Peter Stamm - We're Flying

When you go back to the village in the evening, you see the boy you saw before. He is squatting on the ground beside the path, playing with a piece of wood. He pushes it around on the ground, a cow, a pig, who knows what he sees in it. You ask him. He looks up at you in apprehension, as though you’d caught him doing something forbidden. Perhaps he doesn’t recognize you.

A coach, monsieur.

As if you were able to see it.

Where is it going?

To Paris.

That’s where I’m going soon. Do you have room in your coach?

He laughs. He’s laughing at you. You’ve fallen for it.

It’s just a bit of wood.

A bit of wood, a piece of paper, a canvas. Call it a coach, a bridge, a landscape. Call it a person. It’s a game. Any child knows that.

What are you doing it for?

He looks at you with that expression of utter blankness of which only children are capable. Then he stands up and runs away. He has left his toy behind at your feet. You stoop to pick it up. It is just a bit of wood, a wretched piece of wood.

WILL YOU BE coming alone? the woman on the telephone asked me again. I hadn’t managed to catch her name, and couldn’t place the accent. Yes, I said. I’m looking for somewhere quiet where I can work. She laughed a little too heartily, then asked me what my work was. I’m a writer, I said. What are you writing? An article about Maxim Gorki. I’m a Slavist. Her curiosity bugged me. Is that right? she said. She seemed to hesitate for a second, as though not sure whether to pursue the subject or not. All right, she said, come. Do you know how to get here?

In January I had taken part in a symposium on female characters in Gorki. My presentation on Summer Folk was to appear in a Festschrift, but I hadn’t managed to find time in my crowded university schedule to take it out and polish it. I had kept my calendar free for the week before Ascension and was looking for a place where I could hope to remain completely undisturbed. A colleague recommended the Kurhaus. As a child he had spent many summer vacations there. The then-owner had gone out of business, but he heard the hotel reopened a few years ago. If you’re looking for somewhere really quiet, that will be perfect. I used to hate it when I was a kid.

Buses only went up to the Kurhaus in summertime. She wouldn’t be able to meet me, the woman said on the phone, without giving me a reason, but I could walk up from the nearest village, it wasn’t far, no more than an hour or so.

THE BUS WOUND UP through steeply terraced farmland. There weren’t many passengers, and when we reached the end of the line, I was the only one remaining, apart from a couple of schoolboys who quickly disappeared into various houses. I had packed just a couple of changes of clothes, but with a stack of books and the laptop, my backpack still probably weighed forty pounds. What have you got in there? asked the bus driver, dragging it out of the luggage bay. Paper’s heavy, I said, and he looked at me doubtfully.

In front of the post office were a couple of signposts pointing in various directions. I followed one little lane, which turned into a path crossing a steeply inclined meadow, and then down into a narrow wooded gully. At the edge of the wood were larches and oaks, the interior was all spruce. All over lay felled trees, dried-up skeleton pines, with a few last traces of snow under them. The ground was boggy, and my feet sank deeply into the black mulch. I repeatedly felt spiders’ webs catching on my face and hands. I saw no signs of other hikers, presumably I was the first this year.

After a while, I realized it was quite some time since I’d last seen a signpost, and sure enough, the path soon lost itself among the trees. I didn’t feel like turning around, so I headed down the slope, which grew steeper and steeper. In places I had to grab hold of roots or branches, once I slipped a few yards and tore my pants. The rushing of the stream below grew louder, and when I reached it, I found the path again. The stream was a rapid mountain brook, with gray water. Its broad bed of gravel and light-colored stones looked like an open wound cut into the dark of the rest of the landscape. I was making better headway now, and after about half an hour I came to a little boardwalk. The ground below the supports had been washed away, and a fallen tree had come to rest squarely across the boardwalk. The impact had sheared off the rails and smashed some of the planking. I cautiously made my way over it. On the far side of the ravine, the path climbed sharply up, and I started to sweat, even though the air in the forest was cool.

It wasn’t for another two hours till I saw the Kurhaus looming through the trees. Five minutes more and I was standing in front of an impressive art nouveau structure. The valley ground was already in shadow, but the hotel, standing a little higher, caught the full evening sun and was dazzling white. All the shutters except one on the ground floor were closed, there was no one to be seen, and only the rushing of the brook to be heard. The double doors at the front were open, and I walked in. The lobby was almost dark. Through the colored glass of the inner door panels a few rays of sun fell on the worn Persian rug covering the flagstones. The furniture was sheeted over.

Hallo-o, I called softly. There was no reply, and I walked through a pair of swing doors that had the words Dining Room over them in old-fashioned script. I found myself in a large room with two or three dozen wooden tables, all with upturned chairs on them. In the far corner of the room was an illuminated table with a woman sitting at it. Hallo-o, I called out, a little louder than before, and walked across the room toward her. Even before I got to her, she was standing up and coming to meet me with hand outstretched in greeting, saying, Welcome, my name is Ana, we spoke on the telephone.

She had to be about my age, dressed like a waitress in black skirt and white blouse, with sleek, shoulder-length black hair. I asked if the hotel was closed. Not anymore, she said, and smiled. On her table was a plate of ravioli, half-eaten. Just one moment, said the woman. She sat down and, gulping it down, finished her dinner. It didn’t seem to bother her that I was standing there watching her eat. I hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch, and was starting to feel hungry, but I wanted to go to my room first, shower, and get out of my clothes. When she belatedly gestured toward a chair, I sat down facing the woman. Tell me about your work, she said. I told her once again what I was doing here. She wiped her mouth on the napkin and asked, What do you find so interesting about that? I shrugged my shoulders and said, I had been invited to the conference. Gender studies was hot at the moment. And why always women? she asked. I said I didn’t know, I supposed men were less interesting. She took a sip of wine and washed down the last of her food. I’ll show you to your room now.

In the lobby she disappeared behind the front desk and rooted around inside it. After a while she pushed a pad across to me and asked me to fill in the form. I wrote in my details. When I turned the page to look up the last few entries, she took the pad from my hand and put it away. Would you mind paying in advance? I said that was fine. Seven days full board, she did the math, that makes four hundred and twenty francs, including tax. She took the bills from me and said she would give me the change later. And a receipt please, I said. She nodded, emerged from behind the desk, and walked toward the wide stone staircase. Only now did I notice that she was barefoot. I picked up my backpack and set off after her.

She was waiting for me on the second floor at the start of a long, gloomy passageway. Do you have any special requests? she asked. When I said I didn’t, she opened the very first door and said, Then why don’t you just take this one here? I stepped into the room, which was smallish and without much in the way of furniture, except a poorly made bed, a table and chair, and a dresser with an old china basin on it containing a jug full of water. The walls were whitewashed and bare, except for a crucifix hanging over the bed. I headed straight for the French window that opened onto a tiny balcony. You shouldn’t go out there, said Ana from the corridor. I asked her where she slept. What’s it to you? I just wondered. She looked at me crossly and said just because she was on her own here didn’t mean that I could walk all over her. I hadn’t had any ill intentions, and stared at her in surprise. I asked what time dinner was. She frowned, as though concentrating hard, then said I should just come when I was ready. Then she vanished, only to reappear briefly in the doorway and drop a set of sheets and a towel on the table beside me.