The Course of Love. A novel pdfdrive com

The most superficially irrational, immature, lamentable, but nonetheless
common of all the presumptions of love is that the person to whom we have
pledged ourselves is not just the center of our emotional existence but is also, as
a result—and yet in a very strange, objectively insane and profoundly unjust way
—responsible for everything that happens to us, for good or ill. Therein lies the
peculiar and sick privilege of love.
It has also, over the years, been her “fault” that he slipped in the snow, that he
lost his keys, that the Glasgow train broke down, that he got a speeding fine, that
there is an itchy label in his new shirt, that the washing machine isn’t draining
properly, that he isn’t practicing architecture to the standard he’d dreamt of, that
the new neighbors play their music loudly late in the evening, and that they
hardly ever have much fun anymore. And, it should be emphasized, Kirsten’s
own list is, in this same category, neither any shorter nor more reasonable: it’s
all down to Rabih that she doesn’t see her mother enough, that her tights
constantly ladder, that her friend Gina never gets in touch with her, that she’s
tired all the time, that the nail clippers have gone missing, and that they hardly
ever have much fun anymore. . . .

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The world upsets, disappoints, frustrates, and hurts us in countless ways at every
turn. It delays us, rejects our creative endeavors, overlooks us for promotions,
rewards idiots, and smashes our ambitions on its bleak, relentless shoals. And
almost invariably we can’t complain about any of it. It’s too difficult to tease out
who may really be to blame—and too dangerous to complain even when we
know for certain (lest we be fired or laughed at).
There is only one person to whom we can expose our catalogue of grievances,
one person who can be the recipient of all our accumulated rage at the injustices
and imperfections of our lives. It is of course the height of absurdity to blame
them. But this is to misunderstand the rules under which love operates. It is
because we cannot scream at the forces who are really responsible that we get
angry with those we are sure will best tolerate us for blaming them. We take it
out on the very nicest, most sympathetic, most loyal people in the vicinity, the
ones least likely to have harmed us, but the ones most likely to stick around
while we pitilessly rant at them.
The accusations we make of our lovers make no particular sense. We would
utter such unfair things to no one else on earth. But our wild charges are a
peculiar proof of intimacy and trust, a symptom of love itself—and in their own
way a perverted manifestation of commitment. Whereas we can say something
sensible and polite to any stranger, it is only in the presence of the lover we
wholeheartedly believe in that can we dare to be extravagantly and boundlessly
unreasonable.
A few weeks after their return from Prague, a new and far larger problem arises.
Rabih’s boss, Ewen, calls a team meeting. After a decent last eight months, the
work pipeline is again looking barren, he confides. Not everyone currently
employed by the firm will be able to stay on board unless an amazing project
turns up soon. In the corridor afterwards, Ewen takes Rabih aside.
“You’ll understand, of course,” he says. “It won’t be anything personal.
You’re a good man, Rabih!” People who are planning to sack you should really
have the decency and courage not also to want you to like them, reflects Rabih.
The threat of unemployment plunges him into gloom and anxiety. It would be
hell to try to find another job in this city, he knows. He’d probably have to
move, and then what would Kirsten do? He is threatening to fail in his most
basic responsibilities as a husband. What madness it was, all those years ago, to
think he could have a career that would combine financial stability with creative
fulfillment. It was a mix of childishness and petulance, as his father always
hinted.
Today his walk home takes him past St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Cathedral.

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He’s never been inside before—the façade has always seemed gothically gloomy
and uninviting—but, in his perturbed and panic-stricken mood, he decides to
have a look around and ends up in a niche off the nave, in front of a large
painting of the Virgin Mary, who gazes down at him with sorrowful and kindly
eyes. Something in her sympathetic expression touches him, as if she knew a
little about Ewen Frank and the shortfall of work and wanted to reassure him of
her own ongoing faith in him. He can feel tears coming to his eyes at the contrast
between the challenging facts of his adult life and the kindness and tenderness in
this woman’s expression. She seems to understand and yet not condemn. He is
surprised when he looks at his watch and realizes that it’s been a quarter of an
hour. It’s a sort of madness, he concedes, for an atheist of Muslim descent to
find himself in a candlelit hall at the foot of a portrait of a foreign deity to whom
he wants to offer his tears and confusion. Still, he has few alternatives, there not
being many people left who still believe in him. The main burden of
responsibility has fallen on his wife, and that means asking rather a lot of an
ordinary, non-canonized mortal.
At home, Kirsten has made a zucchini, basil, and feta salad for dinner from a
recipe of his. She wants to know all the details about the work crisis. When did
Ewen tell them this? How did he put it? How did the others react? Will there be
another meeting soon? Rabih starts to answer, then snaps:
“Why do you care about these incidental facts? It just is what it is: a big
mess.”
He throws down his napkin and starts pacing.
Kirsten wants a blow-by-blow account because that’s how she copes with
anxiety: she hangs on to and arranges the facts. She doesn’t want to let on
directly quite how worried she is. Her style is to be reserved and focus on the
administrative side. Rabih wants to scream or break something. He observes his
beautiful, kindly wife, on whom he has become a constant burden. Eight times a
year at least they have scenes a little like this, when disasters happen out in the
world and Rabih brings them back to the hearth and lays them before Kirsten in
a muddled heap.
She joins him where he is standing by the fireplace, takes his hand in hers, and
says with warmth and sincerity, “It will be okay”—which they both know isn’t
necessarily true.
We place such demands on our partners, and become so unreasonable around
them, because we have faith that someone who understands obscure parts of us,
whose presence solves so many of our woes, must somehow also be able to fix
everything about our lives. We exaggerate the other’s powers in a curious sort of

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homage—heard in adult life decades down the line—to a small child’s awe at
their own parents’ apparently miraculous capacities.
To a six-year-old Rabih, his mother seemed almost godlike; she could find his
stuffed bear when it was lost, she always made sure that his favorite chocolate
milk was in the fridge, she produced fresh clothes for him every morning, she
would lie in bed with him and explain why his father had been screaming, she
knew how to keep the earth tilted on its correct axis. . . .
Both Rabih and Kirsten have learnt how to reassure the anxious child selves
concealed within their adult partners. That’s why they love each other. But they
have in the process also unknowingly inherited a little of that dangerous, unfair,
beautifully naive trust which little children place in their parents. Some primitive