text: "We can't afford that." Despite the promises, she heard the sentence again, and to amplify the injury it did anyway, she heard it right in front of the salesman, who had patiently shown them the twenty three thousand dollar leather couch. She thought she saw in the eyes of the salesman, the worst, the most humiliating and insulting of all emotions, pity. Though it was just a flash and though after all, Camilla could still somewhat rely on being much wealthier than this neat and inconspicuous man, it nonetheless ruined her day and her mood. Being pitied by an ordinary. Wordless she turned around, stuck her nose up in the air and left, stomping her heels on the marble floor. William looked after her then made a brief, explanatory gesture in the salesman's direction, whose friendly manner, William thought, couldn't hide a sort of commiseration, which half amused and half angered him. Though Camilla's temper at times would run wild and ruin an afternoon, William was certain that his wife possessed countless times the beauty and ability for societal grace than whomever the man in front of him shared a marital bed with. "Shall we reserve the couch for you, in case you reconsider?" the salesman asked. "Yeah, do that." William answered. "It is reserved for two weeks." "Thanks." said William, knowing that in two weeks, nothing about his financial situation would have changed and they would never come back to buy the couch. And then when money was coming in, and who knew when that would be, for the disgrace, they would shun this expensive and exclusive furniture store. So William was aware, he would never see the salesman again and thus was even less anxious than before to display any excess courtesy. William Stephenson was a man who couldn't help but reflect his inner workings onto the world around him. Three prosperous years of ascent in the banking sector had left his environment under the impression to be dealing with a man of constant, mellow satisfaction. The last year, where this ascent had come to an involuntary halt had left William many days agitated and short fused. Where there had been good manners and an unobtrusive interest in the people he encountered, were now a more or less concealed indifference and a certain uncivilness. The latter was inherited from his late grandfather, who had become known, in the elderly days, for an offensive and intended lack of good breeding, which had seemed like an attempt to alienate the most amount of people possible before his death and William, until this day, suspected the old man of having had a thievish joy in it. William turned around and left and gave no response to the "Good day, sir." The salesman thought nothing in particular of William and Camilla. He was too much of a professional and dealt with too many moody snobs, to do that, or to take any of their behaviour personally. He was rearranging the cushions of the couch with stoic, butler-like neatness when the entrance door shut behind William. He found Camilla in the car, browsing through a clothes catalog and he, in a burst of impatience yanked it out of her hand and only a piece of the page she had been holding remained there. "Asshole." she muttered and crossed her arms and looked out of the window. She carelessly dropped the snippet from her hand to the floor and William turned to her and said "Pick that up." "What?" she returned indignantly, in theatrical disbelief. "Pick it up." he repeated. "Pick it up or you walk home but you won't be littering my goddamn car." he wasn't in the mood to fight and wanted to make a definite, indisputable point. But Camilla, when she was defiant, always made it her mission to show William how little she took him seriously. She just chuckled, took the snippet up, ripped it in half, and dropped both pieces to the floor again. William got out of the car and was at her door before she could lock it from the inside. He yanked it open and she gave a shriek when he seized her arm. He began pulling and her shriek enlarged to a hysterical scream which attracted attention all around and even from the little, neat, butler of a salesman inside the furniture store, who was as far as a monk removed from any nosiness or gossip. Foaming, William let go of her arm and shut the door and cast a challenging glance around. But as this glance was reflected in one or two witnessing faces of men, and he was in no more of a mood to fight with them than with his wife, he got back into the car and drove off and for a while they both said nothing. Their drive home, from downtown back into the upper suburbs, was forty minutes. Camilla switched on the radio and William switched it off again directly. She rolled the window down and he rolled it up again. And condescendingly, trying everything to sound bored by these antics, she said "Really? How old are you William?" and as he didn't respond she added, more to herself, "That might be illegal." "You know what's illegal?" he returned "Embarrassing everybody who is with you by acting like a damn spoiled child." "Oh, Willy..." she said sarcastically but as he stopped the car, almost making it an emergency stop and drove on to the parking lane, she sat up straight, aware to have crossed the line. “Get out.” he said. “No.” Camilla said. “You get out of the car, now.” “I am sorry, William, can we please just go home?” “Get out.” “You can’t throw me out. Please. Just let us go home and then we order food and tonight all will be forgotten and tomorrow we will laugh about our silliness.” William pulled the key out of the ignition, opened his door and stepped outside. It was a beautiful day. The snowwhite clouds painted manifold shapes on a richly blue canvas. He took a deep breath and realized at once how tired he was and how much in need of tranquility. He looked to the left and right and then crossed the street, where on the other side he spotted a small book store. He saw himself now, finding momentary peace between the bookshelves, maybe opening one or two and reading a few pages, smelling the young paper and new ink. Way too long he hadn’t found the time to read because his weekends were usually spent now on brunches and then dinners with Camilla’s friends or boring, exhausting and meaningless shopping sprees. Not for the first time, he noticed how much Camilla’s shallow interests were mercilessly consuming his time and energy. He had, for this briefest interval, in his joyful expectancy of the little world of peace, almost forgotten his car behind him, in which Camilla was still sitting. The moment he laid his palm on the book store’s door handle, Camilla’s voice, screaming after him, served as a painful reminder. “William!” she screamed. But he overcame the moment of hesitation and despite her protest, entered and pulled the door shut and was embraced by the pleasant silence he had anticipated. The place was like a mellow dream, like every book store, a secluded, little, parallel world co existing, in a state of perfect harmony, next to all the rush and the din. As a child and a youth, William had done nothing rather than reading and had there been a career path, making him an underpaid man whose only purpose was reading books, he would have taken it without hesitation. But then there had been college and then some years later, half through connections and half through headless dedication, he had ended up in banking. There he forfeited, each day, mirth and mind, occupied solely with the soulless shifting of money and it weighed on him heavier than he would have admitted. He was grandly paid but they had promised him a promotion, a huge leap for his career a while back and in anticipation of that, he had begun living above his income, significantly propelled by Camilla and her longing for luxury and the upper class. Then they had withdrawn their offer and postponed William’s promotion until an unknown point in time. They were contractually obligated to give him the promotion sooner or later but they could and would do it at their discretion. Something that William was content with but also something, a narrow mind as Camilla’s, clouded by status conscious egotism wasn’t able to grasp. A fairly young woman, who had, in her upbringing, never experienced a delay in the gratification of her wishes, she had grown up to be under the constant impression, that the world’s purpose was her own entertainment. It became harder and harder for William to conceal his wife’s raging character flaws from his own scrutiny and the day where he finally had to acknowledge and face them approached inexorably. He traversed the rows of books with long, slow strides and the carpet absorbed every noise his steps would have made. He was looking for the section with english classics and soon found it and stood before it. It was like he was revisiting a familiar place of his childhood and the memories overwhelmed his comprehension. There they were, his havens, the sites of his childhood fancy, neatly placed, shoulder to shoulder, ready to invite and to welcome and supply every seeking soul with all of life’s endless possibilities. He picked out one of the books, some Fitzgerald, and couldn’t help but feel that the story of his own life was sometimes inspired by a recent reading of this virtuoso. He picked another one, a Dickens book and was transported back to his grandpa’s fireside, the most sheltered place of his childhood where he had devoured the stories of Copperfield and Pip. As so often, when the greatest pleasure, and even passion, invokes the wildest fancy, there came ideas into William’s head as to never go back. Never go back to Camilla or banking. For a moment he was sure he could find a job as a librarian or open his own book store, easily. For a moment he was sure, the only thing separating him from this dream of a life, forever surrounded by books, was a bit of courage that he yet needed to muster. For this brief interval of wandering thoughts, all of the economic sacrifice that came with a life as this, seemed negligible, even thinking of it appeared like a petty by-product of a spoiled and weakened mind. He took the two books he had opened, and a few others, with him to the counter. There he waited a moment before a young woman of maybe twenty two came out of the back room. William had inhibitions to start a conversation not related to their business transaction, as one usually has around strangers. But the vehemence of his inner workings, simply rendered it inevitable. And when he had paid, after the usual, small-talking friendliness, he said “Could I ask you another question?” “Sure.” the young woman replied. “Has it always been your dream to work in a bookstore?” At this moment, so entirely taken up by his imaginations, the only possible reason, in his mind, for anybody, to work in a bookstore, or own one, was a higher calling, a purpose and a life’s passion for literature and the written word. The young woman however looked at him in amused disbelief as to say ‘Are you kidding me?’ but as he didn’t waver and in earnest waited for a reply, she said “Oh, no. my dream?” she repeated the word as if she had to make sure that she had understood it correctly. “How much money do you think I make?” William was taken aback and found the question endlessly chastening. It was like a rude awakening from his romantic fantasizing. He was at once brought back to reality. A reality in which money was important. In which you needed to do things like banking in order to make it. And one in which not every bookstore owner or employee was part of a detached society which held the key to happiness without it. The young woman repeated the question but William was sullen now and unwilling to answer it. The world waiting for him outside of the bookstore had materialized again, returning from its brief repression, and him living in it, without a quick way for escape, was inevitable. It was a world in which Camilla would nag him about a new couch and about dinner with her boring, empty friends, in the course of which, William knew, he would become more boring and more empty himself because you are guilty by association when it comes to shallow stupidity. “Goodbye.” William said. “The answer is not a lot.” said the young woman, who was now, judging by William’s rudeness, under the impression that his question about her dream had been a mocking, ironic one. William was in no mood to further engage with her. Deep down, he did not like himself when he was unfriendly but there were moments in which he couldn’t help himself.