Hanna Heim

When I was dying, you sat beside me and held my hand. I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t needed sleep for a long time. We talked. We told each other stories and reminisced. I looked at you, as I had always liked to look at you. You were not a beautiful man. Your nose was far too big, your eyelids drooped, and your skin was pale and blotchy. You were not a beautiful man, but you were my man.

Do you remember: I was new to the school, and on the very first day, in the staffroom, you asked me what was wrong with my hand. It’s deformed, I said, nothing to be done. You took it and looked at it. Then you pointed out of the window and said: do you see that tree over there? Its boughs aren’t deformed, they’re just crooked, because they grow towards the sun. I thought that was a bit corny, to be honest. But I liked the way you stroked my fingers with your thumb. And I liked that incredibly big nose. I think I thought you were rather dishy.

Fifty years later, you were still holding my hand. It felt as if you had never let go, and I told you so. You laughed and said, it’s true, I haven’t!

I don’t remember my last words. But they were addressed to you, of course; how could it be otherwise. I asked if you could open the window. I thought a bit of fresh air would do me good. And then? What did I say then?

What I do still clearly remember are the first words I said to you. It was before our conversation in the staffroom. That morning I arrived and saw you crossing the playground ahead of me. I stopped you and asked the way to the principal’s office. Excuse me, I said, I’m new here, can you help me? I asked you, even though I knew the way. You just said: come with me, miss, and walked on ahead in silence. You walked with big, heavy strides, slightly bent forward, hands clasped behind your back, the way you always walked. The morning sun was shining and the striped shadow of the front gate spread in a wide fan across the asphalt. I was wearing a mint-­green sheath dress with a white collar. The dress was a present from an aunt; I’d spent hours altering it to fit me. I’d cut the collar off one of my father’s old shirts and sewn it on. My hope was that it lent me an air of assertiveness and confidence, but already, as I followed you across the playground, it seemed prim and old-­fashioned and I felt ashamed.

Isn’t it strange: I remember the colour of the dress I was wearing all those years ago, but I can’t remember what season it was when I died.

It never occurred to me that you might be a teacher. Part of me was still sitting in a classroom with satchel and pigtails, so to my mind all teachers had to be old. Old, grey women and men who smelled of coffee and chalk and whose authority had worn thin over the years, like the sleeves of their woollen cardigans. But you were young. You wore a creased shirt with an open collar and leather sandals. No one wore sandals back then. Perhaps I thought you were the father of a pupil, or the school caretaker, I don’t remember now; not a teacher, at any rate. Or perhaps I wasn’t thinking any of this as I followed you towards the school building; perhaps I was just contemplating your hands on your back. Your fingertips were so rosy, as if they were glowing, shining with a light all their own, all by themselves.