A woman smokes. A man hates it.
Who knows exactly when to begin the erosion began. She knows the reason well: She smokes and he does not. At first it was not a problem, but he never approved it. He even smoked for a while, quickly taking the cigarette out of her hand, puffing until half burned, handing her back only when her laughing protest grew louder. When she met him the year before, it was a miracle: she was 50 years old and had not believed for a long time that a man around the world would love her corners and curves, as well as her strengths and weaknesses. They really loved each other, and they still love each other. Side by side, they trudged along rain-wet beaches, gondolas through exhibitions, and cooked Brussels sprouts.
In bed, they read each other fairy tales and lay there in silence, because they enjoyed the heat of the other so that there were no words for it. He collected their slip of the tongue in a dictionary. Both beamed like floodlights. But the year has passed, and the signed tenancy agreement for the apartment they wanted to move in to grow old is unnoticed on a lopsided pile of papers. Maybe the erosion started on one of the last beautiful autumn days, during a long walk. They photographed each other and ran to the bet, until even older people looked at them in surprise.
The woman smokes? At some point the game was over.
Suddenly he pulled the pack of cigarettes out of her pocket, held her up by his arm, and she did not come. They fought for it playfully, but she had no chance against him with his long arms. One of them missed the moment when the game became serious. Anyway, the box was suddenly gone, she thought he had thrown it over a wall. Her anger bubbled up like a fountain. Everything in her resisted the attack, and because she did not want to show her anger, she ran away and sat with her back to him on a riverbank.
Frightened by what he had done, he stood for several minutes on the way. Then he stooped down to the cigarette pack he had thrown in the grass and brought it to her. He sat down next to her and pulled her close, saying apologies to her ear. She felt his honest remorse, yet it took a while for her to smile at him openly again. Arm in arm they continued on. In the evening the incident was forgotten. Physically, he never broke her limits again, but with the cigarettes he would not let up.
He made her aware of the consequences of her addiction, as if she did not know herself after 30 years of cigarette balancing. He showed her his grief, arranging smoke restrictions with her, which she was willing and bent on, because her guilt was easily activated, as with any smoker. He hoped his never-ending love and stubbornness would eventually free her from the vice.
He wanted to be the one who gave her so much hold that she no longer had to look for cigarettes. Thus, the cigarettes, which had never played a major role in their lives, became a central theme through him. "You love her more than me," he told her and "you stink!" When she wanted to approach him tenderly. The former warded her off as completely absurd, but against the second she could do nothing but brush her teeth ten times a day. It was not enough for him.
And so she, who considered herself a normal woman, became an addict and a promise-breaker who vibrated with nervousness and barely recognized herself. Parts of her being went underground and were no longer available to him, the man. When he called or drove the car into the garage, she slipped onto the balcony and smoked hastily, trying to blow the smoke away with her hands, washing her face and hands, and when he came back, she smiled, but it was not quite real anymore.
She was the culprit: the woman who smokes.
She knew that if he gave it a whiff, his eyes would darken, and he would not be receptive to a gesture of love, a joke. And she was the culprit. The addicts. The uninhibited. The Aggressive. Under his constant reproaches she became increasingly smaller and more angry. Whole-day poisoned, intimate conversations became marathon debates that ended where they had started. She felt crushed, rejected, could no longer be honest and spontaneous. At some point, she said for the first time that she wanted to break up with him. And he said, "You see, you love her more than me."
He wanted to be the one who gave her so much support that she no longer had to look for cigarettes.
Again and again they managed to find cheerfulness and a carefree everyday life. When he came to her, she only smoked every three or four hours, quickly and out of sight.She made several attempts to stop for good, pasted nicotine patches on her upper arm, chewed nasty nicotine gum. At that time, life with him was beautiful again, light-footed, but inwardly the contradiction tore at her.
Finally, this will collapsed, which was not hers, but his. For several days she smoked secretly and knew that lying could not be a good relationship. Of course he caught her with the burning cigarette, and that made it worse: he, usually calm and calm, kicked the wall and threw himself crying on the sofa, writhing in a desperate ball. She sat beside it, helpless, perplexed, repentant, and at the same time his reaction to her seemed exaggerated. She implored him, but the most important thing not to forget that they loved each other and could make happy. Her neck was hard as stone with tension. She felt her being in thumbscrews. You're making me a nightmare, she thought, feeling the need to warn him.
She was too old, too confident to be permanently cornered. She did not want to continue a drama relationship, not a blackmail, but the compromise they had agreed several times: she would smoke much less, always on the balcony, always out of sight. He would curb his exaggerated panic. They both knew it and did not want to admit it. From the beginning, the conflict was either on or off. They could have saved themselves all the grinds, the injuries, the threats of separation, the return, the restarts, the forgiveness kisses, and all attempts to say in ever new words what the other one had to know.
There is only one ruin left of love. She wants to see him again, but not in tears and without further oppressing and restricting her. He longs for her, but without cigarettes. And because they can not find a better solution, only the separation that none of them ever wanted works. Reason can not stop this guerrilla warfare, which only has defeats and an empty flat for two.
