Chapter 23 Together, Alone
Gilbert was happy to be back in Potsdam. It was easier to get his work done, Berlin and Ludwig were close by, and Sanssouci Park was his backyard. Every Friday, he and Maria either drove or took the train to the little apartment he had found in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's capital, Schwerin. They toured the castle, gardens, old town district and the state art museum. Maria would bring her tablet or even a pad of paper and pencils to sketch the statues or copy Dutch masterpieces. Gilbert realized he could drop her off at the Museum for a few hours and she would be content, completely disinterested in his or other teenagers' company. Then they would head back to Potsdam on Sunday, she reading or watching her favorite anime series while he studied the papers on his tablet.
He told himself he should be pleased with his daughter. Her sullenness and anger had blown over, leaving a quiet, well-behaved teenager who seemed to be doing well at school. None of her teachers or school's directors had anything bad to say about her behavior; they praised her diligence, intelligence, and politeness. They did note that while she got along well with her classmates, she didn't seem to have any close friends, but Gilbert wasn't bothered by that. The other students were only mortals, after all, and Maria's last experience with mortal friends had ended in betrayal and pain. So he understood that she would want to keep her distance from them.
What bothered him was that this distance extended to him. She ate her breakfast in silence, dutifully went to and from school, and spent most of her time in her room. She came out for dinner, made polite, noncommittal noises when he tried to speak to her, and then withdrew. When he pressed her to watch a movie or play a videogame, she demurred. "I have to study, Vati," she said as she washed the plates. Even when he tried to joke with her during chores, she was silent, offering at most a tolerant smile. In Schwerin, she took the bus to the museum, came back when she was supposed to, and lived by her laptop and tablet.
Ja, he told himself, he should be grateful that he had a daughter who was responsible and quiet. Her grades were good, her needs were modest; she asked for little and gave less. She wasn't filling up his days with trivial chatter, whining about going out with friends, or getting into trouble with boys. Sometimes he asked if she wanted to bring a school friend up to Schwerin or have one over for dinner, but she shook her head. When he pressed her about having any friends, she told him that she did, through deviantArt, tumblr, and some online anime groups. Gilbert urged her to invite one of them to visit, but Maria gave him a skeptical look; her favorite mortal friends lived in Argentina, South Korea, the United States, and South Africa, she told him, so how were they going to get to Schwerin for a weekend? He was about to say he could arrange something with those nations' entities, but she told him that she was happy skyping and posting with her friends, and that was enough.
Gilbert decided he had had enough of the silence. He sat her down one evening and told her that from now on, they would have a technology-free period of two hours every night. No phones or tablets at dinner, and no computer time afterwards. The only electronics allowed would be a movie in the living room or the videogame console, multiplayer games only. He studied Maria's dark amethyst eyes for a reaction. She told him she needed to study, but he insisted she could spare two hours. She sighed, resigned. She continued to eat in silence, daydream during movies, and let him win videogames with minimal competition. He gave up and let her return to her electronics after a few weeks.
The only times Maria returned to a vestige of her pre-adolescent self were when Lili visited. Gilbert watched enviously as the two females chatted in the kitchen together or went shopping. Maria showed Lili her deviantArt account and Lili proudly hugged her, exclaiming over the praise and feedback she received for her art. The three of them played games, laughing and teasing each other good-naturedly, just the way he wanted. At night, he and Lili lay together, and he realized how much he had missed talking with someone, touching and being touched. And then the week was over, Lili headed back to Vaduz, and he was alone with the stranger they called their daughter.
Sometimes when he disturbed her while reading, she would glare at him and it reminded him of the times he visited his sister after Jena. He had tried to be a good brother, bringing peace offerings of clothes, food, and books to Königsberg, in hopes she would forgive him. Instead, Maria had acted like he was a nuisance. She sometimes accepted his gifts and other times she refused them. They would argue, he would drink, and then he would leave, hungover and ready to beat any mortal who looked askance at him. And yet he would try again, returning to the messy, book-filled house in hopes this would be the time his sister smiled at him and welcomed him in.
Other times, when they ate, he saw Danzig in the angle of his daughter's head as she gazed past him, and the kitchen light reflected in her amber hair and blue-violet eyes,. He recalled how the Polish city had said and done all the things one expected of a faithful concubine, while always giving the air of being somewhere unreachable. Maria, he realized, was performing the role of good daughter eating with her father, but she was also in that place where she would not allow him. And unlike Danzig, he could not beat or trick her into letting him in; she was his daughter and he could never do that to her.
She was his daughter, he thought. The lovely child who had bored him stiff with tales of ponies and underwater kingdoms, who had begged him to play with her, who had smiled at him with such open admiration and love, was somewhere in this tall, well-proportioned young lady with the high cheekbones and swimmer's shoulders. But she was hidden away and he feared he would never see her again. And it was killing him, a death by a thousand cutting glances, monosyllables, and silences.
On sunny days, or busy ones like the national meetings or World Meetings (now in Warsaw, of all places), Gilbert could tell himself he was fine: he had Lili, other family members like Ludwig, and friends to drink and hang with. He could brag about Maria's grades and good behavior to Antonio and Francis (he was not going to show any recent photos of her to France!), tussle drunkenly with Denmark and England or the United States, and even do some meaningful work. Then Lili would return with him to Potsdam and he had someone else in the apartment to keep him from feeling the chill coming from Maria.
He would tell himself that a need for others was a form of weakness, that only losers need admiring throngs, that being alone was fine; he had been alone before, and he had been awesome, and he didn't need some teenage girl to hang on his every word or shadow his every move. And that teenage girl, his daughter, would flit through the room without a glance or sound, and he would know what a liar he was.
One evening, while he was skyping with Lili (they had to plan where to stay for the next World Meeting and he wanted to tell her about Maria's latest marks in school; it wasn't because he was lonely!), he found it hard to say goodnight and end the call. Even though he could see Lili was fading and growing sleepy, he kept talking, until she finally sighed, "Gilbert, what do you really want to tell me?"
He hesitated and then he forced himself to say it. "Lili, I am so lonely." The words rose up in his throat, the lump pushing them upwards. "Mein Gott, if it were just me and Gilbird here or on a desert island, I could handle it, I really could. But to feel like this when you share a space with someone who's supposed to be close to you—" He broke off, gathering his strength to hold off the tears.
"It's hard because you don't expect that, ja?" Lili whispered. He looked at the screen and saw her staring intently at him. For a second, he remembered how Maria tried to grab through the screen at Lili when she was a toddler and he wished he could do the same.
"Ja," he sighed. "I just, I just want…" He couldn't bring himself so low to admit what he wanted.
"I'll make arrangements with my boss and I can be in Potsdam in thirty-six hours," Lili said. "Don't do anything foolish between now and then. I'll be there for you, Geliebter."
He nodded. He imagined how good it would feel to have Lili in his arms, to confide in her face-to-face, to hide in her and feel her love healing him. And this time, he vowed, he wouldn't let Maria hog her from him; Lili would be here for him, not his cool, distant daughter.
After the storm, the calm. Or is it really that calm? What do you think is going on with Maria, Gilbert, and Lili? I'd love to hear from you in reviews!