Apocalypse Next Tuesday Read online

  Gabriel was satisfied with my answer, as were the guests, and Sven was smiling and looked relieved. So it seemed that not listening to the vicar during your own wedding because of Jesus was actually OK.

  ‘So shall we start with the vows?’ Gabriel asked, and I nodded.

  Suddenly, the whole church fell silent.

  Gabriel turned to Sven: ‘Sven Harder, do you take Marie Woodward to be your wife? Will you love her, cherish and honour her, share with her in joy and sorrow and be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?’

  Sven had tears in his eyes. ‘I will.’

  It was unbelievable. There really was a man who wanted to marry me. Who’d have thought it?

  Then Gabriel turned to me. I became extremely nervous. My legs were shaking and I started feeling queasy.

  ‘Marie Woodward, do you take Sven Harder to be your husband, will you love him, cherish and honour him, share with him in joy and sorrow and be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?’

  I was quite aware that I should have said ‘I will’ at this point. But it suddenly dawned on me that ‘as long as you both shall live’ was actually a long time. An extremely long time. That’s probably something that dated back to a time when Christians had an average life expectancy of thirty, before they died in their mud huts or they were gobbled up by lions in the Colosseum. But nowadays people have an average life expectancy of eighty or ninety years. If medical science carried on like this, people might even live to be 120. But, having said that, I didn’t have private health insurance, so I would probably only reach eighty or ninety. But that was still old enough…

  ‘Hmm!’ Gabriel cleared his throat, urging me to answer.

  I tried, with a little sob, to win some time by getting people to think that I couldn’t speak, because I was getting emotional. My gaze was now firmly focused on the door. I remembered The Graduate, when Dustin Hoffman steals the bride away from the church, and wondered if Marc had got wind of my wedding, driven to Malente and would speed through the door at any moment… That I had started thinking about Marc at this point was not a great sign.

  ‘Marie. This is the moment when you should say “I will”,’ the Reverend Gabriel explained, sounding slightly pushy.

  As if I didn’t know that!

  Sven was biting his lips nervously.

  I spotted my mother in the crowd and asked myself whether I’d end up like she did with Sven? Would I also sit my daughters down at the breakfast table at some point and announce: ‘Sorry Mareike and Maja, but I haven’t loved your father for years’?

  ‘Marie! Please answer,’ Gabriel urged me. The only thing that could now be heard in the church was my noisy stomach.

  ‘Marie…’ Sven begged. He was beginning to panic.

  I thought about the tears of my unborn daughter. And then I suddenly knew why I didn’t want to have children with Sven.

  I loved him. But not enough for a whole lifetime.

  But what would hurt him more? Saying ‘no’ now or divorcing him later?

  Chapter Seven

  ‘What have I done? What have I done?’ I wailed as I sat on the cold floor of the ladies’ loo at the church.

  ‘You said “no”,’ replied Kata, who was sitting next to me, making sure that the tear-saturated loo paper ended up in the sanitary bin.

  ‘I know what I said!’ I wept.

  ‘It was the right thing to do. It was brave and very honest!’ Kata comforted me and tore off some more loo paper. ‘Not many people have that kind of courage. Most people in your shoes would probably have said “Yes” and made a massive mistake. OK, perhaps you could have chosen a slightly better moment to dump him…’

  ‘Have the guests already left?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. And the children will probably be traumatised for the rest of their lives when it comes to marriage,’ Kata smiled kindly.

  ‘What… what about Sven?’

  ‘He’s outside and he wants to speak to you.’

  I stopped sobbing. Sven was waiting outside the door? Perhaps if I explained it all to him? Perhaps then he’d understand that I wanted to spare him even more pain? That both of us would just have ended up being unhappy. Yes, I’m sure he’d understand, despite all the grief I’d caused him. He was a very understanding man.

  ‘Bring him in,’ I asked Kata.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea…’

  ‘Bring him in.’

  ‘When I said “I’m not sure that’s a good idea” I actually meant to say that it’s an utterly ridiculous idea.’

  ‘Bring him in!’ I insisted.

  ‘OK.’

  Kata stood up and went off to get him. I dragged myself up in my crumpled dress, went to the mirror and stared at my face, all red and puffy from the crying. My make-up was all over the place. I threw some cold water on myself and the make-up started running even more.

  Then Sven came in. His eyes were bloodshot. He’d obviously been crying too. I hoped that he would forgive me. He was such a sensible person, I was sure he would.

  ‘Sven…’ I began and tried to find the right words to make amends for the damage I’d done.

  ‘Do you know what Marie?’ he interrupted me.

  ‘What…?’ I answered hesitantly.

  ‘From now on, you can massage your own bloody feet… if you can even reach them over your big fat stomach, that is!’

  I was shocked.

  Sven stormed out.

  Kata gently put her arm around me. ‘It seems that he didn’t love you just as you were after all.’

  I would have loved to ensconce myself in that ladies’ loo at the church for the next few years, but the Reverend Gabriel had something to say about that. He asked me to leave, amazingly, without so much as a critical word. ‘In the end,’ he said ‘there is nothing in the Bible that says that you need to answer the “Do you” question with an “I will”.

  As I was leaving the church, my gaze happened to fall on another painting of Jesus. I remembered how Gabriel had told us at confirmation class that Jesus could turn water into wine to keep a wedding celebration going. Well, today it seemed that there was no need for a party guest like that.

  As I stepped outside, I saw that Sven’s family and friends had already left, much to my relief. For a split second, I had actually feared that there might be a good old village stoning. Only my little family was still there: Mum, Dad, Michi and Svetlana, who was probably beginning to wonder what kind of a family she busy wheedling her way into.

  Dad was busy giving Mum a hard time. ‘It’s basically all your fault. She’s a commitment-phobe because of you.’ I overheard and immediately wanted to run back into the loo.

  But Mum saw me and rushed towards me. ‘Darling, if you need someone to talk to…’

  Yep. That’s all I needed. Psychotherapy with Mum.

  ‘You can come back with me to Hamburg,’ she suggested, but it was a mixture of guilt and therapist’s reflex rather than real motherly love.

  Dad joined us and said: ‘You can always come and sleep in your old room.’

  Even though I’d offended Svetlana and even though he was still angry, I was his daughter, and he always had a place for me in his house. That felt good.

  Michi wanted to help too. ‘You can sleep over at my place. I have some great horror films to take your mind off things. Saw, Saw 2, Runaway Bride…’

  I still had to smile. Michi was always much better at making me laugh than Sven or Marc. It was just annoying that my hormones didn’t share his love for humour.’

  ‘Sleep at Michi’s,’ Kata whispered. ‘And sleep with him.’

  I could hardly believe what she was saying. I turned red – half through rage and half through shame.

  ‘It’s distracting. And he’s been after you for centuries,’ she added.

  ‘Firstly, he hasn’t “been after” me for centuries,’ I hissed. ‘And secondly, Michi and I have a platonic friendship.’

  ‘Marie,’ Kata replied. ‘Pla
to was a complete idiot.’

  I decided against horror films at Michi’s and therapy at Mum’s, and opted for Dad’s instead. A short while later I was back in my old room. It still looked just the same, i.e. horrendously embarrassing. On the wall there were pictures of boy bands. Most of them were probably on the dole by now. I peeled myself out of my wedding dress and collapsed onto my old comfy bed in just my underwear (I didn’t have any other clothes). Deeply depressed, I stared at a big wet patch on the ceiling – there was something wrong with the roof. Dad wanted to have it fixed, which was a good idea by the looks of things. It certainly seemed as though I would be spending the rest of my days in this room. I never wanted to go out into that stupid world again.

  Kata sat down on the floor and leant against the bed. She didn’t say anything, instead calmly working on a comic strip. After a while I inspected the result.

  ‘So will your strip next week be all about my disastrous wedding?’ I asked.

  ‘The next two weeks’ worth,’ Kata grinned.

  ‘And how long are you going to carry on with that anyway?’

  ‘Until you grow up,’ she answered lovingly.

  ‘I am grown up,’ I protested meekly.

  Kata just looked at me compassionately. ‘You’re not.’

  ‘Says the woman who never ever wants to have another relationship,’ I answered aggrieved. Since Lisa had left her at the hospital, Kata only ever had one-night stands.

  ‘It is clearly wiser not to tie your heart to things or people and instead to enjoy the moment,’ Kata explained nonchalantly.

  It was a sentence that again showed me that, deep down in her heart, she was completely disillusioned when it came to love. And hopeless. But I was far too exhausted to start talking to her about that.

  ‘I’d like to be alone, please.’ I said after a brief silence.

  ‘Well, can you be left alone?’ she asked carefully.

  ‘I can,’ I said bravely.

  My sister kissed my forehead, grabbed her pad of paper and left the room. I got a pen and some paper out of my old desk and sat on the bed to write a ‘Good things/Bad things’ list about my life. My therapist had once suggested I do this in crisis situations, to help me see that things are not as bad as they seem.

  Bad Things

  • I screwed up a wedding because I didn’t have strong enough feelings for the man I thought I wanted to marry.

  • And far too strong feelings for a man who cheated on me with a size 6 bimbo.

  • The last time I was a size 6 was when I was thirteen.

  • I have a job that I hate more than your average turkey hates Christmas.

  • I also have no prospects of getting another job.

  • Moreover, I hardly have any friends.

  • Half of Malente probably hates me for what I did to Sven.

  • I’m back sleeping in my old room.

  • At the age of thirty-five.

  • Kata was clearly right – I really am not grown up.

  I couldn’t think of any more. Only ten negatives. Far off a whole dozen then. Not bad. Having said that, they all concerned the major areas of my life: love, work, friends, character.

  But not everything was lost. Now for my list of positives.

  Good Things

  • I have a sister like Kata.

  I had terrible trouble trying to think of anything else.

  • Things can’t get any worse.

  That’s when I heard my Dad moaning in the bedroom below me.

  And Svetlana was screaming: ‘Give it to me!’

  So I crossed the second item off the list again.

  Chapter Eight

  Meanwhile…

  Some people give up on their marriage for love; some people give up on their job. And others sacrifice their nerves. Yet compared with the Reverend Gabriel, these people were miserable victims amateurs. Thirty years ago he not only sacrificed his existence, but gave up on his wings and his immortality. All this because he had fallen in love with a mortal woman when he was an angel. Lots of angels do that, but Gabriel had never thought that it would happen to him. He was an archangel. He was the Archangel Gabriel! The head of all the angels! The one who had announced to Mary that she would have a child.

  But one day he saw a young woman down on earth, who touched his heart (figuratively speaking; angels have no organs). Moreover, when he saw her he was glad that he didn’t have any organs as they would probably have rearranged themselves with all that excitement.

  Gabriel was lost as soon as he caught sight of this creature. And this despite the fact that he had actually seen far more beautiful women through the course of his existence: Cleopatra, Mary Magdalene, that mysterious girl that Leonardo da Vinci had painted… He had also met far more courageous women. Joan of Arc, for example, had been very impressive, even if her furore was a little annoying at times.

  By comparison, the woman with whom he fell in love was actually quite ordinary. Like a thousand, a million others! He couldn’t explain why he happened to be so fascinated by this woman in particular, and why he suddenly longed to do silly things like spending hours stroking her hair. Yes, love did have this annoying trait of being inexplicable. Even to angels.

  For a long time Gabriel fought against his feelings, but then, finally, he asked God to turn him into a human being so that he might try and charm this woman. God answered his prayers – Gabriel lost his wings, returned to earth as a mortal, and set about winning the heart of this woman he adored. All of this in vain; she didn’t love him back.

  These bloody humans with their free will!

  Instead, his beloved married someone else. She had two children with this man. They were called Kata and Marie.

  The morning after Marie’s cancelled wedding, Gabriel was standing in front of the Marie’s mother’s flat in Hamburg. He had stayed in touch with her over the decades. She didn’t know that he still loved her. She also didn’t know that Gabriel had once been an angel. God had forbidden him, and all the other three hundred angels who had become human beings over the millennia for love (including Audrey Hepburn), from ever revealing their origins.

  ‘Have you read the Book of Revelation, Silvia?’ Gabriel enquired urgently.

  ‘Yes, and it was shocking, in a destructive kind of way,’ Marie’s mother replied.

  ‘Most people do not know about it,’ Gabriel said. ‘Even though it makes up the last twenty-two chapters of the Bible.’

  ‘Well, most people tend not to read books all the way through,’ Silvia smiled.

  ‘But it’s important to read all of it!’ Gabriel insisted. It bothered him that most people regarded the Holy Scriptures as some kind of buffet, from which they could pick and choose the things that suited their view of the world. Whenever he ate food from a buffet, he always sampled of all the dishes! At least that’s what he used to do. Nowadays he suffered from heartburn. Being mortal certainly had its disadvantages!

  ‘Come on,’ Marie’s mother grinned. ‘In that part of the Bible it says that there will be a battle between good and evil. It reads like a binned draft of The Lord of the Rings.’

  ‘It’s not The Lord of the Rings,’ Gabriel protested.

  ‘But almost. Satan sends the Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse down to earth…’

  ‘There are four horsemen!’ Gabriel corrected her. ‘War, Famine, Pestilence and Death.’

  ‘And Jesus walks on earth again and triumphs over Satan and his horsies,’ Silvia said mockingly.

  ‘Yes, that’s precisely what he’ll do,’ Gabriel insisted.

  ‘And then Jesus will create a Kingdom of Heaven on earth,’ Silvia grinned even more.

  ‘That’s how it will be!’

  ‘Whoever wrote this must have been completely nuts’

  It filled Gabriel with hellish fear that his beloved did not take the Bible seriously: ‘Jesus will not allow everyone to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.’

  ‘Oh. So I’m supposed to start believing in m
y old age?’ She thought it was quite sweet that Gabriel was so concerned about her.

  ‘Yes, Damn it!’ Gabriel shouted.

  His outburst confused her. ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you swear.’

  ‘The non-believers will all be punished,’ Gabriel explained quietly and anxiously.

  ‘That’s why we non-believers have a better life in the here and now, because we don’t allow ourselves to be frightened by such terrible Bible texts,’ she countered.

  Silvia looked at her watch. She had an appointment with a patient. But Gabriel really was very sweet when he got angry like this. Why hadn’t she seen that until now? Of course: because her ex-husband had a young Belarusian floozy, and she was suddenly afraid of growing old alone. Her psychologist’s mind told her that much. But she also knew that it was entirely normal to react like that to your ex-husband falling in love again. And that you should pursue what makes you feel good.

  So, as she was leaving, she turned to Gabriel and said: ‘I’ll come and visit you this evening.’

  She gave him a friendly peck on the cheek. Then she strutted off down the staircase.

  Gabriel held his cheek, feeling very confused. So that’s how it felt to be kissed. Now he wanted her even more than before. But he didn’t have much more time to save his great love. Jesus was already walking the earth.

  Chapter Nine

  When I woke up in my old room there was no longer any doubt. I was now officially a M.O.N.S.T.E.R. (i.e. Majorly Old with No Spouse, Tots, Energy or Resources). I lay on my bed feeling feeble and dejected. I wasn’t sure I could be more miserable. The night had been awful, and now it gave way to a horribly rainy day. Instead of sitting on a plane on the way to my honeymoon in Formentera and being served dry sandwiches by an air hostess, I stared at the growing wet patch on the ceiling, wondering whether this might be a good moment to become an alcoholic.