Maybe This Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

woman, for she had something to offer, something I accepted. But what she could possibly gain from these meetings, I had no idea.
    I became even more estranged from my wife than before. She suspected I had become involved with another woman, and while she was not wrong, it was, in fact, myself I had become involved with, in a manner I would never have thought possible.
    I got increasingly used to the old woman’s idiosyncrasies, but it was a while before I realized how fragile and vulnerable she was and that our time together was running out. There was so much I wanted to know, to experience and to see once again. When I awoke to her gaze she stood up and left. I then had the room to myself for a long time and I looked at the other dolls. I often wondered how many others might have sat here before in my seat. They had come to her over the years, those who had turned away from themselves, for whatever reason, she explained. They are here, she said, and what happened to them is here too. Some of them have visited me every day for years now. Every day, every night, in their dreams, in their sleep, they come to me, she said. They can stay here. Nothing will happen to them here that has not already happened to them elsewhere long ago.
    One day I opened a cupboard in which she often rummaged in search of something. I opened it and found Karl looking at me out of many faces. The dolls that showed me as a child were scuffed and old. Their clothing was tattered and threadbare but meticulously folded or hung up. I even saw my first pair of shoes, which I remembered since I had been photographed in them so often. They were there, underneath the pullovers, shirts, jackets and trousers of long ago.
    The woman always referred to her children when speaking about the dolls, but she didn’t react when I asked her about her daughters. She frequently mentioned them during my early visits, and the next time I passed by one of her daughters’ hair salons, I went in. In Salon Annie a woman welcomed me and took my coat. I had to wait so I sat in a corner, picked up a newspaper and observed the place. After a while I recognized the old woman’s daughter because she looked like the doll I had seen just the day before. They were identical down to the last detail. She had the same voice as her mother, and when I stood in front of the doll the following morning, that voice still sounded in my ears.
    Whether I liked it or not, I too had become one of the old woman’s dolls, or perhaps I had always been one. She sat me on her lap, and I let it happen, because in exchange she gave me something I wanted and each time craved more deeply – myself. And so I sat across from her and observed how I, as her doll, sat on her lap and had my hair stroked and was petted and cuddled. As long as I was sitting across from her, I was happy, and it did me good. And as soon as I left her house, I was drawn back there. She knew it, or maybe she didn’t. It was different each time. She was close to me but also distant. She gave me the space I needed and didn’t coerce me, but every fibre of my being was drawn to her and to this place where something of me was hidden and could ultimately be found through her. So I tried to live up to any expectations she might have of me, and I enjoyed that. I felt an affinity with her, felt understood by her, and if not understood then at least accepted. I had surrendered myself to her and continued to abandon myself to her and to the images she showed me of myself. And so I returned to her every day, and before long it was as if I lived with her.
    One day my wife confronted me, but it seemed to me that she didn’t want to know the real reason why I had changed. I didn’t mention the woman since I didn’t want to destroy anything that wasn’t already over. And when, the following day, I sat across from the woman, it seemed to me that she was smiling more contentedly than usual.
    It was impossible to say what bound us together. We