Free A Neverending Affair by Kopen Hagen Page B

mother who married a Dutch Jew in publishing. On her father's side, they were Armenians, driven out of Turkey in 1916. Her mother had passed away, from cancer, some six years earlier.
    “I ’m sorry,” said Olaf, “but the moment I say it, I find that it is insufficient. I haven’t experienced the death of anyone close to me, and can't really understand how we are affected by such a death. It must be very hard.”
    “It is at first ,” Ronia swallowed, “but even if it is a dreadful cliche, time does heal. At least I was grown up.”
    “ I do prefer to think about her as she was before she got cancer. She was certainly a very typical Parisian, despite her hybrid background. But I find that those who are outsiders try harder to live up to the norms and therefore are more Parisian than the Parisians themselves. Of course, the real ones will always find some new markers so that we know who is authentic, in the same way as the upper classes will.
    “Anyway, she was very chic, and rather traditional in her views on gende r. She thought it was all well and fine that I painted, that it was not as good as playing the piano or the violin, but it was still a decent thing. But when she saw my work and realized that I wanted to live from my work, she changed her opinion. Fortunately, my father was less strict. But his moral standards were always a bit lax,” she added, thinking of how he had cheated on her mother.
    “I didn't like her a lot before she was ill, but the cancer made her mellow. Not at first . At first she did everything to keep up pretense. Toward the end, she found that all that surface stuff had little meaning. In the end, she didn't even bother to wear a wig when her hair fell out from the treatments,” Ronia suppressed tears and Olaf sat quietly.
    The waiter came and took the ir plates. They finished the wine, ordered an espresso each and Ronia ordered two Arak to go with it. They took off at ten, walking slowly back to the hotel. Olaf felt very close to Ronia and she felt close to Olaf. At the hotel entrance, she asked him to join her for a smoke outside.
    “I had no idea you smoked.”
    “I don’t really . I’m a party smoker, just one or two a couple of times a month.”
    “I guess there ’s not much harm in that if you can keep it at that,” he responded, immediately cursing himself for being judgmental. It was none of his business to vet or approve her smoking
    She lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply and let the smoke out slowly. “Olaf ,” she said, “it has been really nice to get to know you. I don’t meet a lot of people out where I live. I guess I don’t take a lot of initiative to meet the local people. Perhaps we don’t have a lot in common. You make me feel alive, appreciated. I mean as a person, not only as a painter, as a person of flesh and blood.”
    “You surely are a very nice and real person of flesh and blood.” He was about to add “a real woman,” but swallowed it just before it burst out. 
    “Olaf, I ’m sure you say that out of courtesy,” she said. Clouds passed over her face. “Never mind, it has been a pleasant evening” and progressed towards the hotel entrance.
    “Ronia ,” he said to her back, “see you for breakfast?”
    She turned around and looked at him and said , “Guess so…around seven-thirty?”
    “Sure, I ’ll be there.”

Rome , April 2013
    That night his dreams were mixed up . He dreamed about Ronia, Diana and Monika all mixed up. He went to bed with one and woke up with the other. He invited Ronia for dinner, and when he came to the restaurant, Monika was there to meet him. He woke up several times.
    He rose early, far too early for the breakfast meeting with the manager, so he took a long walk in the crisp morning air. He saw produce being delivered to the shops, the garbage collectors, the newspaper delivery guys and the early morning wanderers, most of them with a dog, and some of them with the mandatory bag for collecting droppings.