She suddenly looked straight into my eyes.
"Were you waiting for me?" she said.
"Yes."
"How did you know I'd pass the same way tonight? Did you know I work here?"
"No, but how should I know... I thought maybe... Actually, maybe I didn't even think that, I just found myself there at the same time without realizing it... Then when you passed, I hid in a doorway because I was afraid you'd see me."
"Let's go... We can talk on the way..."
Seeing my confusion, she asked, "Don't you want to walk me home?"
I jumped up immediately. That made her laugh.
"Don't rush, my friend," she said. "I still need to go change my clothes. Wait for me at the door in five minutes."
She got up quickly, gathered her skirt with her right hand, and disappeared behind the orchestra in rapid strides. As she left, she looked at my face again and winked at me like an old friend of forty years, those magnificent eyes greeting me.
I called the waiter and paid the bill. I had suddenly opened up, gained courage. I stared at the man who was scribbling a few numbers on a long-leafed notebook as if to say, "Don't you see my happiness, you idiot?" I felt a strong urge to laugh and greet the customers who hadn't left the hall yet, even the orchestra. Inside me, there was a sudden desire to embrace all of humanity, to kiss everyone with the exuberant affection of friends reunited after years apart.
I stood up. I walked with wide, easy, self-assured steps, jumping down a few stairs at once to get to the cloakroom. Even though I never acted so carefree, I left a mark for the woman who handed me my coat. I took a deep breath in front of the door and looked around. The Atlantik sign above me had gone dark; the sea waves were invisible. The sky was clear, and in the west, a thin crescent moon hung near the horizon.
Behind me, a soft voice: "Have you been waiting long?"
"No... I just came out!" I answered and turned around.
She stood before me, blinking like someone making up their mind. Finally, moving her lips slightly:
"You really seem like a good person!" she said.
All my courage, my ease, had flown away the moment she arrived. Even though inside I wanted to thank her, to grab her hands and kiss them, all I could manage was a barely audible:
"I don't know."
The woman grabbed my arm with a very relaxed gesture, took my chin with her other hand, and said in a soft voice like she was petting a small child:
"Oh, you're as shy as a young girl!"
My face burned as I looked down. I was thoroughly embarrassed by a woman treating me so brazenly. Luckily, she didn't push it. First she let go of my chin, then the hand holding my arm slowly dropped to her side. When I looked up, I was astonished. There was tremendous confusion, even shame, on her face. A redness spread from her neck to her cheeks. Her eyes were half-closed, and she seemed to avoid looking at me. A question immediately crossed my mind: "Why is she acting like this? It's clear she's not that kind of woman... But why is she doing this?"
As if she had guessed my thoughts, she said:
"That's just how I am! I'm a strange woman... If you want to be friends with me, you'll have to put up with a lot of things... I have many meaningless caprices, inconsistent moods... In short, I'm a very bothersome and incomprehensible creature for those who befriend me..."
Then, as if angry at herself for speaking so poorly of herself, she added in a sharp, almost rude voice:
"But if you feel like it... I don't need anyone... I have no intention of being grateful to anyone or wanting anyone's friendship or kindness... If you want..."
I replied with the same quiet, timid voice: "I'll try to understand you..."
We walked a few steps. She slowly took my arm and began to speak in a colorless tone, as if talking about the simplest things:
"So you'll try to understand me? Not a bad idea... But it seems to me it'll be wasted effort! Only, sometimes I think I could be a good friend... Time will tell... If I pick small quarrels, it doesn't matter. You won't mind."
She stopped in the middle of the road, raised her right index finger and wagged it like she was telling a child to behave:
"Just remember this: the day you ask anything of me, everything is over. You will ask for nothing—understand?—nothing at all..." Then, in a petulant voice as if fighting an unknown enemy, she continued: "Do you know why I hate you—all men—so much? Because you demand so many things from a person as if it were your most natural right... Don't misunderstand me; it doesn't have to be explicit requests... It's the way you look, the way you smile, the way you raise your hands, in short, the way you treat women... You'd have to be blind not to notice how much and how stupidly you rely on yourselves. The confusion you fall into when your demands are rejected in any way is enough to reveal your insolent pride. You can never stop thinking of yourselves as hunters and us as poor prey. Our duty is simply to submit, to obey, to give what is asked... We can't ask, we can't give anything of our own accord... I'm disgusted by that stupid, arrogant male pride. Do you understand? That's why I think we could be friends. Because there's none of that meaningless self-confidence in your manner... But I don't know... I've seen the teeth of wild wolves grinning from the mouths of lambs..."
We had started walking again around the middle of her speech. She took quick, sharp steps. She spoke, fixing her eyes now on the ground, now on the sky, making gestures with her hands. Between sentences, she left pauses long enough to give the impression she had finished speaking, and during those pauses, she continued walking with her eyes half-closed again.
We walked a good while. She sank into another long silence. I walked beside her timidly and stayed quiet. She stopped in front of a three-story stone building on one of the streets near Tiergarten.
"This is where I live... with my mother," she said. "We'll continue our conversation tomorrow... But don't come there... I don't think I'd be happy for you to see me like that... You can count that as a point in your favor... Let's meet tomorrow afternoon. We'll walk around together. I have my own favorite spots in Berlin. Let's see if you like them... Well, good night for now... One moment: I still don't know your name?"
"Raif!"
"Raif? Is that all?"
"Hatipzade Raif!"
"Oh, impossible... I can't remember it or say it! Can't I just call you Raif?"
"I'd be happier!"
"And you can just call me Maria... I told you, I don't want to be under any obligation!"
She laughed again; her face, which had changed expression several times already, took on that sweet, friendly look again. She extended her arm and squeezed my hand in her palm. With a soft voice that somehow felt like she was apologizing, she wished me good night a second time, took out her key from her bag, and turned around. I walked away slowly. I hadn't gone five or ten steps when I heard her voice behind me.
"Raif!"
I stopped in my tracks and turned around.
"Come here! Come here!" she said. Her voice had a tone as if she could barely hold back her laughter. Assuming a very polite manner, she said: "I'm happy to have had the chance to address you by your first name so soon!" Since she had climbed onto the upper steps of the stairs in front of the door, I lifted my head to look at her face. It was too dusky to see anything. I waited for her to continue. And indeed, in that same laughing voice but trying to be serious, she said:
"So you're leaving?"
My heart skipped a beat as I took a step forward. With a possibility I couldn't tell at that moment whether it pleased me or not, and with a hope I was afraid to entertain, I said:
"Should I not go?"
She came down two steps. Now her face was very visible in the glow of the streetlamp. Her black eyes scanned my face with a cunning curiosity:
"Haven't you figured out why I called you back?"
I understood, I understood... I was about to throw myself into her arms and say, "I'm coming." But inside, I felt something much stronger than that feeling: a collapse, confusion, even nausea. I turned bright red and looked down. No, no! I didn't want this!..
Her hand touched my cheek: "What's wrong? You're about to cry!.. You really don't need a sister—you need a mother... Tell me, were you just about to leave me and go?"
"Yes."
"And you weren't going to look for me at the Atlantik anymore... That's what we agreed!"
"Yes! We'll meet tomorrow afternoon!"
"Where?"
I stared at her stupidly. I hadn't thought of that. I asked pleadingly:
"Is that why you called me back?"
"Of course... You really aren't like other men... Their first move is to secure that detail. You just walk off... The person you're looking for won't always step into your path wherever you want, like tonight..."
I felt a crushing doubt lift from my soul. I had been afraid of having an ordinary flirtation with her. I couldn't do that. I would rather be thought of as stupid and naive by her than see the Madonna in a Fur Coat like that. But that possibility was also upsetting. Thinking that she would laugh at me behind my back, mock my simplicity and cowardice, could have severe consequences, making me turn my back on everyone, lose all hope in people, and withdraw completely into myself.
But now my heart was at ease. I felt great shame for my rude suspicions from a few minutes ago, and great gratitude toward the woman who had freed me from those doubts. Summoning unexpected courage, I said:
"You are a wonderful woman!"
"Don't rush... Be very careful when you make judgments about me!"
I grabbed her hands and kissed them. I think my eyes teared up. For a moment, I saw her face come closer, her eyes—with an expression much warmer than anything I had ever seen—seemed to embrace me. My heart nearly stopped at this happiness approaching within inches of my face. But suddenly, with a rather sharp movement, she pulled her hands away and straightened up.
"Where do you live?"
"On Lützow Street."
"That's not far... Then come by tomorrow afternoon and pick me up here!"
"Which apartment?"
"I'll wait for you at the window. You don't need to come upstairs!"
She turned the key that was in the lock and went inside.
This time I hurried home at a fast pace. My body felt lighter than ever. Her image was always before my eyes. I was murmuring something, but I didn't know what. When I paid attention, I realized I was repeating her name and addressing her with a stream of endearing words. Every now and then, I let out short, silent laughs I couldn't suppress. By the time I got to my boarding house, the horizon was starting to lighten.
For perhaps the first time since my childhood, I fell asleep without feeling crushed by the meaninglessness and emptiness of my life, without saying, "Another day gone... And all my days will pass like this, and then what?"
The next day I didn't go to the factory. Around half past two, I passed through Tiergarten and approached the building where Maria Puder lived. Am I too early? I asked myself. I hesitated to disturb her, thinking she might have stayed up all night, and that night's work must have been tiring. Inside, I felt an indescribable tenderness toward her. I imagined how she lay in bed, how she breathed slowly, how her hair spread over the pillow, and I thought there could be no greater happiness in life than seeing that sight.
All the attention I had withheld from everyone until then, the love I had never fully felt for anyone—it seemed to have accumulated into a massive mass and now emerged toward this woman.
I knew I still didn't know anything about her, that all my judgments were based on imagination and fantasy. Yet I had an unshakable conviction that I was not mistaken at all. I had sought her all my life, waited for her. Concentrating all my attention, all my being on one point, I had searched for this person everywhere, examining everyone I met from this perspective, developing an almost pathological faculty and sensitivity. Could my feelings be wrong? These feelings had never failed me before. They gave the first judgment about a person; then my reason and experience would modify it, often incorrectly. But it was always that first feeling that proved right. Sometimes a person I judged positively would later seem bad to me, or the opposite. Then I would tell myself, "So my first impression deceived me!" But after a while—which could be short or very long—I would be forced to admit that my first judgment was correct, and that the changes wrought by logic, external influences, or misleading events were false and temporary.
Now Maria Puder was a person I needed unconditionally to live. This feeling seemed strange to me at first. How could the existence of a person I hadn't even known existed until this point become such a necessity for me all of a sudden? But isn't it always like this? Don't we discover our need for many things only after seeing and knowing them? I began to find the emptiness and aimlessness of my previous life precisely in my lack of such a person. My avoidance of people, my reluctance to let even the smallest part of my inner thoughts be perceived by those around me, had always seemed baseless and meaningless to me. The bouts of melancholy and weariness of life that occasionally overtook me made me fear that they were signs of a mental illness. When I noticed that two hours spent reading a book were more fulfilling and significant than many years of my life, I would think of the terrifying nothingness of human existence and fall into despair.
But now everything had changed. In the few weeks since I had seen this woman's picture, I felt I had lived more than in all the years of my life. Every day, every hour, even my sleeping moments were full. I saw that not only my limbs, which only gave me fatigue, but also my soul had begun to live; that the covered, deep sides of me that had been waiting unknown inside me had suddenly emerged and presented me with extraordinarily attractive, precious scenes. Maria Puder had taught me that I had a soul, and I was establishing that she, too, for the first time among the people I had ever met, had a soul. Surely all people had souls, but many were not aware of it and would go to where they came from without realizing it. This soul only emerged when it found its counterpart, without even feeling the need to consult our reason or calculations... Only then did we truly begin to live—with our souls. Then all doubts and inhibitions were cast aside, and souls ran toward each other, trampling everything, to embrace. All my timidity had vanished. I was impatient to lay everything before her, to reveal my bare soul—with all my good and bad, strong and weak points, without hiding the smallest detail. I had so many things to tell her... I thought they would never end even if I talked my whole life. Because I had been silent my whole life, saying to everything that passed through my mind, "Oh, what's the point of saying it anyway?" Just as before, with no basis at all, under the influence of an irresistible first feeling, a prejudice, I had said of every person, "He wouldn't understand me," now for this woman, again with no basis but following that infallible first feeling, I was saying, "Here is someone who understands me."
I had come to a canal that ran along the southern edge of Tiergarten while walking slowly. From the bridge here, Maria Puder's building was visible. It was only three o'clock. The windows were gleaming, so I couldn't tell if anyone was behind them. I leaned on the railing of the bridge and looked at the still water. A light rain had just started, making the water's surface goosebump. Far ahead, a large motorized barge was unloading fruit and vegetables onto trucks on the dock. Leaves, falling one by one from the trees along the banks, twirled in the air and drifted down. How beautiful this dark, gloomy scene was! How fresh this damp air I breathed! To live, sensing the slightest movements of nature, watching life flow with unshakable logic—to live knowing you live more, more strongly than anyone, filling a moment with as much life as a lifetime... And above all, to live thinking that there exists a person to tell all this to, waiting for her...
Could there be anything more exhilarating in the world? Now I would walk with her on these wet paths, sit in a quiet, dim place and look into her eyes. I would tell her many things—things I had never told anyone, not even myself. Most of them were born in my mind in an instant and replaced by new ones with astonishing speed. I would take her hands in mine again, rubbing and warming her cold fingers with their slightly red tips. In a word, I would be close to her.
It was almost half past three. Has she woken up yet? I wondered. Would it be all right to go toward the building and walk around there? She had said she would look from the window. Could she guess I would be waiting here? Would she really come? I immediately drove that doubt from my mind. I felt that thinking like that was a lack of trust in her, an injustice, a kick at the building I had constructed myself. But once such possibilities entered my mind, they chased each other with great speed. She might have fallen ill. She might have had urgent business and gone somewhere. That must be it. Such great happiness couldn't come so easily. With each passing minute, my anxiety grew, my heart beat faster. What had happened to me last night was one of those extraordinary events that occur only once in a lifetime. Expecting it to repeat would be unreasonable. My mind had even started to find some consolations. Having my life suddenly take this new, uncertain path might not be good for me after all. Wasn't it more comfortable to return to my old calm, to cling to the chain of sluggish days?..