Peter Stamm - On A Day Like This

The wood was bright, the moon was almost full, but it was hard keeping your bearings. The noise and the laughter of the others could be heard from all sides, as they stumbled over the uneven forest floor. Andreas followed a narrow path. Fabienne followed him at a distance. They had yet to exchange a word. After about fifty yards they left the path and came to a little hollow.

“What about here,” whispered Andreas. He crouched down and looked back in the direction of the hut, where the light of the fire, now almost burned down, shone weakly. Then he heard Beatrice call: “Ready or not, here we come!”

Fabienne was leaning against a tree, as though she didn’t care whether she was found or not. They waited. Shouts and laughter were heard in the forest. The first couple were found, and joined in the search. They seemed to be walking along the edge of the forest, their voices getting louder and then quieter. The fire had flared up once more, and then collapsed into itself. Now you couldn’t make it out anymore.

“They’ll never find us in the dark,” said Fabienne. It was the first sentence that Andreas heard from her mouth. She spoke French. He asked her where she was from. Paris, she said, her parents lived on the outskirts of Paris.

After some time, Andreas got up, and they crept back to the hut. Only Manuel was there, poking the embers with a branch. The others had gone to the gravel pit, he said. Fabienne and Andreas sat down, and Manuel started asking Fabienne questions. And in the end, they arranged to go swimming on Sunday.

When Andreas awoke, it was still dark. Delphine was still sitting in her chair, her legs stretched out on the coffee table, asleep. The book was in her lap.

Andreas wondered what she was doing here. He was almost twice her age, and had no idea what there was for her in making tea for a sick man and reading him children’s stories. They barely knew each other.

He undid the top buttons of his pajama jacket, and prodded the bandage over the wound. It didn’t hurt, but the thought of the incision beneath the bandage made him feel nauseous. He got up to go to the bathroom. When he returned, Delphine was up. He asked her if she didn’t have to go. She said she had nothing planned.

“If you like, I’ll stay the night with you.”

“I’m not up to much, I’m afraid.”

Delphine told him not to be stupid, sex wasn’t everything. She asked him if he was hungry. He shook his head.

“You must eat.”

She went into the kitchen. Andreas heard her open and shut the fridge. She called over to say she would go out and buy a couple of things, was there a store nearby that was still open. Andreas said there was a greengrocer on the corner who stayed open till midnight. She said she’d be back right away. He wanted to give her some money, but by the time he was in the hall, she was already gone. Andreas had never lived together with a woman. It was a strange feeling, having someone moving around in his apartment, and going shopping and cooking for him.

He went back to the sitting room, and stopped in front of the mantel. His eye fell on a little framed photograph there. His father had taken it before Andreas had gone to Paris. It was one of the few things Andreas had wanted to keep when his father died. He picked up the picture and looked at it, and then at himself in the mirror over the mantel. He was startled by how little he had changed. His features had gotten a little harder, but the basic expression was still the same, an expression of friendly indifference.

Andreas studied the inscrutable expression, just as strange to him now as it was at the time it was taken. When pictures were put up in the staff room from a party or a graduation, he often couldn’t recognize himself in them, and when he looked at them he couldn’t remember how he had felt when they were taken. He remembered his father taking that picture. They had gone out into the garden together. His father had got Andreas to stand in the shade under the sumac, and then sheepishly clicked the release a couple of times. It was the hopeless wish to capture his son. Presumably that had occurred to Andreas too, because he had a smile on his lips, half sympathetic, half-mocking. Only much later did it dawn on him how brave and affectionate it had been on the part of his father.

Not many days later, Andreas had left. He still remembered the silent leave-taking from his father. It was a Saturday, and the local train was packed with people going to the next village, or to the city, to go to the cinema or the theater. Andreas felt he stood out, with his big suitcase and his far-off destination. When the train pulled away, his father waved. His lips moved, perhaps to say something. Andreas briefly raised his hand. He was embarrassed. Only later had he understood that he would never be able to go back to the village. A few months later, when he went home for a visit during the vacation, everything felt different. After that, his visits were rarer and rarer, and finally they stopped altogether.

Andreas put the photograph back on the mantelpiece. He had never had many pictures of his family. The few that he had been given lay in a drawer somewhere. He wondered what had possessed him to put this one out — a picture of himself.

It was ten o’clock. Delphine was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables. Andreas watched her. She said he could go and lie down, it would be at least another quarter of an hour till the soup was ready.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“You could be going to the cinema or meeting friends or what do I know.”

“It’s second nature. If a friend is ill … Anyway, I went to the cinema yesterday.”

“I can make soup for myself,” said Andreas. “Anyway, we’re not friends. We hardly know each other.”

Delphine put down the knife and looked at him in astonishment. She said if he was bothered by her being there, he just had to tell her. Andreas apologized. He said he hadn’t meant it in a bad way.

After supper, he said he would go to bed, the operation had taken more out of him than he had first thought. Delphine carried the dirty dishes out. He heard her washing up, and putting the plates away.

She had her toiletry bag with her, but no nightie. She said she hadn’t been sure what she intended to happen, and so she had struck a sort of deal with herself. Andreas lent her a T-shirt, and she went to the bathroom. He heard her showering, then she came out and lay down next to him on the bed. She leaned across him, kissed him on the mouth and said good night.

“Come here,” he said, “I’m not that sick.”

She said he ought to be careful. She pulled the T-shirt over her head, and scooted over to him. Her body was soft and warm and sluggish. I don’t love her, thought Andreas, I don’t even want her really. Delphine sat on him, and slowly began to move. They were both very calm and quiet. Once, Andreas almost fell asleep, he dropped into a dream for a moment, and then he opened his eyes and saw Delphine, still sitting astride him and moving in a very concentrated way, as if in a slow dance.

“You almost fell asleep,” she said with a smile.

“Don’t stop,” he said.

The next day Delphine went to Versailles to look at a few apartments. In the early afternoon she was back. She was carrying a sports bag with a few clothes.

“Are you planning on moving in?”

“Would you mind?”

“Well, if it’s just for a few days.”

Delphine said he needn’t worry. She was going away on vacation at the end of the month anyway.

“The end of the month!” said Andreas, with mock-horror. “And what do I do then?”

“Come and visit me if you want. I’ve got my own tent. And my parents are nice people.” She grinned and said her parents were about his age.