Part 11

The escape

There stood I in the probably smallest bar, which there is in Seattle, in one of the most faraway lanes, in which the clocks of the large city’s everyday life seemed to tick differently, soaked to the skin, motionless imprisoned looking into her face. In this single moment all the inexpressible feelings of the last two years rushed through my body. I did not get a word out, rigidly my view in her view. Tears shot in her eyes. Without wanting it, the box of the Pandora was opened. I began to tremble and she came slowly nearer, in slow motion, step by step towards me. Still motionless I stood there, everything I expected was to wake up. And suddenly it all broke out of me, torrents of emotions. I lost my foothold, the soil began to vibrate, but she held me, embraced me. Who actually held whom there? I don’t know, I just know that it was not possible to let go of her. I clasped myself to her, as she did to me and I knew if I had opened my arms then, we both would have fallen. If in this instant somebody was able to ensure that I wouldn’t fall into the abyss, which opened in front of me, then it was her, her embrace and her strength in her hands.

Marina, she was the past, which had caught up on me in the last corner of Seattle. It was the memory I tried so vehement to displace. It was the feeling, which I sought to bury under an enormous mountain of self reproaches, guilty feelings and self-hate. It was the conscience, which I wanted to strangle, before it ate me up. But in this moment Marina was more than the yesterday, more than the fear, more than the escape from myself… She was the future. I don’t know why, but I knew that the step into my former life was at the same time a step to a new one. I still held her and looked into her eyes and she said quietly, hardly audible: „I’ m so sorry.” and I whispered „I’m too.”

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More words were not necessary to understand that we had lived the same life basically, and even more that we live the same life. She turned briefly to the bar: „Tom, I need a break. Clear up the shards.” With some volatile movement she pointed to the small table in the dark corner of the area. We sat down and simply looked at each other. I think she also tried to find the courage to bring out the correct words first. And as if from a language pipe we asked each other the question together: „WHY?” We laughed and it was not only the laughter of a coincidental situation, not only a laughter laughed about that we had the same thought, no, it was rather a laughter of embarrassment, the embarrassment to already know the answer. So I didn’t keep her guessing for long and told her, why I was there, what had happened in the last years and why was stumbled straight into this bar that day. She listened to my words and I had the feeling that she pulled each sentence out of me, she was like a sponge on which I seemed to lay down and which brought me relief that I haven’t been able to feel for so long. Her eyes hung on my lips, looking for the words that should give her answers to so many questions. Nearly beseeching she looked at me, but I didn’t understand, did not understand the unexpressed words until she broke her silence to finally pose the one question, which probably already had tormented her for so many years.