my knees were giving way; suddenly I had a feeling of utter hopelessness, Raoul far away, his face – now I remembered what it looked like. I wanted to get some information from Ruth that could prepare me for him; I didn’t know how I should phrase it, and what it really was I wanted to know. I said, ‘Did you sleep with him?’ and instantly felt the blood rush to my face. ‘No,’ Ruth said and didn’t seem to find my question odd. ‘No, we didn’t. Somehow he didn’t want to, or maybe he wanted precisely that; it was strange. At any rate, I didn’t sleep with him, and I can’t tell you how glad I am about that.’

I was silent, and she was too, or maybe she was listening to my silence, then she said, ‘Was that the right answer?’ And I laughed, embarrassed. She asked me again about Paris; I told her a little – about the Black African at the Place de la Madeleine, the hotel room, the African markets on the side streets of that section of the city. I thought, I should really have been consoling her, but I didn’t know how; also, she didn’t seem to want to be consoled. She said, ‘I’ll call you again tomorrow, all right?’ I said, ‘Ruth. Take care of yourself.’ She said, ‘You too,’ then we hung up. I drank a glass of wine in the kitchen; the refrigerator hummed. I thought he would call, soon. I was sure he would. Then I went to bed. Very late at night I woke up because the telephone was ringing. It rang three or four times; then it was still. I lay on my back and held my breath.

I could never have explained to Ruth, I couldn’t have explained what it was all about for me, how I felt. I never had to explain anything to Ruth; she didn’t ask me to, even though there must have been many times when she didn’t understand me. She was with me during all those years, in good times and in not-so-good times. Sometimes she asked, ‘Why are you doing that?’ She didn’t expect an answer and I couldn’t have given her one. She watched me; she knew me very well; sometimes she imitated me: the way I held my head to the side, smiled, looked away. She knew I had no secrets.

The letter arrived on September 20th, the fifth day after my return from Paris. Somehow Raoul must have got hold of my address at the theatre before he left for WÜrzburg; he knew that it was Ruth’s former address; anyhow, he knew pretty much everything about me from Ruth. He had gone to WÜurzburg, had probably organized his rehearsal schedule and moved into his new quarters, had spent one evening alone or maybe not, and had addressed an envelope to me the next day and sent it off. He was fast. In the envelope was a second-class ticket to WÜurzburg for the midday train on September 25th along with a return ticket. Also a piece of paper on which was written only a single sentence: ‘It would be nice if you came.’ Oddly enough, instead of signing it he had drawn a cartoon-type side view of his face, an unflattering profile.

I put the letter on the table; it looked strange and yet quite ordinary, a narrow white envelope on which my name was written. I had four days to decide, but there was nothing to think over; I knew that I would go. I no longer felt different than usual, no longer borne up by great expectations. I slept a lot, got up late, sat around in the afternoons in the cafe in front of my house, drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, looking up and down the street, never looking anyone in the eye.

The telephone rang several times; sometimes I picked it up and sometimes not; it was always Ruth, mostly towards evening. She wasn’t feeling well, but not really bad either. She was very busy and seemed distracted; in spite of that, she talked a lot about Raoul, lots of questions which she herself answered. Nothing was clarified before his departure; he had left without their having another talk. ‘You should be happy that he’s gone, that idiot,’ the make-up woman had said to her several times. She said, ‘I’d like to write to him; do you think I ought to write to him?’ and when I didn’t reply, she said, ‘It’s probably useless, completely useless, I know.’

As we were talking on the phone, I leaned out of the window so she could hear the street noises, the traffic at the intersection, fragments of the conversations of people sitting outside the cafes. Ruth used to like that; now she whispered, ‘Stop it, it’s making me homesick.’ Talking to her on the phone wasn’t hard. During the phone conversation we had just before I took the train to WÜrzburg, we didn’t talk about Raoul at all; I didn’t ask about him, and Ruth didn’t mention him. It was as though he had never existed. She told me she had had a call from a theatre in Hamburg; she’d probably get out of her contract and move again; she seemed happy and excited about that. She said, ‘Then we’ll be much nearer each other again.’

We talked a long time; I was drinking wine, was drunk by the time we finished and feeling melancholy. I said, and I meant it, ‘Ruth, I miss you very much,’ and she said, ‘Yes, me too.’ Then we hung up.