Peter Stamm - In Strange Gardens and Other Stories

Yotslana said: “You’re crazy.”

“We’ve slept together,” I went on, without paying her any attention. Chris sighed and shrugged his shoulders. Yotslana tried to take his hand. Then she crossed her arms and leaned way back in her chair.

“The soap dish,” said Chris, and shook his head.

“Also, Chris and Meg …” I said.

“Meg?” said Yotslana, and twisted her face in a scornful smile.

Chris held up his hands in embarrassment, and dropped them again.

“My God,” he said. “I’m only human.”

“What’s the matter with you two,” I said. I was furious. “I love Yotslana!”

Yotslana sipped her coffee and said: “Two bodies collide with each other and separate from one another.”

“That was your idea,” said Chris. “That you shouldn’t sleep with the woman you truly love. We thought about it a long time. And it works. Only everyone keeps falling in love with Yotslana.”

“If I go to bed with a man, he thinks it means I want to marry him,” she said. “It’s easier for Chris. Women aren’t so emotional.”

I wasn’t listening, and just repeated: “Yotslana, I love you!”

She laid her hand on my arm.

“I like you,” she said. “You’re different from Chris. So romantic.”

“Yotslana fell in love with you a little bit,” said Chris. “So I told her she should sleep with you. To put a stop to it.”

She had suggested to her father that she collect him in Basel. That’s all I need, he had said. He wasn’t some kid, traveling on his own for the first time. She couldn’t remember that he had ever gone anywhere on his own. She had noted the times of the train arrivals at the station, and had sent her father an itinerary: change in Frankfurt and Basel. You get here at 12:48. If I’m not there, wait for me in the station restaurant. I won’t be long.

Take a roomette. The way she said that. She traveled all the way to Switzerland with up to five others in a compartment. But that wasn’t appropriate for an old man, and least of all, someone like him. She hadn’t said that. She had said: Give yourself a treat, for once. On the rare occasion you do come and see me. You can share my room, that way you’ll save on the hotel.

He hadn’t slept in the same room as her since she was a baby. Then, they had only had three rooms and a gas stove. At night, Mette had gotten up and fed the baby, and he had pretended to be asleep. How could you call a child Inger? As she got older, he became used to it. But that tiny scrap of a thing going by Inger. He had had a hundred names for her, only Inger was never one of them.

If she hadn’t occasionally visited home, they would never have seen each other at all. She drove home for her mother’s funeral, and after Christmas, when the owner shut the restaurant for two weeks so that she could go and vacation in Egypt. Why didn’t he ever visit her? She had had to ask him: please come. You’ve got enough time now. But didn’t she like coming home, he said. I go on your account. And she waited for him to say: You don’t have to come on my account. He had already opened his mouth, but he didn’t say anything.

He had never gone anywhere on his own. He had married young, before that he had never been able to afford to travel, and much less afterwards. At that time, they stayed put. Later on, they vacationed, in Italy or Spain, as a family. When the children were grown up, they didn’t feel like it anymore, and he and Mette traveled by themselves. They took a cruise down the Danube, and once they visited the Christmas fair at Nuremberg. Since Mette’s death, he hadn’t been anywhere.

Even the station was an adventure to him then. The night train from Copenhagen made only a short stop. He was the only passenger who got on. The conductor asked him what his destination was. He only let him board the train once he’d seen his ticket. After that, he was suddenly very friendly. When would you like me to wake you? Would you like anything else? Coffee? Beer? A sandwich? He wasn’t hungry. He had got to the station far too early, and had eaten a hot dog. He was nervous. He went along to the dining car. The conductor locked the compartment with a special key.

Even by the time of her third trip, Inger knew how everything worked. She took one of the top bunks. It was warmer up there than below, and you felt protected. She shared the compartment with a couple of young men who were on their way to a soccer game, and with a woman in practical-looking clothes. The three had been on the train since Copenhagen. The men stood out in the corridor and drank beer and smoked, she only got to meet the woman the following morning. She could have been her mother.

He drank a beer, and then another. There was a group of young people at one of the other tables. They were going to a fair in Frankfurt, and they were in good spirits. He thought of his suitcase, in the locked compartment. He had brought a can of herrings in curry sauce with him, and a pack of salted licorice. He knew what Inger liked. When she left home, Mette had already been sick. Mama isn’t well, that was all he had said. And Inger hadn’t said anything, and had left.

Mama wasn’t well. As if that was a reason to stay home. It was a reason to go. He always spoke of her as Mama when he was talking to Inger. Go and apologize to Mama. Mama’s not well. Mama’s sick. Sometimes, Inger had wanted just to call her Mette, as her father did. Even the cousins called her by her name. But then she hadn’t done it. She didn’t want any dissension. When her mother died, everything changed. Only he failed to notice.

He swayed through the narrow corridors of the train. Was his compartment in the third car along, or the fourth? The way back is always shorter, he had often told Inger when they went for walks on Sundays. The way back was always shorter. But Inger didn’t want to go back. Inger wanted to go on.

Every day she saw the trains, heard the trains, that were going south into the big tunnel. She would find a job in Italy. She didn’t ask for much. A room and whatever the going wage was. She wanted to have fun, meet people who didn’t know anything about her except what she told them. And she wouldn’t tell them anything. She didn’t want to think about Odense, about home and family. The way they sat there chewing over old times, and telling the same stories over and over again. She wanted to go on, and not back. Everyone comes back some time, her father had said. And asked her what he ought to bring. Nothing. You can get everything here. How about licorice? If you like. Herrings? She didn’t say anything. Whatever you like, she said, and thought if I miss anything, it’s licorice. But she didn’t want any arguments. As long as there were arguments, you were dependent on someone. You only got to be independent when you no longer asked for anything. Not even to be left in peace. Whatever you like, she had said. She had said: take some heavy shoes. We’ll be going hiking.

That was something he had always said: We’re going hiking. Inger didn’t want to go. She wanted to watch TV, sit at home, waste away her Sundays. The exercise will do you good. You can sit all day at school. Sometimes he envied her for feeling happy in the house. He had never liked being at home, and even then he had never left.

At 12:48 she was still in the restaurant. From noon, she had looked at her watch every couple of minutes. Don’t you need to go, asked the hostess. It wasn’t more than five minutes to the station, but the trains ran on time here. In a minute, she said. She was sure he wouldn’t go to the station restaurant. He would wait for her on the platform, not even sit on a bench. He would stand next to his suitcase and make some remark about her unpunctuality. It wouldn’t even occur to him that she had come late on purpose. Perhaps she was looking for an argument, after all.