Peter Stamm - In Strange Gardens and Other Stories

Then we went to the graveyard, but there was no memento there of Maria’s family either. We didn’t find her name on any of the tombstones or any of the burial urns.

“Are you sure we’re in the right village?” asked Stefan. “I always thought most Italians came from Sicily.”

Maria didn’t reply.

“Everything’s so sleepy,” said Stefan. “Your relatives could at least have gotten up if you’ve come all this way to visit them.”

“Are you disappointed?” I asked.

“No,” said Maria. “It’s a beautiful village.”

“Did you feel anything?” asked Anita. “I don’t know, roots. Maybe there are some … I don’t know, cousins of cousins still living here?”

At first we thought we would stay there a bit longer, but there was nothing for us to do, and we didn’t see any restaurant where we could have gotten something to eat. We walked back, trekked along endless paths across a hot plain without any shelter from the sun. Once, a man rode past us on a motor scooter. He waved and shouted something I didn’t understand. We waved back, and he disappeared in a white cloud of dust.

“Maybe he was a relative of yours,” said Stefan, and grinned.

Ever since we’d arrived in Italy, it had been hot, so hot that not even the shadows of the trees offered any cool. In the daytime we were sleepy, but at night we hardly slept because of the heat and the cicadas, whose cries were so loud it was as though there’d been some calamity. I think we all wished we could have been back home, in the cool forests or the mountains, even Maria. But there was no way out of the heat, we were trapped in it, in our indolence, and unless the weather broke, our only hope was that the holidays would pass as soon as possible.

We hadn’t done anything for days. Then Anita heard there was a riding stable somewhere nearby. She had enjoyed riding as a child, and she wanted to try it again. Stefan didn’t feel like it, and Maria said she was frightened of horses. Finally I told Anita I would go along with her. That evening she told all kinds of riding stories, and I had to sit backwards on a chair so she could show me how to use the reins, and what to do if the thing ran off with me.

When she saw the horses the next day, she was disappointed. They were old dirty beasts, standing around apathetically with drooping heads in front of their stables. We paid for the ride, and joined a little group of people waiting. After a while, a girl in riding boots and tight pants came out. She said something in Italian, handed each of us a whip, and allocated us our horses. She showed off in front of us, and talked to the horses as if it was they that had paid for us. A young man strolled across the yard toward us. Even before reaching us he called out a greeting, and asked whether we all spoke Italian. When a few said they didn’t, he said in English: “We will explore the beautiful landscape on horseback.”

He helped us into our saddles, jumped up himself, and rode off. He had briefly explained to us how to steer the horses, but regardless of what we did they trotted slowly along in Indian file. I felt ridiculous.

We rode through a dense forest. Everywhere in among the trees, there was rubbish in the underbrush, plastic bottles, an old bicycle, a defunct washing machine. The tracks we followed were deeply marked into the ground, because they had been taken so many times. I rode at the back of the column, and sometimes my horse stopped to nibble at bushes by the path. Then our leader would turn around and shout: “Hit him!” And if I didn’t hit the horse hard enough, he would hit his own and shout: “Hit him harder!”

Anita, who was riding in front of me, turned and laughed. She said: “You’re not hurting him.”

I could feel the warmth of the great animal in my legs, which I pressed against his flanks, and the movements of his muscles. Sometimes I held the flat of my hand against his neck.

Our ride lasted barely half an hour. Anita and I had brought our swimming things. We got changed under the trees.

“I can’t wear my clothes anymore,” I said, “they stink so.”

“I like the smell,” said Anita. “I wish I could start riding all over again. It’s only the riders I don’t like. They’re only interested in horses. And sex.”

I said, “I think it’s the smell that does it,” and Anita laughed. We climbed up the steep dunes. Our feet sank into the soft sand. Anita went ahead of me, and I thought I would like to clasp her neck in my hand, and feel her warmth. Then she slipped over. I caught her by the waist, coming from behind her, stumbled over myself, and we both fell down. We laughed and helped each other up. We had been sweating, and sand stuck to our bodies. Before we went on, we helped to get it off each other’s backs and arms.

We didn’t stay long at the beach. It was dirty here, and the water was murky and too warm and smelled bad. It was much too hot now, and there were too many people there. When we got back to the house, we found Stefan and Maria had gone out. The blinds had been rolled down. It was dark, but no cooler than it was outside.

Still in our swimming things, we slumped down on Maria’s and my bed. I looked at Anita. She raised her arms over her head, stretched, and yawned with closed mouth. “It’s my favorite time,” she said, “when you can lie down in the dark in the daytime, and not have to do anything.”

“On days like this, I wish I could be an animal,” I said. “I only want to drink and sleep. And wait for it to cool down some time.”

Anita turned to face me. She propped herself up on one elbow, and cradled her head in her hand. She said she and Stefan had grown apart. Their relationship was boring. Stefan was boring. He couldn’t get enthusiastic over anything with her. It was typical that he hadn’t wanted to go riding with her. Even though she hadn’t minded finally. “It’s much more fun with you.”

“I always thought you were the perfect couple.”

“Who knows,” said Anita, “maybe we were. And now we aren’t anymore. What about you two?”

“So-so,” I said. “I sometimes catch myself looking at other women. It’s not a good sign, it seems to me. Maria must notice, but she doesn’t say anything. She takes it. And I feel guilty.”

“I noticed,” said Anita, and she laughed, and let herself fall onto her back.

And then it got even hotter. In the morning the air was clear, but by noon everything had disappeared into a milky-white haze, as if the country below us were slowly going up in a smoldering fire. For the next few days we did absolutely nothing. Sometimes we got down to the sea early in the morning, or in the evening as the sun was going down. We did our shopping before the stores closed down for the afternoon, bought cheese and tomatoes, unsalted bread, and cheap wine in big liter bottles. Then we sat around and tried to read in the shade of the big pines in front of the house, but mostly we just dozed, or had futile conversations. In the evenings we cooked a meal, and over dinner we would quarrel noisily over matters that we didn’t really know or care about. Maria was generally quiet during our debates. She listened as we quarreled, and when we made things up, she would get up and disappear somewhere with a book.

“I love the smell of summer,” she said one time, “I don’t even know what it is. It’s more a feeling than a smell. You smell it with your skin, with your whole body.”

“I used to have a better sense of smell,” said Stefan. “Strange, isn’t it? I even used to be able to smell the air, and the rain and the heat. Now I can hardly smell anything. It must be the pollution. I can’t smell anything.”

“You smoke too much,” said Anita.

“Sometimes,” Stefan said, “sometimes when I spit in the mornings, there’s blood in my saliva. But I don’t think it means anything. It might just be the wine.”