Peter Stamm: In Strange Gardens and Other Stories

“Yo,” went a young man at one of the tables, “he misadeh misadeeho …”

The barman set our beers down on the bar in front of us. I was pretty drunk by now. I raised my glass, and said: “To poetry!”

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” said the old man.

“Now read the poems that men have written for women,” said Dylan, and he recited from memory: “She is as in a field a silken tent, at midday when a sunny summer breeze has dried the dew …”

Overcome, he stopped, looked down at the dirty floor, and sadly shook his head.

“Women call themselves romantics, as if they would call themselves American,” he said. “They love it when you say you’re beautiful, your eyes shine like the sun, your lips are red as coral, your breasts are white as snow. They think they’re romantic because they like to be adored by men.”

I wanted to contradict, but he said: “I just want to open your eyes. Don’t let women make a fool of you. They’ll tempt you with their spare flesh. And once you’ve bitten, they’ll break your head open and eat you up.”

I laughed.

“You remind me of someone,” said Dylan.

“Some friend of yours?” I asked.

“A very good friend. He’s dead now.”

I went to the rest room.

“I’ve got no money left for the bus now,” I said.

“I’ll take you home,” said Dylan.

I thought it must be dark by now, but as we stepped out of the bar, it was a fine afternoon. The rain had stopped.

There were still clouds in the sky. But the low sun shone through underneath them. The houses and trees and cars glistened and projected long shadows. Dylan had his car parked on Queens Boulevard. He turned into a sidestreet.

“That’s not my way home,” I said. “You’re going the wrong way.”

Dylan laughed. “Are you scared of me?” he asked.

I didn’t say anything.

“I’m just turning the car around,” he said. “Are you that scared of women too?”

“I don’t know … I guess not.”

We drove back toward Manhattan in silence. I hadn’t walked nearly as far as I thought.

“Here,” I said, “I’d like to walk the last bit.”

I got out, and walked around the car. Dylan had wound down the window and held out his hand.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said, “and thanks for the beer.”

Dylan wouldn’t let go my hand till I looked into his eyes. Then he said: “Thanks for a pleasant afternoon.”

As I crossed the street, he called after me: “And Merry Christmas.”

I could see Monika’s yellow rain jacket through the trees. I had put on water for coffee when she called me. The forest was dense here, and the ground was covered with boughs and twigs that snapped underfoot. It was hard going, and after just a few steps my pants and my hands were filthy with moss and algae that covered everything with their slime.

“Quiet,” said Monika softly, as I approached. Then I saw that Michael was curled up on the ground in front of her.

“What’s the matter with him?” I asked, once I heard his noisy breathing.

“When he caught sight of me he ran off, and then he fell,” said Monika. She knelt down, and shook Michael gently. “What happened? Where’s Sandra?”

“I lost my shoe,” he said, panting. “I can’t find it anywhere.”

“Where’s Sandra?” asked Monika.

“Gone to get help.”

It was only by chance that I had wound up in Sweden at all. Monika had recently broken up with her boyfriend, and since the canoe tour had already been booked, she asked me whether I’d like to go with her. I’d been in love with Monika back in high school, but there was one terrible night when she told me she wasn’t in love with me. We had stayed friends, and I’d gone on hoping for a while, till one day she told me she had a lover. All that happened years ago.

We had run into Sandra and Michael on the train. They were both wearing purple fleeces and trousers with loads of pockets. Sandra said this was her fifth visit to Sweden, she had worked in the travel business, she loved the north, her car had been broken open and robbed once in Goteborg. She spoke Swedish place names as if she had mastered the language. When Monika asked her, she said no, unfortunately not, she just spoke German, French, Italian, and, of course, English. She said her name was Sandra, and her husband’s was Michael.

“My husband’s name is Michael,” she said. “We’re on our honeymoon.”

Michael didn’t say anything. He didn’t even seem to be listening, and just stared out into the forest. Only once, when a heron flew up from close to the tracks, and cleared the treetops with a few lazy wingstrokes, did he say: “Sandra, look.”

“This will be our last vacation for some time,” said Sandra. “We’re having a baby in six months. Isn’t that right, Michael?”

Michael was staring out of the window again, and Sandra repeated: “Isn’t that right, Michael?”

“Yes,” he said eventually.

“You seem to be over the moon about it,” said Monika, with an exaggeratedly warm smile.

“It seems such a miracle to me,” said Sandra, “to feel a new life stirring within me.”

“The real miracle will be when the life starts stirring on its own,” said Monika tartly.

“Don’t you want children?” asked Sandra, turning to me.

“Children aren’t compatible with the interior design of our apartment,” said Monika quickly.

The campsite was on the edge of a small town, between an automobile factory and the big lake. When we went to the store to buy provisions, we ran into Sandra and Michael again. Sandra said we had to buy mosquito repellent, and only Swedish mosquito repellent worked on Swedish mosquitoes.

“Have you vino?” an Austrian woman was asking at the checkout ahead of us. The checkout clerk shook her head, and Sandra told the woman about the Swedish laws governing the sale of alcohol.

“I can’t stand that woman,” Monika whispered in my ear. In the evening, as we were heading for the pizza joint next to the campsite, we saw Sandra and Michael crouching in front of their tent, cooking.

“We’re having a proper adventure vacation,” Sandra called out. “The pizza place is no good, and it’s expensive.”

Michael didn’t say anything. It was true, the pizzas weren’t very good, and they were really expensive. But Monika did imitations of Sandra all through supper, and we spent a fun evening.

“I can have much more of a laugh with you than I could with Stefan,” she said.

“Is that why you split up?”

“No,” said Monika. “He wanted to have a baby.”

“And you?”

“He just wanted it because he was scared. All his friends were having babies. He was probably afraid everything would carry on in the same way. And that he would get old. All that. That’s what he said.”

“And you?” I asked again.

“Well, in the end, you’re on your own anyway,” said Monika.

“Don’t you want a baby?”

“No. I want to get through life alone. Even if it means growing old on my own.”

Monika said ideally she would have gone on the canoeing tour on her own as well. But then she had read that at some points you had to carry the boat across land for a little ways, and she didn’t think she could do that. And so she’d asked me to come.

“So I’m here as your bearer?”

“No. You know what you mean to me. You’re my oldest friend, and that’s more than the greatest lover.”

When we returned past Sandra and Michael’s tent, we couldn’t see them anymore. But from inside the tent we could hear Sandra moaning: “Oh, yes! Oh, give it to me! Oh, that’s so good!”