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Rainy night
c.a. 1996

It was a rainy night when we first met. Two strangers lost in a city that did not treat us well. Soaked to the bone we bumped into each other and both immediately started to apologise for the other one’s wet clothes. Then we realised we should blame the weather, laughed about it and decided to go get a cup of coffee. Two strangers enjoying the company of the first nice thing that happened in a city that treated them bad.

I had been walking with feet like stone ever since I got up that morning. Not knowing where to go, not knowing what to do when I got there. So I walked and walked and got nowhere. I was even close to tears when the stranger bumped into me or maybe it was me bumping into the stranger. Fortunately the rain washed away everything close to being water from my eyes.
That morning when I had woken up, my head had started to throb and it never stopped. Off course it would have to be connected with the night before, but I was too pigheaded to believe so. Or even listen to someone trying to make me see the truth. That someone was my left-hand neighbour from back home, back in the past, and I snapped at him all I could. He didn’t try again. He knew my temper and more than that he knew how stubborn I could be. He had come in contact with it before, realised this was one of those times and hung up. So I was left with myself denying the truth that I actually did know and started walking. Walking always helped. It could bring peace to my mind and the fresh air would always clear my head and my soul. Little did I know, when I arrived late last night in this city, that there was hardly any fresh air. As soon as I left the building my nose objected to the smell on the street. It smelled like there was a car standing in front of my face with the engine running. No matter where I turned, that car would always be right under my nose. So after about twelve steps, my nose decided to clog up and I did no longer smell the car, I could then taste it which I’m still not sure was either an improvement or not.
My walk was a disaster; the air was filthy, the sidewalk to crowded, the people not nice and on top of that it started raining when I was out just far enough for it not being helpful to return to the hotel. And that’s when I bumped into the stranger. I thought it was the stupidest thing I could have ever done….

We went for coffee and that was very nice. Our clothes were damping, but we didn’t mind. The coffee was hot and the restaurant was empty. And as we both sat there the night fell and the waitresses were tidying up the place, leaving us without most lights on and with no more music playing. The scene must have been poor for others to watch, but between us chemistry had blossomed and we were in paradise. From the moment we sat down and his eyes had met mine I had been lost. His eyes took me back to the places I had run away from. Places I had never thought of dreaming about again, of actually seeing them again. Still, here they were en here I was; not being able to control myself. All the promises I made myself and so many others. Gone. They flew away right then and there. One look in his eyes and I was lost. Completely, utterly lost.
We left the restaurant late that night. We’d hoped to sit out the storm but it was still razing when the waitress with the tired smile asked us to leave. She was sorry we would get wet again, but said no more and left us. So, again we stood in the rain. Since his hotel was close to mine he decided to walk me ‘home’. It was a nice walk, thanks to the storm. The wind was so heavy that he’d put his arm around me to keep me on my feet. I faked the wobble and happily accepted his embrace. I think it was then that my plan was born. It hadn’t hit me yet and it didn’t have my attention, yet. But it must have been there. Born out of a bad memory and the tenderness I felt in my heart. So it sat there for a while, growing, feeding on my thoughts and his actions. When we arrived at the hotel he turned to me and said goodnight. Nothing more, but it was enough. While the past slapped back in my face my plan burst out into my consciousness: he was not leaving. Not this night.
It wasn’t hard to persuade him to stay. Quite easy actually. It was just as I had expected. Bittersweet. Bitter for the memory of pain. Sweet for the memory of love. I fell asleep in his arms and when I woke up it felt like I had had a bad dream. A dream in which I made even with the past. A dream where revenge was real and in my reach. A dream that took me back to the most happy days in my life and when I got there the world laughed at me and threw me back in the hotel-bed where I woke up. He had been awake for a while. He said he had been watching me, and remembering last night. I tried to dodge his eyes but they were so persistent. I no longer drowned in them. The magic of the night before had vanished. He did have a friendly face, but that only made it worse. Those honest eyes looked at me and changed when they saw my embarrassment. He stepped out of the bed, turning his back towards me. That gave me time to breathe and get myself together. He must have known that. He turned slowly, looked at me and asked me what last night had meant to me. I couldn’t answer so he did. He gave his version of the answer and it was not at all like mine. He said he had fallen in love, deeper than ever before. He didn’t know how or why, but he did. I felt so ashamed. He noticed it and left. He grabbed his clothes and left. Leaving me puzzled, ashamed and embarrassed.

Three years later I saw the man again. He had not changed at all. He stood near a newspaper stand on the other side of the street not far from the restaurant we had coffee three years before.  He caught my eye, I still don’t know why, but he did. I just stared at him. He turned around and our eyes met, again. Although there must have been about 30 feet between us, it felt like we were face to face. I kept looking and so did he. Than a bus passes by me. The spell broke and I turned and walked away. Leaving him with the sight of my back, like I had been left with the sight of his back a lifetime ago.
Strangely, I was never surprised to see him again. Somehow he had never left my mind. Bad days, good days, sunshine: he was always not far away. But he was most present when it rained. I remembered sitting on a bench in the rain thinking about him. Wondering what had happened that day and why. Wondering why he stuck in my head, why I couldn’t let him go. And mostly I was wondering why I did what I did and what good I thought it would do me. Because it didn’t do me any good. I knew that then, sitting on that bench in the rain.
I know I was very confused at that time in my life, but it was hard for me to believe I was actually capable of doing something like that. I asked him to come to my room with false pretence. Yes I found him very attractive, but even that was not real. Or at least nor based on reality. After seeing him again he was even more present than before. He would appear in my dreams telling me he loved me, then walking away. I started confusing him with someone else in my dreams. One moment I would be talking to him and the next I would be having a conversation with a ghost from my past. It wasn’t until those dreams kept disturbing my sleep that slowly my dreams and the reality came together and my motivation to ask him in three years before, the plan that was born out of a bad memory and the tenderness I had felt in my heart, was finally revealed to myself. It stopped me right then and there. I was sitting in my rocking chair and my feet stopped it so abruptly that the cat jump off my lap in disgust. Finally it became clear to me why I acted the way I did and why, afterwards, I could not let go of his image: I got revenge that night. First there had been the chemistry between us, which reminded me of happier days. When he had said goodnight, like it was said to me once so many nights before, the memory of happier days were replaced by one of anger and maybe even hate. Because that last goodbye, before I heard it out of the mouth of the stranger had turned my life upside down. When I woke up the morning after that word, there was no movement on the other side of the bed. No movement at all and there never would be anymore. For the man who had said that word to me, lovingly, lively had died over night. Without a warning, his heart had stopped and he had left me. He had broken his promise of never leaving me, and I hated him for that. I hated him, because it was the only way I could be. If I would only have been sad and hurt, I would not have survived. I never knew that. It didn’t hit me until that moment. What I had done three years ago was getting even with my husband. He had betrayed me in my worst fear: being left. I betrayed him, that night, in the worst fear he had: adultery.