Peter Stamm - All Days Are Night

They had been sitting in the garden, Lukas was playing in the meadow with a neighbor’s son. Hubert collected the dirty dishes and carried them into the kitchen. He was barefoot and felt the chill of the grass at approaching nightfall. When he came back, Astrid asked him why he didn’t want to accept the invitation.

Because I’ve got nothing to show, he said.

It doesn’t get any easier, she said. Sometime you’ll need to start working again. The scenery up there is beautiful.

Beautiful landscapes are no use for good paintings.

There are lots of radionic power places around there.

That’s more your thing. Are you trying to get rid of me, by any chance?

Astrid got up and called Lukas. Her voice sounded strangely rough when she told him to come home right away. Ten minutes later, she came out into the garden and said Lukas wanted his good night kiss from his father.

It was cool inside, all the blinds were down. Lukas lay perfectly still in his bed, waiting. At such times Hubert thought of him as a strange creature whose world was so much bigger and darker than his own. Hubert bent down, only for Lukas to grab him around the neck and start kissing him frantically on both cheeks.

Enough, enough, said Hubert. You go to sleep now.

As he walked over to the stairs, he remembered an early cycle of pictures, little colored pencil drawings of kitchens, bedrooms, and living rooms. There were no people in them, but you could sense that someone had either just left or was just about to arrive. He stopped on the top step. From the kitchen he could hear the clatter of dishes. Then he saw Astrid walking through the dark corridor, without noticing him up on the stair. She was carrying a wine bottle and two glasses. Her walk looked as though she was trying not to be noticed. Hubert went softly down the stairs and saw that Astrid had stopped at the glass door that led out into the garden. She was hesitating, perhaps she had heard something or seen something. He took a couple of rapid steps toward her, put his arm around her waist, and kissed her neck. She turned to face him. When he made to kiss her again, she freed herself.

I need to talk to you.

Hubert could only dimly remember the conversation. On the next-door property a halogen beam had come on every other minute or so, because some animal had triggered the motion sensor. In the distance, there was the quiet drone of traffic on the Autobahn. It had gotten colder. Astrid had long since bundled herself up in a blanket. When they finally went in at around midnight, Hubert had trouble walking in a straight line. He carried in two empty wine bottles, set them on the dining table, and lay down on the sofa. Astrid went up to bed without a word.

It was the first of many conversations that always took the same course. Astrid said she felt trapped in their relationship. It was so different with Rolf. He opened up to her. Ever since she had started moving in the therapy scene, she spoke a new language.

Each time, she calmly explained her view of things to Hubert and reacted understandingly to his rage, which only made him still more furious. It all had nothing to do with him. Her decision had been made. In the end, Hubert had no alternative but to agree to a trial separation. Astrid was to stay in the house with Lukas, while he found a small apartment for himself.

Now that Hubert knew about Astrid’s lover, she had no more reason to meet him clandestinely. Every second or third evening she went out. Then Hubert would sit at home all evening and watch Lukas, who had trouble sleeping and had awful nightmares when he did. When Astrid got back at one or whenever, Hubert was sitting in front of the TV, and she vanished upstairs without a word.

The semester was over in the middle of June, but Hubert still went in every day. He had taken a one-bedroom apartment near the lake. He had forgotten all about the invitation to the mountains when Arno sent him a reminder.

What do I have to do to convince you? he wrote. After lunch Hubert had coffee with the head of his department. She knew about his separation from Astrid and urged him to accept the invitation. It was almost twelve months off, in all that time he would surely think of something. Perhaps the pressure of a deadline was just what he needed.

After lunch, Hubert replied to Arno: He’d be happy to come.

In July he went away on vacation with Astrid and Lukas. They had rented the house just after Christmas. Hubert had offered to step down in place of Rolf, but Astrid said they weren’t that far along yet. She had no problem going on holiday with Hubert anyway.

During their two weeks in Denmark, the weather stayed cool and rainy. Lukas was bored. They did all sorts of activities, visited a safari park, a maritime museum on a restored three-master, and a glassworks, where Lukas made a glass mold of his hand. At least by day Hubert could give himself to the illusion that they were still a family. Lukas too seemed to appreciate that they were all together again. Astrid received a string of text messages and at least once a day a phone call. Then she would go into another room or, if they were outside, take a few steps away. Hubert watched her in the distance. She was serious and if anything more irritable after these conversations than before.

When Lukas was tucked up in bed, he and Astrid would sit in the living room drinking wine and reading. Eventually Astrid would say she was tired and head for the bathroom. Hubert put his book down and listened to the unfamiliar noises of the strange house, the creaking of the steps, the whooshing of the pipes, and the wind that was always blowing here. He waited for half an hour, then he would go to the bathroom himself. They slept in separate rooms, except once, when Astrid got up to go to bed and she whispered to him: Are you coming? He followed her up the stairs. On the landing she took him by the hand and led him into her room.

The next morning, neither of them talked about what had happened in the night, but for the rest of the vacation, Hubert noticed that Astrid would link arms with him when they walked, or kiss him when he bought ice cream for her and Lukas. Sometimes he would shock himself by thinking that this was the last holiday they would have together.

Their closeness during the two-week vacation only served to distance them further from one another. Their relationship became increasingly pally, they barely quarreled anymore when they met. They compared schedules and talked about who would collect Lukas from school or day care, and who would have him over what weekend. Astrid asked if Hubert knew where the warranty for the coffee machine was or if he would fix the puncture in Lukas’s bike tire. They talked about their work, and sometimes Astrid even talked about Rolf, and Hubert listened without interrupting.

There was plenty to do in the garden, and Hubert took it on. He avoided going into the house. Only when he needed some tools from the basement did he go inside. Lukas often came out, played in his vicinity and kept half an eye on him all the time. Sometimes Hubert asked him to fetch something, and he would jump up and run and get it, as if he too preferred that his father didn’t set foot in the house.

Hubert increasingly got used to the new situation, but he still refused all contact with Rolf. As if to punish him for it, Astrid talked about her friend all the time. He had started his own career advice business. That was what he called it, but in actual fact it went far beyond that.

He works according to holistic principles, he intuits his way into his opposite number, and then he can practically go backward and forward on the temporal axis and give advice, very concrete advice.

Is he your lover or your guru? asked Hubert.

Neither, she said. When he spends the night here, he stays in the guest room.