Judith Hermann - Where Love Begins

*

She wipes her hands on her trousers.

Then she goes home.

Past the man on the folding chair, past the terrace with the wrought-iron table that has now been set and at which a child and three grown-ups are sitting; only the child looks up. Past the fallow land over which downy poplar pollen is already flying, past the house with the rhododendron, past the silent house of the Asian family, past the house next to hers, in front of which the dog is just getting up, yawning and stretching his rear legs; she walks towards her own garden gate, following the same route Mister Pfister takes daily, walking in his energy field. At what moment did he decide that his life should have something to do with hers. How long has he been walking down this quiet street past all these houses and finally past Stella’s and Jason’s house, thinking there was something that he could discuss only with Stella and with no one else. Since when has he known when Stella is at home and Jason isn’t. How long did he think about ringing at her gate before he actually did ring.

Days?

Weeks or months.

Maybe Mister Pfister has been thinking about Stella for months already. Stella hadn’t even known that he existed. There must have been a moment — in the street on her bicycle with Ava, at the shopping centre standing in the queue at the cash register, in the park with Walter in a wheelchair, on the bench by the fountain, in the pedestrian mall walking arm in arm with Jason, or someplace entirely different. Stella alone at the other end of the world — where he saw her, where he noticed her. There must have been a beginning. When was that.

Dermot and Julia’s kitchen is warm. Julia is sleeping. She had something to eat, a soft-boiled egg and half a slice of bread; she drank some water and took her midday medications, primarily painkillers. She’s lying on her side on the chaise longue in the living room, the blanket between her knees. Stella can see her through the open door. Lying there like that, she looks like a young woman, like the woman she once was, a tall, slender woman with short hair, eyes spaced far apart, arms that were too long, and terribly attractive; it’s what Dermot says; Julia was so terribly attractive as a young girl, it was almost unbearable. The chaise longue is brown. The blanket is green-and-magenta-striped. Julia is wearing a grey dress. She doesn’t care at all what Stella dresses her in; Dermot puts the things in which Stella is supposed to dress Julia on a chair, and Stella slips the dress over her head while holding Julia’s head which is as heavy as a baby’s. Stella believes that Dermot chooses these things carefully. Dresses he thinks are beautiful. Dresses that Julia once thought were beautiful. Dresses that aren’t simply reduced to serving a purpose, and in which she wouldn’t be humiliated. Today’s dress has a delicate button tape on the collar, the buttons are round and made of worn mother-of-pearl. The hem is embroidered. Julia, sleeping on the chaise longue, enveloped in the darkening colours of the stormy afternoon doesn’t look like a sick woman, one who is dying, but like a picture. Stella looks at her, blinks. She is tired; lately she’s been tired all the time.

Dermot pours Stella a glass of water and sets it down in front of her. Outside, a worker apologetically pulls a plastic tarpaulin over the kitchen window; he looks into the kitchen as if into an aquarium, surprised but at the same time interested. The house, which doesn’t belong to Dermot and Julia, is old, and it’s going to be renovated and then sold. They have been granted a period of time still, but they will have to move out. By that time, Dermot may perhaps already be by himself. He’ll have to pack up the things of their life together by himself — books, music, above all the books and the music, but also a lot of pictures, drawings, framed photos, boxes of papers, and cabinets full of correspondence in file folders, not to mention the dishes in the kitchen, the tables and chairs, shelves and lamps, armchairs and sofas, the harmonium and the brown chaise longue. In the cellar there’s still a rocking chair, Julia’s ice skates in a leather bag. Dermot doesn’t talk about these things. Stella watches him. He doesn’t act as if everything were finite. He has been married to Julia for sixty years. No children. No relatives. When Julia dies, and Stella thinks this will happen fairly soon, Dermot will be alone. The situation is so obvious that it seems simple. Dermot might perhaps say he was prepared for it. Maybe he would say that — I’m prepared for it.

He is short and a little hunchbacked. His head is too large. His manner is so gentle and self-effacing that Stella, even though she has spent only a short time with him, has felt for quite a while that she could be a better human being from now on. A more pleasant, kinder human being, grateful. Dermot’s kindness is transmitted to her, is also transmitted to other people with whom they come in contact — Paloma, the irritable nurses in the hospital, the exhausted Indian doctor, the ill-humoured ambulance driver, the woman who cuts Julia’s still-dark and very soft hair, the construction workers who are erecting the scaffolding around the house, ripping up the roof, spreading tarpaulin, scraping plaster, and who can’t wait to do it, regretfully, can’t delay no matter what — all of them take a step back, collect and calm themselves, try to smile, for once try to do things differently. That’s Dermot. Stella can’t say how Julia reacts to Dermot. Julia was already too far gone; she was already too far gone when Stella came to their house. It’s possible that Dermot’s kindness, his pleasantness is tied to Julia’s illness. That can’t be ruled out. But Stella also sees this kindness in the photos standing on the shelves, forty-year-old poses. Dermot and Julia at the seashore, Julia is walking out of the picture with a terribly attractive smile, Dermot is sitting on a round boulder, his face turned to the photographer, his shoulders hunched, and his hands between his knees. The horizon is blurred and almost unrecognisable. A pier jutting into the water lost in the indefinite. Where was that taken?

Ah well, where was that, where had that been. Dermot says he has forgotten, and he laughs about it. In any case, it was in March? Maybe it was March.

The kitchen is now in twilight. The construction workers are scraping plaster as if they were tearing the house apart. The windowpanes quiver. Stella looks at the clock. She can stay another half hour. She’ll stay another half hour. Dermot sits down with her. He arranges Julia’s pill boxes on the table, presses sky-blue, white and red pills out of their foil wrappings and sorts them into the dispenser; he counts softly under his breath, leafs through the prescriptions, says, Multimorbidity. Do you find this word as absurd as I do? He says, Drink your glass of water before you leave. Stella knows that formerly, when Julia wasn’t yet sick, he was always the first to get up in the morning, to bring her a glass of water in bed. Julia, at dawn, in the early morning light, leaning back in bed, the window open and, outside, the beginning of an ordinary day. That was taken for granted. Dermot is still the first one to get up. Julia continues to lie in bed; were she to drink a glass of water, she’d have to throw up. That also is taken for granted.

I will, Stella says.

She watches him for a while, then plucks up her courage. She says, Do you know what it’s called when you fall in love like a flash? When love hits you like a lightning bolt, like an accident. I know that there’s a word for it, but I can’t think of it.

She turns her glass on the table, trying to look distracted. She knows Dermot likes her. They each feel devoted to but also wary of the other, a shy trust.