Peter Stamm - In Strange Gardens and Other Stories

“It’s cozy here,” said Manuela, when Henry was already dressed again, fixing coffee.

“I don’t need anything else,” he said. “I’ve got everything I need here.”

The others, his colleagues, all came from long lines of artistes, he said. All except him and Jackie, who was married to Oskar. She had hooked up with them, and gone along, same as he had. That kind of thing went on sometimes. She had a husband and three kids. And then she’d met Oskar, and run away, and never gone back. Just left her family behind.

“It happens,” said Henry.

“I guess,” said Manuela.

The others had done high wire acts before, Henry said. But there weren’t the audiences for those anymore. And then Oskar’s brother had had a fall. The rope broke. Verena’s first husband had fallen off as well. With his motorbike. Henry talked about the accidents, as if he knew the dead people and was proud of them.

“Horrible,” said Manuela, and drank her coffee.

“That was in Chemnitz,” said Henry.

What did he do in the performance, asked Manuela. He did everything, he said, he was just a sort of odd-job man. And then he explained his number to her.

“You’re mad,” said Manuela.

“No,” said Henry, “not really.”

He talked her through the whole thing again. How Oskar accelerated, and he lay on the roof, holding on with his hands and feet. He looked up, saw the wall of fire directly ahead of him. Kept looking, as long as he could. And then: gritted teeth, and head down. He hears the board splinter before he feels the impact. The car crashes through the planks at the bottom. There’s a smell of gasoline. The boards shatter, the burning fragments fly through the air. It’s like …

“It’s the greatest feeling.”

“You’re mad,” said Manuela.

“Don’t you get it,” said Henry. “It’s like …”

“Doesn’t it hurt?” asked Manuela. “You’re mad. I’ve got to go.”

It was almost twelve. Henry was glad Manuela was going, he didn’t want the others to see her. She promised to come to the evening show. Henry said he would meet her at the entrance. She was to wait for him there, on the left-hand side. Then he would take her in, and she wouldn’t have to pay any admission.

“I’ll meet you there,” he said.

When Manuela was gone, Henry tore down the poster of the Erotica Fair, and made the bed. He wondered what else he could do to make a woman feel at home in the cubbyhole. Manuela had said it was cozy. Perhaps she was like Jackie. Perhaps she just wanted to get away from here, and didn’t much care how. The bed wasn’t very wide, but it would do for the moment.

Joe was moaning because the kids had smashed a couple of windshields. Hadn’t Henry been doing his job. He couldn’t be everywhere at once, said Henry. Together they prepared the cars for the afternoon show, tied the doors shut and fixed tires on the roof of the car that Oskar would turn over in. One tire on the Toyota that Henry went through the wall of fire on was completely bald. I really need to watch out here, said Henry. But the rim on the replacement didn’t fit, and he put the old tire back on.

“Well, whatever,” he said. “If it bursts, it bursts.”

Then Charlie turned up with the articulated truck, bringing the two scrap cars that would be crushed later, a Passat and an Alpha Spider. I used to have an Alpha like that, said Charlie, as they unloaded the cars. Oskar revved up the engine of his Kawasaki, and took a couple of turns around the arena. He was always nervous before a show. The first of the spectators were already standing around by the entrance. Petra turned on the P.A. Rock music boomed out of a couple of enormous speakers, and then Petra’s voice.

“You will see cars and bikes flying through the air. Things you only thought you’d ever see in films and TV will pass before your eyes …”

Slowly the grandstand filled up. A few kids, who could only afford standing seats, clambered up onto the tractor-trucks. It was hot. Henry disappeared into his cubbyhole to put on his blue overalls and get his helmet. He must have crashed through the wall of fire a hundred times, but he still looked forward to his turn every time. The appearance of Henry the Fire Devil.

“It’s no good if you don’t applaud,” he heard Petra’s voice over the PA, as he climbed down the steps. Oskar on his bike was flying off the ramp. He flew over what was claimed to be twenty, thirty, forty persons. Then Joe and Charlie in their cars drove around in circles on two wheels, and waved out the windows. The spectators gave them some half-hearted applause.

“That was nothing,” Petra said. “Things are going to get really hot around here.”

Henry had put up the plank wall, and splashed gasoline over it. He lit it, and ran back to the car, which Oskar had already started up. He climbed onto the roof. The windows were down, so that he could reach inside and get a better grip. He spread his legs. Oskar moved off, accelerated, the wall got nearer. Tonight, thought Henry, I will go through the wall for Manuela. He would give her a sign, or wave, or do something he had never done before. I’ll keep my eyes open all the way through, he thought. For Manuela. And maybe she would come back to his van when it was all over and everything was tidied away, and the others were gone.

He never heard the tire burst. He only felt, suddenly, the car seem to stagger and turn aside. Henry’s legs lifted off the roof, his belly, he had the feeling his hands were being torn away. Then he let go, and became completely airborne. He was flying, and he saw the astonished faces of the spectators, and he was astonished himself. It was as though the earth below him had come to a stop, as though only he were moving. Henry flew through the air, he flew ever higher and farther. It was lovely. He saw the blue heaven above him, and there were a couple of dark clouds too that had gathered. Maybe it was going to rain.

Manuela spent the afternoon at the gravel-pit with her friend Denise. She had shown her the bite-mark Henry had left on her neck.

“How old is he?” Denise asked, and they both laughed.

“He’s sweet,” said Manuela. “An Ossi.”

“What kind of name is Henry,” said Denise. “Honestly, I don’t know where you get them from.”

“He’s a stuntman,” said Manuela. “He was so sweet. He can’t have done it much. Certainly didn’t feel like he had.”

“I’m going in the water,” said Denise. “Are you coming?”

But Manuela didn’t like the water. She lay in the sun, and her body kept getting heavier and warmer. She felt the sun burning on her skin, and when she pressed her ear to the ground, she heard the dull echo of footsteps. She thought of the summer just begun, the long summer ahead, the many evenings she would spend at the gravel pit with Denise and her other friends. She thought of the fires they would light, and the boys who drove too fast in their souped-up cars when they went somewhere after bathing, maybe the Domino, or the town, or just the bar behind the station. She would have liked so much to fall in love with one of the boys, but they were all such babies. Last summer, she had gone out with Andi. It was Andi who had the kiosk at the gravel-pit, and didn’t do badly out of it. In the winter he didn’t do anything, by lunchtime he’d be in the pub, chatting up the Yugoslav waitress. You’ve got to make up your mind, she said to him. In the end, it was she who had decided. They had known each other from their school days.

Manuela thought about what it might be like to be on the road with the artistes. But she didn’t feel like living with Henry in that dirty cubby hole, with no bath or anything. It felt hot in that tiny space, and there was a smell of dirty clothes and reheated meals. And she didn’t know the others. Jackie, who had left her family. And the rest of them she barely even knew the names of. Funny names, too. Manuela tried to picture herself hanging up laundry outside a caravan, and she wondered where the kids would go to school, if you spent the whole time on the road going from town to town. In Greece, too. She had been to Greece once, one summer, with her parents. It was incredibly hot, stiflingly hot, and she hadn’t understood a word. When he gave her the flower, that was nice. But Henry had to be ten years older than she was. I’m still young, she thought, I’m not going to fall for that.