NATALIE ROBINSON

Maia

Each night at 9pm I leave my parents’ house and get on my red rusted bike and take myself to the swimming pool. The pool is quiet in its final hour before closing. Often just two or three of us. Occasionally I am alone. I won’t allow myself at any other time, but when I swim I think of Maia.

I think about the home we made in Berlin. The grey linen sofa we bought brand new but still slouched in the middle from the way we sat together. The flowers from the market to colour the kitchen shelves; tulips were her favourite. The pretty macramé she would weave on Sundays, hanging from everywhere possible. The white-painted walls that made the place feel airy and bigger or perhaps that’s what our happiness did. Because in the end it felt too small, closing in.

I think about Maia in her sun-filled studio, holding her tattoo pen with that confident poise. Inking her art onto other bodies. I remember when she started, practicing on patches of pig skin, her wicked birds and spiral roses. The pig skin was this strange and human-looking thing, piles of it.

*

When Maia met Romer Vogt and his strange black-eyed son, Lukas, I wasn’t paying attention. I was busy working at the restaurant, it was taking the best of me. And Emma, my manager – we were flirting, I suppose, and spending all this extra time but it meant nothing really, nothing serious.

Maia tattooed Romer. That was how they met, I think. They’d emailed before, I imagine. That was the usual way of it. He would have sent her his wish and she would have designed it, priced it for him, confirmed the appointment and given him her studio address. It was hard to find, up a small street and then through the back of this maze-like apartment building. She shared the studio with Simon who we laughed about because he was really quite boring but his tattoos were getting famous on social media. Fantasy cities that would cover your whole back. Hours and hours and this intricate detail. What he lacked in personality he made up for like this. Simon took the space Mondays and Tuesdays. Wednesdays and Thursdays were for Maia, on Saturdays they might both be there. I’m not sure what day Romer was in but I hate that it was probably only Maia, there alone.

She inked this symbol on Romer’s wrist. I remember her telling me about it. It was raining loud and it was late and we were in bed and she was showing me this symbol on her phone. How it was something to do with this group he was in. Maia said she was thinking about messaging him. She told me all this like it was her idea; perhaps, she said, she could ask Romer to meet up with her for coffee. I think about this now and I wonder if this is really how it all unfolded, her pursuing him.

The next time Romer came up it was several weeks later, when I remembered to ask about that coffee. Oh, it was great, she said. Romer is a great guy, she said. He has a son called Lukas, he’s sweet. She looked at me, smiling. You’ll meet them both soon, she said, they’re coming over. Why? I remember replying. Which was rude, I realised, it was just the first thing that came out of me. Apparently, in the absence of my asking, she’d not just met up with Romer one time, she’d seen him again. She’d seen him most evenings, recently, actually. I’d been working until midnight or later, and when I got home she was already asleep, or about to go to bed or we would watch a show and not really talk properly, I guess. But now it turned out she was part of this group. I remember thinking I don’t know my own girlfriend anymore. I remember thinking: this is my fault. Ok, I told her and I said sorry sorry and kissed her and I would meet them, of course I would.

The group, she explained to me, were called the Kollectiv. They were like a kind of welcome committee, she said. Helping people who came to the city with nothing, for whatever reason. Giving them community, setting them up here. The group was more than a volunteer thing, she said. It was a lifestyle. Ok, I thought, intense. But it sounded like a good thing all in all. Helping people. The group was Romer’s idea, he was in charge. His tattoo was of their logo. It had looked to me like a Venn diagram. Maia said it symbolised the crossing over of worlds. Right, I said.

Romer arrived into our living room like a stormcloud with ominous energy and the feeling that something soon could break. He was an attractive man in a dangerous way, with a great deal of black hair and a mouth like a line. His son was in front of him, saying his polite hellos like a ventriloquist dummy. He wasn’t sweet, he was creepy. He had these horribly dark-set eyes and was shaped like a square. He looked around at our home and seemed unimpressed, though maybe that was just his face and he was a child and so really, I was a horrible judgmental adult. I went then to take his coat kindly but he pulled it sharply away from me. NO, he boomed. Was he really booming? I looked to Maia who smiled, shrugged. Lukas looked to Maia and gave the coat to her.

Lukas ate quickly, finished his plate in what could only have been about two minutes, pushing it away from him in a done-with-this gesture that looked like a fuck you. When Romer asked me my thoughts on his Kollectiv, I said quite sullenly that it was nice Maia was involved, said something about us having separate interests and I probably shut it down. Lukas was spinning his fork on his plate, around and around it clattered. After dinner, Maia announced they were going to a meeting, that I could come, if I wanted to – it was in the old pottery shop, the one by the park. I said no, thanks, it’s fine, it was lovely to meet you etc etc.

I picked up double shifts and I started smoking more so I could go out and stand with Emma under the little lights at the back of the kitchen. We stood close and we talked about normal things and she was a relief to me. I escaped into her soft way of chatting. Maia was distant and changed but in ways I felt I couldn’t quite pin down or would seem petty if I said them aloud. She had started wearing this very red lipstick. She would often come in later than me, would be up and out of bed before I woke. I knew she was spending evenings with Romer’s group. But I thought about it like some kind of civic duty. I didn’t know.

When I spotted Simon at the station early one morning, I tapped him on the shoulder and said hello. When he bristled at the sight of me and demanded to know about Maia I was taken aback. When was she going to pay rent on the studio? When was she going to show her face? When I brought it up with Maia, she said that Simon was dramatic. Maia’s time and money was her own, what more could I say? But I said: I’m worried about you. So then I was dramatic too.

Just give her some space, Emma suggested, and because this advice seemed the easiest to follow, I did.

Sometime later, our landlord got in touch. We were late on a payment – was there any problem? I didn’t know of any, I said. I was sorry. I would sort it. When I confronted Maia, she said she had other commitments now. I have other commitments now. She placed her hands on her hips and I could see at the turn of her arm, a Venn diagram newly inked. I couldn’t believe it. I went to bed.

Maia sat at the end of the bed and told me she was moving out. I was trying to come round. I felt like a deadweight. She was saying things like it’s been months now and things are bad between us. And why in the hell was I surprised?! I’d taken a sleeping pill and this all felt hazy. I tried to think about it. Maia was shouting now: How on earth could I not be ready for this?! She obviously had no time for the studio. She obviously couldn’t pay rent anymore. She obviously needed to live with them, with Romer and his son. I didn’t know how to respond. I found myself telling her: do as you wish, and I rolled over, turning away.

When I went to the old pottery shop, across from the park, there was nothing there but an almost-empty storefront. Yes, this was used for a group, the woman cleaning inside told me. But they’ve left now, a pop-up art exhibit is coming in. She handed me a leaflet. Maia’s phone went to voicemail. I kept saying to myself: but I don’t understand. Leaving my message at the beep: I don’t understand.

I next saw her on the news. First Romer. His picture. A Wanted Man it said. A Criminal. A Criminal on the run with a child, a small boy aged eleven. Wanted for running a scam, for racketeering, for coercion, for human trafficking, for modern slavery. For stealing the lives of the people they promised they would help. I was going to vomit. Pictures of the co-conspirators. Maia’s face then. Large and in full colour. It was a photo from her studio-Instagram, a selfie. She was staring into the camera with her serious eyes and her hair was in braids and pulled back tight. I was stood in a Saturn store surrounded by people. I had been looking for the phone chargers. And here she was on twenty HD screens. I felt dizzy, doubled over.

There was so much news and there was no news. No news of their whereabouts. It felt ended and endless. How could I know so little, when I lived with Maia, when she was my partner, a detective said to me over and over, incredulous and finally bored. I don’t know. I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I didn’t ask.

I gave up our apartment because I couldn’t be inside it anymore, and I couldn’t afford it alone. I couldn’t be around the people who knew us together. I couldn’t do my job and I couldn’t face Emma; I left with a phone call. I packed my stuff into two suitcases and I took the train to Munich.

I just need some space. My teenage bedroom is unchanged, floral and comforting. The food my mother cooks is the same. They never met Maia and I don’t mention her. They are pleased to have me home. I spend my days reading. I say I am looking for work. I wear the clothes that I left here in my wardrobe and I feel like the years have slipped back. I help my father in the garden. Maybe I’ll study again, a Master’s in Literature would be a nice thing to do. I see some friends who are still in the neighbourhood and we talk about old times and we laugh. Each night at 9pm, I get on my red rusted bike and take myself to the swimming pool. The pool is quiet in its final hour before closing. Often just two or three of us. Occasionally I am alone. I won’t allow myself at any other time, but when I swim I think of Maia.

Natalie is a writer currently based in Dublin, Ireland. Her work has appeared in New Irish Writing, Anti-Heroin Chic, Sans. PRESS and was shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2025. Natalie is part of the Stinging Fly Six-Month Fiction Writing Workshop 2025/6. You can read more of her writing on Instagram @natalierobinsonpoetry.