Peter Stamm - On A Day Like This

What a coincidence it was that he had met Fabienne, Nadia, Sylvie, and Delphine. That he had gone to Paris, and now come here, to this wide beach. It was coincidence that his parents had met, and before them his grandparents and great-grandparents, however much they might have wanted to think the opposite, however much they might have wanted to persuade themselves that destiny had brought them together. His birth, any birth, was the last of an endless row of coincidences. Only death was no coincidence.

He thought of the chances that had brought him and Delphine together, and separated them again. A sudden shower of rain, a telephone call at the wrong moment, a whim would have sufficed to bring the whole complex edifice of little events and unimportant decisions to a crashing fall.

He got up and headed back. The wind was in his face, and sometimes it was so gusty that it sprayed his face with a fine foam. At the place where he had crossed the dune, he hesitated for a moment, and then walked on, toward the blue flags.

He imagined moving in with Delphine, in Paris or Versailles or wherever. He no longer had any possessions, and she didn’t seem to own much either. They would settle in somewhere, buy furniture and kitchen equipment, perhaps a TV and a stereo. He asked himself what they would do with their time, with such time as remained to them. But that didn’t matter. He had to find Delphine and speak to her. He had to call the doctor, to pick up the test results, even if they finally didn’t mean anything.

There were still quite a lot of people on the beach, but not many in the water. The sun was low over the sea, against the light, the swimmers were only visible as black outlines. Even so, he recognized Delphine immediately. She was standing in the water with her back to him. He shouted to her, but the noise swallowed his voice. He went up to her. The water was cold and murky with spinning sand. He stopped a few yards behind Delphine and watched as, with mechanical movements, she jumped into the waves, got up, took a few steps back, without reason and without end. Sometimes she dropped to her knees, and disappeared into the water, and then she got up again. Finally she turned around and made for him with quick loose strides. She was wearing a flowered bikini, and her body was glistening and wet. Her head was lowered, and she was looking at the water in front of her. It wasn’t until she had almost reached Andreas that she noticed him. She said something he couldn’t hear, and laughed and kissed him. They hugged each other so tight that it hurt. Delphine’s body was cool. Over her shoulder, not far away, Andreas saw another couple embracing, and he felt he was seeing himself and Delphine, as though he were a very long way away from it all. Only the crashing of the waves was very near and held him.