Part 13 (1/2)

In the premature autumn of her life, when she thought she had everything she could possibly want, this man appeared at the train station and walked straight into her life without first asking permission. They got off at Geneva and she showed him a hotel (a cheap one, he said, because he should have left that morning and didn't have much money on him for another night in exorbitantly expensive Switzerland); he asked her to go up to the room with him, to see if everything was in order. Heidi knew what to expect, and nevertheless, she accepted his proposal. They shut the door, they kissedeach other with wild abandon, he tore off her clothes and - dear G.o.d! - he knew all about the female body, because he had known the sufferings and frustrations of so many women.

265 They made love all afternoon and only when evening fell did the charm dissipate, and she said the words she would have preferred not to have said: 'I must go home, my husband's expecting me.'

He lit a cigarette and they lay in silence for a few moments, and neither of them said 'goodbye'. Heidi got up and left without looking back, knowing that, whatever either of them might say, no word or phrase would make any sense.

She would never see him again, but, for a few hours, in the autumn of her despair, she had ceased to be a faithful wife, housewife, loving mother, exemplary public servant and constant friend, and reverted to being simply a woman.

For a few days, her husband kept saying that she seemed different, either happier or sadder, he couldn't quite put his finger on it. A week later, everything was back to normal.

'What a shame I didn't tell that young woman,' she thought. 'Not that she would have understood, she still lives in a world in which people are faithful and vows of love are forever.'

From Maria's diary: I don't know what he must have thought when he opened the door that night and saw me standing there, carrying two suitcases.

'Don't worry,' I said. 'I'm not moving in. Shall we go to supper?'

He didn't say anything, just helped me in with my luggage. Then, without saying 'what's going onV or 266 'how lovely to see you', he simply put his arms around me and started kissing me and touching my body, my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, my crotch, as if he had been waiting for this a long time and was now afraid that the moment would never come.

He pulled off my jacket and my dress, leaving me naked, and there in the hall, without any ritual or preparation, without even time to say what would be good and what bad, with the cold wind blowing in under the front door, we made love for the first time. I thought perhaps I should tell him to stop, so that we could find somewhere more comfortable, so that we could have time to explore the immense world of oursensuality, but, at the same time, I wanted him inside me, because he was the man I had never possessed and would never possess again. That is why I could love him with all my energy, and have, at least for one night, what I'd never had before and what I would possibly never have again.

He lay me down on the floor and entered me before I was aroused and ready, but the pain didn't bother me; on the contrary, I liked it like that, because he obviously understood that I was his and that he didn't need to ask permission. I wasn't there in order to teach him anything or to prove that I was more sensitive or more pa.s.sionate than other women, I was there to say yes, you're welcome, that I too had been waiting for this, that I was pleased about his total disregard for the rules we had created between 267 f us and that he was now demanding that we should be guided solely by our instincts, male and female.

We were in the most conventional of positions - me underneath him, with my legs spread, and him on top of me, moving in and out, while I looked at him, with no desire to pretend or to moan or to do anything, just wanting to keep my eyes open so that I could remember every second, watch his face changing, his hands grabbing my hair, his mouth biting me, kissing me. No preliminaries, no caresses, no preparations, no sophistication, just him inside me and me inside his soul.

He came and went, quickening and slowing the rhythm, stopping sometimes to look at me too, but he didn't ask if I was enjoying it, because he knew that this was the only way our souls could communicate at that moment. The rhythm increased, and I knew that the eleven minutes were coming to an end, and I wanted them to last forever, because it was so good - ah, dear G.o.d, it was good - to be possessed and not to possess! And we had our eyes wide open all the time, until I noticed that at one point we were no longer seeing clearly any more and we seemed to move into a dimension in which 1 was the great mother, the universe, the beloved, the sacred prost.i.tute of the ancient rituals that he had told me about over wine and beside an open fire. I saw that he was about to come, and his arms gripped mine, his movements increased in intensity, 268and it was then that he shouted - he didn't moan, he didn't grind his teeth, he shouted. He yelled. He roared like an animal! A thought flashed through my mind that the neighbours might call the police, but it didn't matter, and I felt immense pleasure, because this was how it had been since the beginning of time, when the first man met the first woman and they made love for the first time: they shouted.

Then his body collapsed onto mine, and I don't know how long we stayed there, our arms around each other; I stroked his hair as I had done only once before, on the night when we locked ourselves up in the darkness of the hotel room; I felt his racing heart gradually slow to its normal rate; his hands began delicately to move up and down my arms, making all the hairs on my body p.r.i.c.kle.

He must have had a practical thought - the weight of his body on mine - because he rolled over, took my hand, and we lay there staring up at the ceiling and the chandelier with its three light bulbs lit.

'Good evening,' I said.

He drew me over so that my head was resting on his chest.

For a long time, he just stroked me, and then he said 'Good evening' too.

'The neighbours must have heard everything,' I said, not knowing quite what to say next, because saying I love you' at that juncture didn't make much sense; he knew that already, and so did I.

269 'There's a terrific draught from under the door,' he said, when he could have said: 'Good!'

'Let's go into the kitchen.'

We got up and I saw that he hadn't even taken off his trousers, he was dressed just as I had found him, only with his p.e.n.i.s exposed. I put my jacket over my bare shoulders. We went into the kitchen; he made some coffee-, he smoked two cigarettes and I smoked one. Sitting at the table, he said 'thank you' with his eyes, and I replied 'thank you too', but our mouths remained shut.

He eventually got up the courage to ask about the suitcases.

'I'm flying back to Brazil tomorrow at midday.'

A woman knows when a man is important to her. Are men capable of that kind of realisation? Or would I have to say: I love you', 'I'd like to stay here with you', 'ask me to stay'.'Don't go.' Yes, he had understood that he could say that to me.

I have to. I made a promise.'

Because, if I hadn't, he might think that this was all going to last forever. And it wasn't; it was part of the dream of a young woman from the interior of a far-off country, who goes to the big city (well, not that big really), encounters all kinds of difficulties, but finds the man who loves her. So this was the happy ending to all the difficult times I had been through, and whenever I remembered my life in 270 Europe, I would end with the story of a man pa.s.sionately in love with me, and who would always be mine, because I had visited his soul.

Ah, Ralf, you have no idea how much I love you. I think that perhaps we always fall in love the very first instant we see the man of our dreams, even though, at the time, reason may be telling us otherwise, and we may fight against that instinct, hoping against hope that we won't win, until there comes a point when we allow ourselves to be vanquished by our feelings. That happened on the night when I walked barefoot in the park, cold and in pain, but knowing how much you loved me.

Yes, I love you very much, as I have never loved another man, and that is precisely why I am leaving, because, if I stayed, the dream would become reality, the desire to possess, to want your life to be mine ... in short, all the things that transform love into slavery. It's best left like this - a dream. We have to be careful what we take from a country, or from life.

'You didn't have an o.r.g.a.s.m,' he said, trying to change the subject, to be careful and not to force the situation. He was afraid of losing me, and was thinking that he still had all night to make me change my mind.

(No, I didn't, but I had an enormous amount of pleasure.'

'But it would have been better if you'd had an o.r.g.a.s.m too.'

271 I could have pretended, just to please you, but you don't deserve that. Ralf Hart, you are a man in the most beautiful, intense sense of the word. You've supported me and helped me, you've let me support and help you, without there being any humiliation on either side. Yes, it would have been good tohave an o.r.g.a.s.m, but I didn't. But I loved the cold floor, your warm body, the force with which you entered me.

I went to take back my library books today, and the librarian asked if I talked to my partner about s.e.x. I felt like saying: Which partner? What sort of s.e.x do you mean? But she didn't deserve that; she's always been so sweet to me.

'I've really only had two partners since I came to Geneva: one who awoke the worst in me, because I let him and even begged him to. The other one, you, who made me feel part of the world again. I would like to be able to teach you where to touch my body, how much pressure to apply, for how long, and I know you would take this not as a criticism, but as another way to improve communication between our souls. The art of love is like your painting, it requires technique, patience, and, above all, practice by the couple. It requires boldness, the courage to go beyond what people conventionally call ”making love”.'

The teacher in me was back, and I didn't want that, but Ralf knew how to take control of the situation. Instead of agreeing with me, he lit his third cigarette in less than half an hour and said: 272 'Firstly, you're staying here tonight.' It wasn't a request, it was an order.

'Secondly, we're going to make love again, but with less anxiety this time and more desire.

And finally, I'd like you to understand men better too.'

Understand men better? I spent every night with them, whites, blacks, Asians, Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists. Didn't Ralfknow that?

I felt lighter; I was so pleased that the conversation had s.h.i.+fted into being a discussion. At one point, I even considered asking G.o.d's forgiveness and breaking my promise. But reality returned, telling me to remember to preserve my dream intact and not to fall into destiny's traps.

'Yes, to understand men better,' said Ralf again, seeing the doubtful look on my face.

'You talk about your female s.e.xuality, about helping me to find my way around your body, to be patient, to take time. I agree, but has it occurred to you that we're different, at least in matters of time? You should complain to G.o.d about that.

'When we met, I asked you to teach me about s.e.x, because I had lost all my s.e.xual desire. Do you know why? Because after a certain age, every s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p I had ended intedium and frustration, because I realised how difficult it was to give the women I loved the same amount of pleasure they gave me.'

I didn't like the sound of 'the women I loved', but I feigned indifference and lit a cigarette.

273 I didn't have the courage to ask: show me your body. But when I met you, I saw your light, and I loved you at once, and I thought that, at this stage in my life, I had nothing to lose by being honest with myself and with the woman I wanted to have by my side.'

My cigarette tasted delicious, and I would have liked him to offer me some wine, but I didn't want to break the thread of the conversation.

'Why is it that men only think about s.e.x, instead of doing as you did with me and finding out how I feeir 'Who said we only think about s.e.x? On the contrary, we spend years of our life trying to convince ourselves that s.e.x is actually important to us. We learn about love from prost.i.tutes or virgins; we tell our stories to whoever will listen; when we are older, we parade about with much younger lovers, just to prove to others that we really are what women expect us to be.

'But do you know something? That's simply not true. We understand nothing. We think that s.e.x and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n are the same thing and, as you just said, they're not. We don't learn because we haven't the courage to say to the woman: show me your body. We don't learn because the woman doesn't have the courage to say: this is what I like. We are stuck with our primitive survival instincts, and that's that. Absurd though it may seem, do you know what is more important than s.e.x for a man?'

274 I thought it might be money or power, but I said nothing.

'Sport. Because a man can understand another man's body.

We can see that sport is a dialogue between two bodies that understand each other.'