5
The room was overheated and stuffy. Elias didn’t say a word and neither did I. Heinz had been released a couple of days ago and Rainer was being examined.
“I would cover it with a blanket if I could,” said Elias.
I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my head on them, a position in which I saw neither Elias nor his wound.
“Are you not going to look at me until I’m completely healed?”
“I just can’t look at your leg.”
“Why not?”
I paced the room. Elias followed me with his desperate, tired eyes. Still, at his core he was healthy, and I envied him this. He lowered his gaze.
“I don’t know how long I’ll be able to bear this,” he said.
“Are you breaking up with me?”
“I can’t help you.”
“Did I ask for your help?”
“Why don’t you finally tell me what happened to you? You didn’t emigrate until 1996. And by then, you didn’t really have to anymore.”
“Didn’t really have to anymore? What do you know?”
“Exactly. What do I know?” Elias repeated bitterly.
“You sound like the immigration office,” I said, interrupting him.
He took a deep breath and said, “It’s impossible to have a relationship like this.”
“So, that’s it? You’re breaking up with me?” I yelled.
“No!”
“Then none of this bullshit.”
I stormed out and slammed the door behind me. We had this conversation rather frequently and it got worse every time.
In the restroom I held my hands under the warm water. First the backs, then the wrists, until finally I held my head under the jet. Water dripped onto my feet. I thought about running away. It would take me two hours to pack and be out of the apartment. I could survive in most countries. Actually, now that I thought about it, I didn’t really need anything. I could just go.
I went back in. Elias smiled and reached out for me. I took a step closer to the bed. The sun died in the sky and flooded the room with warm light.
“There was a child and a father. The father wanted to bring the child to safety. It was a ten-minute walk to her grandmother’s apartment. The child wasn’t even seven years old and she felt that something had changed over the past few days, but couldn’t say what. That was what the child was thinking about when next to her a woman hit the asphalt. The pool of blood slowly reached the child’s shoes and the tips of the shoes soaked up the red. The blood was warm and the woman was younger than I am today. The child pushed back a strand of hair and a bit of blood remained on her cheek. It could have been worse, the grandmother said later that evening, as she cleaned the bloody crust off the child’s shoes.”
Elias took my hand in his, kissed my palm, and covered my arm with small kisses. Then he reached out for my face, stroked my cheek, and pulled me in close.