Peter Stamm - Seven Years

I turned up whenever it suited me and whenever I could. Ivona was there every evening, she didn’t seem to have anything to do but wait or hope for me to come. Usually the TV was going, and when she made to turn it off, I said no, and we undressed and kissed and embraced to the soundtrack of some schlocky film or other. Usually I was gone before the film was even over. I never spent the night there, for fear Tania or Birgit might tell Sonia about it. Anyway, I couldn’t imagine waking up beside Ivona, I could only stand her company when I was aroused.

My third or fourth meeting with Ivona was the day after the Wall came down. I had sat up half the night in front of the television and was tired when I went to her place the next evening. I asked her what she thought about it all. She shrugged her shoulders. I said I wasn’t sure I agreed with reunification, and totted up the pluses and minuses as though the future of Germany were somehow mine to give. Ivona listened to me hold forth with an apathetic expression, as though it was all no concern of hers. She seemed to live in her own little world, not registering what was going on around her.

I noticed that Ivona took steps to make herself prettier. She started to apply makeup and did her hair, and took trouble with her clothes. When I said I didn’t like her dolling herself up, she stopped. She seemed to take it as proof of love that I noticed her appearance and bothered to comment on it. Sometimes she showed me two outfits and asked me, which do you like best? I pointed to one of them, even though I was completely indifferent, and then she disappeared behind the closet door to put it on, and I followed her to watch and pulled her back to bed, still in her underwear. When she went to the toilet too, I sometimes followed her, her sense of shame provoked me until she had completely lost it and accepted everything I did, and did everything I demanded of her. With one sole exception.

When I stayed longer, Ivona would start to talk. She had an inexhaustible supply of abstruse stories, featuring the Black Virgin of Czestochowa or some other sacred figure performing miracles in the lives of ordinary people. It would start with a lost bunch of keys, and end up with a miracle cure or a surprise late pregnancy. She talked hastily and not looking at me, it was as though she was talking to herself, an endless litany. At those moments, I got a glimpse of what a terribly lonely person she was. Sometimes she would talk about her Pope, whom she revered, and who was something approaching a saint in her eyes. When I criticized him, she wouldn’t say anything, and when I’d said my piece, she would resume where she’d left off. My words seemed not to have reached her.

Our encounters always followed the same pattern, rarely lasting for longer than an hour and sometimes a lot less. Ivona wasn’t a sophisticated lover, she had no experience and no imagination. When she touched me she was either too hesitant or too rough, when I touched her she barely reacted, or faked a reaction. The thing that kept me fascinated with her was her utter devotion. Her unconditional love for me, however purely random, drew me irresistibly to her and, by the same token, repulsed me the instant I was satisfied. Then I would feel the need to hurt her, as though that was my only way of breaking free.

Do you think your Holy Father would approve of what you’re doing? I asked her one time, do you not think it’s a sin even if we don’t technically make love? I accused her of bigotry. She didn’t understand the word, I had to explain it to her.

I don’t know how I can excuse my behavior, I can’t remember how I justified it to myself at the time. All I know is that I got to be more and more dependent on Ivona, and that while I continued to think I had power over her, her power over me became ever greater. She never demanded anything from me, was never hurt when I stayed away for days on end because I was busy in the office or didn’t feel like visiting her. Sometimes I’d tell Ivona about other women to get her upset, but she took it, and listened, expressionless, while I raved about the beauty, the wit, and the intelligence of other women. Perhaps she didn’t know she had power over me. Perhaps she mistook my submissiveness for love.

The situation in the apartment had deteriorated to the point where we only communicated by means of little notes that we stuck on the fridge door. Tania had come up with a roster of household duties, which Birgit and I strenuously ignored. The whole apartment reeked of disinfectant, and it was often cold, because Tania would turn down the heat to keep the germs from multiplying so quickly, as she explained. Her visitors stayed longer and longer, and began to take a hand in our business. When I returned from a weekend with my parents once, my bed had been stripped. I brought it up with Tania, and she said a friend of hers had spent the night in my room, surely I had no objection? I stood by silently while she sprayed my bed with disinfectant and put on new sheets. From that day on, I locked my door when I went out, and belatedly became serious about looking for somewhere else to live.

Finding a new place wasn’t easy. I was on three thousand marks a month, which wasn’t bad for an intern, but that sort of money didn’t buy you much. I looked at all sorts of apartments without being able to decide. Over time, I started to take pleasure in inspecting places that were obviously hopeless. When I told the landlords that I was an architect, they treated me with respect and left me all sorts of time. A few of the apartments were still occupied, and it was fascinating to see the different ways people arranged themselves, and how much you could infer about their lives from a few objects. It was always embarrassing being taken around by tenants, peering into closets that were stuffed with junk and inspecting kitchens full of dirty, food-encrusted plates and withered herbs on the windowsill. One tenant had locked himself in the bathroom. The super took me around and knocked on the bathroom door, but the tenant didn’t make any noise. He’s been given his notice, said the super, and I can promise you he’ll be out by the end of the year, even if it means calling the cops.

In the end I found a small three-room apartment on the top floor of an old building in Schwabing. I’d fallen in love with it on the spot. It was unrehabbed, and just had an old oil-fired stove, but the layout was good, and the rooms were light and had the sort of attention to detail that you don’t often find in newly built homes. I told Birgit about it that same evening. She wasn’t too thrilled about the prospect of having to deal with Tania and her loopy friends on her own. She said if she could afford it, she would move out tomorrow.

The holidays came nearer. Lots of my friends were going to spend Christmas with their families, and had announced their visits. Ferdy and Alice were coming, Rüdiger wrote from São Paulo, the last stop on his South American tour, even Jakob the vet called. He had accepted a job as an assistant in Stuttgart, and said he would be in Munich briefly on his way to the Bayerischer Wald, and did I feel like going out for a beer with him. Sonia would be the last to return, she still had lots of work to finish, and booked her flight for the morning of the twenty-fourth.

I made a date with Jakob. Before I saw him, I went to Ivona’s. As we sat on the bed and got dressed, on some whim I asked her if she felt like going out and having a beer with me. I don’t know what got into me. It was risky, I had to consider the possibility of Jakob running into Sonia on one of the days after Christmas. Perhaps it was a similar impulse to the one that prompts people to show off their scars, some absurd pride in damage.

Not since that first evening had I gone anywhere in public with Ivona. The notion of being seen together by one of my acquaintances was at once terrifying and beguiling. Whether I walked fast or slow, Ivona always trailed a couple of paces behind me. On the bus, she didn’t sit down, but stood in front of me at my seat. When we reached our stop, I got out without a word and just glanced back quickly to see if she was following me.