“You came here so you could finally understand modern art?” She smiled amicably, but behind the friendliness was something I couldn’t tease out. Was it contempt, rejection, exhaustion? The thought entered my mind that people say “dead tired” when they are very tired but full of life, but when they use “tired of life”, they’re near the end.

“I want to understand what happened. I made it easy for you. But you used me, and you let me know that clearly. You could have called or written a letter or a postcard. If you felt you had to use me and hurt me, why didn’t you—”

“Package it in friendliness?” She spoke now with open contempt. “For Gundlach I was the young, blonde, beautiful trophy, only the packaging counted. For Schwind, I was a muse, the packaging was enough for that too. Then you came along. A woman’s third stupid role, after the trophy and the muse, is the damsel in distress who must be rescued by the prince. To stop her falling into the hands of the villain, the prince takes her into his own hands. After all, she belongs in the hands of some man.” She shook her head. “No, I wasn’t interested in friendly packaging.”

“I never forced a role on you. When I approached you, you could have kindly refused me and gone on your way.”

“Kindly refused…”

“An unfriendly refusal then. In any case, you didn’t have to use me.”

She nodded, tired now. “Roles make you predictable, interchangeable, useable. The prince who saves the princess – you used me just as much as Gundlach and Schwind.”

My firm employs more women than the statistical average. We operate our own kindergarten with the tax advisors on the floor below us and the accountants on the floor above. I supported my wife’s career and, after my daughter studied art history, I also paid for a law degree. I don’t need to be lectured on feminism.

“Are you trying to tell me that the only choices you had were trophy, muse or princess? Between what Gundlach, Schwind and I wanted from you? With your money and your career, you had every opportunity to find your own identity. Don’t shove responsibility—”

“Responsibility? You don’t want to understand, you want to judge.” She looked at me in disbelief. “Is that what matters to you? That you can judge me? That you can have a clear conscience? Your life must surely add up to more than just ‘not guilty’!”

I didn’t understand what she wanted from me.

“Is this what happens to someone who spends their life with law? It doesn’t matter who you are any more, only that you’re in the right? And that the other is in the wrong?”