8
At my oral exam for my diploma, Windmill put on a presidential demeanor. I focused completely on the buzzing of the fly in the room, its shiny green body that looked more like a tank than something air-bound. I had passed with top marks and didn’t know how that had happened. They asked me where I’d like to work and I said the United Nations.
Didn’t I know how hard that was?
Had I not just graduated with top marks?
Windmill laughed.
I had prepared thoroughly, learned the most important UN languages and done the right internships. I was good, I said.
Nothing wrong with my grades, he replied.
“But truly, how good is your Arabic?” Windmill asked.
“Quite good,” I lied.
“And you just learned it on the side?”
“No.”
“What? No?”
“Not on the side. As a double major.”
“Your strongest dialect?”
“Lebanese.”
A week later Windmill called to say that I’d graduated at the top of the class. Then he went on to praise my interpreting notes and invite me to dinner. I agreed, without quite knowing why.
We sat in an Italian restaurant across from the Alte Oper. Windmill looked at me as if he was afraid I was going to start crying. It was easy to read in his face that he hoped it wouldn’t happen in the restaurant.
On the menu there were no prices and few dishes. The plates were served and cleared in next to no time. To be precise they were cleared before we had a chance to finish. Windmill kept saying, “You’ve got to try this!” And kept on ordering more, always in Italian, always winking and joking with the waiter. I tried to discern in which region he had learned Italian, but couldn’t—his Italian was clear and sterile. Without so much as a trace of an accent. Soulless, as if bred in a lab.
“Where’d you learn Italian?” I asked.
“In Mayence, at the university. And you?”
He focused on me as if we were back in the exam.
“In Rimini.”
“What did you do there?”
“Waitressed for three summers.”
Windmill nodded and signaled to the waiter that he could now serve the espresso. The cups were made of porcelain that was so white it was almost transparent. I leaned across the table and kissed him. He was surprised but returned my kiss.
“I don’t like their espresso here. Don’t you agree? I’ll make you a better one at home.”
He paid the check discreetly with his credit card, which I found a pity as I would have loved to know what I was worth to him.
In the dimly lit hallway I discovered that Windmill was the kind of man who first pulled a woman’s hair and then kissed her. His touches were mechanical and predictable. I looked at his body, how it lay on mine. I saw him kiss my forehead, nose, and lips. Tenderly, and just a little greedily. I saw him unbutton my dress and me helping him. I saw him touch my inner thighs, push aside my panties, lay his hands on my vagina, him putting on a condom. And then I saw him lift up my pelvis, felt the penetration and winced. He interpreted this as a sign of lust and moved faster inside me. I pushed him away.
I went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror for the first time in a while. I was naked and thinner than I had ever been. I had no hips. The ribs were clearly discernible and my stomach was caved in. I was disgusted by myself and the man I’d just f*cked. He had used me and I had let it happen. I felt empty, sure that this was the low point of my life. But then I looked around the blue-tiled bathroom, and not only did I find a shower with a natural stone floor, but also makeup remover and a brush with long blond hair in it, and felt even worse.
On my way home I sat by myself in an empty S-Bahn car and watched raindrops burst on the windows.