My phone is vibrating. It takes me ages to find it in my purse. When I finally find it, the person has already hung up. The screen shows it was my friend, the one who was depressed and, thanks to medication, is a happy person again today.
"If you want to call her back, I don't mind."
I ask why I should call back. Is he unhappy with my company? Does he want to be interrupted by people who will spend hours on the phone engaged in irrelevant chatter?
He gets irritated with me, too. Maybe it's just the effect of the bottle of champagne, coupled with the two glasses of aquavit. His irritation calms me and puts me more at ease; I am walking alongside a human being, with emotions and feelings.
Interlaken sure is strange without the marathon, I say. It looks like a ghost town.
"There are no ski slopes here."
Nor could there be. We are in the middle of a valley, with very high mountains to either side and lakes at each end.
He orders two glasses of gin. I suggest we change bars, but he is determined to combat the cold with alcohol. We haven't done this in a long time.
"I know it's only been ten years, but when we were here the first time, I was young. I had ambitions, I liked the open air, and I wouldn't let myself be intimidated by the unknown. Have I changed that much?"
You're only in your thirties. Are you really an old man?
He doesn't answer. He downs his drink in one gulp and stares into space. He is no longer the perfect husband and, oddly enough, this makes me happy.
We leave the bar and walk back to the hotel. Along the way we find a beautiful and charming restaurant, but we've already made reservations elsewhere. It's still early--the sign says dinner service doesn't start until seven p.m.
"Let's have another gin."
Who is this man next to me? Has Interlaken awakened forgotten memories and opened up Pandora's box?
I say nothing. And I begin to be afraid.
I ask if we should cancel our reservation at the Italian restaurant and have dinner here instead.
"It doesn't matter."
It doesn't matter? Is he suddenly feeling everything I went through when he thought I was depressed?
For me it does matter. I want to go to the restaurant we booked. The same one where we exchanged vows of love.
"This trip was a terrible idea. I'd rather go back tomorrow. I had good intentions: I wanted to relive the early days of our relationship. But is that even possible? Of course not. We're mature. We're living under pressures that didn't exist before. We need to maintain basic needs like education, healthcare, food. We try to have fun on the weekends because that's what everybody does, and when we don't feel like leaving the house, we think there's something wrong with us."
I never want to. I'd rather do nothing.
"Me, too. But what about our children? They want something else. We can't leave them locked up with their computers. They're too young for that. So we force ourselves to take them somewhere and do the same things our parents did with us, the same thing our grandparents did with our parents. An ordinary life. We're an emotionally well-structured family. If one of us needs help, the other is always ready to do anything."
I understand. Like taking a trip to a place filled with memories, for example.
Another glass of gin. He sits in silence for a while before replying.
"That's right. But do you think memories can fill the present? Not at all. In fact, they're suffocating me. I'm discovering I'm no longer the same person. Until we got here and had that bottle of champagne, everything was fine. Now I realize just how far I am from living the life I dreamed of when I visited Interlaken the first time."
What did you dream?
"It was silly. But it was still my dream. And I could have made it come true."
But what was it?
"Sell everything I had, buy a boat, and travel the world with you. My father would have been furious that I didn't follow in his footsteps, but it wouldn't have mattered. We'd stop off at ports, do odd jobs until we earned enough to move on, and as soon as we had enough money, we'd set sail again. Be with people we'd never seen before and discover places not listed in the guidebooks. Adventure. My only wish was adventure."
He orders another glass of gin and drinks it at unprecedented speed. I stop drinking because I'm already feeling nauseated; we haven't had anything to eat. I'd like to say that I would have been the happiest woman in the world if he'd gotten his wish. But I had better keep quiet or he'll feel worse.