Peter Stamm: We're Flying

I wonder if he can hear me as clearly as I can hear him. When I’m taking a shower, I suddenly feel naked. When I go to the toilet, I lock the door and sometimes don’t flush, so that he doesn’t hear. I need to drink plenty of water for my kidneys: I seem to spend half my life peeing. In fact I’m only just starting to realize how much noise I make. That I keep my street shoes on in the apartment, turn up the radio when vacuuming, sometimes scold or sing to myself. I’d better stop all that right away. I buy a pair of soft-soled slippers. When I drop a glass and it shatters, I listen for minutes for some sound from upstairs. But nothing—silence.

I can’t stand it that he’s so near, doing God knows what, and listening to me. I start to go out a lot. Then I sit in a cafe, or go for a walk, even though it’s gotten cold again, and I need to be careful not to catch anything. Last year I had a bladder infection that simply refused to go away. I had to take antibiotics and was off work for days. Afterward, Janneke and Karin made snide remarks. A bladder infection. To them, that could mean only one thing.

Three days later, Patrick rings the bell, right after I’ve got home from work. He must have been waiting for me. He’s got a new sofa cover, and a gift-wrapped box. He helps me cover the sofa. Our hands touch. Inside the box is a fish kettle. Just because that time I made dinner, I said I wished I owned a fish kettle. Now he goes and buys me one. They’re not cheap.

You’re crazy. You didn’t have to do that.

Because of the trouble I put you to.

He smiles. We kiss for the first time. It just happens, I couldn’t say who started it. There’s something greedy about his kisses, he drapes his lips over mine, and shuts them and opens them and shuts them as though to gobble me up. The whole time he holds me firmly in his arms, and I feel how strong he is. I can hardly move. When I tell him he’s crushing me, he lets go right away and apologizes. He does like an apology. He seems embarrassed about having kissed me. I imagine him undressing me and sleeping with me on the newly slip-covered sofa. Sperm stains are tricky, by the way. Why do I keep thinking of all this nonsense. He’s just looking at me.

Now he’s upstairs again. I keep having to think of him though. I don’t know anything about him, not if the things in the apartment are his, not if he lives there, or is only staying for a while. I don’t know his middle initial, or his age, or what his job is. He seems not to be short of money for generous presents. I imagine what Janneke and Karin would say if they saw us together: Oh, she’s lost it now. Or: She’s beyond good and evil anyway. Or: She must be paying him, he’s exploiting her. And all the time I feel I’m exploiting him.

From now on we see each other every two or three days. Sometimes he comes down, sometimes I go up to him. We always know when the other is home. Sometimes we talk on the phone for hours. Then after a while I’m not sure if I’m hearing his voice through the phone or through the ceiling.

When we eat dinner together, we drink a lot, but he doesn’t seem to get drunk. We chat like old friends. We only kiss good-bye. It’s almost become a habit. I started the French kissing. I started stroking him. Then he does it too, but only with his fingertips, my hips and the small of my back where I feel pain sometimes. When I put his hand on my breast, he leaves it there for a moment inertly and then takes it away again. He needs time, I think. But I don’t have the time. Of course I don’t say so. I’ve gotten to be careful about what I say and don’t say. I keep an eye on him. I listen.

Some nights he doesn’t come home. I don’t sleep on those nights, and stay up and listen and in the morning I’m dog-tired. I hate myself for it, but I can’t help it. The next time we see each other, he tells me straight out where he was, with his parents or some friends or other that he hasn’t mentioned to me before. He must have sensed my distrust.

At work, Janneke asks me how I’m doing, and whether I’m sick again. She says I’m looking tired. I’m not sleeping properly, that’s all I say. I’ve lost weight. What can I do if I don’t have any appetite? Janneke says she wants to leave Stefan, that was one of her New Year’s resolutions she hadn’t yet told him about. We talk about her problems. Everyone comes to cry on my shoulder, but when I give them good advice, they don’t take it, they just say things aren’t that simple. Karin is in a bad mood, she doesn’t know why. She’s unbearable sometimes, even with the kids. Until one of them starts to cry. Then she cries too.

Patrick says he really likes me, and I’m much too good for him. Then he kisses me again, but he keeps me at a distance. I’ve already asked myself whether perhaps physically there isn’t something wrong with him. He looks fit enough, but that can be deceptive. There are more men all the time who can’t get it up, or who can’t be bothered with sex. The quality of sperm is falling off a cliff. It has to do with female hormones that leach into the groundwater.

I’ve set myself a deadline. If he hasn’t decided by the end of the month, then I’m putting an end to it. But now what do I mean by decided? I’m not exactly sure what I’m expecting from him. That he rips my clothes off and jumps me on the sofa? Certainly not. But that he opens himself to me. Entrusts himself. It’s a matter of a few words.

When I get home the next day, I can hear Hello by Lionel Ritchie booming down from the top floor, much louder than the music he usually plays. It was a CD I played to Patrick once. He must have bought himself a copy. He’s been waiting for me to come home, and this is his way of welcoming me. I’m expecting him to call, or come downstairs. I hear him leave his apartment. But he keeps going, and shortly after, the street door falls shut. It’s after midnight when he gets back. I hear his footfall, the slow steps, the creaking of the floorboards. For a second, I think he’s not alone, but that can’t be. Then silence. Silence is the worst. I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept for days. I have the most ridiculous imaginings, horrible things that I feel ashamed to entertain.

On his birthday, he makes me dinner. He’s gone to unbelievable trouble, he’s even decorated the table with chocolate ladybirds. I manage to get a stain on my blouse and take it off to wash it out properly. Patrick has followed me into the kitchen, we’re talking, he’s looking at me. But he acts as though there’s nothing the matter. I could strip naked in front of him, he wouldn’t even notice. That can’t be normal. I wonder what his game is. I go downstairs and put on a clean blouse. While I’m downstairs, I hear him go to the toilet, and flush twice. Ideally, I wouldn’t go back upstairs. We’re in closer touch when we’re apart, when we only hear each other.

We drank a lot of wine with dinner, a whole bottle. When we kissed good-bye, he suddenly started whispering it’s not fair, and he stopped. Now I’m lying in my bed, and I can’t sleep. He’s directly above me, just a few yards away. I spread my legs and imagine him on top of me, doing it to me. He’s pinning my arms, the way he does when he kisses me. He’s grabbing my hair, pulling it, slapping my face. I throw my legs around him. He’s kissing me hungrily. We’re sweating. There’s silence, all I can hear is him breathing, his breath in my loosened hair. I stretch out my arms to him. Come, I whisper to him, come! Come! He’s so close, I can almost feel him.

CHRISTOPH SWITCHED THE light off and the group fell silent. After a few seconds of darkness, there was disquiet, chairs creaked, someone cleared his throat, there were other sounds that were hard to trace. As the first whispers began, Christoph switched on the microphone, and the sudden element of amplification made the space appear still bigger and the darkness still more intense. If he’d been very concentrated and managed to focus his attention on the group, then surely it would be possible to get by without slides, and finally even without words, and just be in the dark and allow time to elapse for an hour or two.