When moving to a foreign country for the first time in your life, the list of stuff to worry about is pretty long. High on that list is where to live. I had been so fortunate to become a graduate student in an international collaboration, where I had to do my course work in my native Denmark, but the research project in a prestigious university in the north-east of the USA. And as the time to move to the US for a few years approached, I started to worry about securing myself a place to live.
There were possibilities on campus, but they seemed very unattractive. There were rooms to rent, but they were pricey and not terribly attractive either. I quickly found that the best option would be to share an apartment with other students, there were many apartments available and if we were two or three sharing a small one they were affordable. But figuring out which apartments were decent was kind of hard when located on another continent. Clearly the best would be to show up a month early, get a cheap motel room, and look for a decent apartment. So that was what I did.
It only took three days to find an apartment I liked. It was suitable for two students, pretty nice, and not too expensive. I signed a two-year contract and started looking for a roomie. Soon I had two people wanting to check out the place.
John was first, but while I could not put my finger on any obvious red flags, my instincts told me that we would hate each other within a month or so.
The second was Emma. In my mind I had always imagined sharing with another guy, but why not? She showed up on time, just after lunch; a tall and pretty good-looking young woman.
"Welcome, Emma," I greeted her, "I am Kim."
For a moment, she looked perplexed. "Oh, I thought Kim was short for Kimberley."
I smiled. "No, I am Danish. In Denmark it's a male name, it is not short for anything. I fully understand if you don't want to share an apartment with a guy. But you are welcome to look around anyway."
"Is that OK? I'll probably say a polite 'no', but it would be nice to have a look."
So I let her in. The main room of the apartment was living room in one end, kitchen in the other; I told her I imagined the living room as a combined living room and workspace. Two students could easily sit at the main table with their laptops. There was also a spacious bathroom, and two bedrooms.
"This is my bedroom," I pointed at the open door but did not invite her in. "And this would be your room. The lock in the door is broken, but I have just bought this sliding lock, I can install it in two minutes."
She looked at the room, and smiled.
"I like this apartment. What are you doing, by the way? You are a grad student, right?"
"Yes, my main research will be computer simulations of black hole formation. The physics is fascinating, but the math is horrendous."
"I am sure it is, probably coupled partial differential equations."
"Indeed," I say with a big smile. "Are you also in physics?"
"No, biology. I am modeling population dynamics, that's differential equations too. Probably not nearly as messy as yours, but still a bit daunting. Fortunately I am one of the few biologists who love math. And computers."
We sat down in the sofa, and talked a bit more about our research projects.
She looks at me. "You seem to be a nice guy, I could actually see myself living here. We could perhaps even help each other a bit with the numerical simulations, we probably have quite different approaches to that kind of stuff. I noticed the bathroom door locks. If you can install the slide lock on my bedroom before I move in, then we have a deal."
"I can install it now."
So I got my tools, and although I am not much of a handy-man I had the lock installed in ten minutes, without making a fool of myself. We went through the subletting agreement (that I found on a DIY law website), and she signed it.
"I'll move in tomorrow. See you, Kim!"
So Emma moved in, and the semester started. We would often sit with our computers in the living room, working on the research projects. We could not help each other much with the actually research, but having an intelligent sparring partner for the inevitable programming, debugging and general computer trouble turned out to be very valuable for us both, and we both spent a sizable fraction on our time working from home instead of on campus. During the first few months, we became friends.
I was single the entire semester, Emma got a boyfriend in October and dumped him without much drama in December. Otherwise the fall semester was productive but rather uneventful. We both celebrated Christmas with our families and were back in the apartment in early January.
In February I noticed Emma being uncomfortable. She smiled less, and was often scratching herself. One day, just after lunch she got up from her computer.
"I have an appointment with my doctor. I'll be back in an hour or two."
She did not normally tell me why she left; why would she, we were roomies not partners. But she was nervous and clearly not at ease as she left.
When she came back, she looked like she had seen a ghost. She sat down in the sofa next to me.
"Bad news?" I asked.
She nodded and began crying. I put my arm around her shoulder, to comfort a friend. We sat a while like that, she cried silently, I did not say anything. By then I knew her well enough to know that she would speak when ready.
"I have had itching rashes the last few week. I feared it was psoriasis, that is incurable and was about the worst I could imagine it could be." She sadly shook her head. "It's worse. Far, far worse."
"Do you want to talk about it."
"No, but I think I need to. My doctor think I have Kohmann's degenerative dermopathy. It's my immune system attacking my skin."
"That sound bad," I said.
"It is. He called a specialist at the hospital. She said she had no time to see me for the next two month. He said it could not wait two months, he suspected Kohmann's. I could hear her go silent on the phone, then she found a time for me tomorrow afternoon! That's how bad it is.
"I was scared, and he was clearly unwilling to tell me what Kohmann's dermopathy would mean for me. He said it wasn't sure, it could be it wasn't Kohmann. I pressed him. He told me that its incurable, but can be slowed down a bit with medication. But only a bit. Eventually, my skin will become more and more inflamed, and harder. Eventually it breaks down completely, and you cannot really live once your skin is gone. Even with medication I'll be lucky to live long enough to graduate."
She continued crying, and I could find nothing to say. But then, holding her was probably the best I could do. Eventually, she ran out of tears, I ordered pizza for both of us, and we ate them in awkward silence.
"Do you want a glass of wine or a beer? I don't think getting slightly drunk will help much, but perhaps a bit."
"No," she said. "Alcohol will accelerate it. I'll die sober." She tried to soften her words with a small smile.
A few hours later, we went early to bed. First, I could not sleep, and Googled Kohmann's dermopathy on my phone. I quickly stopped reading, that was not going to help! Eventually, sleep must have come.
The next morning, her eyes were red when she came out of her room. We ate breakfast, before sitting down in front of our computers. We stared into the screens for a few hours, without doing any real work, then we sat down on the sofa. I put my arm around her shoulder again, and tried to comfort her a bit. The hours felt like days, until it was time for her to leave for the hospital.
A few hours later, she came back. She was carrying a big bag, and put three bottles on the kitchen counter. Two were obviously white wine, the third looked suspiciously like a large bottle of olive oil. I had a hard time reading her facial expression, she was clearly in emotional turmoil. She found two glasses and began opening a bottle of wine.
"I thought you had to avoid alcohol."
She smiled a bit. "The good news is that I don't have Kohmann's. I am not going to die, and I can drink as much as I like."
"And the bad news?"
"The bad news require at least half a bottle of wine before I can even consider telling you."
"You don't have to if you don't want to. I am your roommate and your friend, not your partner."
"Oh, I have to. Trust me, I have to."
She sat down next to me in the sofa, and poured two glasses of wine. I took a sip of mine. She quaffed her glass, and poured another. I had never seen her drink like that before. The second glass followed the first, then she slowed down and sipped the third glass like a civilized human being. I poured my second glass.
Eventually, she gathered her courage.
"Its an allergy, pretty rare. I'm allergic to cotton fibers. I am allergic to my fucking clothes!"
"I guess you can use woolens, or synthetics?"
She shook her head. "Eventually. But not while the rash lasts. It is started by cotton fibers, but any kind of fiber will keep the rash going. The doctor said I'll have to be naked for a few weeks."
"Oh my!" I honestly did not know what to say. "Isn't there some kind of medication that can help."
"Steroid cream helps, but it is kind of expensive and has lots of nasty side effects. She recommended olive oil instead, the fat itself helps and there is something in olives that fights the rash."
We looked at each other in silence for a while.
"How do we handle this?" I asked. "I could mainly work at the department, and if we both stay in our rooms and make sure we don't meet here... It would work for a few weeks."
