Peter Stamm - Seven Years

I couldn’t imagine Sonia ever being interested in Ferdy. It didn’t last long, Antje said. Did she really have a thing with him? We were stuck at a light, and I turned to Antje. She smiled apologetically. I don’t think she slept with him, if that’s what you mean. Didn’t she tell you?

Sonia never did talk much. It often felt as though she’d had no previous life, or whatever it was had left no traces except in the photograph albums on her bookshelf, which she never took out. When I looked at the pictures, I had the sense that they came from another life. Now and then I asked Sonia about her time with Rüdiger, and she gave me monosyllabic replies. She said she never asked me what I’d done before either. It doesn’t bother me, I said. After all, you’re mine now. But Sonia was stubbornly silent. Sometimes I wondered if it wasn’t that there was just nothing to say.

Antje’s smile had changed, she looked a little mocking now. You men like to make conquests, she said. Try and see it in a positive light. She checked through her possibilities, and chose you.

A car honked behind me, and I accelerated so fast the tires squealed. And what was your part in the whole thing? I asked. Can you remember the first night the two of you stayed at my place? asked Antje. Sonia went to bed early, and we sat up and looked at my pictures together. I had half a mind to seduce you. I liked you, clean-cut little college kid. But instead I just led you up the garden path, and told you Sonia was in love with you. And the next day I gave her a spiel. What did you do that for? Antje shrugged her shoulders. Are you annoyed? Her question sounded serious. It was for fun, she said finally, I put in a good word for you. There was something with another woman, a foreigner, if I remember. Ivona, I said, and I sighed. That’s a long story.

I’d been sitting for hours with Ferdy and Rüdiger in a beer garden near the English Garden. It was a hot July afternoon, and the sunlight was a dazzling white. We’d handed in our final thesis projects ten days before, and in another week we had to go and defend them. We didn’t have much else to do except while away the time and give each other courage. All three of us had chosen the design of a modern museum on a site bordering the Hofgarten, and we were sketching out our plans and pushing notepads back and forth. Our voices were loud and excited, and we didn’t care that the other customers kept turning around to look at us. Rüdiger said my plans reminded him of Aldo Rossi. I was offended, and said what did he know? There are worse people to imitate than the old masters, said Ferdy, but Alex tries to reinvent the wheel every time he draws something. Then tell me where Rossi fits in, I said, and pushed my plan across the table. But Rüdiger had already moved on. He was talking about Deconstructivism, saying the architect was the psychotherapist of pure form, and more bullshit of that type.

A couple of girls were sitting at our table. They were wearing light summer dresses and were attractive enough in an uninteresting way. After a while we got talking. One of them worked for an advertising agency, and the other was studying art history or ethnology or something like that. It was a flip sort of conversation, made up of one-liners, jokes and comebacks, all going nowhere. When the girls paid to leave, Ferdy suggested we all go to the English Garden together. They hesitated briefly, and conferred in whispers, then the advertising girl said they had other plans, but we might meet up later at Monopteros. As they left, they had their heads together, and after a couple of steps, they turned and waved and laughed at us.

I’m having the blonde, said Ferdy. The brunette is much prettier, said Rüdiger. But the blonde is really stacked, said Ferdy. There you go, deconstructing again, said Rüdiger. Two women between three guys doesn’t work. Ferdy looked at me. You’d better find yourself a girl. Why me? I protested. Ferdy grinned. You’re the best-looking of the three of us. That girl over there has hardly taken her eyes off of us.

I saw a woman reading a couple of tables away in the shadow of a big linden tree. She was probably our age, but she was completely unattractive. Her face was puffy, and she wore her midlength hair loose. Presumably she had gotten a perm some time ago, but it had grown out, and her hair was hanging in her face. Her clothing looked cheap and worn. She had on a brown corduroy skirt, a patterned blouse in wishy-washy pastel colors, and a scarf around her neck. Her nose was reddened, and a few crumpled-up tissues were on the table in front of her. While I was still taking her in, she looked up and our glances met. Her face twisted into an anxious smile, and in a sort of reflex I smiled back. She lowered her eyes, but even her shyness seemed inappropriate and disagreeably flirtatious.

Women are helpless in the face of his charms, said Ferdy. He’ll never get her, said Rüdiger. You wanna bet? Before I could answer, he went on. I bet you don’t get her. There was something sad about his eyes now. I said I wouldn’t even take her if she was offered. Well, we’ll just have to see about that, said Ferdy, getting to his feet. The woman was watching us again. When she saw Ferdy making straight for her, her expression changed to a mixture of dread and expectation. He’s mad, I groaned, and turned away. The whole thing was embarrassing to me already. I looked around for the waitress. Surely you won’t bail at this stage, said Rüdiger, come on, be a man. What’s the sense of this, I said, and stretched my legs. My good mood was gone, I felt useless and rotten, and was angry at myself. It was as though the voices and laughter faded into the background, and through the sound I heard the approach of steps across the gravel.

Meet Ivona, said Ferdy. She’s from Poland. This is Rüdiger, and this —is Alexander. He was standing behind me, I had to look almost vertically up at him. Have a seat, said Ferdy. The woman put her glass down on the table, and next to it her tissues and her book, which was a romance novel with a brightly colored cover showing a man and a woman on horseback. She sat down between me and Rüdiger. She sat there with her hands folded in her lap and a very straight back. She looked restlessly between us. There was something stiff about her posture, but her whole appearance was somehow sagging and feeble. She seemed to have given up all hope of ever pleasing anyone, even herself.

Isn’t the weather lovely, said Rüdiger, and giggled foolishly. Yes, said Ivona. But it’s hot, said Ferdy. Ivona nodded. I asked her if she had a cold. She said she had hay fever. She was allergic to all kinds of pollen. All kinds of Poles? asked Ferdy, and Rüdiger laughed like a drain. No, grass, dust, said Ivona, not batting an eyelid. And so it went on. Ferdy and Rüdiger asked her stupid questions, and she answered them seemingly unaware that she was being made fun of. On the contrary, she seemed to enjoy their interest in her, and smiled after each one of her monosyllabic replies. She came from Posen. I thought you were from Poland, said Rüdiger. Posen is a town in Poland, Ivona replied patiently. Her German was almost accentless, but she spoke slowly and cautiously, as if not quite sure of herself. She said she worked in a bookstore. She was trying to improve her German, and supporting her parents back home. Her father was an invalid and her mother’s earnings weren’t enough for them both.

From the very outset, Ivona was disagreeable to me. I felt sorry for her, and at the same time I was irritated by her docile and long-suffering manner. Instead of holding Ferdy and Rüdiger back, I was closer to joining in their mean games. Ivona gave the impression of a natural-born victim. When Ferdy said we had arranged to meet up with two girls in the English Garden, and didn’t Ivona want to join us, I felt like protesting, but what would have been the use? Ivona hesitated. Four o’clock at Monopteros, said Ferdy, turning to us. Shall we go?