A hectic couple of days followed. To gather together all the paperwork necessary to get married in Germany was going to take a team of researchers a lifetime (and where was I going to get a police certificate to say I wasn’t a known criminal?), but we could get married within three days across the border in Denmark. (In fact, a handful of border villages relied heavily on the marriage industry for generating revenue.) Despite the unfairness of the situation, it seemed like the only solution. Then Marion’s boss suggested we should apply for an exemption because it was unfair. A long chain of phonecalls later, and we ended up being put through to the Interior Minister’s office, where a sympathetic soul agreed to argue our case. A day later, I had my visa.
But suddenly the issue of marriage was on the agenda. Although we were both ambivalent towards this archaic institution, we recognised that life would be so much easier if we were married, whether we decided to live in Germany or Australia (because when it comes to international relationships, de facto is no more than de fictiono). We were committed to our relationship, marriage or not. We didn’t need a formal contract, but if it helped simplify our future ...
By now we were also starting to get itchy feet, and suddenly the concept of a wedding began to evolve into something more. Not only would we get married, but we’d quit our jobs, cancel our lease and leave the country on an epic cycling-tour-cum-honeymoon - all in one weekend! Our marriage would signal a new start, a new life, freedom. We’d give up everything and start afresh.
(But what was wrong with our old life? We were happy. We had fulfilling jobs, well-paid jobs. A bright future stretched out before us. So why did we have this sudden urge to abandon it all? Perhaps we valued too little what we had. Perhaps we valued too much what we didn’t have. We were giving up a home, but we believed our home was anywhere we were together. We were giving up almost everything, yet we believed we needed nothing but each other. A whole, complex, world suddenly reduced to just us. Was this where it all began to unravel? Was life simply too much of a burden for two people, alone, to bear?)
The wedding, in June, went without a hitch (though we both got hitched). It was a standard registry office ceremony, with Marion’s brother Sven, and Raene acting as witnesses. Well, perhaps not entirely standard. After all, we did turn up on our bicycles after a mad sprint through the rain (Marion dashing into a florist to pick up a wedding bouquet. “What colour’s the bride’s dress?” the florist asked. “Like this,” Marion said, lifting up her rain-jacket and untucking her dress from inside her rainpants...), and Sven and I did knock our heads together as we sat down in front of the celebrant, and although Raene didn’t understand a word of German she did manage to respond at the right moment (and so avoiding the necessity of having to find another witness - German authorities are adamant a witness should actually understand a little of what they’re witnessing), and there was an awkward silence when the celebrant insisted that I repeat my affirmation (I was, naturally, expecting something along the lines of “I do”, so was slightly taken aback when I was suddenly instructed to simply say “Ja”. After pausing a moment to consider whether I’d understood correctly, I finally managed to stammer “Ja” - a little uncertainly, I admit, since I was still half convinced there had to be more to it than that. But that wasn’t good enough for the celebrant, because the rules specified the “Ja” must be in a loud and clear voice... so I had to say it again, in a loud, clear voice which, to my ears, sounded like Basil Fawlty impersonating the Kaiser. Of course Marion will never forgive me for this faux pas - and in her version there’s a shrug and an exhalation of uncertainty before my “Ja” - claiming it sounded more like a “Why not?” or “I suppose so” than a definite “Yes”). But, all-in-all, a straightforward ceremony.
Then it was onto the reception. Because we were leaving two days later, we opted for a BYO affair (which was almost unheard of in Germany where having a party means providing everything, and on your birthday you are supposed to bring the cake and buy everyone drinks), and though there was much consternation from Marion’s relatives (a number of whom even refused to turn up to such an uncivilised event), it met with an otherwise enthusiastic response. Over 100 people squeezed into the hall (supplied by Marion’s employer), with live music (compliments of Marion’s father and Sven, who was also the band’s drummer), a table reminiscent of a banquet at Camelot, with enough wine and beer to lubricate the rustiest social machine. Our entire outlay had been 23DM (a last minute expense due to an organisational oversight - nobody had been assigned to supply soft drinks), but Marion’s relatives felt uncomfortable about bringing only food, so they brought money as well. So no matter what the future held, we would always be able to claim that our wedding was, at least on one level, a profitable experience.
Friends from all over Europe had also made the journey to Offenbach, which added an international flavour to the festivities, but also meant a full house for our final few days in our apartment. Two days in which we had to clean and vacate the premises (moving all the furniture to Sven’s new-and-luckily-unfurnished apartment), organise the bond return and fulfil our tenantic obligations... and we still hadn’t tried to pack our bikes yet.
So it was a relief when Monday morning arrived and we wobbled our way to Frankfurt railway station in the first straggling peak hour traffic. We didn’t want to set out from Offenbach in case we were tempted to turn around at the first hill, so we’d decided to catch a train to the Danish border and head north to Norway. And as we heaved our bikes into the goods carriage, we realised just how wise our decision had been. We had far too much gear, almost too much for the bikes to handle (we’d even had to tie plastic bags full of stuff to the carriers because there was simply no room for them), and it would have been tempting to ride back to Sven’s apartment and drop it off, maybe even stay a few days ... We needed to do some serious sorting, but we’d have plenty of time for sorting once we were away from here. Once we were alone ...
Now, after five years of travelling together, five years of just us, together, five years almost never apart, I was alone. Half a person with half a life ... and a half-finished house. The entire fabric of my existence had been torn in two, ripped into tiny pieces. With only such threadbare emotional rags remaining, how was I ever supposed to keep warm?
For days I sat by the Minzion, contemplating the flow of water, listening to its song, its consoling rhythm of words - accomplices in this strange solitude. What did it care for the problems of we stones sitting immovable, unmoved, along its banks? Problems were mere pebbles. Dropped into the stream, they cast ripples across the surface for but a brief moment, before falling, silently, away.
Marion and I.
US. Two lives sewn together to form a single garment. Two lives torn apart. How could a feeble S hope to survive alone?
But I wasn’t an S, I was an I. ME. No matter how much we believed in our unity, our oneness, we’d never been simply two halves of a single, separate whole. We were two pieces of a complex tapestry, two patches woven together, for a time, in a jumbled patchwork of interwoven lives. The threads linking us to every other patch formed the web at whose centre the many-legged I sat. They were as important as those fine stitches holding US together, yet for five years we’d ignored everything but US, sewing our lives together, tighter and tighter, each new stitch slowly compromising the integrity of the seam. Until, finally it separated, torn apart by a single, gentle tug. Parting either side of the overwrought seam, a narrow strip of our selves still attached, leaving a torn, ragged edge with so many loose ends.
I suddenly realised, sitting there by the Minzion, that I would survive. If I could build a house, I could certainly rebuild a neglected ME, a neglected life. It was, perhaps, still shaky from its ordeal, but it wasn’t yet derelict. And I wasn’t quite ready to hang out the ‘CONDEMNED’ sign.
But what state was it really in? How could I know when I’d never taken the time to inspect it thoroughly? The foundations seemed solid. The exterior seemed sturdy, weathering nicely, taking on a life-stained polish as the years battered its sides. So perhaps I should simply leave it at that. Did I really want to peel back the weatherboards and poke around the framing, the skeleton supporting the self? It had managed to withstand tornadoes and floods, so did it matter if it might be slowly crumbling from within, so many woodworm memories gnawing away, turning everything to dust?
Yes, it mattered. I wasn’t some real estate agent or a building inspector of the soul, and I wasn’t building a life for someone else. This was my life. This was ME. I wanted to make it as solid as I possibly could. So there would be no cutting corners, no filling cracks with putty, no painting over defects. I was going to strip it down to the bare timber, lift the floors, expose the beams and poke around in every dusty nook and cranny.
Marion was generous, kind, honest, open, giving ... everyone agreed. But she was now giving her love to someone else. She wouldn’t have become depressed if I had given her hope. She wouldn’t have gone if I’d given her a reason to stay. She wouldn’t have sought happiness elsewhere if I’d only given her what she needed. Did I drive her away? Was I so selfish, so dishonest, so detached, so ungiving that she was finally forced to look elsewhere? What darkness possibly lay within?
But there was no darkly creeping stain. No dry-rot of the soul. No more, at least, than in every one of us. A handyman special with many faults, so many weaknesses, yet nothing terminal, no fatal flaw which couldn’t be repaired or strengthened. A do-it-yourselfer with many positive features which, though tarnished and dusty with neglect, could be made to shine with lots of TLC and elbow grease. And although I never found the main switch of illumination, there were no dark passages I feared to enter, and no scratching whispers scuttling into the shadows as I passed.
And somewhere along the way I realised I wasn’t to blame for Marion’s leaving. Neither of us were responsible. Both of us were responsible. What I seemed, what I had become, wasn’t what I was, what I wanted to be. The same was true for Marion. The sticky threads of US had ensnared us both, manoeuvring us like puppets in a tragic passion play, coercing us to play many roles, to don many disguises, to repeat so many tired scripts, over and over, until we could no longer identify ourselves among the cast. And suddenly WE - Marion and I - were no longer the stars. OUR parts had been reduced to fleeting cameos, replaced by the multi-talented, the ever-flexible, the self-serving, the non-existent US.
Now there was no more US, there was just me. A cast of one. It would be the most challenging role I would ever play, yet an inestimably rewarding one too. A continuous impromptu performance with no scripts, no rehearsals, just me, alone on the stage, standing naked before the world. There would be no rave reviews or polite applause from the ever-vigilant critic standing in the shadows.
So - LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!
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