The Sublet by Rebecca Stiffe

Sonja met Kristof on Tinder in November. I met Sonja when I visited the apartment I would illegally sublet from her roommate, Tia, in the last week of March. I came across Tia on Tinder the day before I was meant to move in and accidentally swiped left. I’m not sure if that made things more or less awkward, living with her for those first few days. I’d been staying in Sonja’s bedroom, which was larger than the rest of the Altbau apartment combined because Tia wasn’t leaving until the 4th and Sonja was away with Kristof in Lebanon.

When Sonja texted not to be scared, that she was on her way home from the airport with her boyfriend who would be staying the night, I was more surprised that she had a boyfriend than anything else. I had assumed she was queer, judging by her wide band Adidas sandals, preference for no make-up and oversized flannel shirts. Then I noticed the condom peeking out from the dust beside her bedside locker.

I’d just finished wiping down the counters and scrubbing the large number of utensils I’d somehow managed to use in the kitchen, when I heard the key in the door. I stood awkwardly in the kitchen like a mother waiting to surprise her children, even though they were older than me. Nearing, if not up to depth in, their thirties.

I decided to venture into the narrow hall and was met by Kristof’s large frame heaving from the eight flight climb to the apartment. His flippers jutted out from a rucksack that was as big as he was.

Sonja was already in her room. I pinched my palms knowing she was probably inspecting it for cleanliness and perhaps running a sceptical, stock-taking eye over her possessions to ensure they were all where she had left them. The clothes horse took up much of the hall. One of the hinged ends was leaning against the coving of her door. Kristof stood blocking both the front door and door to the bathroom next to it. I leaned against the stretch of wall between my room and the kitchen, unsure how to go about excusing myself and escaping their company.

Sonja caught me off guard when she hugged me. She’d been rather cool towards me the previous two times we’d met — first to view the room, and second to pick up the keys and hand over the deposit. They ate their vegetarian kebabs in the kitchen while I retreated to my room and ignored them for the rest of the night.

The next morning Kristof made an unsolicited comment about my weight while we were alone in the apartment. Sonja had left for work and he, having nowhere to be, decided to play her guitar with the bedroom door open. I, also having nowhere to be, kept my door shut until the need to use the bathroom became impossible to supress any longer. He appeared almost instantly, as I knew he would.

I think I might go for a run, he said.

I used to run, I said. Then I messed up my knee and had to take intense inflammatory drugs that made me nauseous.

Kristof proceeded to demonstrate his running technique by lifting his knees high up into his chest and bouncing up and down on his toes.

You need to be careful, he said. Because you’re also not very lightweight. It’s not good for your knees.

We looked at each other for a few seconds. Him waiting for me to respond and me not knowing how to.

I need to use the bathroom, I said.

*

Kristof left about half an hour before Sonja returned home, citing her need for space and quiet after serving coffee to men in suits all day as the reason. I was in my room, about to face the stairs for a cigarette, when I heard her come through the door. I deliberately waited until I could hear the tell tale clanking of utensils and pots on the other side of my wall signalling that she was in the kitchen and there was an uncomplicated route from my room to the front door.

I think I might be pregnant, she said as I called hello to her from the hall. She was hunched before the fridge and unloading her groceries. I stood barefoot in the narrow corridor like space between the kitchen door and the gas cooker that was shoved into the corner next to the sink. The floor was white linoleum and riddled with stains despite daily hoovering from Sonja. I leaned on my heels to limit contact with it.

We had a passionate night on the beach near Jiyeh and didn’t use protection, she said. There was sand everywhere. It was great.

I momentarily questioned if I was the odd one for not sharing personal information with strangers I had just met.

Are you sure? I asked.

I’ll take a test at the weekend but there’s no way I can’t be. My boobs are huge.

How do you feel about it?

I feel ok, she said. I’m at an age where I have a good job, a good guy. I don’t mind being a single mom. My parents are divorced and I have friends who co-parent. I don’t have a problem with it. I just need to decide if Kristof is the right guy.

How does he feel about it?

He’s freaking out about not having a job. He’s kind but immature. I like my independence and I like my space to be mine but he wants to move in and have this structured family unit. He has a terrible relationship with his stepmother who he compared me to the other night.

She took out an aubergine and some peppers from the fridge and began chopping them at the little table next to the window.

What about if he moves into Tia’s room? I asked. That way you’d still have your space. Would you not have to move anyway, because of the stairs?

What? No. I love the stairs. It’s good for fitness.

Even with a pram?

She stood and dropped the knife into the sink.

Doesn’t bother me.

*

Thursday of that following week, Sonja burst into the kitchen while on the phone to Kristof, complaining that her room reeked of meat. I was in the midst of greeting her when she charged past to open the small top window and turned, leaving me with an apologetic regard of my beef burger and its treacherous sizzle on the pan.

I removed the long tray of marijuana plants she was seeing if she could grow from the windowsill onto the square meter table and tried to open the big window fully. The kitchen windows opened inwardly, and the proximity of the fridge meant the handle hit off it when it was only half opened. This cut the use of the small table in half. The marijuana tray jutted out over the other end. The only empty space was that above the washing machine but the sandwich maker was already claiming it.

I ate my burger out of the pan.

A couple of hours later, the buzzer rang and Kristof arrived. Still awake, I heard him stumble into the clothes horse as he went to the bathroom sometime after midnight. I met him again the next morning the same way I had the last time. This time he insulted my breakfast, branding it unappetising. I resisted commenting on the sheer amount of takeaways he brought with him whenever he visited the apartment. He confirmed the pregnancy and was surprised that I hadn’t heard Sonja crying hysterically the night before.
She’s panicking about the baby, he said. I don’t think she’s going to keep it. We think it’s too soon for our relationship.

She seemed ok with it the other day, I said.

Hormones, he replied.

As I sat down to enjoy my omelette, Kristof proceeded entirely unprompted to tell me all about the haemorrhoids he had on his ass before he switched to a douche. As he spoke, I recalled with horror, him using the shower every time he used the bathroom and made a mental note to keep my towel in my room whenever he was over.

*

Sonja vomited for half an hour every day at around three for the next week. She emerged tired and bleary eyed after a particularly voluminous retching episode.

Sorry for the sounds, she said.

All good, I said.

She smiled and I smiled back.

I booked my abortion, she said.

Oh.

I wasn’t sure if I should share what each of them had said to me separately. I was uncomfortable being thrust into their public private affairs with each other.

I thought you were happy to be a single mom, I said.

I’ve been keeping a journal about how I’m feeling, she said. And for every day I want to keep it, there are eight more where I don’t.

How does Kristof feel?

He agrees it’s the right decision. I had an abortion a year ago with the guy I was with before Kristof. I was really in love with him and got on really well with his daughter. His ex wife was psychotic and kept getting involved and trying to split us up. We weren’t exclusive and it was fine until I asked him if there was a future with us. He said he liked me but things were too complicated – she used finger quotes – with his ex-wife. We kept hooking up and when I told him I was pregnant, he wanted nothing to do with it. I didn’t want to bring a child up in such a toxic environment, so I had an abortion.

Sonja was very animated when she spoke. All arms and inhalations of words. I never got used to it.

He sounds like a dick, I said.

He was but he was really hot, she said.

She pulled up a Facebook photograph of him to show me.

He asked me to have a threesome with another hot guy recently and I almost said yes but it would have broken Kristof’s heart. I can’t even mention him to Kristof because he gets so insecure.

How long were you together? I asked.

On and off for about two years. I finally ended things last October. Then I met Kristof.

As I discretely began putting on my shoes, Sonja thanked me for listening to her over the last few days. Straightening myself, I was about to reply but she had already turned back into her room and was closing the door.

*

Sonja disappeared that weekend and for the days following it. She took her van with the bed she had built into the back by herself and drove out to one of the lakes outside the city to bleed. There were two tablets her gynaecologist gave her. One she was to take orally, the other she had to insert vaginally. When she arrived at the lake, she mixed up the pills.

She rang her gynaecologist who told her not to worry and that it would just mean a few extra days of bleeding. She swam every day in the lake and arrived home beaming with a plastic shopping bag from REWE full of dirty laundry and sheets.

How are you feeling? I asked.

I feel great, she said.

She took a break from loading her sheets into the washing machine to wiggle her arms and hips in a dance.

I still have a few cramps but other than that I’m so happy and relieved.

She closed the door of the washing machine and poured in the softener and detergent. It rumbled to life, rattling the sandwich maker above it.

Well, that’s good, I said. Did you bring Kristof with you?

She was examining the windowsill next to the washing machine. My eyes followed hers to the little flecks of soil I must have forgotten to wipe clean after my most recent cooking venture.

No, she said. I went alone.

She pressed a finger to one of the flecks of soil and rubbed her thumb back and forth against it.

But you’re happy? I asked. You made the right decision?

She wiped her finger on the windowsill and turned, opening the cupboard beneath the sink. She hunched down and removed a bottle of bleach before rummaging for a cleaning cloth. I stood awkwardly, wanting to help but not knowing how.

There is no right or wrong decision, she said. Just a decision.

*

On my last day in the apartment, I sat at the desk with all of Tia’s plants watered and returned to their original positions. I spent an hour drafting up several goodbye notes. Each time I was dissatisfied, I threw it in the bin by the wardrobe and had to retrieve it, forgetting I no longer lived there.

As the bells from the church rang out for noon, I found myself standing in the hallway looking in at the note I’d left on the little table by the window, debating whether or not I should leave it there.

It occurred to me then, as I was psyching myself up for lugging my suitcase with its battered wheels down the stairs and the fifteen-minute traipse over cobblestones to the U-Bahn station, how little information I had imparted about my life to Sonja. She hadn’t asked and I hadn’t offered.

In a few hours, Sonja would wear make-up for the first time since I had moved in. We wouldn’t say goodbye to each other. She would leave to go to a dance party in Templehof with Kristof, and I would leave the keys in the letterbox and no trace that I had ever lived in that apartment.

………………..

Rebecca Stiffe is a writer from Galway, Ireland. Her work has appeared in Crannog Magazine, The Irish Examiner and elsewhere.