The plane landed on a nice, fresh, sunny morning on Rhein-Main. He took the bus to the train station and from there, a taxi to his old apartment. A tired Rudi opened the door with disbelief. Explanations and apologies had to be given, but the roommate’s nonaggressive, mild personality made it easy for Walter to show up again so soon. He just moved his stuff into his room.
As the two friends ate breakfast together, Walter reported about his trip, and Rudi told him that nothing new had occurred during his absence. He had not seen his sister and believed she was OK. When Walter dialed Margaretha’s number, he felt very nervous and excited. She picked up the phone, and when he heard her voice, he melted.
Later that day, they met again in her studio space. At the beginning of the reunion, after they hugged and kissed intimately and gently, Margaretha appeared a bit hesitant and uneasy to see her boyfriend all of a sudden sitting next to her in the shared space with Antje. Walter told her he had missed her very much.
Sensing a tentativeness she had never displayed before, he asked directly, “Have you been seeing someone else? Did you sleep with another guy?”
She fidgeted for some time and then started to cry. “The new coworker, we are together for many hours a day. He likes me a lot and tried and tried. We spent a night together but did not make love, only almost.”
Walter swallowed but kept his cool. What did he expect? It would not have been fair to make a scene. He told Margaretha that it was OK and that he really wanted to see her.
After that meeting, it took Walter weeks to contain his growing jealousy. It had already started in the jungle of Thailand, mixed within the bundle of emotions that caused him to return. The seed of a dormant but tenacious issue in him began once again to germinate under the surface. Externally another very happy period began between the two lovers. Margaretha introduced him to her work environment. He met people who meant a lot to her. He also met Antje’s father, a founding member of the Free School. A few years older than Walter, he was an architect, lived, and worked in an apartment near Margaretha’s studio. An instant spark of recognition occurred between the two men. Walter had not met anybody for a long time with charisma.
Margaretha went through a period of many activities. Most of them were connected to her work, which took time away from him to meet with her. Early summer arrived; the whole school went on a trip to an island in the North Sea. Walter had to curb his possessiveness when he encountered that cutting feeling in his heart.
He went to the unemployment office in Frankfurt to register and receive benefits and health insurance coverage. Financially he remained in excellent condition because he had used very few of the traveler’s checks in Thailand and remained mobile.
Walter met with his new friend Olof at Olof’s office apartment to talk about life and ongoing issues. Since the location was close to popular pubs and restaurants, the two went to a favorite alternative-scene hangout and had dinner and drinks. Walter mentioned that he would love to own a place like that. He remembered the time in Oklahoma City when Hilde and he were part of the People’s Workshop. Olof said he could picture himself becoming an innkeeper instead of performing design work endlessly. The two men promised each other to look for a suitable object sometime.
One night Walter’s phone rang. When he looked at the alarm clock, he saw that it had just turned three o’clock in the morning. He picked up the receiver and heard Margaretha in her crying voice.
“Can you please come over? I am in so much pain around my lower back area. It started hours ago, and I do not know what else to do.”
Walter quickly dressed and drove very fast through the empty streets of sleeping Frankfurt to reach Sachsenhausen within ten minutes. Antje spent time elsewhere, the reason why his girlfriend was alone. When he opened the studio door, a dim light next to her mattress on the floor shed some light on her thin, convoluted body under the sheet. Margaretha felt sticky from sweating profusely; the sheet she laid on showed wet spots.
He made tea and tried to calm her by talking. “Should we go to the emergency room or wait until morning?”
She preferred to wait; the pain had eased a bit. Early in the morning, the couple went to a hospital where an initial diagnosis by the physician resulted in a referral to the nephrology department. After waiting for a long time, X rays were taken, from which the nephrologist could ascertain that Margaretha had a kidney stone that blocked her ureter. In the meantime, her facial color had changed from regular to yellowish.
The physicians met to discuss her case and decided to remove the stone. They used a tool, which they inserted through the ureter, and tried to pull out the stone. Walter stayed with her in surgery during the procedure. Sometimes Margaretha screamed with pain and pressed his hand, while he watched the monitor to follow the path of the wire inside her. It reached the clearly visible stone and then moved slowly through the ureter on a sling. During this phase, Walter needed to leave the room because he felt as if he would collapse and faint under his heavy protective gear. As soon as the small item had been removed from Margaretha’s body and laid in a metal plate, Walter took his girlfriend home to his apartment. She stayed there for almost a week, during which he realized how much he liked taking care of her.
The couple grew stronger together than before and spent more time in each other’s company. Walter used condoms after his return from Thailand, but Margaretha preferred to feel him without the rubber, and he did not mind practicing heightened awareness. They enjoyed a harmonious part of summer, Margaretha continuously mindful about her independence and own space. She moved slowly back into the room she shared with Antje.
As his girlfriend retreated to her own life and work, Walter again faced emptiness. By now, it had a familiar feel and presence in his life. He continued with his routine of Grueneburgpark walks and bought himself a book on the I Ching oracle. In the country outside the city, he cut himself some yarrow plants. Walter needed fifty stalks, which he cleaned at home. Forty-nine of them were necessary for an accurate attempt to gain insight into a question or situation. Whenever he asked the oracle, the answers Walter received from the I Ching related always to patience and the wise use of it.
Sometimes Hilde came by the apartment in Frankfurt to drop off Magda and Johannes for a day or two. He liked seeing the children very much and at the same time felt a crushing weight of guilt, which hampered his ability to fully enjoy their presence and show his love—unless he took them for a walk or to a café for some ice cream. Very rarely, he talked to his mother on the phone or visited; their relationship had been at a low level since the incident some years ago.
Then the horrifying occurred. Margaretha showed up one night at his apartment door with a very serious face.