Peter Stamm - All Days Are Night

On Saturday morning, Hubert called Astrid. She asked how he was doing and whether the show was coming together. He replied evasively. They talked about a few practical matters, then Astrid asked if she and Lukas should come up and see him. Maybe Rolf would come too. Hubert said it wasn’t a good time, he needed to concentrate on what he was doing. Then he asked to talk to Lukas and asked him what he was doing, but the boy was pretty monosyllabic and soon hung up.

All Sunday Hubert was nervous. He had crazy ideas about what he might do for the show, he thought about unpacking his old slides, projecting them on the walls or magnifying them, the whole series as a sort of illustrated romance. He could cut bits out of them, blow up certain details till they became unrecognizable. Or take pictures of himself, naked or clothed, doing the same things he had painted the women doing, as an ironic commentary on his earlier exhibition. Or he could do the thing he thought about doing before, make portraits of hotel guests. Or he could start a herbarium, paint with natural materials, make a stone circle, some reference to the power places. He even briefly considered a performance, though that really wasn’t his thing. None of it interested him.

In the afternoon, he took himself to the hotel spa. At six he asked at reception for Jill. He was told she would be on her way, but it was another ten minutes before she appeared in the lobby.

We can take my car, she said, leaving the hotel almost at a run.

She had a red Twingo, the backseat was a jumble of papers and clothes. Jill drove fast up the narrow road and over the new bridge.

Don’t you live in the village, then? asked Hubert.

Just outside, said Jill, it’s not far.

Five minutes later, she drew up outside a 1950s vacation house.

It’s not a thing of beauty, she said, but it belongs to my parents, so there’s no rent to pay.

How long have you been living here? asked Hubert.

Six years. I moved up here right after the accident.

Hubert said he had read something about that in a magazine, what had happened.

Jill climbed out. While they were still standing in front of the house, she explained rapidly that her husband had been drunk, had hit a deer, and died.

I was pretty badly hurt. My nose was more or less gone, but they built me another one that’s almost the same. It took over three years and lots of operations before it looked all right. Come in. Do you want a tour?

She showed him around and talked about the oil-fired central heating that would have to be replaced sometime, and the fact that they could do a roof conversion if they ever needed more space. The décor looked impersonal, perhaps because a lot of the furniture was old and didn’t really belong, as though its useful life had been spent somewhere else, and it was here in semiretirement. On the walls were a couple of calendar photos of Engadin landscapes, which Jill certainly wouldn’t have chosen. The magnificent landscape outside reappeared inside, in smaller, faded versions. On the dining table was a thick mustard yellow cloth, with a wrought iron ashtray on it. The air smelled of cold cigarette smoke.

They sat at a little granite table in the garden, in the middle of a flower meadow ringed by tall shrubbery. The sun hadn’t gone yet, but the light was changing, and large flecks of shade were wandering over the facing slopes.

I get properly snowed in here sometimes, said Jill. I’ve more or less got used to the mountains, but the winters are very long here.

How on earth did you wind up doing this vacation club thing? asked Hubert.

I had to do something, said Jill. I couldn’t go back in front of the camera, and I didn’t want to retreat into editorial. I came here because I wanted to recuperate for a while, then I saw a job ad and applied. At first I was working with children. The good thing is that ninety-nine percent of our guests are from Germany. No one recognized me. My boss was the only one who knew I’d once worked in TV. I told everyone who wanted to hear about it about the accident, and after that people no longer asked. Anyway, my nose kept looking better after each operation. Once I had settled, there was an opening in events, and my boss offered me the job.

And what do you do there? asked Hubert.

We put on an event every other evening, plays, musicals, sing-alongs. I’m also responsible for sports and fitness, I draw up schedules, look after my team. And I’m very often out with guests, we go on hikes together, I play games with them, sometimes do a little bit of acting. I just about have enough talent for the kind of things we put on. Tomorrow we’re doing Love Between Valley and Peak , you can come if you like, I’ll save you a seat. I’m playing the farmer’s ugly daughter.

Hubert stared at Jill. She looked back, unabashed.

The play wasn’t as silly as it sounded, she said, at any rate it was perfect for the guests. And she got a kick out of being onstage again. It was only here that I realized how heartily sick I was of the arts scene in the city.

She asked Hubert what he had done in all that time. He talked about his teaching job and the fact that he had almost stopped painting. I don’t know why that is, he said. Maybe I’ve just seen too much bad art, my own included.

By now the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, and the shadows were creeping up the slopes.

I’m cold, said Jill, shall we go inside?

Hubert followed her into the house and then into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and looked uncertainly at what little it contained. I’m afraid I haven’t bought anything wonderful, she said. What do you feel like eating?

Perhaps I just need to reconcile myself to the fact that people want pictures to hang on their walls, said Hubert, and watched as Jill washed lettuce and cut a carrot in slivers. It’s not a crime. But I think I’d rather work on a building site or wait tables than make commercial art.

Stay here, said Jill, I can make inquiries at the hotel. You could offer drawing classes to the guests, I’m sure that would go down well. She was facing away from him, and for a moment he thought she meant it. She turned and passed him the salad bowl with a grin.

During the meal, Jill talked about the club, and meetings with hotel guests, personnel difficulties, and the one big family they were.

When I began here, I looked so horrible, I’m surprised they gave me a job at all. Hang on.

She brought out another bottle of wine and went over to a small desk by the window, opened a drawer, and pulled out a cardboard folder that she laid in front of Hubert. She sat down beside him and opened the folder. He saw a photograph in which she looked more or less as he saw her now. She went on, and from page to page her face changed. It looked as though it was crumbling, even though it was always the same face. Sometimes Hubert clutched Jill’s hand and asked her to go back one. Then there was a picture of Jill’s nose, which looked like a large red potato, and another in which her whole face was cut and bloody. It was so swollen around the eyes that he could hardly see them, and everywhere there were patches of raw flesh. There was no nose.

That’s what I looked like after the accident, said Jill. They took the photos in the hospital.

Hubert turned away. It wasn’t the last picture, but Jill dwelled on it for a long time before turning the page. The next was a portrait of her as she was at the time Hubert had met her. Her face had an expression of vulnerability, as though she sensed what was in store for it. But it was only when he saw the next picture that he realized where these pictures came from. Jill was sitting naked on a chair in his studio, her hands in her lap, a pose he had cribbed from Edvard Munch. These were the pictures he had taken then. They were better than he had thought at the time. He remembered accusing Jill of not being there and of being stilted. He picked up the rest of the pictures, laid them on the table side by side, and stood up so he was able to see them all together. A few were shots of her upper body, or her face.