“I didn’t know you …”
He doesn’t need to know anything, I think. He doesn’t need to know how far I was willing to go to fight for him, the man I was madly in love with. The passion is still there, but the flame weakens each day. I know it will eventually die out completely. Any breakup is painful, and I can feel this pain in every fiber of my body. It’s the last time I will see him alone. We will meet again at galas and cocktail parties, at elections and press conferences, but we will never again be the way we were today. It was great to have made love like that and end as we began, both of us completely surrendered to the other. I knew it was the last time; he didn’t, but I couldn’t say anything.
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
Throw it away. It cost me a small fortune, but throw it away. Then you’ll set me free from my addiction.
I don’t explain exactly what addiction I’m talking about. It has a name: Jacob K?nig.
I see his expression of surprise and smile. I say good-bye with three kisses on the cheek and leave. In the vestibule, I turn to his aide and wave. He looks away, pretending to focus on a stack of papers, and just mumbles a good-bye.
When I make it to the sidewalk, I call my husband and tell him I would rather spend New Year’s Eve at home, with the children. If he wants to travel, let’s do it at Christmas.
LET’S take a walk before dinner?”
I nod yes, but I don’t move. I stare at the park across from the hotel and, beyond that, the Jungfrau, perpetually snowcapped and illuminated by the afternoon sun.
The human brain is fascinating; we will forget a scent until we smell it again, we will erase a voice from our memory until we hear it again, and even emotions that seemed buried forever will be awakened when we return to the same place.
I think back to when we were at Interlaken the first time. Back then we stayed at a cheap hotel and hiked from one lake to another, each time like we were discovering a new path. My husband was going to run that crazy marathon that has most of its route in the mountains. I was proud of his adventurous spirit, his desire to conquer the impossible and always demand more and more of his body.
He wasn’t the only person crazy enough to do it; people came from all over the world, filling the hotels and socializing in the many bars and restaurants of this small town of five thousand inhabitants. I have no idea how Interlaken is in the winter, but from my window it now seems more empty, more removed.
This time we’re staying in a better hotel. We have a beautiful suite. The manager’s card is on the table, greeting us and offering us the bottle of champagne that we’ve already emptied.
He calls my name. I come back to reality and we go downstairs to take a walk through the streets before nightfall.
If he asks me whether or not everything is fine, I’ll lie, because I don’t want to spoil his happiness. But the truth is that the wounds in my heart are taking a long time to heal. He points out the bench where we sat to have coffee one morning and were approached by a couple of neo-hippie foreigners asking for money. We pass in front of one of the churches as the bells ring, he kisses me and I kiss him back, doing all I can to hide what I feel.
We walk holding hands because of the cold—I hate wearing gloves. We stop at a nice bar and drink a little. We go to the train station. He buys the same souvenir he bought last time—a lighter with the symbol of the city. Back then he smoked and ran marathons.
Today he doesn’t smoke and he thinks he gets more and more out of breath each day. He is always panting when we walk quickly and, though he tries to hide it, I’ve noticed he was more tired than usual when we took that run by the lake in Nyon.
My phone is vibrating. It takes me ages to find it in my purse. When I finally find it, the person has already hung up. The screen shows it was my friend, the one who was depressed and, thanks to medication, is a happy person again today.
“If you want to call her back, I don’t mind.”
I ask why I should call back. Is he unhappy with my company? Does he want to be interrupted by people who will spend hours on the phone engaged in irrelevant chatter?
He gets irritated with me, too. Maybe it’s just the effect of the bottle of champagne, coupled with the two glasses of aquavit. His irritation calms me and puts me more at ease; I am walking alongside a human being, with emotions and feelings.
Interlaken sure is strange without the marathon, I say. It looks like a ghost town.
“There are no ski slopes here.”
Nor could there be. We are in the middle of a valley, with very high mountains to either side and lakes at each end.
He orders two glasses of gin. I suggest we change bars, but he is determined to combat the cold with alcohol. We haven’t done this in a long time.
“I know it’s only been ten years, but when we were here the first time, I was young. I had ambitions, I liked the open air, and I wouldn’t let myself be intimidated by the unknown. Have I changed that much?”
You’re only in your thirties. Are you really an old man?
He doesn’t answer. He downs his drink in one gulp and stares into space. He is no longer the perfect husband and, oddly enough, this makes me happy.
We leave the bar and walk back to the hotel. Along the way we find a beautiful and charming restaurant, but we’ve already made reservations elsewhere. It’s still early—the sign says dinner service doesn’t start until seven p.m.
“Let’s have another gin.”
Who is this man next to me? Has Interlaken awakened forgotten memories and opened up Pandora’s box?
I say nothing. And I begin to be afraid.
I ask if we should cancel our reservation at the Italian restaurant and have dinner here instead.
“It doesn’t matter.”
It doesn’t matter? Is he suddenly feeling everything I went through when he thought I was depressed?
For me it does matter. I want to go to the restaurant we booked. The same one where we exchanged vows of love.
“This trip was a terrible idea. I’d rather go back tomorrow. I had good intentions: I wanted to relive the early days of our relationship. But is that even possible? Of course not. We’re mature. We’re living under pressures that didn’t exist before. We need to maintain basic needs like education, healthcare, food. We try to have fun on the weekends because that’s what everybody does, and when we don’t feel like leaving the house, we think there’s something wrong with us.”
I never want to. I’d rather do nothing.
“Me, too. But what about our children? They want something else. We can’t leave them locked up with their computers. They’re too young for that. So we force ourselves to take them somewhere and do the same things our parents did with us, the same thing our grandparents did with our parents. An ordinary life. We’re an emotionally well-structured family. If one of us needs help, the other is always ready to do anything.”
I understand. Like taking a trip to a place filled with memories, for example.
Another glass of gin. He sits in silence for a while before replying.
“That’s right. But do you think memories can fill the present? Not at all. In fact, they’re suffocating me. I’m discovering I’m no longer the same person. Until we got here and had that bottle of champagne, everything was fine. Now I realize just how far I am from living the life I dreamed of when I visited Interlaken the first time.”
What did you dream?
“It was silly. But it was still my dream. And I could have made it come true.”