I reached out my hand and touched her arm. Very softly, I began to speak. "She stayed with you as long as she could. She never would have left voluntarily, you know that."

"No, she went voluntarily!" She obviously heard my words, but they had a different meaning to her. "She just left me in the lurch!" Her rage seemed real, but it was still a bygone reality against which it was directed.

I held her arm tighter. "No, you know that that's not true. She thought of you right up to the end. She gave you the apartment, so you'd be taken care of." Actually, I knew that it was pointless to discuss anything with her in this condition, but I didn't want her to fall deeper into these absurd thoughts. That couldn't be good for her.

"Gave! She never gave me anything! She just left." Whoa, something didn't fit here. She had just told me something entirely different. And it had sounded very believable. What was the truth?

"Without a word. From one day to the next. Without a word." She sounded like a broken record. "I don't know what to do." The record went on, and she was obviously immersed completely in the past now. I could only guess what sort of horrible disappointment she was talking about now, but I began to suspect something. Could it be that she spoke of two different people? And two different times?

Maybe I could make a cautious attempt to find out what exactly she was talking about. I didn't move and spoke very softly. "What happened?"

It seemed to me that she wasn't even aware of my presence. She was talking to herself. "Gone. She's gone. How can she do something like this? I have no one but her. We've known each other since we were fifteen. I love her!" Her voice had a painful, almost whining, undertone, like a child who's been hurt and doesn't understand why.

She spoke of a woman she'd known since she was fifteen years old. That couldn't be the same woman who'd left her the apartment. But who was it then? In any case, she had left deep scars behind. Such deep scars that she did not appear today, so much later, to be over them.

"I love her so." She repeated what she had just said, this time with the most despair I'd ever imagined. It stung me. Desperation over one and then the other... Yes, I had to admit that I was jealous of them. I was ashamed to feel that way, but I knew I couldn't change it. Then she could still say it. She'd probably said it to her hundreds of times. And because of her, she could no longer say it. Vengeance filled me. Then I pulled myself together. That wasn't important now. What was important was to bring her back into the present, if possible, without falling apart completely. I smiled soothingly at her, even if she couldn't see me. "Love is so fragile," I explained, "but the memories remain. The bad ones with the good. Time makes the bad ones pale, and you remember the good ones your whole life. Don't you think?" I hoped to help her recall a more positive experience with this kind of gentle suggestion, but I had my doubts.

She laid her head to the side a bit and looked down at me, although I could've sworn she was talking to a ghost. "I was looking forward to this evening so much. And now...? What should I do now? The apartment is empty. She's gone. She can't have just left. Without saying anything to me." She sniffled, but I could see no tears. Then she repeated softly and disbelievingly, "Without saying anything..."

I felt so much sympathy for her that the tears almost came to me that wouldn't come to her, even though I didn't know exactly what was going on. Her voice had such a different sound from the one I knew, a sound that shook me at least as much as the whimpering in the clearing in Paris, when she'd told me the most frightful of stories. The recollection of that scene brought me back to reason. There was no sense in letting her languish in this state any longer. It didn't serve either one of us - her even less than me - and gentle coaxing from the outside seemed not to reach her, or worse seemed to make the journey into the past even worse. I looked at her. Her eyes were still blurred, not necessarily in the same kind of pain as back in the clearing, but she was obviously not there. I reached out a hand and touched her arm. Dazed, she looked down at me. Then a smile began to lighten her face. "You're here!" She came up to me and hugged me forcefully - not pa.s.sionately, but more like a young, strong teenager who doesn't yet know her own strength and expresses her joy at seeing you again. I gasped for breath. It was clear to me now that she wasn't hugging me. And at that moment, jealousy caught me completely unprepared. I reacted automatically. I raised my hand and smacked her. I really got her. Totally shocked, I stared at my hand, which still hung in the air, and at her face, which was beginning to redden. I'd never done anything like that before, for as long as I could remember. I began to stutter. "I ... I'm sorry. I..."

She stared back, at least as shocked. Our gazes met in the air and didn't seem to be able to decide to whom they should return. We were both paralyzed for a second. Then - all of a sudden - she began to laugh. It was more than a hysterical giggle. It grew a little, then stopped as suddenly as it had begun. I was relieved. Completely irrationally, I'd gotten the idea that one had to give hysterical people a good slap in order to return them to their senses. And I was by no means capable of repeating that at the moment.

She stood there and looked at me seriously now. Her eyes appeared to be clear again. "You hit me," she stated calmly.

I squirmed. My G.o.d, what could I do to make up for that? "I don't know what to say." My stuttering returned. "I d-don't know how that c-could have h-h-happened. I'm - I'm so sorry." I could only repeat myself, so I remained silent. This was really a hopeless situation. It seemed that there were never two free minutes in which we could just be together calmly and happily. Every time, something unpredictable happened.

This time also. She laughed, as if I'd said something humorous. "Do you know what's funny about that?"

I shook my head. I couldn't imagine that in my wildest dreams!

"That I thought, in the first moment, that she was really here. She did that often."

The astonishment must have been written across my face. "Hit you?" I couldn't believe it.

"Yes," she said plainly, and turned around. She went to the sofa and sat down. Expectantly, she looked up at me. "I'm glad you did it," she remarked, very calmly again.

I was amazed. This calm, this sudden change in her behavior. It had only been a couple of minutes since... Nonetheless, I still couldn't agree with her. "I'm not," I replied sadly. "I hate violence. It's not me." I looked at her and awaited her reaction.

"I know that," she said. She smiled gently. "Come here."

I shook my head. I wanted to go to her, but I didn't want all of this to be swept back under the rug. If she just wanted to celebrate our reconciliation again...

She smiled again. "Come," she repeated. "You've brought me back to my senses; now let's talk about it. You want that, don't you?" Her expression took my answer for granted.

"Yes." I agreed, but although it was my wish to learn as much about her as possible, I hated the thought of being forced back into the role of the voyeur. Until now, that had always come to a very unhappy ending. I asked myself if it was worth it. To satisfy my curiosity. She was still looking calmly up at me. The danger did not seem too great, but still... "You don't have to tell me."

Her head moved slightly, as if she couldn't decide whether to accept the offer of freedom. Then she fixed her gaze on me again. "I've already told you so much..." She hesitated a little. Did she think it was too much? She sat up straight on the sofa. Her shoulders were even. "Would you like to hear it...?" She looked at me questioningly again, but she didn't look upset. Should I risk it?

I came to a decision. "Yes," I nodded briefly. "I'd like that." Was it just my curiosity taking over, or was it something else? I didn't know for sure. But shouldn't I also understand and be accountable for all of my actions? Everything I learned about her could help me to understand her better. And that was, in the end, what I wanted. I went slowly over to the sofa and sat next to her. This piece of furniture belonged in a museum. All the things that had happened here...

"You're dismayed at what I showed you, right?" She looked down at the floor in front of her, although I was sitting right next to her. For her, this was all probably quite normal, but in my world - I corrected myself: before I got to know her. Since then, a lot about the world I claimed as my own had changed - it certainly wasn't.

"Well, yeah." I tried to speak as carefully as possible. She recognized immediately what I was thinking about.

"You don't have to make such an effort at being tolerant." She turned her head and looked at me. "It is awful."

I sighed. "Yes, you're probably right." I didn't exactly think it was a question of tolerance. More of the capacity of my imagination. Mine was sometimes overloaded by what she offered. It was unimaginable. At least for me, who had so obviously led such a "harmless" life. Even if that had not been clear to me until recently.

I looked into her face, and a question forced its way out of me. "You were talking about two different people just now, weren't you? The woman from whom you inherited the apartment wasn't the same one who..."

"Who hit me, do you mean? No, she wasn't." Her face softened again. "Maria was a wonderful woman. She would never have done anything like that." She got up and positioned herself opposite me behind a chair. "That only now became clear to me." She looked right at me. "After you insisted on it so much." I shrank my shoulders a little. Had I had the right to do that? I didn't know anything about this woman.

"And you were right." She propped herself up with both arms against the back of the chair and bent forward. "She was no client." I could've been proud of my victory, but I wasn't. "I've always tried to convince myself that she was. Especially then. Then, when she didn't come back and I was firmly convinced that she'd left me. It was easier for me that way. I could place all of the blame on her." She turned around, so she didn't have to look at me anymore, and leaned her back against the chair. "Although I knew it could only be my fault." She went silent.

I stood up. "That's not true either! Does everything always have to be black and white?" She was making me angry again. I didn't want that. I went over to her, but stopped behind her. I spoke to her back. "Was anyone at fault for anything? She was sick. You couldn't help that, and neither could she. Can't you understand that?"

She turned around. There were tears in her eyes now. "Yes," she said softly. "Yes, I understand it now." That probably made her miss her even more. I wasn't particularly happy with my role. I wasn't exactly playing the advocata diaboli, but that's what it felt like. I laid a hand on her arm. "I think I would've liked her a lot, your Maria." For a moment, she looked at me calmly, and I was afraid the whole river was going to burst out of her. There wasn't a sound to be heard anywhere in the room. Then the corners of her mouth twitched a little. "Maybe," she said. "You have some things in common." The pull on her mouth grew stronger. "But with your jealousy..." She frowned a bit unhappily. I wanted to protest, because I felt, despite her sadness, that she was picking on me a little, but then I let it be. She was probably right.

She came over and hugged me. It was like a goodbye - but not to me. Now Maria could rest in peace. In her and in her heart. She pulled away from me and went back to the sofa. She sat down with one leg under her body. Then she looked up. "That was the one."

A shudder ran down my spine. I'd almost forgotten that there was another one. And I was convinced I'd already heard the less painful part. Maria was the good; now came the evil. Everything tensed inside me. I didn't know how evil. When I thought about the day outside Paris... I wasn't at all sure that I even wanted to hear it. I caught her eye as I went back to the sofa. But she was obviously prepared to tell me. So obvious that I didn't dare say no.

"The other one was my first great love - my first woman. Did I tell you that already?"

I shook my head slightly. I'd only guessed at that from the confused phrases she'd thrown at me earlier. She leaned back a little. I sat next to her and waited.

"She was a school friend. We'd known each other for quite some time. Really, since we were little kids. But then, we hadn't had much to do with one another." She looked at me briefly. Her eyes were clear and unclouded. Almost a little introverted. Nonetheless, she was completely there. "So it started when we were thirteen or fourteen. That's when we got closer. I don't even remember why. Suddenly, we did everything together. And everything meant going dancing, drinking, smoking: anything to avoid being *good.' I think that's still reasonably normal." She looked at me inquisitively, as if we were on a TV talk show and she'd just made a statement that required my support. I nodded in agreement. That had surely just been the usual teenage rebellion. I had some of that behind me as well.

"At fifteen, we slept together for the first time." It came out quickly and briefly. That didn't require any confirmation. It was simply a fact. "That is to say, she slept with me, not the other way around. And so it went on. I was barely allowed to touch her, never to enter her. She only did that to me."

I had to swallow hard. It wasn't easy to listen to a description of the things she'd done with other people. Somehow, that always felt like it should be our own private territory. Despite her occupation and despite all jealousy. And our relationship was different. She was describing the cla.s.sical butch-femme relationship, very cla.s.sical. Two women who played the man-woman game. Every relationship contained some of that. Even my own had had it. But not in this extreme form. That was strange to me.

I had been staring ahead, musing, while she said nothing. When I looked around, I noticed her eyes. She was waiting for my reaction. She was trying to guess how much she could tell me, how much I wanted to hear. I couldn't say anything, but at least my expression had told her that I wasn't terribly shocked. "I thought it had to be like that. I couldn't imagine any other way. I only knew her." She laughed briefly. "Then again, that's not very different from the little straight couples at that age, is it?" She looked at me. I nodded. She was definitely right about that. "She began to talk about it more and more often, that she'd rather be a man. But I didn't find that particularly odd, either. She was always a very masculine sort."

I looked down at myself involuntarily. She punctuated that with another bit of laughter, though more cheerful than before. "No, there's no comparison to you. You don't need to worry about that." She smiled to herself a little. "She had tattoos. A lot." I wrinkled my face in a hint of disgust. She leaned over me. "In case it makes you feel any better: I find you very feminine." She kissed me on the nose and gave me a playful little look. "Although maybe a little -" she made a dramatic pause. "- tomboyish?" She acted as though she were really considering it seriously. I groaned. I really couldn't stand that word! She laughed when she saw that she'd hit the nail on the head. I didn't think that there was any doubt that she would. With her sensitivity to those things... Then she got serious again and brushed my cheek with her hand. She touched me briefly and then leaned back into the corner. "The interesting thing about it is that today, she really is a man."

"What?!" She said it so naturally, as though one was the automatic consequence of the other.

"She had an operation. But that was much later. By then, I was no longer in contact with her. Anyway, she'd already - back then, when she was still a woman - behaved along that vein. She had a group of girls, for instance, who were panhandling and turning tricks around the bus station. She lived that way for awhile herself. And from drugs, but I didn't find that out until much later. She spared me that for quite awhile. I don't know why. I'm sure it would've been easy. I would've done anything she wanted then." She looked at me again with that clear expression that seemed to say: you can go any time you want to. I wondered what she expected of me.

"Privately, anyhow... Well, like I said, I didn't know anything else. Even when it got harder and harder." I really didn't know whether I should allow her to continue. I remembered our first encounter, her fear in bed. I tried to look in the other direction. She leaned over and placed a finger on my chin. She turned my face around to her. "You remember, don't you?"

I raised my arm and placed my hand gently on top of hers. "Yes," I confirmed quietly. "You don't have to tell me the rest if you don't want to."

She slipped her fingers into mine and let them stay there. "I want to. It's always been very painful for me, and I've always repressed it. Perhaps this is my last chance to become clear about who I really am and why." She became more distant again and turned away. "Why I am what you so despise," she said softly, in the direction of the couch cushions. I raged. I'd heard that statement from her once before and disagreed vehemently. If she still thought that, I must not have been very convincing.

I took her in my arms from behind and rested my head against her back. "Do you really believe that?"

She made a hollow sound. "If not now, then later. I haven't told you everything yet."

"Then tell me everything, so I can prove to you that the opposite is true," I grumbled ill- naturedly. My impatience began to bother me again. That was hardly called for in this situation.

She turned around, so that I had to let go of her. "I'm sure you can already imagine most of it." She pressed her hands together as if to pray and said nothing. She looked over my shoulder and into a distant past. "In the beginning, she only hit me sometimes. Just to increase the arousal, she said. Pains of l.u.s.t, she called it. But I didn't feel much l.u.s.t with it. Only once, and that embarra.s.sed me. When I told her that, she hit me again. So I just let it happen and didn't say anything else. Then one day, instead of her hands, she used a belt. My parents had never hit me. I had no idea what that meant. I screamed - so she put a gag in my mouth and hit harder. I bled where the buckle hit. But she did it very carefully. The places weren't visible when I was dressed. I was surprised and ashamed. I was ashamed that I let someone do that to me, but I didn't dare try to stop it.

The fact that she was ashamed of something someone else did to her was nothing new. I didn't wonder about anything else. It all seemed to follow simply.

"She said it was a sign of my love for her. Every scar a symbol. How could I defend myself?" She looked at me trustingly. I could barely stand it anymore. This calm expectation! I could've screamed. She continued. "The next time it was a whip. And then handcuffs. The gag. The shackles." She had begun to speak more softly, also. Maybe I should stop her, after all. How much worse could it get? "That was the worst part. Having my hands and feet shackled. On my stomach, until I couldn't breathe and begged her for mercy. And she just laughed and hit me again. Again and again and again." She started beating a pillow. It was like an unstoppable flow. "And again..." I held her hands back. "Come," I soothed her, "stop. It's over." She let me hold her. But her arms still jerked.

"And then - one day - she was gone. Just like that." She still said it with wonder.

"But...?" I couldn't see that as anything other than a great stroke of luck. "Weren't you happy that she was gone?"

"Happy?" No, she obviously didn't see it that way.

"Yes, since you were free from her then." I would've thanked everything I believed in.

She repeated one of my words. "Free?" She changed her position on the sofa. Now she sat a little farther away from me. "I was horribly lonely," she explained sadly. "She was all I had. And I loved her."

I trembled visibly. This word out of her mouth, and in such a clear state of mind, told me everything. "Well, then..." I sank back into the sofa. That was then, and it was over. She would never say that to anyone again. Not even to me. I suddenly seemed horribly old and alone.

She realized what she had said. Perhaps that was what drove her to say more, to explain to herself and to me why things were as they were. "The loneliness was the worst." Her tone leveled again. "I couldn't be alone anymore. She had been with me every night. I was used to that."

"To everything?" I asked. My voice must have sounded a little harsh. She looked up, startled. "Pardon me," I followed quickly. "I have no right..." I was just tired. It was her life, not mine. And the future looked more and more like that separation would always exist.

"Yes, you do," she said, suddenly gentle. "Yes, I had gotten used to almost everything. But it wasn't like that everyday. She didn't hit me or shackle me everyday. But she slept with me everyday. It was like a ritual. I didn't matter what we had done before, when we went to bed, we had to sleep together. And sometimes the rest." She fell silent.

I was unsettled again. "How old were you when she - left?" I asked carefully.

"Nineteen," she said. "But I didn't feel that way. I still felt like I was fifteen. It was as if I hadn't matured at all since I'd met her. My peers all seemed older." She laughed again unhappily. "Maybe that was the attractive thing about me. In any case, I could hardly escape all the offers."

I could well imagine how that had proceeded. She needed someone to care about her.

"I was so inexperienced," she explained. "Except for the one thing. I noticed that very quickly. That which was already second nature to me was still relatively new to the others. And they thought that what they experienced of me in the one area must carry over into the others. I behaved in such a way that they would have to believe it."

"You mean they paid you from the beginning?" The idea would never have occurred to me while practicing with a lover. I must really be naive.

"Well, no, they didn't exactly pay me in the beginning, but I received gifts. Expensive gifts. And I was usually the second woman. The one for the bed." She said it very disparagingly. And I couldn't blame her, as much as it horrified me as well.

She let out a resigned sigh. "Anyhow, they didn't make it difficult for me to live that way. And at some point, I got used to it. I didn't expect anything more."

"Until Maria came," I said clairvoyantly. That must have been a mild shock for her.

She looked me in the eyes. "Yes," she confirmed. "And then you."

I couldn't take it. That was all in the past. She'd used up her love on others, wasted it on her torturers. There was nothing left for me. I made a dismissive gesture. "I'm not that important." I wanted to get up off the sofa. How did that go in Casablanca? We'll always have Paris. That fit here perfectly. We were only missing the airplane into which I could disappear, flying away to leave the evil behind me.

She grabbed my arm. "Where are you going?" She could still sound like fifteen when she wanted to. Sweet and innocent. And somewhere - it seemed to me - she was just that. But I wasn't.

"Home. I need to get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be another long day." How the cliches poured from my mouth! I couldn't believe it myself.

I looked at her, and I loved her so. But I couldn't give her what she already knew of in so many ways. I would only disappoint her. I felt empty and burned out. Dejected, I knelt in front of her. I could only tell the truth. "I love you. But that's all I can give you. You've earned much more. You'll find someone better easily." I sounded hollow.

I wanted to stand up, but she held me down. "Tell me, are you completely out of your mind?" This wasn't the same calm tone of voice I'd heard before. "If you don't stop that nonsense right now, I'll really throw you out." She thought about it for a moment. "Oh, no, that's what you want. So I'll keep you here." Her words were full of energy. She took me wholly by surprise.

"But -" I stammered, still entirely confused.

"But what?" She slid off the sofa and lay suddenly on top of me. She looked down at me from above like a tiger with its prey. "What do you think, how many people have I told what I just told you?"

I tried to think about it. It was difficult. I knew so little about her relationships. "Well, Maria for instance, and -".

She interrupted me angrily. "Not even Maria. Don't even consider *and'. You're the only one. And why do you think that is?"

I couldn't imagine why, not by my best effort. I fell silent.

"I ought to thrash you," she whispered. Then she spoke again at a normal volume. "And that's not because of my occupation and not because of my past. That's just a normal reaction, as obtuse as you're being."

I didn't think so at all, but if she did... She was heavier, she was stronger, and she was on top of me. It didn't seem like an opportune time to argue with her.

"Mother of heaven!" She groaned loudly. "You want to hear those three words. You've fixated yourself on them so much that you won't take anything else seriously. Dammit already!" She swore. That was something new. "Don't you understand? I just confessed everything to you that there is to confess." She shot me an icy look. "Something I can't say about you, by the way. And your only reaction is that I'm not good enough for you? I ought to have a thing or two to say about that, don't you think?"

"Yes. No." I didn't know what to say.

She looked lovingly down at me again. "So remember this: the time where I let myself be controlled by my shame and guilt is over. And you're not exactly free of responsibility for that." I couldn't really argue with that. "My self-esteem has recovered somewhat. And a certain person has definitely had something to do with that. Right?" She stared wildly into my face, but the tenderness glowing in her eyes took away any hint of danger. I nodded to the degree that I could, given that I was pinned to the floor. "And why do you want to leave now?" She propped herself up with her arms and increased the s.p.a.ce between us so that I could breath a little better.

I had to answer her, I knew that, but I didn't know how. And I told her that as well. "I don't know." Softly, I added a few seconds later, "I feel so small."

"Aha!" She let herself roll off and lay next to me. She talked to the ceiling. "How about if we talk about that sensibly? What works in one place might work in another. Did you ever think of that?"

To be honest, I hadn't. And that didn't make me any bigger. Sooner the opposite. Everything I'd demanded of her, I hadn't even thought to question in myself. Big adjustment!

She propped herself up on one elbow and watched me curiously. "What kind of woman are you, really? Have you ever let me look inside like I let you?"

She pushed me into embarra.s.sed confusion.

"Or is that not compatible with the sublime ethos of the knight in shining armor?"

She was so right! But what I most wanted to do was flee. She noticed that immediately.

"I won't really hold you against your will, you know that." She laughed softly. I felt horribly transparent. "And you won't really go." Now she looked earnestly into my face again. "So, why don't we discuss what we really want to do?"

Yes, why not? I was sour. "How am I supposed to know that? You want your profession..."

"Here goes the broken record," she sighed. "I should've known it." But this time, she was less angry than any other time we'd discussed that issue. In actuality, she didn't seem angry at all. And not even so uncertain. "You know that that's not an issue at the moment. Nothing has changed about that."

"Yes, at the moment..." I emphasized.

"Yes, at the moment," she repeated decisively. "Leave it at that. Do you want to force a decision that I can't make right now? What do you expect to accomplish that way? Even a decision would only be temporary in a case like that."