he used to have about love when he was a small boy. Today these ideas seemed like something handed down from an age long past, perhaps that of Goethe or possibly even Shakespeare. Is it the same feeling that spans the globe today when we speak of love?
A faint smile stole across his features, as the man sitting next to him started to eye him suspiciously. But Tristan took no notice of him. It seems to have got easier, he thought to himself. If I find a woman attractive, I take her – simple as that. The romance seems to have completely evaporated. It seems as though women expect less today – even less than they did in bygone days. He thought back to his childish ideas of perfect love and smiled once again. Once upon a time the air had been heavy with an atmosphere of romance. The man had to pay court, struggle, if necessary make himself a laughing stock, to win the heart of the object of his desire. Spurred on as he was by her exacting demands, and inspired by his own previous achievements, she set his pulse racing and stirred his emotions, Nothing could diminish his ambition, unless he was of a melancholy disposition and was inclined to give up hope when nothing seemed to be happening.
This man of an earlier age sang, danced and fought for his heart’s dream. And all this was simply taken for granted by the lady. What was more, she urged him on to greater efforts by rationing the delights she graciously bestowed, making them even more precious. Every flutter of her eyelashes was like a promise; every personal word carried weight. The distance she created made the man idolize the woman. Made her into a higher being. The flame of love that had been kindled within him and which was fanned by one gift after another, had the power either to give new life or to kill. If, after much devoted effort on your part she was graciously pleased to respond, you were ennobled by this woman. She was not a trophy but the greatest conceivable victory, achieved after hundreds of battles. Winning her was the consummation of your self-image and pride in your own abilities. This victory could energize your whole life; it could make a nobody a special somebody, radiating success. Somebody like Marcus. Unfortunately, however, Marcus had evidently forgotten what his wife had made him.
Nevertheless, said Tristan to himself, this kind of love could also kill. If you fought for a dream which, though not impossible, proved, in the event, to be unattainable, a dream in which the woman had been elevated to the status of a saviour of your own soul, and in which nothing other than she was worth anything, then this love could kill. If she was the sun around which every thought revolved – and if the man, in all that he did, became besotted with his goal and completely lost sight of possible consequences – consequences that were no part of the dream – and if she scorned him so that his love was ultimately unrequited, his life would cease to have any meaning. The man would have allowed the image of this woman to drive out everything else in his heart, indeed, to annihilate it. Instead of being blessed with the lady’s favour and basking in the glory of the victorious knight, the man would have become a tragic figure, a fool, the object of the mockery and ridicule of an unfeeling world.
What, then, has become of this love? What has become of the air redolent with music, where looks of devotion were exchanged and the man’s song found a response in a woman’s eyes and in her heart? Where one hand invited the other to dance, and Sinatra was still understood, rather than merely listened to because it was considered cool?
The filthy concrete walls flitted past Tristan’s window like framed transparencies of sentiments he had thought to be long since forgotten, but which now came back to him in vivid new colours. New questions arose within him: Could it be the failure of their parents’ marriages that causes the children to have doubts about the idea of love? They have security, but must this come at the price of waiting and of romance? Perhaps this generation of “parentless” children have lost touch with this dream. This is probably why they content themselves with the left-over scraps of love, fill their stomachs with them and fail to notice that this kind of food is tasteless. Probably they’re no longer accustomed to love, or they never had it, or the memory of it has long since faded. These children, full of fear and deprived of love in their life, grasp the nearest hand held out to them, without real emotional involvement. They take the hand – because it promises that they will never be alone again.
His right eyelid started to twitch nervously. These thoughts threatened to turn against him, but Tristan succeeded in pushing them away. In his eyes he was different and was only waiting for the right girl. He was passing the time with the wrong ones until such time as he found her. He would not let any of them linger too long with him for fear of missing the right one.
Warily, he directed his thoughts back to the world and his criticism of it.
What a wretched game is being played out in the world! If you take a fancy to a woman, you take her, without attaching any significance to what is going on between you. If you fail to devote time to the relationship or give it due respect, it ceases to have any meaning. You just take the woman for yourself, and gorge yourself on the beauty of the outer shell. Then when you are finally sated, your interest wanes. It goes as quickly as it came.
Why did interest fade so quickly these days? He didn’t know.
Tristan sighed, and the passenger opposite stood up to leave the train at the next stop. The man looked back at the young man sitting over there by the window, soaked to the skin, lost to the world and preoccupied with his own thoughts.
Tristan was convinced that what was missing was the courting. If the woman takes the time to get the man interested in her inner being, to make him understand that this – veiled – represents the real gift, then, and only then, she can say to him: “Arise, Sir Knight!” Now he can rediscover his full potential, wrestle his way to new boundaries, and value what he is fighting for. Only now is the true gift of love granted to them both. That which makes them better people: the idea. The idea of love. Once you have received this absolutely essential gift – the gift of a lifetime – everything else is child’s play. Inspired and animated by the love of your life, all the rest seems quite simple.
Tristan felt sick. Beer and schnitzel did not seem to agree with him. He held his stomach and turned his gaze away from the window. He swallowed, so as not to have to vomit there and then. The person opposite had still not left the train. The door opened, but the man remained there for another second, his gaze calmly fixed on Tristan. Now, for the first time, Tristan deliberately looked at him. This man was dark-skinned and old. There were white strands here and there in his frizzy hair, which made him resemble a panther that had gone grey. He was a poor man, that was obvious. Tristan’s gaze focused on the eyes, which gleamed at him jet black and unfathomable. The skin of his face, on which the pores were clearly visible, was loose and wrinkled. Dry quivering lips protruded into the cheeks, trying, as it seemed, to tear them apart. White incisors shone out menacingly, startling Tristan. It was as if a cold hand had grasped his heart and was squeezing it. There was a deep silence between Tristan and the panther, heavy and cruel ... and it seemed to stifle Tristan’s heartbeat.
He took a deep breath of air, closed his eyes and heard the beating of his heart. Then he looked towards the door again. But there was no one there. He looked through the window, but the man was walking past as if nothing had happened. Tristan leaned back against the plastic of his seat and felt the nausea gradually abating. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply – in and out again. No one else in the compartment seemed to have noticed his brief dizzy spell. Even the woman next to him was calmly reading her paper as though nothing had happened. And, after all, nothing really had. Tristan looked out of the window again, but the slide show had finished. Only concrete and dirt could be seen as they sped past. The frame remained empty. At the next stop he stood up and got out. He quickened his pace, reached the exit of Southwark underground station and turned towards Blackfriars Road. He strolled along Paris Garden until he finally reached Upper Ground, near where he lived. It was chiefly business people and their families that resided in the twelve-storey building in which his apartment was located. Bankers did not live here, preferring areas like Chelsea, Redcliffe Gardens and Sloane Square. But Tristan liked it here. He loved the view of the Thames and the distance that he was able to put between himself and the other men in his line of work. As he went up in the lift, the floor of which was wet and dirty from those who had arrived home before him, his phone rang.
“George, it’s you,” said Tristan.
“Hi there, mate,”