Peter Stamm - Unformed Landscape

“Kathrine,” he called out, “we have one or two things to settle.”

Kathrine hesitated. Then she thought, I’m not going to run away a second time, and she went up to the house. Randy had slipped past Thomas’s father, and had disappeared inside. From the passage, Kathrine could see into the living room, where Thomas and his family and a dozen or so of Randy’s classmates were all sitting. Over the door was a banner, with “Happy Birthday” written on it in bright colors. The living room looked cozy. It was decorated with paper chains, and there were presents lying on the table, along with big dishes and bowls full of cakes and sweets. Randy was very excited. He had his hands clasped in front of his chest, and he was shaking them this way and that. He turned round to look at Kathrine. She nodded to him. The guests sang Happy Birthday.

“We’ll go in the study, shall we?” said Thomas’s father.

They sat opposite each other. Thomas’s father lit himself a cigar, rather fussily. It’s you who want something from me, thought Kathrine, not I from you. Nothing can happen to me. I’ll just sit through this, whatever it is, and then I’ll go, and I’ll never come again.

Thomas’s father told her not to be stupid. Thomas was a good man, and he meant well by her. He had spent weeks getting the apartment ready. He had ordered furniture all the way from Oslo. She must see how lovely everything was. Would she like to see it? And for Randy too. His room had been turned into a little boy’s paradise. Thomas had bought a computer for the kid. It was important that kids learned early on how to work on computers, because that was the future.

“The future is in the children,” said Thomas’s father. And when she spoke about Thomas’s lies, he said, “You must look to the future. Don’t always look back. We’ve all made our mistakes.”

The letter? A piece of nonsense. Thomas’s father apologized for it. Thomas had insisted she had done it with other men. Excuse the expression, he said, how could we know… That he was lying? That he wasn’t telling the truth. It must be in her to forgive a man.

“You who put your faith in Him will understand the Truth,” said Thomas’s father, “and the faithful in love will live with Him.”

“I don’t want to forgive him,” said Kathrine, “and I don’t love him.”

Thomas’s father said that could surely change. He and his wife had some difficult times behind them. Enduring love was the invention of romantic novelists. Marriage was an institution, it was what society was founded on, its smallest cell. And she should think of Randy.

“Thomas is ready to adopt him. Randy would be our only grandchild. The way things are looking with Veronica and Einar, he might well remain so. Think of what possibilities would be open to him. It’s not just the house. I’m going to be quite open with you. My fortune is much greater than just this house. We have papers, secure investments. And on my wife’s side, a lot of land. All that will belong to Thomas and Veronica, and then one day to Randy. Don’t be silly. What more can you want from us?”

“No,” said Kathrine, getting up. “I can’t ask for any more.”

As she stepped out of the study, she saw Randy kneeling on the floor in a pile of presents and brightly colored wrapping paper. He was just opening a present. He looked serious and intent. Kathrine went into the living room. The grown-up conversations all stopped, but the children went on talking and playing on the floor with those things that Randy had already unwrapped. Kathrine looked over at Thomas. He slowly got to his feet, beckoned to her to sit in one of the armchairs, and smiled solicitously. Kathrine went to Randy and said, Come on. Randy looked up at her. She held out her hand. I haven’t finished unwrapping everything, he said. Come on, said Kathrine. Tears were running down her cheeks.

“Come on,” she said softly, “we’re going now.”

Randy didn’t want to go. No, he shouted, and then he started crying and screaming. Some of the other children started crying too, and Kathrine snatched Randy up, pulled his jacket off the hook in the hallway, and left the house. Only when they were out in the garden did she set Randy down, put on his jacket, and take his hand.

“Those are bad people,” she said. “We’re never coming here again, do you understand?”

Randy was still whimpering, but he walked home with Kathrine.

Morten came back from Tromso two days later. The thing with the job at Radio Finnmark hadn’t worked. He had gone round to some other employers, and finally got a job at an Internet company. A good job, he said, they would like me to start right away, but I can’t start before the beginning of April. What about you? Next June, said Kathrine. A colleague is taking maternity leave, and I’m keeping her job warm. After that, we’ll see.

“I’ll get a room,” said Morten, “and when you come, we’ll look for an apartment together.”

Kathrine had gone round to Morten’s for the first time since getting back from her journey. They had cooked a meal together, and eaten and washed up. Afterward they sat at the kitchen table, and worked out how much rent they could afford, and they looked at ads in the papers that Morten had brought back from Tromso with him.

“Two children’s rooms,” said Morten. “What do you think?”

Kathrine was sitting in the fishermen’s refuge. She had finished her lunch. Her colleagues had gone back to work, but she was still sitting there, as though waiting for something. She looked out and saw the village, as though for the very first time. Morten walked by outside. She waved to him, but he wasn’t looking, and didn’t see her.

That evening, Kathrine was back in the fishermen’s refuge. She was looking out the window. In the parking lot outside, there were some cars with their engines running, with pale young men sitting in them, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs. She knew most of them but only by sight. They were too young, their parents too old. There were families in the village who never met.

In a red Volvo sat a man and a woman. The woman was talking and waving her hands about, the man was looking down, he was smoking a cigarette and listening to her. After a while he got out of the car, threw away the cigarette, and walked off. The woman in the Volvo punched the steering wheel with her fist, and then she drove off.

In the hall, one of the Russian seamen who was staying there was telephoning. He was speaking English. Kathrine could understand what he was saying. She smiled.

From the television room, she could hear an announcer reading out the lottery numbers. Five, eleven, thirteen, thirty-one… Kathrine wondered what Svanhild would do if she won the lottery. She herself had never played, she had no idea what she would do with the money. Perhaps go on a trip. Helge had used to play, Thomas too, even Morten occasionally.

April, May, June, Kathrine counted them off. Helge, Thomas, Christian, Morten. Three thousand kronor in her bank account, a few books, a few clothes, a few bits of kitchen equipment. A laptop. A kid.

Randy was eight now. Kathrine was twenty-eight. She had lived here for twenty-one years, almost a quarter of a century. She was afraid to leave the village. But Morten would help her. He had lived in Tromso once before. They would look for an apartment together, buy furniture, maybe a car sometime. They would go out to restaurants and films together.

Kathrine got coffee from the sideboard, left five kronor next to the till, and sat down at the window again. Goodbye, said the Russian seaman in the hall, three, four times, before hanging up. A door slammed shut, the television was switched off, and nothing was audible beyond the humming of the fridge and the quiet ticking of the wall clock. Svanhild stood by the door, turned off the light, and then on again. She apologized. I didn’t see you. That’s OK, said Kathrine. She finished her coffee, it was only lukewarm now, and she said good night, and went.