Tante Eva

eventually. Ten years of back and forth, between her and the wife, Paula. In the early days, when he would return to Paula and their big house outside of the city, after spending a few nights with her, Eva would beg. She’d ask him to stay, falling to her knees, and grab his legs. So pathetic. He’d always leave, often slapping her away as she clung to him. Afterward, Eva would feel that her life was over. That he would never call her again. That she should just kill herself. But after ten years, she had more faith in him. Hans loved her, too. He loved two women, and he wasn’t the first man to do so, was he? Her husband, Hugo, had loved at least that many when he was alive. He would come back, her Hansi. And she would be waiting for him.
But not tonight, no. No Hansi tonight. A big, thick man, with a brown leather jacket, his head bare, a cigarette between his fingers. The smell of his well-oiled leather and his cigarettes alone would make her dizzy with lust. She knew what other people in her building thought. Hansi gave off an air of menace, so no one said anything, of course. He had worked for the police; this she knew, but not much more. He’d get angry if she prodded, so she stopped prodding a long time ago. Two middle-aged lovers, neither thin, both with plenty of lines on their faces. He was her joy. Her daughter disapproved but had grown used to his presence in her life. Ten years. Thick Hansi and Eva with her bright red, nearly purple, dyed hair, set neatly into a helmet around her often anxious face. Since the Wall came down, there were many more hair dyes available. But Eva had grown used to this particular shade of red. In fact, she was afraid her drugstore would stop carrying it, now that all the French brands were everywhere. The thought of losing her violet-red hair! It would be like losing a breast, she thought.
She hung her dress up in her wardrobe. Then she swallowed her pills with the rest of her wine, and grunting, her joints creaking, got under the blankets. No music tonight. Krista’s massage, the pills, the thick slabs of cheese. Soon she’d be free of consciousness, dead to the world. She closed her eyes. Another day gone.

Chapter 2
Eva woke around eleven the next morning. It hurt to wake. Her head felt swollen and foggy, and she didn’t want to get up. But she couldn’t lie there for long; she had to use the bathroom badly. She went into her bathroom—a toilet and bathtub with no sink—and peed. Her head started to pound and burn. How it hurt to stop dreaming. Waking and leaving her dreams was in many ways the hardest part of her day. She had dreamed that Hansi was with her in bed, caressing her, kissing her face. She’d orgasmed in her sleep—that she remembered. There was more, too, but it was a bit vague. There was a house by a lake he had, and they were on a train, passing it. He was pointing it out to her. He was very proud, but frowning. It was dark in the dream, too, like today, as Eva could tell through her one window from the bathroom where she sat on the toilet now, resting before getting up and starting her day. A gloomy day. Maybe rain, maybe snow. In the dream, Hans was saying, “I’ll take you there someday.” Silly, she thought as she began boiling water to make coffee, her hands trembling, as she swallowed four Morgentabletten. In reality, he had taken her there twice already, once for a a few nights when his wife was in the Soviet Union. Another time just for a night, when Paula was visiting relatives in Poland. In the dream, she was so excited, he was pointing out the house to her, and she’d felt as if she’d never seen it. And in the dream, she was so happy to be with him. She could smell him in her dream—the cigarettes, the leather, the hair pomade he used. In the dream, even though he was frowning, she was happy.
There was a knock on her door. It could only be a few people. She wasn’t scared, but she wasn’t properly awake, either. “Moment, Moment,” Eva called as she put on her robe.
It was Krista, her face clean for a change, but wearing the slightly odorous purple sweater with the sparkles in it that she wore almost every day. It was her favorite sweater, and for some reason, this touched Eva.
“Frau Eva,” Krista said, “would you like me to check your mail for you? I’m going downstairs to check ours.”
“Danke, Krista, gerne,” Eva said. The girl knew it was hard for Eva to take the stairs. Eva fetched her mail key. So kind, Eva thought, trying to get her thoughts straight, away from sleep and dreams, and then the image of Krista rubbing her feet, her oily hair parted so expertly down the middle, the thick white flakes—she had wanted to pick them off her head. Eva shuddered. Perhaps there would be a letter from Hans. Perhaps Paula and he were fighting again and now he’d write to her, telling her where and when to meet him. Although he almost never wrote, he usually just showed up, waiting in the shadows of the building. But he had written her a few times. She kept the letters. They weren’t very telling, but they were from him and they meant the world to her. She knew he had to be careful—he couldn’t write how he loved her. He couldn’t do that. How long had it been since she’d heard from him? Six months? She didn’t even want to think about it.
Eva busied herself with coffee, with washing her face, with teasing a comb through her hair. When Krista