Peter Stamm - All Days Are Night

She walked around the big building, past the brightly lit entrance. As she turned the corner, she heard voices and laughter. The door to the kitchen stood open, where the cooks worked in their white tunics and checked pants. They were just tidying up now. It took a while before one of the trainees, a boy with long hair, saw her. He went to the door, said hello, and offered her a cigarette.

We’re almost finished, he said, and lit one himself. Then he stuck his head back in the kitchen and called out: Hey, Edo, your girlfriend’s here!

She liked the sound of that. She was Edo’s girlfriend, even though she had only met him a week ago, in the pub by the railway station. He had bought her a beer and told her about working in the hotel.

She had arranged with her father that he would come and pick her up at half past ten. When she told Edo, he made fun of her. She always had the feeling he didn’t quite take her seriously. He was in his fourth year as a trainee chef, so he was three years older than her, and even had his own car, an old rust bucket of a Fiat. When she went to the pub the following day, she told her father there was no need to collect her, someone would drive her home. He wanted to know who, and they had a fight about it. Edo wasn’t in the pub that evening, and she had to walk home, it was over an hour. The next day she plucked up all her courage, went to the hotel after lunch, and asked for Edo. He was standing beside the back door smoking with a couple of his colleagues. She went up to the men, pretending she had turned up by chance. It was his hour off, said Edo, with a complacent smirk. Do you want to see my room? There was great hilarity among the others. He blushed. She said if he liked they could go for a walk.

As soon as she was alone with Edo, he behaved quite differently. Even his voice changed, got quieter and more careful. They walked along the riverbank, the path led through tall grass and bushes, and it was so narrow they had to go Indian file. Gillian went ahead and felt Edo’s eyes on her back. After a couple hundred yards, they sat down on the riverbank in the shade of some trees. The current was strong, Edo snapped off twigs and dropped them in the water, where they were pulled in as though by some mysterious power and immediately swept away. He told her about his plans. After his military service, he wanted to go abroad, to Africa or Asia. While Gillian was sweating over Latin and math, Edo would be seeing the world. She lay down and shut her eyes and waited for him to kiss her. But Edo went on talking. Their dreams could hardly be more different, but his enthusiasm was infectious. When they walked back, Gillian’s arm brushed against some nettles. Edo looked at the reddened place. He hesitated for a moment, then he raised her arm to his mouth and kissed it. It was as though she had been waiting for that moment. She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.

Edo, called the apprentice again, it’s your girlfriend! Then he turned to her and said, we’re all going swimming together, do you feel like coming?

Swimming? Now? She laughed disbelievingly.

Edo stepped out and kissed her on the mouth. They smoked silently. One after the other, the cooks emerged from the kitchen, said goodbye, and disappeared into the darkness. The last to go was the head chef. Don’t forget to lock up, he said to Edo, he was making him responsible.

Come on, said Edo to her and to his colleague, once the boss was gone. Inside there were three trainees busy cleaning and wiping, a big fellow with a pimply face, a smaller boy who looked like he was still a kid, and a round girl with thin braids.

Come on, said Edo again. They all went into the storeroom for two liter bottles of cooking wine. Edo went on ahead down narrow passages, then they passed through a metal door and found themselves in a corridor of the hotel. Edo stopped in front of a door labeled SWIMMING BATHS.

It was pitch-black inside and smelled of chlorine. Gillian felt someone take her hand and guide her. Careful, steps. Then they were suddenly standing in front of the pool. A little moonlight came in through the big plate glass windows. Outside she could sense the park, big trees and shrubbery. When she turned, she saw the others were already undressing. The boys let their clothes fall on the floor and ran hunched over to the pool and dropped into it. From the water they looked tensely at the two girls. The cook was still in her underclothes, she had enormous breasts and wide hips. She got completely undressed, and with unexpected grace walked over to the pool and down the steps into the water. The boys had turned to her, and together they swam to the glass wall at the far end. Gillian took advantage of the moment to take her clothes off too and get in the water. Edo left the group and swam over to her. She only had a vague memory of the next hour, kisses and touchings and whisperings. The other trainees climbed out of the water, they chased each other around the pool, careful not to make any noise. She watched the boy with long hair wrestling with the fat girl, who broke away and ran off a few paces, wheezing with laughter. The boy caught up to her, there was more wrestling. Later on they disappeared down a corridor in the darkness. The two other trainees stretched out on deck chairs and passed the wine bottles back and forth. Edo kissed Gillian’s throat, and instantly she forgot the others. She shut her eyes, he put his arms around her, she let him, but she didn’t dare touch him. He stopped kissing her, laid his head on her shoulder, as though he didn’t need it anymore. She couldn’t see his face, but she felt his hand. She was lifted up till she was almost on the surface of the water. Suddenly a brief, stabbing pain, and he was inside her. She didn’t feel pleasure, but she could feel her body as rarely before. Afterward there was an emptiness in her that hadn’t previously existed.

She pushed off from the wall and swam to the steps. Edo came after her. Side by side they sat on one of the top steps in the shallows, paddling at the water with their hands, which touched sometimes as though by chance. I love you — had he said, or had she wanted him to? I love you, she whispered, and he, I love you too. Suddenly there was blue light everywhere, she didn’t know what was happening, then she saw that it came from the water. One of the trainees had switched on the underwater lighting. The other leapt up from his deck chair and ran over to him, wine bottle in hand, and the two fought over the light switch. They kept interrupting their struggle to take a pull on the bottle. Edo had turned onto his front. She saw her body and his glow yellowishly, only the parts that were outside the water were gray. The water seemed viscous, oily, spilling over her belly. She hoped it would get dark again, she felt Edo going away from her in the light. She wanted to draw him to her, but he freed himself and stepped out of the pool. He hissed at the two fighters and switched the light off, but he didn’t go back in the pool.

A quarter of an hour later, they said goodbye outside the staff rooms. The apprentice with the long hair was snogging the fat girl. The others would surely go on drinking into the early hours.

I have to go home, said Gillian. Edo didn’t even ask her if she wanted to come up to his room. He kissed her, but it felt different from before.

Barefoot and with wet hair, she ran home. The next day she had a cold.

Oh, that’s nice, said Jill and she went on moving. When she had come and opened her eyes, she could feel a tear running down her cheek. Hubert asked if anything was the matter. Nothing, she said, and laughed, I’m happy.

They were lying side by side when they heard the door to the dressing room.

Someone’s just thrown their costumes down on the floor and left them, said a man’s voice.