Back-to-Back

I once lived in an apartment with a small bedroom, converted into a tiny office, with a window overlooking the road and the block of flats opposite. I was working as an official interpreter for the government in English, German and Spanish and apart from verbal translations, my job also involved translating legal German documents into written English. This usually concerned testaments, copies of which had to be sent to English-speaking relatives, living abroad, as well as divorce arbitrations, and criminal sentences. By definition, these long and uninspiring documents left me frequently gazing out of the window, watching the comings and goings of the neighbours opposite. I knew for example, by sight the dog-owners; those who picked up the poop and those who didn’t.

I also often saw a young lady come out onto the pavement to welcome and wave in the occasional young man, on foot or bike or in a modest car. These visitors sometimes survived several weeks or months, but in the fullness of time, they evaporated as did all their predecessors. I felt sorry for her in a detached kind of way, having to repeat the same old procedure time after time with the predestined negative aftermath. I wasn’t snooping, but I too had been divorced and hoped to reactivate a dormant love-life. The hurdles seemed eternal and the outcome often tedious. I felt for her, repeating the same experiment with hope in her heart and hurt on her part.

Then one day, she was out in the road, receiving a fairly dapper young man in a rather nice black Mercedes, which he clearly enjoyed showing her. Was a new episode of optimism about to unfold? Of course I couldn’t hear the dialog between them, but her body language revealed a keen inclination towards this candidate. I silently wished her well, and left the rest up to a yet undetermined fate. Soon the visits increased and from the prism of my perception, they appeared to be progressing towards a steady relationship. Several months elapsed as our little lady was the picture of impatience out on the pavement on a Friday night, to welcome her familiar guest. I was delighted for her and hoped that she would realise all her most cherished dreams in this amorous venture.

In the fullness of time, along came a removal van, and said lady was bustling nervously around to help load all her worldly goods onto the vehicle. Her fellow was the essence of logistic genius, commandeering the actual loading of the lorry with geometric precision. When all was completed and the lorry had disappeared, the couple went off to re-park their cars where the lorry had been standing, and then went back indoors, to presumably clean up the flat. They had parked their cars back-to-back, along the road, she in her old VW and he with his Mercedes Benz. Finally, they emerged from the front door of the block with their cleaning equipment, stuffed it into her car with her teddy bear, and took one last lingering look at the window of the flat that had harboured their first spark of tenderness. They swiftly hugged each other and each got into their own car, to drive to their new abode (presumably).

Their excitement must have been palpable as they started their engines and engaged the gear stick……… And then it happened. They both put their gears into reverse and stepped on the gas pedal. A resounding crash echoed through the neighbourhood, followed by a deathly silence. Suddenly, Don Juan swung his long legs out of his car and strode over to our lady, still seated in her car, her head in her hands. I could feel the rage as he laid into her, clearly enticing her out of her car to inspect the damage, that he apparently ascribed to her. As the rant continued our little lady transformed visibly into a sobbing heap of abject misery. His shouting was relentless and his demeanour was quite startling. Suddenly, he straightened up, went to the rear of his car, which appeared to have suffered the least of the damage, and after a brief scrutiny, he drove off with all haste.

Our forlorn maiden, went back to sit in her car, phoning and crying with intermittent bursts of energy. I thought of taking her a cup of coffee out of a sense of female solidarity, but thought better of it. She was already bereft of all joy, and she didn’t need to be aware of spectators around her, consuming her pain. Sooner or later she too drove off.

I have often reflected on this episode, as witness to a conflict I had no business to be involved in. That’s the problem when you gatecrash on a stranger’s episode and presume to understand the deal. Did she subsequently drive to her mother? Where did her furniture land up? More particularly, did she manage to soothe her Prince Charming and start living the dream? Just maybe this incident exposed the potential disquiet in store for her, in the nick of time. It’s a valuable barometer, to assess her own resilience in stormy weather, when the first bloom of passion subsides. As for me, I went back to translating a divorce settlement, appreciative for my own domestic harmony (at the moment).

 

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