Peter Stamm - In Strange Gardens and Other Stories

In the morning the sun was shining, and everything gleamed with wetness. It was cool, the wind had freshened up again, and the clouds blew by in the sky. The neighbor had cycled to the municipal swimming pool. She had swum her lengths, as she did every morning. Now the pool was empty. As she left the baths, the lifeguard locked up after her. The board by the entrance was still marked with the water temperature of the day before.

The neighbor was still on her way home when it started raining again. She cooked lunch. As she ate, she said she wanted to visit Ruth, take her her mail, and perhaps a book. But her husband said she shouldn’t get involved. Then she told him about the note she’d found. He didn’t know what she was talking about. He looked at her in silence. The neighbor imagined Ruth packing her things, her carpet slippers, her contact lens fluid, her nightgown, and all not knowing when she would come back.

It wasn’t until Ruth had asked her to water the flowers that the neighbor learned that it wasn’t her first visit to the clinic. There is a beautiful garden there, Ruth said, with big old trees, almost a park. The girls had been picked up that morning by some people (she didn’t know them), and just before noon a taxi drew up in front of the house, and Ruth came out with a sports bag, threw a look in the direction of the neighbor’s house, where the neighbor was standing behind the lace curtains. She slowly raised her hand, as if in greeting.

The neighbor didn’t know why she had pocketed the list, or what it was doing still in her apron pocket. The words reading matter had surprised her and moved her, she didn’t understand why, after all, it wasn’t as though she were related to Ruth or anything.

“But she likes reading so much,” she said. Her husband didn’t even look up from his plate. She felt tears well up in her eyes, and she quickly stood up and carried the empty dishes into the kitchen.

It had started to snow in the late afternoon. He was glad he had taken the day off, because the snow was so heavy that within half an hour the streets were white. He saw the super sweep the path up to the door. He was wearing a hood, and on a small dark island, he was fighting a losing battle against the incessantly falling snow.

It was just as well he hadn’t gone to the airport to meet her this time. The last time he had bought her some flowers from a vending machine, and talked her into taking the subway all the way into Manhattan. When they had talked on the phone a few days before, she said he shouldn’t bother coming to meet her, she would just take a taxi.

He stood by the window and looked out. Even if her flight was on time, the earliest she could be here was in half an hour. But he felt a little restless just the same. He discarded sentences he had prepared and rehearsed over the past weeks. He knew she would demand an explanation, and he knew he didn’t have one. He had never had explanations, but he had always been sure of his ground.

An hour later, he was back in front of the window again. It was still snowing, harder than before, it was a real blizzard now. The super had given up the struggle. Everything was white now, even the air seemed to be white, or at least it was the pale gray of encroaching darkness, and that was barely distinguishable from the white of the falling snow. The cars drove slowly and with exaggerated caution. The few pedestrians who were out leaned forward into the wind.

He switched on the TV. All the local stations were full of news of the storm, and it was striking that they had come up with a name for it too, by which they all referred to it right away. In the outer boroughs the chaos was even worse than downtown, and the coast guard reported a flood alert. But the correspondents who had been sent out to cover the breaking news, in bulky down jackets and speaking into microphones with grotesque windshields, were all in high good humor and were tossing snowballs up into the air, and only got serious when they were asked about the scale of the damage and personal injuries.

He called the airline. He was told that on account of the blizzard, the flight had been rerouted to Boston. No sooner had he put the receiver down than the phone rang. She was calling from Boston, saying they might be on their way again at any moment. There were rumors that JFK had been opened again. But there was also a chance they would have to stay the night in Boston. She said she was looking forward to seeing him, and he told her to take care. See you later, she said, and she hung up.

Outside, it was dark now. The snow was falling steadily, falling and falling, and, apart from a few taxis going by at a crawl, there were no more cars about.

He had thought he would be going out for dinner with her, and he felt hungry now. And it would be several hours till she got there. There was nothing in the fridge except a couple of beers, and a bottle of vodka in the freezer with some ice. He thought he should go and buy something to eat. She was bound to be hungry after the long flight. He put on his warm coat, and a pair of rubber boots. They were the only winter shoes he had, and he had hardly worn them. He took an umbrella and went out.

The snow was deep but it wasn’t heavy, and it was easy to shuffle through it in his boots. The stores were closed, and in only a few of them had the shop workers taken the trouble to put up a sign to say why they’d gone home early.

He walked across town. Lexington Avenue was covered with snow, and on Park he saw the distant orange blinking lights of the snowplows coming up the avenue in a convoy. Madison and Fifth had already been cleared but they were white again. He had to scale a high snow rampart at the edge of the sidewalk. He sank in, and some snow got in over the top of his boots.

There was someone cross-country skiing in Times Square. The ads were flashing away as normal. Their garish alternation had something ghostly in so much silence. He walked on, up Broadway. Just before he got to Columbus Circle, he saw the lit-up window of a coffee shop. It was a place he had been to before; the manager and the waiters were Greek, and the food was good.

There were only a few customers there. Most of them were sitting at one of the tables in the window that reached down to the ground, drinking beer or coffee, and looking out. The atmosphere was solemn, no one was talking, it was as though they were all witnesses to a miracle.

He sat down at a table, and asked for a beer and a club sandwich. The snow in his boots started to melt. When the waiter brought him his beer, he asked why the place was still open. They hadn’t expected there would be this much snow, the waiter said, and now it was too late. Most of them lived in Queens, and it was impossible to get out there as things stood. So they might as well keep the restaurant open.

“Maybe all night,” said the waiter, and he laughed.

The way back seemed easier, even though it was still snowing. He had got them to wrap up a sandwich for her, and noticed that he didn’t know what she liked. In the end, he asked for ham and cheese. No mayo, no pickles, at least he remembered that.

She had left him a message on the answering machine. There hadn’t been any flights out after all, and now Boston was snowed in as well. They were being driven to the station, to catch a train. If everything went according to plan, she would be in Manhattan in four hours. She had left the message an hour ago.

He switched the TV back on. A man was standing in front of a map, explaining how the storm front was moving north along the coast, and had now reached Boston. New York had been through the worst, the man said and smiled, but it would probably go on snowing for the rest of the night.