SIDEWAYS IN LOVE

PINK AND LIGHT BLUE

On Friday afternoon I say goodbye loudly because I have to drown out the noise of the electric hedge trimmer. Sam turns the thing off and slides the sunglasses he wears to protect himself from flying plant matter onto his forehead.

“You want to go into town? Back to the police?” he asks.

I shake my head. The fingerprints on the letters and the envelope were, as suspected, Sam’s and mine. There are no new findings.

“I’m going to my childbirth class,” I say. “Today will be the last time.”

“Oh, cool.” He wipes the sweat from his forehead and puts the hedge trimmers aside. “Give me a minute. I’ll come with you.”

“No, Sam!” I say, startled but firm. “It’s not for you.”

Undeterred, he starts walking and takes off his dirty T-shirt on the way to the house. “Why not?”

“Because it’s for parents. Parent - it’s just me.”

“Aha. I’ll come with you anyway. I’m curious.”

He goes into the house and a little later I hear the shower as I’m walking through the garden. I’m silently counting backwards from

a hundred. If he’s not back by zero, I’m on my own.

At three he’s in front of me, smelling of the shower, dressed in his dark blue Yankees t-shirt and jeans. Drops fall from his wet hair and seep into the cotton fabric.

He puts on his baseball cap. “Ready! Let’s go!”

On the way to the car, I mentally prepare myself for the impending disaster.

Sam is really brilliant at this. He is sitting behind me, fully concentrated, with his hands on my stomach and breathing with me.

He can do it, he says, this abdominal breathing, because he’s a man and because, as the midwife explained, men generally breathe into their stomach. Now he motivates me by breathing with his stomach against my back. Whenever I breathe into my chest due to gender, he points out my mistake and tells me to try harder. I don’t think any of the other four men present are that into it.

Soon I want to turn to Sam and choke him a bit.

“Nope, that was chest breathing again,” I hear again.

“Shut up!” I whisper. “Just be quiet or you’ll be kicked out. You’re throwing off my concentration.”

“Not at all, I’m trying to help you. What good does it do you when you’re in labour and doing chest breathing?”

Things get a lot more precarious when the midwife asks the couples to let the air out with a groan, i.e. to breathe out forcefully. After a moment’s hesitation and bashful looks around, all the other couples begin to groan.

I can feel Sam’s stomach shaking behind me. He’s probably laughing. Focused on what I’m doing, but not making a sound, I keep breathing. I’ll groan later on my own as I squirm and writhe in pain.

“Come on, honey,” Sam whispers behind me. “Let’s try it. It sucks when we’re the only ones who are silent.”

He then takes a deep breath and lets it out with a groan.

“Sam!” I whisper. “Stop it or I’ll have to laugh so hard that I’ll give birth prematurely.”

He groans again and says “Bullshit! Join in! I feel stupid groaning alone.”

“Ahhhhhhh,” I finally groan, laughing, and soon I’m in time with Sam, who also accuses me of not being serious enough!

All of this can still be topped, namely through different positions for managing contractions and giving birth. Sometimes I’m kneeling on all fours while Sam squats behind me and grabs my waist, sometimes we’re spooning together and he’s lifting my leg. In the end, we take the tango position. Following the midwife’s instructions, I stand and put my hands around Sam’s neck. He lifts my thigh and pulls my pelvis against his.

“When I have my baby, I want to lie down and not tango,” I giggle. “I won’t be able to remember any of this until the baby is born anyway, so I’ll adapt my behaviour to the moment.”

“We train at home,” he replies and begins to hum a tango tune.

After these contortions, we can rest. A baby doll and a replica of a pelvis illustrate how the child makes its way outside and how you can help it with the exercises just practised.

Afterwards, we see a video of a birth.

If you think that anything is being embellished, covered up or perhaps not shown here, then you’re wrong! The screams of the woman in the film and the groans of the other expectant mothers on this course ring out to my increasing horror. The men are all lounging on the floor and staring silently at the screen as if it were a slasher movie.

At the end of the course, the midwife gives useful tips, for example, she recommends visiting the clinic of your choice in the next few days to fill out a registration form. Don’t wait until you’re already having contractions to do this. She advises the fathers who will be present at the birth to think about the camera or video camera and to let them know in good time if they want to cut the umbilical cord. You should eat something beforehand or take some sandwiches with you and a couple of chocolate bars in case it’s going to take longer.

I ask a question that has bothered me for a long time and that I really wanted to have answered on this course: How do I actually know when it’s about to start?

The other women join in: What does labour feel like? You hear you must go to the hospital when it occurs every five minutes. If what occurs every five minutes? What exactly are we waiting for here?

The midwife smiles and says that we will undoubtedly know when the time has come.

I was hoping to go to the Just Borrowed gig with my friends. But Lena is the only one who has time. Lilly and Mr Perfect Maximilian Held flew to Paris for the weekend. Nina doesn’t dare leave the house because her best buddy at the moment is the toilet bowl. Lena and Lukas pick me up at the garden house. Sam will come after he’s finished sanding the front of the house. He's been working on the large areas with the machine, I did the fine work by hand.

When Lena, Lukas and I arrive at the Sound Shed, Just Borrowed is already playing. Over the loud music, Lena and Lukas talk about the previous evening that they spent with Lilly and Maximilian. Lukas, who usually gets along with anyone, found it difficult to strike up a conversation with Maximilian. As he says, he gave up in the end and preferred to listen to Lena and Lilly, who talked about a planned meeting with former classmates.

After half an hour, Just Borrowed takes a break. Jan and Leon join us. Leon has his drumsticks in his hands and drums around in the air. Jan tells me that he saw me as soon as I came in. I reply that I saw him as soon as I walked in too, but somehow he doesn’t take it as sarcastically as I meant and thinks I’ve finally realized what a great guy he is - no matter how it develops with us and our offspring. He’s just starting again with the three-room apartment, an old building, close to the centre, with a parking lot and basement, when there’s a commotion next to me.

“Honey!” I hear. “It’s really nice here!”

Sam takes my water from me and takes a sip. I look him up and down. Apparently, he didn’t use the time to continue working on the garden house but to make a flying visit to my parents. With his white sneakers, he’s wearing black leather pants, which I recognize as my father’s. The pants are sacred to him. He just pulls them out of the closet once or twice a year when he takes his beloved two-wheeler to a biker meet. Over the leather pants, Sam wears a pink leather coat with a faux fur collar. The sleeves are actually too small for him – which is logical because it’s my mother’s coat. He’s wearing nothing underneath, no t-shirt, just a necklace with black round stones which belong to me. Also, he must have been digging through my makeup and trying out my, eyeliner. His green eyes are emphasized with eyeliner and mascara, and he has also made up his lips. His hair is styled strand by strand and of course, he looks very gay, and I know that he’s putting on this show mainly for Jan and his gay comment earlier.

Lena, Lukas and Leon, who are seeing Sam for the first time, look at him with very different emotions. Leon seems irritated, Lukas is still grinning, and Lena hides her amusement behind her hand and eagerly awaits what comes next. Jan, on the other hand, seems about to burst.

While I’m still wondering what’s gotten into Sam, he rocks to the beat of the Linkin Park song in the intermission and looks around.

“Well, I have to say,” he whistles and clicks his tongue. “The women in Mühlhausen clearly have better taste than the men. A lot of people need a personal coach who can help them get started with style.”

With a gesture that couldn’t have been gayer, he waves it away. “What the heck, he who seeks will find.” He winks at Jan, who blushes even more.

“Got a problem, man?” he growls. “Or better: woman. Go powder your nose and the world will look pink again.”

Sam shakes his head. “What a pity!”

He looks at me with regret.

“The only attractive prey is an asshole! I’m unlucky every time.”

Jan doesn’t understand that Sam is here to provoke him. Everyone else has probably figured it out by now, and I’m the only one who knows the reason: Sam can’t stand Jan, especially because of his first reaction. Since he saw him in the garden, his dislike has apparently increased.

“You’re out of place here,” Jan continues to growl. “This isn’t a fag bar. You won’t find anything like that in the whole city. So leave before someone gives you real eyeshadow!”

Sam doesn’t pay any attention to this warning.

Lena thinks she has to defuse the situation and changes the subject.

“Tell me, Hannah, wasn’t the last prenatal class yesterday?”

Sam forestalls me. “That was something,” he croaks. “What were we breathing and moaning about?”

He steps behind me and puts his hands on my stomach.

“And we also trained to squeeze Paul out into the world... in the doggie and spoon position, oh, and in the tango position.” Leon and Lukas laugh, Lena is unsure whether she should too and looks at me questioningly. I hear a derogatory sound from Jan.

“With the loud groans from the women…” Sam breaks off because he can hardly suppress the laughter. “It sounded like a swingers party.” Lukas, Lena and Leon burst out laughing. I kick Sam in the shins under the table, but he ignores it and Jan’s face darkens.

“Why the hell do you have to be at the childbirth class?” he asks Sam.

My American Zorro has been amused and pompous for the longest time now. An icy expression comes into his eyes. “I’m here for Hannah if she needs me,” he clarifies. “Not because I have to, but because I want to.”

“I would have been there too,” counters Jan.

Sam narrows his eyes. “Because you want to or because you think you should? Do you think Hannah depends on you? Apparently, your brain works a lot slower than your sperm.”

“I think you have a pretty pushy way of making Hannah feel like she needs you.” Jan tries to grab Sam’s lapel from across the table, but Sam stops him by grabbing his wrists.

Still perplexed, but also alarmed, I look from one to the other. “Hey, you two, stop it! That’s silly.”

They don’t listen to me. They don’t seem to hear anything or anyone but are completely focused on each other like two bulls.

I’m getting louder, “Sam! Let go of Jan!” Sam looks from Jan to me, back again and releases Jan’s hands with a dismissive snort. Jan stays on the offensive.

“Jan! Let him go!” I rebuke him too. “Don’t you have to go back on stage?”

The word stage works. He blinks and looks around.

With a movement of his head, he tells Leon to leave. He seems relieved and sets off.

Jan turns to me again. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

I shake my head. “No, Jan. Don’t call me tomorrow or any other time! Just let me live my life and you live your own.”

His jaw clenches so tight that his cheekbones stand out. “Without a paternity test, you won’t see a dime from me,” he snaps, making his way through the crowd.

Unlike usual, he doesn’t stop to rake in compliments from fans about his voice but seems to be in a hurry to disappear from the crowd.

I stare after him. I want to run after him to remind him that I have never made any financial claims on him and have no intention of doing so. Now that he has drawn my attention to the possibility, I rule it out even more.

Before Just Borrowed begins the second part of the performance, we are outside and walk to Lukas’ car which is parked nearby. Lena wants to get in the back seat with me, but Sam tells her she can have the passenger seat and sits next to me in the back seat.

“Why did you do that?” I whisper to him as soon as Lukas drives off.

Sam frowns at me. “Are you seriously asking that?”

“Of course. It was totally silly!”

“It was funny, yeah…” Sam relaxes a little.

“You didn’t pull that show to be funny.”

“No, comedy wasn’t the main reason. Maybe I should have just slapped that fool?”

Kind of a nice idea anyway… Seriously, Hannah!

“I would have asked you to…”

Sam won’t let me finish. “I don’t like the way he acts and talks to you. I heard him at the garden house. He assumed I was gay because if I’m not gay then I’m your lover.” Sam speaks louder so that Lena and Lukas are sure to understand every word, which he doesn’t care about as much as I do. “Pretty cheeky, don’t you think?”

I hadn’t given it much thought, I just wanted Jan out of the garden as soon as possible.

Sam sighs silently and looks out the window. “So I figured I’d show him a gay friend today.”

I look him over - his make-up, his clothes, and he notices but keeps looking outside.

Lena turns to me briefly. Her smile might mean something else, but it probably means something like, Sam’s okay. Don’t be mad at him! I’m not. I never really was.

Before pregnancy, appointments with the gynaecologist were annoying. Now they are highlights. This also applies to the long-awaited appointment on the following Monday, when I can look at my baby on the ultrasound.

The image on the monitor today shows me an apparently fully developed child whose facial contours are clearly visible. It has pulled its arms and legs close to its body, sucking its thumb. We both know it has become a little tight in the stomach.

Somersaults and rapid left-to-right turns are no longer possible.

The little one has recently been expressing its displeasure with kicks and punches, which I can’t describe as pleasant. The former crumb doesn’t care about my requests to be a little more careful.

My doctor, who is looking at the monitor with me, smiles and winks at me. “Typical man. Shows what he’s got.”

I smile too. So Sam is right. I’m curious what he has to say about it and can’t wait to get out of the clinic, drive to the garden house and show him the picture from the ultrasound.

He’s sanding the porch railing and puts the tool aside to examine the picture.

“It was obvious,” he says rather dryly, but with a smile. Then he gives me the picture back. “Is he sucking his thumbs there? Such a cute little human!”

I can’t believe he’s not at all surprised so I say:

“It was just a hunch. Now we know for sure it’s going to be a boy.”

“No, I always knew it was going to be a Paul. You just didn’t want to believe me.”

I pour myself some iced tea and sit down in the sun lounger that Sam has put under an umbrella in the garden for me. “I’ll call him Jacob.” Sam frowns.

“That sounds religious. You don’t have anything to do with religion.”

“I like the name.”

“I don’t. But your decision,” he grimaces. “As long as you don’t insist on some weird double name and stick it on the back window of your car.”

“Like what?” I giggle into the glass, putting it down quickly to avoid spilling it. “Jayden Floyd?”

“Exactly.” He keeps sanding. “Imagine you’re at a playground and you have to call your son.”

He raises his voice to imitate a mother: “Jayden-Floyd honey! Please let Tyron-Diego have the shovel and give the buckets back to Aurelius-Shane!”

I laugh and throw a coaster at him, which he quickly knocks aside.

“Hm…” I muse. “What do you think of Benjamin or Tim?”

Sam ponders this and takes his time to answer. He doesn’t seem to like either of the two names and apparently, he’s trying to find reasons for it.

“Benjamin will become a Ben or Benni,” he suspects. “And Tim to a Timmi. That sounds like a little boy forever,” he squints at me against the sunlight.

I blink back and wait.

Sam focuses back on the railing and runs his finger over the wood to check for imperfections.

“Just call Paul Paul and that’s fine,” he closes the subject and goes on sanding.