Peter Stamm - In Strange Gardens and Other Stories

The winter was very cold, but our apartment was cozy and light. Nelson, the photographer’s boyfriend, came around most nights, and when the two of them disappeared into the bedroom the dancer laughed, and turned the music louder. Each of us lived his or her own life, but we would have the occasional communal meal together, and listen to piano music by Chopin and Ravel. And sometimes, three or four of us would lie side by side in the big bed, watching old episodes of Star Trek on television.

In the spring I went to New York for two weeks. I had called Chris. He had said I could come and stay with them, with him and Yotslana.

I turned up in the evening, Chris opened the door. “Shame,” he said, “Yotslana’s staying with a friend. But you’ll get to meet her tomorrow.”

We cooked dinner, and reminisced about last summer, and I talked about my time in Chicago, and my roommates, and the icy wind in the windy city. Chris seemed impatient to tell me something. As we were washing up, he said quite abruptly: “You know, Yotslana and me … we’re not sleeping together.”

I didn’t know what to say. Chris took a couple of beers out of the fridge, and we sat down in the living room. The only light was the little desk lamp. There were piles of books all over the room.

“We’re in love,” he said. “I’ve never loved a woman so much. But we don’t sleep together.”

“But you’re almost on top of each other in this place …”

Chris stood up, and strode quickly to the bookcase that was almost in the dark. He turned around to me.

“We sleep in the same bed,” he said, and laughed. “It’s killing me. We don’t touch. It’s an experiment.”

Neither of us said anything. When Chris resumed, I couldn’t see his face at all clearly.

“I got the idea from something you said. It’s the only way of saving love from banality and habit.”

“That was just for the sake of argument. I never believed in it. My God! It’s madness.”

“Well,” said Chris, “it works. We love each other as much as on the first day.”

The following morning, I met Yotslana. She must have come into the house while I was asleep. She had taken a shower, and was wearing a short bathrobe, and she was every bit as beautiful as Chris had described. She sat at the kitchen table, reading a book. I introduced myself.

“Chris is at school already,” said Yotslana. “Do you want coffee?”

I sat down opposite her. She didn’t say much, but looked at me searchingly. We drank the coffee.

Then Yotslana went into the bedroom, and I left the apartment and headed downtown.

I got along well with Yotslana. She didn’t often have to go to school, and on some days we went for walks in the park, and talked about all kinds of things. Sometimes she would link arms with me, and we would talk about Chris, things about him that bothered her. That he was so stubborn and pedantic, the way he took everything so seriously.

“He’s a theorist,” she said, “a cerebral type. I’m the opposite. I’m a gut person.”

When I was shaving on one of the following mornings, Yotslana walked into the bathroom. She started undressing behind my back. I could see her in the mirror, I could see her back, her wide shoulders, her slender neck as she pinned back her hair. She turned around. Our eyes met in the mirror, and Yotslana smiled and got into the old bathtub to shower. I hurriedly finished shaving, but already she was peeping around the edge of the shower curtain, saying: “Will you pass me the towel, please.”

She took the towel from me, got out of the tub, and dried herself.

“India must be a very beautiful country,” I said.

She laughed, and took the big bottle of baby lotion off the windowsill, and started putting it on all over herself.

I had gone over to the door, but Yotslana never stopped engaging me in conversation. I looked at my hands, at the ceiling, in every conceivable direction. Then Yotslana threw me the damp towel. She stopped talking, and I sat down on the toilet seat and watched her. She lotioned her arms, her breasts, her belly, her thighs. She perched on the edge of the tub, and carefully applied lotion to her feet, toe by toe.

“Will you rub my back, please?” she asked, stepped up to me, pushed the bottle into my hands, and turned around.

I stood up. I rubbed her neck, her shoulders, her back, her lower back. I stroked her waist, her hips, her bottom, all the while trying to keep my eyes on my hands rather than her body. Yotslana turned around, and my hands continued to move, slid over her body, followed and then directed by her hands. Then there was only one hand. Yotslana had directed it, and left it to its own devices. She was propping herself against the washbasin, and she had her eyes shut.

When the soap dish slid onto the ground and shattered, Yotslana laughed and laid her hands on mine, picked it up, and kissed my fingertips.

“You smell of me.”

“If Chris comes back …”

“You might have thought of that earlier.”

Later we showered together, and I dried Yotslana with the towel that was still wet.

“Shall we eat something together?” I asked.

“No time,” she said. “I’ve got to be somewhere at twelve.”

In the afternoon I went over to the basketball court, but there was no one there. It had rained a lot in the last few days, and the asphalt court was covered with leaves from the past fall. I didn’t get back to the apartment till after dark. Chris was cooking. He asked me if I wanted to eat with him.

“Yotslana’s staying the night with a friend,” he said. “How do you like her?”

“She’s very beautiful,” I said. I was ashamed of myself.

We put away a lot of beer that night. Just like old times, said Chris.

“Are you okay, you and Yotslana? Isn’t it inevitable that one day one or the other of you will …”

Chris shrugged his shoulders.

A few days later, I got back from the city earlier than usual. I had been out since morning. It was raining, and as the rain got heavier about lunchtime, I decided to go home. Yotslana wasn’t there. I heard voices and laughter from the bedroom. I went to the kitchen to fix some coffee. Then Chris wandered in with a woman. He was wearing just a pair of jeans, she was in a long T-shirt. The three of us drank coffee. Then the woman got dressed and left. Chris told me not to say anything about it to Yotslana.

“She knows Meg from school.”

“Meg?” I asked.

“She’s not my type, but she’s quite sweet. Yotslana can’t bear her.”

I felt relieved.

Yotslana was behaving strangely in those days. If Chris was there, she would exchange loving looks with him, but the second he was gone she would come to me, and throw her arms around me, and let me embrace her.

It had rained again, all afternoon, and we lay together on my bed. I lay on my back, Yotslana on her belly. We were splitting a can of beer. I touched Yotslana’s naked shoulder blades with the ice-cold can, and ran it down her spine. She turned over, took the can out of my hand, and set it down on her belly.

“Could you imagine living in Chicago?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “Chicago’s way too cold.”

“New York’s cold too.”

“Anyway this is where I’m studying.”

“I could come back to New York …”

“No,” said Yotslana crossly. She pressed the can into my hand, got up, and walked to the bathroom.

“I love you,” I called out after her. I felt ridiculous.

Yotslana didn’t reply. I heard her in the shower, and later on she left the apartment.

On my last evening in the city I cooked for Chris and Yotslana. We were drinking coffee when I said: “I love Yotslana.”

Chris looked at me with a smile.