SIDEWAYS IN LOVE

BARBEQUES AND MEATBALLS

There’s one thing that sets me apart from millions of women around the world: I don’t like IKEA. After a quarter of an hour in this furniture store, I can sympathize with the men who are happy about the planned and partially implemented men’s entertainment centre.

Unfortunately, I have to follow the arrows on the floor, which will hopefully lead me to the children’s rooms soon. All I want is a bassinet and a changing table! No multifunctional shelves, wardrobes, dining room tables, bedding, carpets, wall stickers, bowls, frying pans, light bulbs or whatever else might jump into the giant shopping cart.

Around me and Sam, many other people, mostly women, are moving in the direction of the arrow and are constantly freaking out about something. Once I’m startled because there was a scream behind us. Sam and I spin around, half-ready to defend ourselves - against the IKEA killer or whoever - and see a woman running like remote control, arms outstretched, towards a green lamp that couldn’t be uglier.

“That’s it, that’s it!” she exclaims, almost knocking the lamp over with joy.

Sam puts his arm around my shoulders and pushes the monstrous, still empty shopping cart onward.

“Let’s move on quickly!” he whispers. “I’m not sure it’s safe to stand still. When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.”

And so do we.

After a veritable march, we finally reach the section where the baby furniture is on display. Unfortunately, the bassinets aren’t all next to each other but are distributed everywhere - strategically sensible, because the crib buyer is tempted to pack thousands of other, oh so cute, things that aren’t really needed in the buggy.

Sam walks around and takes pictures of each bassinet with my phone. When he has snapped every one of them, we sit down in two nursing chairs and delete the photos of the unsuitable bassinets. In the end, three remain, which we compare directly. We stand the longest in front of a specimen made of light wood.

“Paul?” Sam asks after a little while.

I nod. “Paul.”

Glad to tick off one of the items on our list, we choose the changing table using the same method but then load in a pad, heater, and bedding. In addition, a chime made of cute little birds goes into the shopping cart.

On the hour-long drive from Erfurt to Mühlhausen, we listen to Frank Sinatra. Sam insists on this as compensation for accompanying me to IKEA. I endure it and sing along to the song about the gay tarantula. In German, however, and freely translated from Hannah. Sam grimaces in pain at the violence I’m doing to the song and therefore to him.

Arriving in Mühlhausen, he stops at a gas station. While he fills up the car, I go to the shop. At the checkout, I meet Leon, who is just paying his gas bill. At first, he fusses around, obviously wanting to apologize for his behaviour. I won’t let him finish.

“It’s great what you did to make Jan and I come to an agreement,” I tell him. “But we never come to a shared choice. We think too differently.”

That’s the friendliest phrase I can think of after Jan’s last words.

Leon waits for me to pay and follows me outside.

“He was pretty upset that you took Sam to antenatal class after you turned him down yourself.”

“I don’t have to justify who takes me where,’ I say angrily, and then justify myself. “Sam is a friend. I can’t say the same about Jan.”

Leon seems to have something to say in Jan’s defence, but keeps it to himself when he spots Sam. The two greet each other and exchange a few meaningless words. When Leon hears that we bought baby furniture, he looks at the boxes lying on the back seat of the car.

“Need help with that?” He glances at my stomach. “You shouldn’t be lugging any of it.”

“Yeah, cool if you can help,” Sam replies.

So Leon accompanies us into the garden and unloads the boxes together with Sam. Carrying the bedding, I walk ahead of them and hum this song by Sinatra. On the sidewalk, at the gate, I spot a white envelope on the garden path and fall silent.

Sam spots it too and wants to hold me back, but by then I’ve already dropped the bedding and stormed through the garden gate. My hands are shaking as I pick up the letter, ripping it open and pulling out the single sheet.

A new quatrain is written under the image of Danaë:

Sweet Danaë, go to sleep!

be good for me

Believe you’re safe

But you are not sure.

An hour later the police are with us. While Sam talks to the officers, I sit in the shade of the awning on the patio, trying to calm my mind. The envelope was unstamped and unmarked like the ones that had come through my Berlin mailbox.

The letter had been placed on the garden path, personally. The idea that Dagmar Dapperheld-Dängeli would make the effort to travel, that she would actually want to watch me, has done so for a long time and knows that Sam is with me, is absolutely creepy. Another notion, that my ex-colleague actually had nothing to do with any of this, is even scarier.

Leon, who stayed and also spoke to the police, comes to me.

“That’s totally crazy,” he says and sits down next to me. “What kind of sick mind must that be?”

Just imagine...

“I can’t really picture it that well.”

I look at Sam and the policemen who are standing at the garden gate. Again he describes where the letter was, slightly askew on the path as if it had been thrown over the gate. The officials talk shop about it and jot down the facts. One is on the phone and seems to be talking to a Berlin detective. I can gather from his words that the whereabouts of Dagmar Dapperheld-Dängeli should be checked.

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” asks Leon.

I want to answer him when my eyes fall on the garden entrance. Nina stands there and calls: “Oh s**t, what’s going on here?”

She meanders past Sam and the police officers and is almost with me and Leon on the terrace when her mobile phone rings. She fumbles it out of her rummage bag, takes the call and greets Lena.

When had she heard that my yard was full of cops? I groan internally. News spread like wildfire in Mühlhausen. I forgot about that. Conveniently, Lena is currently out shopping with Lilly, so the fourth in the group is informed right away. Less than half an hour later, the two arrive in the garden - just as the police are leaving and things seemed to be getting a little quieter.

I can now answer Leon’s question to the whole group as to why I didn’t say something sooner. While Sam gets everyone drinks, I explain about the letters and the Dapperdings.

“God, how awful!” is the first thing I hear from Lilly. “And now the woman has even come here? You shouldn’t live out here anymore.”

Lena and Leon agree, and Nina wants to know what the police are doing.

Sam, who sits down with us, explains that they want to find out first if Dapperdings is in Berlin.

“And if she is there? Worked normally today?” Lena asks.

I get really sick at the thought.

“Then it’s been someone else all along. I have no idea who.”

“But this other one has to come from Berlin, too,” considers Leon. “Is there anyone else you had problems with?”

I don’t have to think twice. “Absolutely nobody. I was hardly there. Was mostly at work or on a business trip.”

“Maybe it’s a quiet psychopath who’s been secretly stalking you,’ says Nina.

“How are they ever going to find out who that was. Surely he’s long gone.”

Don’t let it be some quiet, stalking psychopath!

I pray to myself. Let it be the Dapperdings, who is on her way back to Berlin and is greeted there by a delegation of police officers.

Sam seems to be hoping the same. He is restless, always getting up and looking for something to do, like watering the few plants. When he doesn’t want to wait any longer, he calls the police and asks for any news. He doesn’t like what he hears. And the more often he said “Hm! I see,” the quieter it gets on the terrace. Soon all eyes are on him and everyone is waiting to know what he just understood.

Sam hangs up. he only looks at me “The Dapperdings have been at work all day today. Yesterday too.”

“s**t!,” I hear Nina say as if through a filter and Lilly repeats her concern:

“Really, Hannah, you shouldn’t live here anymore!”

“What about this apartment that Jan found?” Leon asks.

“I don’t want to live in an apartment in the city.”

I’m aware that I’m being rude, but I can’t stop it.

“And certainly not in an apartment that Jan was looking for me.”

“I’m with her.” Sam ends the call and puts his phone on the table. Now he doesn’t look at me but stares at his feet.

“I’m staying with her too. It probably doesn’t matter where she lives. This person will probably track her down everywhere, so the main thing is that she’s not alone. And she’s not.”

I’m so glad he said that. I want to hug him and kiss him.

Above all. I don’t care.

As if through a veil, I see my friends around me, and hear them talking and worrying. Leon is leaving soon because he has to go to a band rehearsal. He hugs me and advises me to think about an apartment in the city. A little later, Lena and Lilly also say goodbye because they have an appointment with their husbands at an Italian restaurant.

Nina stays for a while and gets angry at the person who is doing this to me until Bastian calls and inquires about her whereabouts. When she’s gone, it’s quiet - with the exception of the little birds in the green, who have started the evening concert.

Sam pulls me into a gentle hug.

I snuggle up to him: “Make me think of anything but this lunatic!”

He strokes my back. “Think of something funny. Of my mother, for example. I called her yesterday and told her how big your belly is,” he grunts in amusement. “She was worried if there was something like a hospital here where you could deliver the baby under the supervision of a doctor.”

I grin against his shoulder. “Your mother is a real joker.”

“She is. Involuntarily though... Imagine if she meant...” He stops the stroking abruptly and falls silent.

I raise my head to look at him. He looks like he’s seen a ghost.

“Sam, what’s going on?”

“Was that...?” he stammers. “Was that just…?”

“Was that just what?”

“Paul. He kicked me in the stomach.”

Now he even seems to be holding his breath.

“There! One more time!”

I lean my head on his shoulder and smile. “He does that sometimes. Maybe it wasn’t his foot but his hand.”

“What a lout!”

“He’s boxing and kicking?” I have to smile. Sam is blown away because he no longer just sees the baby in me through my stomach, but can feel his reaction. His reaction to his voice, actually. Babies hear in the womb, and they get used to familiar sounds, like an ever-present voice. Sam’s voice. Paul boxing or kicking basically just means, Hey, I know you!

“It probably means he likes you,” I tell Sam. “He heard your voice. He reacts to known sounds with these movements”

“He can hear me! How cool!”

“Of course, he can. What did you think?”

“I hadn’t thought anything about this topic until now.”

He pulls away from me and holds his stomach.

“And now I remember my empty stomach too. I’m hungry, but I didn’t want to eat Kettbullen…”

“Kettbullen?” A laugh escapes my lips. “You mean Köttbullar?”

“Whatever! What do you think of a barbecue?”

“Love one.”

Sam goes to the house and pulls out the grill.

“Well, I’m glad,” he winks at me over his shoulder. “Stubborn German smartass!”

“I would be a smartass in English,” I snort, amused. “But then I sound like Dirty Harry.”

Sam comes back to me, he hugs me, kisses me on the cheek and murmurs, “I really like you, Honey Bunny.”

Unlike Sam’s hunger, mine is moderate. The excitement of the day and the scorching heat late into the evening make me pick at the salad listlessly.

In addition, according to the meteorologists, my hope for clouds, thunderstorms and a drop in temperature will not be fulfilled, at least in the next few days.

According to the radio, such hot temperatures that lasted for weeks were last seen in the 50s. Next summer it will definitely rain cats and dogs again. In this year of all times, when I’m pregnant, of course, it doesn’t. From early in the morning until late in the evening, the sun is beating down from the cloudless sky. The pools are overcrowded. You cannot get a seat in the ice cream parlours. The beer gardens don’t have enough umbrellas. The hospitals complain about countless circulatory collapse cases.

The Baltic Sea is booming and Lufthansa is cutting planes to the south. In the supermarket, the marinated steaks are constantly sold out, as are the Magnum Seven Sins packs.

To fulfil my desire for cool air, Sam bought a pedestal fan at the hardware store. It was the

last one, and he was fighting over it with a retired couple who didn’t care about my pregnancy. Since Sam has an accent, the pensioners, like Germans in Germany, thought they had a privilege on this last standing fan. After this statement, Sam made short work of it. He snatched the other end of the box from the man and ran to the cash register with the fan. The pensioners followed him and complained to the cashier, who, however, made it clear that there was nothing she could do and that new fans had already been ordered.

I’m so thankful for his heroism and whenever I’m in the garden house I pull the fan behind me like a dog on a leash. It even blows me to sleep at night. Sam, on the other hand, can’t sleep when the fan is rattling and the cold breeze is blowing over him again and again. So he waits until I fall asleep. That night he waits a long time.

Eventually, he sits up in bed. “Oh, honey, can’t we turn this thing off now?”

“Just do it.” I roll over to the other side. “It’s so warm today that nothing helps.”

Sam gets up to take a cold shower. As soon as he’s back he snuggles up to me. Despite the heat, I find it comfortable and suddenly it makes me sleepy.

“I love snuggling with you,” I mumble, snuggling my back and bottom closer to him.

“When you tell me things like that,” he replies in a strange tone, “you shouldn’t wiggle your ass in front of my stomach. Otherwise, you’ll feel my reaction.”

After a pause, allowing me to ponder his words and stop my wobbling, he says, “I don’t know what you see in me. But I’m only a man.”

“And I’m totally pregnant,” I wonder. “How can you be thinking like that?”

“You were totally pregnant in December, too.” His hand rests on my stomach and strokes it. “It doesn’t matter if you’re pregnant or not. You’re Hannah, and when Hannah rubs her buttocks against Sam’s stomach, Sam reacts like a man.”

I can actually feel how much he reacts – and it makes it harder for me to keep my buttocks still.

“You would sleep with me now?”

Sam groans. “Honey, if you talk about it now, you’re only going to make it worse

… I’m interested right now,” he pulls away from me a bit but keeps his arm around me and his hand on my stomach.

After a deep breath, he says, “But I’d like to know that you do too. And since I don’t know at all… We weren’t together. We had s*x, that’s all,” he leans up to look at me. “What are you worried about? That I’m actually gay and on a self-discovery trip? I’m not.”

I shake my head thoughtfully. “I’m not really worried. I’m just thinking… well, theoretically… couldn’t you fall in love with a man anytime?”

He flops onto the pillow. “Theoretically you can fall in love with a woman if we’re going to talk about love here. When I fall in love, I love that person and no one else along the way.”

I think about it quietly to myself.

Sam stretches, murmurs, “Good night,” and falls asleep a little later.

I’m still awake. Countless thoughts prevent me from sleeping. I’m considering whether I should look for a new job here, in the provinces, or rather in the capital. When I talked to Sam about it, he said he likes it better in Mulhouse.

The thought of Sam staying is reassuring, but I’d be foolish to embrace it. I hope he’ll still be here when Paul is born. Something inside me tells me that I don’t need anyone as much as Sam and I really don’t want anyone around but him.

At the same time, I’m hesitant to find a name for what’s between him and me.