Waterloo

"I don't want you here." Though Therese had visited Genie again and again, she hadn't said a word to her, not until now. “Get out.” Genie had uttered the very same words once before, but it had been under very different circumstances. When she had said it previously, the implied decision hadn’t lasted more than a couple of days. If she were to stay away now, how would she know Genie really meant it this time?

The morning Therese had returned to their apartment from Maida Vale, she had waited until Genie had left for work. She needed time to pull herself together, time to stand in the shower and let the visible remnants of her mistake swirl down the drain where they belonged.

Afterwards she had examined her naked body before the bathroom mirror. Thank God the girl wasn't a biter, she had exhaled. Yet she had felt as if the marks of her misstep were all over her anyway, and all of it could be seen if one would only look at her closely enough. Genie could see it, Therese knew, she could reveal the stains of her error with the blue light of their intimacy.

Standing there, Therese was reminded of another moment in front of the mirror. The morning after she had slept with a woman for the first time ever. It had happened eight years ago and she herself had been just a girl, barely nineteen. She had watched herself with a renewed interest, a certain reverence even, for it had had such a devastating effect on her – devastating in the best possible sense.

The woman in question had come by uninvited. “I hope I’m not disturbing you?” she had asked standing outside her dorm room. You disturb me more than you can possibly fathom, Therese had wanted to say for she had suddenly been out of breath, simply ecstatic to see her there. They'd been friends for some time although Therese had suspected it wasn't an ordinary friendship. I wonder if I'll finally find out what this is, she had thought to herself. What a peculiar question – one so open and yet shrouded in mystery. Why hadn’t she tried to supply the answer to it herself?

The attraction had always been there in one form or another – as a keen interest in the members of her own sex – but she had been in quite a quandary about its incipient importance. A good Catholic schoolgirl, she had never crossed the line in anything or with anyone. The stupefying timidity, the preferred decorum of a young girl, had overshadowed her choices far too exclusively. Until the surprise visit the pieces of her life’s puzzle had remained in total disarray.

When the young woman had sat across her to drink her tea, Therese had felt debauched by abrupt happiness. And then she had suddenly told Therese all about herself peeling off the carefully constructed layers of self-deprecation and understatement.  

She hoped her disclosure wouldn't affect their friendship, she had said to her. She knew she was going out on a limb, she had acknowledged almost apologetically. Therese had remained frozen on her seat unable to respond, her prior life flashing before her eyes like a mangled story that had suddenly started to make perfect sense.

Her reticence had of course been misinterpreted. The woman had looked frightened, certain she'd made a mistake confiding in Therese. She had started to awkwardly recant, to assure she hadn't meant to shock her when Therese had quite simply interrupted her nervous babbling. She was the same way, Therese had said to her astonished by her own candor, yet she had only just now fully realized it. Therese had needed someone to make it absolutely clear for her before she dared to throw her trademark caution to the wind.

Two mirrors – the first the beginning, the second the end? The first one most certainly was, for she had spent what seemed like hours looking at her own reflection after the initial lovemaking. She’d been convinced anyone could see the tremendous, auspicious change in her. The latter not so much since it was merely a portrait of shame, a prophesy pointing at the terrifying tailspin that would swallow them whole.

It took Genie a long time to ask where she had been that night. Trying to please her, Therese had drawn her strength from guilt and regret. She had wanted to make amends not realizing that penitence is a poor substitute for any real emotion between two people. She had been groveling, grasping at straws to find a solid footing in her relation to Genie.

During their better moments they had reminisced about their meeting four years earlier, how Genie had come to ask her about some trivial study thing she already knew the answer for. “You were definitely flirting”, Therese had laughed refreshed by the vivid memory. “I guess I was. How could I not when you looked so adorable with your papers scattered all over the floor.” They had met at the library, and it had meant ridiculously much to Therese their meet-cute hadn’t taken place in some dreary bar. It had lent an aura of sophistication to everything unfolding later.          

Going to her place late at night, standing in front of the book case, Therese had waited. Filled with sweet anticipation, she had accepted the glass of wine Genie had given her. How she longed for those moments when anything had seemed possible, magical and miraculously weightless. The easy conversation before it became unnecessary, almost a hindrance. The thrilling darkness of Genie’s room enveloping them right before the first kiss… Now it was all in the past and all they were able to do was dwell in it instead of facing the reality they now shared. Therese knew it wasn’t enough for they were just picking a scab no longer able to bleed real feelings.

When the unavoidable bad night came along, the question was right there waiting for her. “Where were you that night?” Therese had remained silent. Not answering was answer enough. “Get out.” Genie’s voice all cold and lifeless. Slowly she had picked up her things, the few items she needed for an overnight stay somewhere, anywhere, and left without a word. Once outside she had felt oddly relieved.

“Have you by any chance visited the Rothko Chapel in Texas?” Carol asked her the third time they met at the museum. “Can’t say I have”, Therese replied regretfully. “It’s the culmination of his work, really,” Carol continued, “an attempt towards transcendence, a total submission of oneself to the spiritual experience invoked by the paintings.” She toyed with a pack of Lucky’s she had picked up from her handbag. The slender fingers were restless, impatient to light a cigarette and slip it between her rouged lips.

“It made me think how very limited we are in our experience of the world, of our own existence”, she said staring into distance. “What a humbling place…” she added wistfully. Carol had disappeared somewhere Therese couldn’t follow, and she wanted desperately to pull her back. “Tell me more”, she pleaded. Smiling, Carol turned to her. “You’re a veritable snoop, aren’t you?” Her tone was teasing. “You should be. Every young person ought to hunger for all kinds of knowledge to come to grips with reality.” I’m not that young, Therese wanted to protest.

“How old are you, Therese?” Carol asked as if she’d read her mind. “27”, she replied quite self-conscious all of a sudden. Amused, Carol scoffed. “You’re practically a child,” she scolded with the confidence of her superior age. Therese wanted to ask how old she was but decided against it. She must be in her late thirties or early forties.

“Sometimes I wonder if it’s only abstract art that can bring us to the threshold of divine”, Carol spoke changing the subject. “Everything else is so matter-of-fact, so defined even at its most striking.” She let out a sigh. “We are so cluttered with images nowadays, we’ve become numb.”

Accepting her smoke-free fate, Carol put the cigarettes away. “Rothko was an unhappy man, you know?” Therese did know that. “A sick, restless alcoholic with a penchant for smoking and unhealthy food…” she continued, “Sounds like quite a few people I know.” Carol sounded bitter. “But it wasn’t the lifestyle that made him kill himself. It was his inability to paint large pictures, I think.” Therese stared intently at Carol. The talk of suicide had hit a nerve. As Carol mentioned the word, the details of the artist’s sorrowful demise, her thoughts drifted to the fateful day she had found Genie at her apartment.

Genie had known Therese would be coming over some time that day, and she’d acted accordingly. Expecting yet another awkward encounter with her former girlfriend, Therese had found her on the bathroom floor instead, unconscious, overdosed on anti-depressants. Sprawled against the tiles she had had an oddly defiant look on her pale face. Afterwards Therese couldn’t remember the details of the afternoon, only the ringing in her ears, the shuffle of paramedics’ feet and the ghastly blare of the siren outside.     

“Get out.” What else was there to do than humor Genie at the time of such insistence? Therese did what she was asked to do but she knew she would be back. Maybe not tomorrow but next week at the latest.

“She didn’t take nearly enough”, Dannie had pointed out. “If she had really wanted to kill herself, she would have made damn sure to overdose properly and double-lock the bloody door. Genie’s no dummy. She wanted you to rescue her.” I wonder, Therese thought walking out of the hospital. Whatever it was, hers was a terrible lot to carry, something she would have been tempted to switch the other way around. 

“This is not working for me anymore”, the young woman had told her after their turbulent college affair had progressed past its expiration date. Therese had been desolate, nowhere near the same page where she claimed to be. “It’s not you, it’s me.” Whenever she nowadays heard someone having said or heard the very sentence she knew very well it was rubbish. It was always you, not the other way around. I’m dumping you because you’re not good enough, bright enough, sexy enough, just not enough.

Therese hadn’t said the exact same words to Genie but she might as well have. And some people took pride of not ever having been dumped by anyone. Well, there’s a luxury one can live without, she scoffed. Even remembering her own despair, the feeling of utter loneliness and disillusionment having lost the one person who meant the most, Therese knew now she would always choose being the one who was left behind.