A long time ago, when the world was just a little younger than it is now, and I had only one or two grey hairs and far fewer lines under my eyes, I met someone, a woman from Norway…but you’ve heard all this before, It’s over now, fifteen years of a Scandinavian dream that turned slowly into a Norse hell. I’m still trying to work out why…but I doubt I’ll ever really know. No, the real question has to be why she dropped me in the nearest waste bin and decided to pair up with…
Just for a change I am sitting in a favourite haunt of mine in Bratislava. A light lunch of coffee and Slovakian salad, and I search the eyes of fellow diners for signs of light. Monday morning is much the same everywhere, each face a calendar for the week showing day number one, and with freedom too many long hours away.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Slovak women are a delight, and I don’t simply mean the young and foolish. Oh, of course fast food and a lack of exercise is taking its toll, and the rotund are becoming more prevalent, but there is a certain something that suggests true beauty…the same, I think, can be said of Bulgarians, (who are far more dangerous), and the very occasional Austrian, (who are far more…Austrian). Perhaps it’s a central and eastern European thing.
I am here to escape Vienna, work, and life, if only for an hour or three. It was brought to my notice a few days ago that my now ex-wife has become engaged to a serial divorcee, and the news hit me rather harder than it should have. It seems an astonishing choice, and even without this male creature’s changeable nature, it is a difficult thing for me to come to terms with. I met him perhaps once or twice, but he was so utterly invisible that I struggle to see his face. I think he was just about capable of speech, or at least the occasional grunt may have passed his lips. I am unable to answer the question of why a seemingly intelligent woman would give up all hope and align herself with a man who if he had one more brain cell would have doubled his present quota. Do I sound bitter? Damn, and I was trying so hard not to. Failed again. C’est la vie…
The trouble with broken love affairs is that you can easily lose your faith in the people around you. One girl betrays you and your muddled brain begins to think, ‘hang on, if the love of my life can use me as an ash tray, what will all the others, the people I may yet fall in love with, do when they get restless?’ Of course, just because my (ex) wife seems to have bashed her head on a crash helmet once or twice too often and cannot understand what she has lost, it doesn’t mean everyone is like that. Or does it?
I have a friend: let’s call him Brian for want of a better name. He would have us believe that we are not meant to be monogamous. But then Brian, (yes, that really is his name, but don’t tell him I told you as he prefers to think of himself as Sigmund, or even possibly Carl, for reasons too obscure to go into here), lives a solo life in a mountain cabin, thinking deeply about Nabokov, occasionally venturing into the big city to ply his trade as writer/actor/teacher, stare longingly at women between the ages of about 18 and 49, drink two glasses of wine and then slide gracefully under the table. I love him dearly, but he is an Australian after all, and so how can I take his thoughts on the nature of love, trust and the male middle age crisis seriously? And I pair the words love and trust carefully, for without one, you cannot have the other.
As Chet Baker once sang, I fall in love too easily, I fall in love too fast, but now I think I’d rather not get involved in the whole sorry business again. I want laughter and just a little hope, not tears and a lack of faith in the entire human race, which is what I think I suffer from now. There should be a word or words for it…maybe there are. I am an unbeliever, a relationship agnostic, or perhaps even a love atheist. Is this really possible? And yet…
I went to a jazz club last night, Porgy and Bess in Vienna, a place I have grown fond of over the past months. There was a trio of Danish singer, Norwegian pianist, and Swedish double bass player, performing. As they began to play I had no real idea what to expect, but the opening notes from keyboard and strings were so achingly beautiful that you could not fail to be moved. If there is need then this was it, and I fell in love again, but this time with the music.
I was there on my own, although the plan had originally been to be with company, but because of Natalie Portman, a late starting film, a Romanian training to become Big Brother, (a long story), and because I’m a rambling idiot, (a very short story), I was alone, and, funnily enough, I found I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to share the moment, or perhaps moments, with someone, but…and so, in between the notes, I glanced around, hoping that this particular someone was there. But she, whoever she is, didn’t arrive, or if she did, we did not find each other after our eyes met while the songstress sang of broken dreams. Or even trip over each other’s feet ending up in a heap in the darkness amongst half empty wine glasses and an untouched strawberry mousse, which I think would be much more likely if I’m involved.
And there’s the problem, to be or not to be single, and do we actually have a choice in the matter? And if we have a choice, can we phone a friend for advice or ask the audience. Life is rather too complicated at times, and if you listen to a little music at the right time, or read some words by Chekhov or Shakespeare late in the evening, it may become blindingly clear, staggeringly unclear, or sometimes even both, and I’m still not sure which I prefer.
One thing I do know, without the right company, (and possibly a decent Pinot Noir), the rest is silence. And so I shall look out two glasses along with that souvenir corkscrew from Ulan Bator, (I knew it would come in useful), and spend a little time investigating my CD collection. I shall then simply wait and see. You never can tell…
