Peter Stamm - We're Flying

Alice had never wanted children. When Niklaus found that out, his first reaction had been relief, and he saw that it was only convention in him that had assumed he would one day start a family. On the occasions they had talked about it, it had been to assure each other that they had come to the right decision. Perhaps there’s something wrong with me, said Alice with a complacent expression, but I find children boring and annoying. Perhaps I have a wrong gene somewhere. They both worked hard and enjoyed their work, Alice in customer service at a bank, Niklaus as an engineer. If they had had children, one of them would have had to sacrifice his career, and that was something neither of them was prepared to do. They traveled to exotic countries, had been on a trekking holiday in Nepal and a cruise to the Antarctic. They often went to concerts and plays, and they went out a lot. All that would have been impossible with children. But sometimes Niklaus wondered if having a family might entail not just a loss of freedom, but perhaps a certain gain as well, perhaps he and Alice might have been more independent of each other, without the exclusivity of love and irritation.

Alice had grown up as an only child, while Niklaus’s siblings had no children themselves, so he and Alice knew only other adults. When friends of theirs came to have children, they usually lost contact soon after. If families came to visit, Niklaus and Alice were usually tense and impatient, and reacted clumsily to the clumsy efforts of the children to make friends. Then Niklaus would feel ashamed of himself. He had never regretted not having children, but sometimes he regretted that he had never even felt the desire to have any.

FROM NOW ON, the Stuttgarters were often in their garden. Half the time the children would be squabbling, and the rest of the time they contrived to be just as noisy. The older of the two was a girl of about six. Every so often, for no evident reason, she liked to issue a piercing scream. Her brother was maybe half her age. He was capable of keeping himself amused for fully a quarter of an hour at a time by bashing two objects together. He would only stop when his father yelled at him. Then the mother would yell at her husband, and he would shout loudly back. The coarse dialect didn’t exactly improve matters. At other times Niklaus would see through the shrubbery between the two properties how the man knelt in the grass beside the woman in her deck chair, and rubbed her with tanning lotion. She would have her bikini top off, and he was kneading away at her breasts, seemingly unconcerned whether anyone could see him. Eventually the two of them would disappear, and a quarter of an hour later, Niklaus would hear one or another of the children banging on the front door, calling for the parents.

Alice could stand the noise for ten minutes at most. A few days later, the mere sight of the neighbors in their garden made her turn on her heel. They took their meals indoors now, when they didn’t go to the local trattoria. Niklaus would propose trips, but Alice turned them all down. She was at war, and had to guard the terrain. Why don’t you say something? she demanded. Niklaus looked blank and shrugged his shoulders. What can I say? If they were playing music outside, or making noise at night, then I could complain. I can’t tell them not to talk. Children can’t help being noisy. A rotten upbringing isn’t punishable. Common is what they are, said Alice, and Niklaus nodded thoughtfully.

WHEN NIKLAUS WAS SITTING alone on the terrace, he would catch himself repeatedly looking across to the neighbors’ garden. The woman lay out on her deck chair all day long, doing her puzzles. She had taken to sunning herself topless. She had small firm breasts that reminded Niklaus of those of the Polynesian women in Gauguin’s paintings. He felt a desperate desire to go over and touch them.

Sometimes the man would take the children to the beach, and Niklaus would prowl restlessly around the property, imagining how he might get into conversation with the woman. He would make some casual remark, and she would ask him where he was from. Oh, Switzerland, we only ever drive through it. Then she would realize the laundry was still in the machine. She would put on her top and he would follow her inside, where it was cool and quiet. She would look him long in the eye. Well, what about it? she would say, and take him by the hand.

When Niklaus turned around he saw Alice standing at the window. She seemed to be observing him. He went inside. Alice hadn’t stirred, she was still standing by the window, as though he were still outside. He laid one hand on her shoulder; she tried to shrug it off, but he wouldn’t let her, and spun her around to face him, and kissed her. It took a while before Alice responded, and after a bit she freed herself, and said with a sarcastic laugh that the laundry must be finished. Niklaus followed her into the little room off the kitchen where the washing machine stood and watched as she took out their clothes, giving each individual item a shake. He followed her into the garden and helped her hang up the wet clothes. She kept the underthings separate, and draped them indoors on a little rack, as she did at home. I have the feeling nothing gets properly dry here, she said. Her voice sounded softer than usual. That’ll be on account of the high humidity, said Niklaus. And they don’t get properly clean either, said Alice. This time she didn’t resist when Niklaus kissed her.

THEY LAY SIDE BY SIDE in silence. Alice had covered herself with a sheet, even though it was hot. Her expression kept changing, switching among the most diverse feelings: surprise, mockery, tenderness, grief. She seemed unable to decide on any one of them. Niklaus tucked his hand under the sheet and stroked her breasts, which were satin soft and had grown fuller over time. They hadn’t slept together in ages, in fact he couldn’t remember the last time. If you think …, he began, and stopped. Alice turned to him quickly, smiled affectionately, and looked away again. He wanted to talk about what had just happened, wanted to use the intimacy of the half hour to influence the day ahead of them, but in the end he just asked Alice what she felt like doing. Should we drive somewhere? She said she was hungry, but to Niklaus it was as though she had said, That felt so good. We still are a couple. I’m glad. We could have something to eat in town, he suggested. No, said Alice, I feel faint, I need something right away. She took a deep breath and stood up. For a moment she remained standing by the bed, looking down at Niklaus. He liked lying in front of her like that, naked and relaxed and vulnerable. Alice often made comments about his weight, and he knew she went for slimly built men, but she was looking at him with devotion. I’ll just have a quick shower, she said. Niklaus got up too. He heard cries from outside. He went over to the window and saw the Stuttgarters evidently on their way to the beach, weighed down with bags and inflatable toys and a cooler. All four of them had on colored clogs and ridiculous sunglasses, the mother had put on a skimpy beach dress and the father was in shorts and a T-shirt with BABEWATCH on it in big letters.

IN THE AFTERNOON Alice and Niklaus set out on a trip for the first time in almost a week. They were going to the nature reserve, not far from their village. They were most of the way there when Alice realized she had left the binoculars behind, so they turned back.

Only a few of the parking spots at the visitors’ center were taken. With this heat, everyone was at the beach—who but they would think of going birding? They followed a dusty gravel path, with bushes on one side and a narrow creek on the other, toward a wood. Niklaus felt tired from lunch and he was sweating, but he was in good spirits, whistling away to himself. Alice didn’t speak much, not even to complain about the heat. When they reached the wood, it was barely any cooler than it had been out in the open. Niklaus kept stopping to consult a brochure about the reserve he had found in their house. If we keep heading in this direction we should reach the sea in half an hour or so.