After, she spends a lot of time on her own. Marcel is gone, but she's had so long to mull over that fact that she's left with little sense of loss. She's numb. She watches as the German regime falls in the aftermath of everything that happened, and of course she's happy, but there's so much in her that's left unfulfilled that she does the only thing she knows how: survive.
Shoshanna has to learn to get along without her theatre first and foremost. She finds a job as a projectionist in another cinema, but it isn't the same. For a long time, she's clumsy, because she gets distracted by all her thoughts. She's depressed, but she soldiers on. She isn't going to be destroyed by her own mind after everything she's gone through.
She grows older, staying unmarried, because to set herself up for more heartbreak seems foolish. Not that she doesn't receive her fair share of offers. Eventually, one of her suitors wears her down and she admits that it would be nice not to work so much, and so she marries a bookseller. They're happy together; childless, but with books to keep them company. She doesn't know that she ever really love him, per se, but he makes for a decent companion, and that's probably good enough.
And then he dies, of a fever, when she's fifty-six. So Shoshanna is stuck running a book shop. It's 1979. She does it, because there's nothing else for her to do, as far as she's concerned. And yet, there's always a thought, nagging in the back of her head. What if? But it's a stupid thought, so she pushes it aside until she retires and sells the bookstore, at sixty-two.
And then she travels. She sells her house, she packs up a few possessions, and she goes all over the world. America, Switzerland, even South America and Morocco and Greece. Eventually, she stops pretending that she hasn't been planning it for years, and she goes to Japan. Her airplane lands in Tokyo, and the little old woman with her thick grey hair deplanes, and steps out the doors of the airport, and catches a taxi to a little restaurant in a quiet part of town, because the sounds and the bustle of the city are a little bit too much for her. To look at her, one wouldn't expect her to be quite as old as she is. She's aged well, skin smoother than one might expect at her age, though the crow's feet near her eyes and the skin of her hands, loose and impossibly soft. The eyes are the same, and the serious expression on her face. She doesn't know what she's expecting; it's foolish to think that in such a huge city, anybody could find anybody, really. But still she sits at her little table by the window with a pot of tea and a cup and a bowl of miso soup.
no subject
Shoshanna has to learn to get along without her theatre first and foremost. She finds a job as a projectionist in another cinema, but it isn't the same. For a long time, she's clumsy, because she gets distracted by all her thoughts. She's depressed, but she soldiers on. She isn't going to be destroyed by her own mind after everything she's gone through.
She grows older, staying unmarried, because to set herself up for more heartbreak seems foolish. Not that she doesn't receive her fair share of offers. Eventually, one of her suitors wears her down and she admits that it would be nice not to work so much, and so she marries a bookseller. They're happy together; childless, but with books to keep them company. She doesn't know that she ever really love him, per se, but he makes for a decent companion, and that's probably good enough.
And then he dies, of a fever, when she's fifty-six. So Shoshanna is stuck running a book shop. It's 1979. She does it, because there's nothing else for her to do, as far as she's concerned. And yet, there's always a thought, nagging in the back of her head. What if? But it's a stupid thought, so she pushes it aside until she retires and sells the bookstore, at sixty-two.
And then she travels. She sells her house, she packs up a few possessions, and she goes all over the world. America, Switzerland, even South America and Morocco and Greece. Eventually, she stops pretending that she hasn't been planning it for years, and she goes to Japan. Her airplane lands in Tokyo, and the little old woman with her thick grey hair deplanes, and steps out the doors of the airport, and catches a taxi to a little restaurant in a quiet part of town, because the sounds and the bustle of the city are a little bit too much for her. To look at her, one wouldn't expect her to be quite as old as she is. She's aged well, skin smoother than one might expect at her age, though the crow's feet near her eyes and the skin of her hands, loose and impossibly soft. The eyes are the same, and the serious expression on her face. She doesn't know what she's expecting; it's foolish to think that in such a huge city, anybody could find anybody, really. But still she sits at her little table by the window with a pot of tea and a cup and a bowl of miso soup.