Uncanny coincidences
“Well don't give me no comic book sad looks no more
Please don't use those same excuses you've used before”
---Jack Johnson
“Elsa? Elsa Anderson? Is that really you?” She is snapped back to reality, the buzzing that had distracted her shattered by the voice of a lumbering figure, quickly approaching.
Her eyes were a bit blurry, but she couldn’t quite place this hulking blond man that was enthusiastically calling her name.
“It’s me, Hans” his thickly accented voice boomed, ricocheting off the glass of the door that was closing behind her as she stepped into the opening pavilion. “Hans, “ she stated to herself, as if the name meant nothing to her, oh, Hans… “You haven’t changed at all… I mean, well, you look as good as ever!” Dubious, she knew, but being suddenly accosted by this ex-lover, she hesitated, “Oh, you look…great too.” “What a coincidence, how very uncanny.” She wondered why he was speaking to her in English, perhaps he had been living here as long as she? Out of habit? She distinctly remembered that by the time their relationship had ended ten years before, they had been speaking German, his mother tongue, and her third language, but when they had met, they had spoken English, she had just arrived in Berlin, and the international capitalist mobilization that had only just occurred made English the new lingua franca. Her English hadn’t been very good, but she had studied it in primary school, and up until she left her family behind, when she was 19. He waited expectantly for her reply, but she just feigned a smile of interest, or good will, and began walking. He hurried along beside her, lugging a black suitcase, whose rollers were misaligned, behind him. She stopped to look at him. Had he changed or was it just her? He looked roughly the same in his rumpled suit, so he must not live in LA, he had a paunch that didn’t surprise her and his face looked a bit redder, but he seemed to be the man he claimed he was. “Elsa, let me buy you a drink.” Always a drink involved… “I’ll wait for you to check-in, I have several hours to kill before I am off.” Why was he so sure she had nothing better to do, or that her flight wasn’t leaving immediately?
She imagined that her leisurely pace had given away her secret, in fact, until that very moment, she wasn’t really sure if she wanted to get on the flight or not. She had bought the ticket on a whim the night before, when the hours of insomnia had stretched out before her and her longing had gotten the better of her, but when she realized what she had done, what she was about to do, to herself, really, she was full of doubts. Of course Serge would be expecting her now, of this she made certain, buying the ticket with the credit card that he had given her, their secret little expense account for all things illicit.
When she had left him the year before she had forgotten to angrily rip it up and throw it at him, or maybe she was too afraid of ripping any little part of him up because, after all, he had given her so little. In any case, weeks later she had discovered it amid the luggage that she had left in a corner - and not touched - from the day she returned to her lonely flat. Out of morbid curiosity, or in hope that he hadn’t cut her off completely, which of course he _had_ in all real ways, money being a meaningless currency for them, she went to one of the sex-shops in downtown and purposefully procured the most exaggerated vibrator that she could find. She had thought, “If the card works, I’ll use it.” And it did, and she did. She received an anonymous catalogue of Japanese sex-toys shortly thereafter and so began their very circuitous form of communication. Every couple of weeks, when her desire to speak to him was unbearable, she would go somewhere that he would have liked to take her and buy something - a token really, and sometimes strange objects, complimentary yet asynchronous, would arrive in her mailbox.
She handed over her passport and other travel documents to the man at the United Airlines check-in counter . “Yes, flight 961, it leaves in two hours from gate I-27, you’ll be in tomorrow by 9:30 Tokyo-time, here is your boarding pass. Will that be all the luggage you are taking? Nothing to check?” “No, thank you.” Elsa didn’t need more than her overnight bag, after all, anything that was absolutely necessary Serge would insist on buying, if he agreed to meeting with her, that was, and in all likelihood they would need very little clothing, and in the case that he were to continue to deny her access to him, well, she would hop on the next flight back…
“Elsa, I got us a table at the bar, I hope you don’t mind,” Hans interrupted her thoughts once again, “So what brings you to these parts?” “I live here,” she replied dryly. “Oh, not me, I am just in town for a convention, left the wife and kids behind… do you have any _kinder_ of your own?” She cleared her throat, which was suddenly dry, “no.” Hans' face grew dark with worry. Elsa kept thinking “Don’t ask, don’t ask”… Telepathy prevailed, and he didn’t ask the question that people always did, in their semi-hushed whisper “Oh, so you can’t have them?”. Elsa looked down at the ring on her finger, the one that she always slipped surreptitiously on before international travel, as a sort of Talisman, or cloak of invisibility. Clearly it hadn’t worked on Serge, and it only served to confuse poor dumb Hans. “We’ll have two Duvals, er, actually, Elsa, what do you want?” “I’ll have a cranberry juice... with vodka," suddenly, it didn’t seem too early in the day to drink with her present company. She also took the opportunity to reminisce: Serge had always like the exotic taste of these berries, their juice available only on flights that catered to an American public, having no such fruit in either Japan or his native France. They reminded Elsa of an even darker memory, the lingenberries of her childhood, the summers of endless sunshine before her mother had died. The vodka would kill the excessive sweetness that Americans insisted upon in their beverages.
Elsa complacently sat through a parade of pictures of the wife, Heike, the 9-year-old son, Jan, and the 5-year old pig-tailed gap-toothed daughter, Lotte. She smiled and commented at the appropriate moments and thanked herself profusely for procuring RU86 the one time they visited France and had an accident in the little “pension” that overlooked the Champs-Elysees, when they had been forced to sneak into the community toilette and she had climbed on top of him and had the closest approximation to an orgasm that she ever did with him. He was saying something to her that she had missed and suddenly his mouth was on hers. She pushed him back. “Please don’t… I have to go.” “Oh mein gott, Elsa, I am sorry… it was, I was… just caught up in the emotion, you know, for old times’ sake…?” But she didn’t know. She could think of no one whose mouth she would less like to have thrusting at her own, and, in fact, her heart was starting to beat faster as she imagined Serge with his face pressed against the cool cloudy glass. Would he be waiting for her? Would he be watching her from above? She threw some money on the table and retreated, heading for her departure gate. She had one hour to wait.
Please don't use those same excuses you've used before”
---Jack Johnson
“Elsa? Elsa Anderson? Is that really you?” She is snapped back to reality, the buzzing that had distracted her shattered by the voice of a lumbering figure, quickly approaching.
Her eyes were a bit blurry, but she couldn’t quite place this hulking blond man that was enthusiastically calling her name.
“It’s me, Hans” his thickly accented voice boomed, ricocheting off the glass of the door that was closing behind her as she stepped into the opening pavilion. “Hans, “ she stated to herself, as if the name meant nothing to her, oh, Hans… “You haven’t changed at all… I mean, well, you look as good as ever!” Dubious, she knew, but being suddenly accosted by this ex-lover, she hesitated, “Oh, you look…great too.” “What a coincidence, how very uncanny.” She wondered why he was speaking to her in English, perhaps he had been living here as long as she? Out of habit? She distinctly remembered that by the time their relationship had ended ten years before, they had been speaking German, his mother tongue, and her third language, but when they had met, they had spoken English, she had just arrived in Berlin, and the international capitalist mobilization that had only just occurred made English the new lingua franca. Her English hadn’t been very good, but she had studied it in primary school, and up until she left her family behind, when she was 19. He waited expectantly for her reply, but she just feigned a smile of interest, or good will, and began walking. He hurried along beside her, lugging a black suitcase, whose rollers were misaligned, behind him. She stopped to look at him. Had he changed or was it just her? He looked roughly the same in his rumpled suit, so he must not live in LA, he had a paunch that didn’t surprise her and his face looked a bit redder, but he seemed to be the man he claimed he was. “Elsa, let me buy you a drink.” Always a drink involved… “I’ll wait for you to check-in, I have several hours to kill before I am off.” Why was he so sure she had nothing better to do, or that her flight wasn’t leaving immediately?
She imagined that her leisurely pace had given away her secret, in fact, until that very moment, she wasn’t really sure if she wanted to get on the flight or not. She had bought the ticket on a whim the night before, when the hours of insomnia had stretched out before her and her longing had gotten the better of her, but when she realized what she had done, what she was about to do, to herself, really, she was full of doubts. Of course Serge would be expecting her now, of this she made certain, buying the ticket with the credit card that he had given her, their secret little expense account for all things illicit.
When she had left him the year before she had forgotten to angrily rip it up and throw it at him, or maybe she was too afraid of ripping any little part of him up because, after all, he had given her so little. In any case, weeks later she had discovered it amid the luggage that she had left in a corner - and not touched - from the day she returned to her lonely flat. Out of morbid curiosity, or in hope that he hadn’t cut her off completely, which of course he _had_ in all real ways, money being a meaningless currency for them, she went to one of the sex-shops in downtown and purposefully procured the most exaggerated vibrator that she could find. She had thought, “If the card works, I’ll use it.” And it did, and she did. She received an anonymous catalogue of Japanese sex-toys shortly thereafter and so began their very circuitous form of communication. Every couple of weeks, when her desire to speak to him was unbearable, she would go somewhere that he would have liked to take her and buy something - a token really, and sometimes strange objects, complimentary yet asynchronous, would arrive in her mailbox.
She handed over her passport and other travel documents to the man at the United Airlines check-in counter . “Yes, flight 961, it leaves in two hours from gate I-27, you’ll be in tomorrow by 9:30 Tokyo-time, here is your boarding pass. Will that be all the luggage you are taking? Nothing to check?” “No, thank you.” Elsa didn’t need more than her overnight bag, after all, anything that was absolutely necessary Serge would insist on buying, if he agreed to meeting with her, that was, and in all likelihood they would need very little clothing, and in the case that he were to continue to deny her access to him, well, she would hop on the next flight back…
“Elsa, I got us a table at the bar, I hope you don’t mind,” Hans interrupted her thoughts once again, “So what brings you to these parts?” “I live here,” she replied dryly. “Oh, not me, I am just in town for a convention, left the wife and kids behind… do you have any _kinder_ of your own?” She cleared her throat, which was suddenly dry, “no.” Hans' face grew dark with worry. Elsa kept thinking “Don’t ask, don’t ask”… Telepathy prevailed, and he didn’t ask the question that people always did, in their semi-hushed whisper “Oh, so you can’t have them?”. Elsa looked down at the ring on her finger, the one that she always slipped surreptitiously on before international travel, as a sort of Talisman, or cloak of invisibility. Clearly it hadn’t worked on Serge, and it only served to confuse poor dumb Hans. “We’ll have two Duvals, er, actually, Elsa, what do you want?” “I’ll have a cranberry juice... with vodka," suddenly, it didn’t seem too early in the day to drink with her present company. She also took the opportunity to reminisce: Serge had always like the exotic taste of these berries, their juice available only on flights that catered to an American public, having no such fruit in either Japan or his native France. They reminded Elsa of an even darker memory, the lingenberries of her childhood, the summers of endless sunshine before her mother had died. The vodka would kill the excessive sweetness that Americans insisted upon in their beverages.
Elsa complacently sat through a parade of pictures of the wife, Heike, the 9-year-old son, Jan, and the 5-year old pig-tailed gap-toothed daughter, Lotte. She smiled and commented at the appropriate moments and thanked herself profusely for procuring RU86 the one time they visited France and had an accident in the little “pension” that overlooked the Champs-Elysees, when they had been forced to sneak into the community toilette and she had climbed on top of him and had the closest approximation to an orgasm that she ever did with him. He was saying something to her that she had missed and suddenly his mouth was on hers. She pushed him back. “Please don’t… I have to go.” “Oh mein gott, Elsa, I am sorry… it was, I was… just caught up in the emotion, you know, for old times’ sake…?” But she didn’t know. She could think of no one whose mouth she would less like to have thrusting at her own, and, in fact, her heart was starting to beat faster as she imagined Serge with his face pressed against the cool cloudy glass. Would he be waiting for her? Would he be watching her from above? She threw some money on the table and retreated, heading for her departure gate. She had one hour to wait.
posted by ilana at 4:10 p.m.
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