Fracas Noir – Susanne Waldau – te Brake ~ for better or worse

Autumn 2003 – Spring 2004 There hadn’t been much left to be said, between Carl and I. Our whirlwind affair was already relegated to the status of emotional baggage. So I picked up the pieces as best as I could. I called friends and let their soothing words boost my damaged ego. I let them [...]

Friday, January 22, 2010 I’m standing outside a dark door. There is a security camera attached to the wall on my right, presumably tracking my every move. Nobody opens so I unfasten my coat, just a little, exposing a hint of flesh. It appears to work as the door drifts slightly ajar. “Oui?” “Is this [...]

Monday, September 22, 2003 I was sitting on the toilet with a Clear Blue test I’d bought at the pharmacy. After spilling a few drops of urine, I left the stick on the sink for the obligatory two minutes while I went out on the balcony for a smoke. The taste disgusted me and I [...]

Saturday September 20, 2003 It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace. ~George Bernard Shaw, Heartbreak House It was a week since [...]

Friday, January 22, 2010 The week has gone quickly. My husband is still in Milano. He called me the other day with the news that he wouldn’t be back for another week. I said I understood and then hung up. He didn’t call back. The note is still on my mind. Is it an invitation [...]

Tuesday, January 19, 2010 I wake up early. It’s exceptionally quiet. I go to the large windows, drawing the curtains. The street is covered in snow and not a soul can be seen for as far as my eyes can reach. The house is freezing. So I go downstairs to blast the heating system and [...]

Friday, September 12, 2003 It’s so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer…and everything [...]

Summer 2003 The summer turned out to be unusually hot — in more ways than one. I split my days and nights between working in a local sandwich bar, catching up on my studies and seeing Carl. We both knew our romance was not to last as he was going back to Sweden in the [...]

Thursday, July 3, 2003 I spent a glorious afternoon on the balcony to the sound of Café del Mar, Volume Six. With my iPod as my only companion, I was miles away from civilisation and close enough to oblivion. I must have fallen asleep because I woke up sometime in the late afternoon with a [...]

Six and a half years later. It’s a dark winter evening and I’m standing at the crossing of Boulevard Saint-Germain and Rue Saint-Jacques. The traffic is dense with people escaping their offices for the warm and inviting but overcrowded restaurants and bistros so typical of Paris. Others are scurrying to more familiar destinations longing for [...]