Peter Stamm - All Days Are Night

The cane seat cut into her bottom, and the electric heater only warmed one side of her body. She tried to think of something else. She asked herself what she was doing there. If Matthias saw the painting, he was certain to make a huge scene. Of course he would recognize her, whatever Hubert said. And he would never believe that she hadn’t slept with the painter. He knew her past, for ten years after drama school she had done pretty much whatever she felt like doing. Sometimes she had slept with a man purely because she admired his lifestyle or because she wanted to know what it would feel like to deceive her boyfriend of the time. Matthias often quizzed her about those years, and she didn’t keep anything from him. Well, you’re mine now, she had often heard that sentence from him, and even though she didn’t much like the expression, it did give her a kind of security. She had no reason to play around now. If she did, and he found out, that would be the end of everything, of that she was certain. She couldn’t account for what it was about Hubert that attracted her. He dressed scruffily and didn’t seem to be interested in his appearance. And his laconic, even grouchy manner was enough to lead Gillian to expect coarseness or inattentiveness. She had had a brief relationship with a painter once before, and that had been a disaster. Perhaps she was in search of uncertainty, in the hope of being unsettled. She needed perhaps to be made to feel who she was. That sounded like something that would be more at home in a self-help book. Sometimes she and Matthias had giggled over the tips in magazines, techniques to keep a tired relationship alive, and even so he arranged for them to spend holidays in a spa hotel in the mountains where they would be pampered with massages and baths and good food. Then they slept together, as though that too was on the menu. Currently, Gillian found sex with him less satisfying than the fact that they had it at all. It was proof that their relationship was in good shape, and that things could go on as they were.

The egg timer went off. Her pose had come to feel like a protective garment, but as soon as she got up she felt her nudity again. Even so, she walked over to Hubert who still had the charcoal in his hand. He took a step back to inspect the drawing, quite as though not to be too close to her. He was more careful of her altogether since she was naked. She turned to him, stood next to the drawing, and copied the uncertain expression on the girl’s face.

Did I really look like that?

She tried a big confident smile, but it didn’t come off. Hubert went over to the door and took down a thin kimono from the hook and passed it to her.

I don’t want to be responsible for your catching cold.

She looked at the sketch. Even though it was just a rough sketch, she could see the likeness, but it didn’t strike her as significant.

Are you happy with it? she asked.

Hubert shook his head. I get the feeling there’s nothing coming from you, he said. A bit of shyness at the start, but after that you were just gone.

What do you expect from me? I’ve never done this before.

Presence. You’ve got to be here so that something can happen between us.

Gillian smirked.

Get undressed, he said. Stand here. Feet apart. So that you feel solidly rooted. Do you feel the floor? Your weight?

Gillian recalled the exercises in her first year of drama school, even then she hadn’t quite understood what they meant by presence. Hubert circled around her at a distance, stopped still behind her. She could feel his attentiveness.

What are you thinking about?

I was remembering drama school.

How do you feel?

I don’t know. Tired.

Sit down.

She had to sit on the cold floor, her knees drawn up, arms on her knees, one hand grasping her other wrist. She thought of a statue by Aristide Maillol in exactly that pose. Hubert wound up the egg timer, started drawing. Sometimes he groaned loudly, or hurled the charcoal on the floor. It’s not working. The timer went off, they split a beer, a new pose. The more it went on, the more taciturn Hubert grew. Sometimes he would crumple up a sheet of paper after a single line. Gillian was tired, her body cramped, she was hurting. In the next break, she did a couple of stretches, but Hubert had already wound the clock again.

Get undressed.

She opened the kimono. He stepped up behind her and almost ripped it off her.

Lie down.

She lay on her front, her head pillowed on her folded arms. She could feel herself getting goose pimples all over.

I need to go to the bathroom.

Not now. Arms down by your sides.

The cold floor pressed against her cheekbones. Hubert stood close beside her, she could only see his feet and legs.

Lie on your back.

When Gillian turned over, bits of grit were clinging to her belly, her breasts, her face. Chill from the floor crept into her, her breasts rose and fell. She covered her pudenda with her hand.

No, said Hubert.

She took her hand away. Slowly she calmed down. She lay there like a corpse. Hubert was still standing very close to her, looking down. She studied the ceiling, the electric wires that led to the ugly halogen lamps. Dirty gray shadows had formed around the lamps. She tried to look Hubert in the eye. After he finally returned her look, he walked away. She sat up and saw him standing at the window, staring out into the dark. Gillian stood up, and with her hands brushed the dirt off her face and body. Then she picked up the kimono off the floor and went over to Hubert.

I’m sorry.

It doesn’t matter.

She pressed herself against him, placed her hands on his chest. When he still didn’t react, she undid the belt of the kimono.

It’s all right, she said.

Her voice sounded false, she was speaking lines from a script. She started stroking his neck and shoulder, her breath came faster, she kept her mouth close to his ear. She wanted to be aroused, wanted him to. He broke away with a jerk and took a step to the side, without turning to face her.

Stop that!

For a long time neither spoke.

Don’t you fancy me?

Finally Hubert turned toward her and looked at her.

My girlfriend’s having a baby. The due date’s next month.

Gillian laughed and took a step toward him.

Who cares, we’re grown-ups.

She was playing a part in a bad film. Even so, her lust was genuine. She wanted him to grab her and push her onto the sofa. It would be like a punishment that would relieve her. Just then the egg timer went off. It seemed not to want to stop. Hubert went to the door and opened it.

Please go.

Gillian’s father stood by the window, even though there was nothing to be seen anymore besides the doctors’ parking spaces, a bit of lawn, and some small detached houses. In the past few days Gillian had often stood at that same window and asked herself who lived in those houses and what sort of lives were conducted in the rhythm of the lamps going on and off, behind the opening and closing curtains, whose shadows were flitting over the blinds. But her father wasn’t looking out, his head was lowered. He had hardly been there for fifteen minutes, and already he was restless. One of the nurses had taken off the bandage so that he could see his daughter’s face.

Gillian stepped behind him and stopped a couple of paces away. He had driven down from the mountains and interrupted his skiing holiday expressly for her sake. She was touched, but when she tried to say so, he gestured dismissively, it hadn’t even taken him three hours.

The doctors have done a good job, he said. It’s looking all right, almost like before.

Gillian looked nothing like before. Now that she could identify her features again, she saw even more clearly how she had changed. She would never look the way she had before the accident.