Peter Stamm - In Strange Gardens and Other Stories

“You can show our guest the garden tomorrow,” said Dr. Kennedy.

The garden was Gwen’s responsibility, he said. Desiree’s was the accounts. She kept the books, and made sure there was always enough money in the house. And Emily? Emily was the most gifted of the three, and his favorite. She read a lot, and wrote, and played music and painted.

“She’s our artist,” said the doctor, and the women nodded and smiled. “Maybe she’ll show you her portfolio tomorrow. But not tonight.”

After supper, the sisters cleared the table, and Dr. Kennedy ushered me to his study. We sat down in leather chairs, and he poured whiskey and offered me a cigar. He talked some more about politics, and told me about his work in the hospital. He was an orthopedic surgeon, specializing in knee injuries. He told me about the way scores were settled in poor districts.

“If someone’s caught with drugs, or stealing cars, or some kind of nonsense, he is told to appear at a certain time in a certain place, and they shoot him in the knee. If he doesn’t appear at his summons, the whole family is expelled from the city.”

It was stupid and pointless and disgusting, said the doctor. He shook his head, and poured more whiskey. From somewhere in the house, there was the sound of a violin. “Emily,” said Dr. Kennedy, and he listened. A smile lit up his face.

Desiree came in. She went to the bookshelf, pulled down a book, and started leafing through it. The doctor inclined his head in her direction, and raised his eyebrows.

“You’re very welcome,” he said. “We’ll all be extremely happy if you do.”

Then he asked after my family, and where I had grown up. I looked across to Desiree. She smiled, lowered her gaze, and carried on leafing through her book. Was I often ill, the doctor wanted to know. I looked healthy, he could tell that from my eyes. Had my grandparents lived to a very great age? And were there any hereditary illnesses in the family, cases of insanity, for instance? I laughed.

“My profession,” said the doctor in mitigation, and refilled our glasses.

“As long as you don’t want to take blood from me …”

“Why not?” he said smiling. “Why not, indeed.”

I wasn’t used to whiskey, and my head was spinning. When the doctor told me no buses ran at this time, and I was very welcome to stay the night, I didn’t hang back and accepted his offer.

“Desiree will see to it that you’re comfortable,” he said, got up, and left. “Good night.”

The music had stopped some while back. As I stepped out into the corridor with Desiree, I could hear the receding sound of the doctor’s footsteps, and then everything was silent in the house. Desiree said they had all gone to bed. The days in Deep Furrows were filled with work, it was early to bed and early to rise. She took me to the guest bedroom, disappeared, and came back with a towel, a pair of pajamas, and a toothbrush. She said her room was next to mine. If I should want or need anything in the night, I was just to knock. She was a light sleeper.

I went to the bathroom. When I came back, Desiree was in my room. She had changed into a morning robe, and had pulled the comforter off the bed, and turned back the sheets. She was holding a glass of water. She asked if I wanted a hot water bottle, or if she should turn the heating higher, or draw the curtains? I thanked her, and said I had everything I needed. She set the water down on the nightstand, and remained standing next to the bed.

“I’ll tuck you in,” she said.

I had to laugh, and she laughed as well. But then I slipped into bed, and she tucked me in.

“If you were my brother,” she said, “I would kiss you.”

I woke up early. There was activity all over the house. I dropped off again. When I went into the kitchen it was past nine o’clock, and Gwen was just doing the dishes. She set the table for me, and said when I had finished breakfast she would show me the garden. Her father had gone into town with her mother, and Desiree was in the office. As I ate, I heard the violin again, a sad, quiet tune.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Gwen said. “The music, the house, everything?”

“You should be here in springtime,” she said as she led me through the garden. She showed me the hydrangeas, the lilac and hibiscus bushes she was especially proud of. She talked about her successes with breeding and grafting plants, and various prizes she’d won. She had a pair of clippers in her hand and as she spoke, she would sometimes stoop to chop at a slug, and watch as the body writhed around its frothing wound. That was how she pictured Paradise to herself, a garden of God, and the blessed who planted and tended it.

“A life with flowers and for flowers,” she said, “to be always in the garden, in summer and winter alike. And to be working there.”

When I’d arrived there the night before, a stormy wind had been blowing, but here in the garden the air was still and calm. The sky was gray, the light a little dim, as though it had been filtered on its way down to us.

Gwen took me by the hand, and said she wanted to show me something. She led me to a little stand of trees at the edge of the property. Under an oak tree with oddly shaped, waxy leaves, there was an old stone slab in the ground. “My grandparents,” she said. “They were born here, and they died here. Both on the same day.” Gwen knelt down, and brushed the stone with her hands.

When you’re in the grave, my love,

In the darkness of the tomb,

I’ll climb down to you from above,

And press myself against you.

Gwen said the poem out loud in German. At first it failed to register. I asked her to say it again.

“Our mother taught us poems,” she said. “It’s so beautiful. So much pain, and so much desire.” Her grandparents had died on the same day, she said again, that was how much they had loved each other. The funeral had been a joyful occasion. I knelt down to try and decipher the writing on the stone. I could only just manage to read the names, the year of birth was wiped away, the year of death was 1880-something.

“How can they have been your grandparents, if they died over a hundred years ago?” I asked. “And how can you remember the funeral?”

But Gwen had disappeared. I heard a rustling in the leaves, and stood up, and walked into the stand of trees. Gwen was ahead of me, sometimes I could see her form in among the trees. When I caught up with her, she stood leaning against the high wall that surrounded the property. She said: “I am the lily of the valley, and you the apple tree.”

She laughed and looked straight at me, until I lowered my eyes. Then she pushed off the wall, and set off for the house. Her hands were folded behind her back. I followed her at a short distance. When she reached the rose beds, she told me to go on inside, she had something she needed to see to.

Inside the house, it was quiet. Only the soft tone of the violin, always playing the same run of notes. I went to the kitchen, and poured a cup of coffee. The music had stopped, and then it began again. It was a familiar tune, but I don’t know where I had heard it before. I went looking for it, and came to a door. The music sounded very near now. When I knocked, it stopped, there was silence for a moment, and then the door opened.

“I was waiting for you,” said Emily, and she told me to come in.

“What was that tune you were playing?”

“Oh, I was just playing,” she said, “it’s something I made up.”

She pointed me to the sofa with her bow. I sat down, and Emily started playing again. Her expression was concentrated, almost worried. The music was very beautiful. The melodies seemed to merge into one another, and I often had the sense of recognizing one or another of them, but then I couldn’t think where from. Suddenly Emily broke off in the middle of a tune. She said she couldn’t find the ending, she just had to go on and on playing. The only reason she played was to find the ending. She even dreamed of finding it, sometimes.