In the moment I left, HT closed the door behind me. Through the window, he gave me a sign, I answered, I even jumped, but continued to walk straight, then I ran until I arrived at my car. I immediately drove off while turning off my phone. In that moment, I felt that this time I wouldn’t come back. I was surprised, since the feeling was unfamiliar to me, but at the same time, I wouldn’t want to live without it.
I would get the kids at their father’s house, as planned, where they spent the previous day. On the way, I’d stop at the supermarket to get the essentials – groceries, toothpaste and a few clothes. Because I knew, we wouldn’t leave the flat I’d rented online the night before for an unknown number of days.
Three days ago, I could hardly stop HT pushing me out of the window. Since his view of this scene is very different from mine, I wasn’t willing to stay with him on my own, so I took the reins and sorted things out without any resistance. I carried my happy face on invisible strings, I played the game. There were no fights anymore. He planned to be locked away with me for a year. He wouldn’t even want to open the door to get the bins out. We’d throw them out the window in the middle of the night, he said. We have to prepare for this year. The children have to stay with their father, he said, it would be good for them. It was my duty to see them for the last time today, since I promised him to avoid seeing the father of my children.
The day before yesterday, we drove to the Netherlands to stockpile HT’s gas supplies. With his inheritance funds, which he lives off, we bought a car full of medicine, rice, pasta, legumes, canned fish, frozen vegetables, canned goods and spices. Twenty-four months of nutrition for two people. It took multiple supermarket visits.
As I went shopping for a week, I left the store with two bags. Opening the car’s boot, I spotted six bottles of rum, which HT bought. Maybe we’d want to make a drink for ourselves, he said, in case I would miss my children or fall into a melancholic state of mind. I realise how the upcoming crisis, which would be hell for everyone else, is liberating me. He would have to lock himself away on his own.
I put the bottles behind the parking lot, on the border of the railway bridge for the thugs. Maybe, they’d like to make themselves a drink. Maybe they miss someone or fall into a melancholic state themselves. Feelings come unexpectedly and, in case someone is not done dealing with them, they bite one’s soul – at least in my experience. When they’ve tried everything, they disappear so silently, just like I did on this very morning, making space for new ones. Just like the air I feel blowing into my face. I can finally open my eyes again. I see leaves which found their way through various stones. The air here is so different to the one I tried not to inhale. The air in the apartment that HT continuously locked, whose key he kept in the pocket of his trousers. As I drive out of the parking lot, the woman who was behind me at the queue approaches me. I did not notice her before, but now, her aura is gleaming. She is as tall as I am, maybe a few years older. The way she pushes her trolley is reminiscent of a slow dance. Every time she pushes it further, her feet stick in the air for a brief second before touching back down on the ground. I imagine her in a group of people – or maybe I am just longing to be in a big group again myself. I am longing for my friends, the feeling of having my children sitting on my lap, and, weirdly, dancing after getting up.
The woman raises her hand, in which she carries a plastic bag full of lemons. I open the window. As she hands me the lemons she tells me that I left them at the till. I answer: no, these aren’t mine. She says there was no one else there apart from us. Lemons are important. She smiles, it’s infectious. I keep thinking: if she only did this so she could talk to me; or what if this is part of this new feeling that’s sweeping me off my feet like a powerful wind. Right now, it storms through me just as quickly as the old feeling left through HT’s window.
I ring the doorbell of the father of my children. Like always, my finger touches the broken plastic of the bell until someone answers. I hear tears of joy when he mentions my name. I turn around between the branches of the bushes that grow around the house. In the undergrowth are living birds, chirping loudly already in March. The children jump on me from behind, and while I am unstable, I see their father standing in the doorframe. He looks at me. I see the bags under his eyes and hug him.
In the car, my little son sings a song from the radio in a high-pitched voice.
All through the day
I, me, mine; I, me, mine; I me mine
All through the night
I, me, mine; I, me, mine; I me mine
I turn up the radio and we scream the song on top of our lungs through the streets. I slow down, I speed up, the car vibrates, our mouths are wide open.
Since I have a new number, we are able to use the telephone again. My children are completing a Spanish course through the phone, because we imagine travelling, once it is possible again. I told them about a waterfall, where the water falls down unapologetically. And of the trees, on which the fruits even grow in the winter. Our voices synchronise with the learning software
A lemon. Un lemon.
Words by Julia Malik, as featured in SLEEK 72 – LOVE. Available in print and digital here.
Julia is a German actress and writer. In addition to acting in plays and films, since 2016 she has also written novels. Her first, Brauch Blau (‘custom blue’) was published by Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt last year. For this issue, she has written about love.