Judith Hermann - Where Love Begins

To stalk — to hound, chase, walk stiffly, strut Obsessive and abnormally long pattern of menacing by means of harassment directed towards a particular individual

A manner of behaviour in which one person repeatedly forces unwanted communication and contact on the other person; the behaviour must occur several times and be perceived as undesirable and invasive, and it may cause fear and anxiety

To be categorised as the victim of stalking, at least two separate behavioural patterns that violated the private sphere of a person must have been reported, and whereas these must have continued for at least eight weeks and must be causing fear

It’s almost funny. What is she supposed to do with such phrases. Delusion of love, reflection, psychological intimidation. Person. Strutting person. Boundary. Recognition of a boundary. Violation of a boundary. Stella’s fingertips feel numb. She’d like to have a cold beer. Smoke a cigarette. Open a book. Go to sleep.

Did Jason read the same thing she did?

I read about it, Stella can hear Jason’s voice. She turns off the computer, leans back, and remains sitting in Jason’s environment that has now suddenly become disquieting; his mail, his glasses, his pencils, 6B pencils sharpened with the blade of his cutter and equipped with a protective silver cover. Photos above his desk and on the wall, Stella in the morning, an old model Lada Niva car, Ava lying on her tummy, her little head raised, a drop of saliva on her chin, and a photo of a suburban town on a river taken on the only trip Stella and Jason took together, a trip before Ava was born. What does the choice of photos imply. And what does it mean that Stella is looking at them, not Jason. What does Jason’s absence signify.

Stella tilts her head and looks for a long time at the photo of the suburban town. Innumerable balconies above and next to one another; the meadows along the river’s edge, muddy; the water, glittering. Jason had said, This is where I’d like to live with you. The day had been rainy, they had walked hand in hand; Stella was pregnant and hadn’t known. They didn’t move to the development by the river. They moved into another housing development, into this one, and at some point they’ll move elsewhere. Mister Pfister will stay here. He is going to stay here; he won’t move elsewhere; that’s how it will be.

Mentally, Stella counts off the days. Twenty-five — not even half of the eight weeks have passed. She gets up from the desk. Then she leaves the room.

Jason comes back along with the cold. Steady rain and gusty wind; he’s standing in the hall, already thoroughly soaked from the short walk through the garden from the car, and pushing his bag and backpack into the house with his foot.

You’re here, Ava says.

She goes on sitting at the kitchen table, drawing her picture: a house in the woods surrounded by giant butterflies; she draws an endlessly long butterfly antenna, and Jason takes hold of her and lifts her up. He says, You’re just like a cat, you’re only pretending you’re not glad to see me, and Stella sees Ava’s chin quivering with joy.

Jason has brought a perch he caught himself. He’s brought a sceptre carved from birchwood for Ava and a lake pebble for Stella. He is tanned and looks unkempt, unshaved. You’re so scratchy, Ava says, and for one selfish moment Stella wishes she could be all alone with Jason.

You got very tall, Jason says. You’ve grown like crazy, both of you.

Like crazy.

Ava stands with her back against the door frame in the kitchen, and Jason draws a new line above her little head, one metre and three centimetres. Ava has grown two centimetres since the last line, a line drawn in the winter, in long-ago January. She continues to stand in the door frame and looks at the new line, proud and doubting.

How long will you be staying, Stella says. When do you have to leave again; she turns away before Jason can answer her.

*

They eat the fish that evening. Daylight fades away; rain falls outside the kitchen window like a wall. The barrel at the corner of the house fills up and overflows, the rain drums onto the outside metal windowsills and against the windowpane. Jason takes a bath. Ava sits down near him. Stella dries the dishes. Listening to their voices. Jason’s stories about perch, sunken boats, about trips, and about the summer, Ava’s questions.

It was very hot here when you were gone. So hot. In kindergarten we all played only in the shade, nobody wanted to go into the sun.

You have to do what the chickens do when it gets so hot.

What do the chickens do?

A chicken just lies down flat on the ground. As flat as possible, with its wings spread out. It lies down in the dust with outspread wings.

Ava says nothing. Then she says, we’re not allowed to do that. In kindergarten. I’m sure we’re not allowed to lie down in the dust, and Stella hears Jason’s absent-minded laughter. She clamps Ava’s picture under the magnet on the refrigerator. She unpacks Jason’s bag, putting the book he’s pretending to read on the bottom step of the staircase — he’ll take it up with him later; the book on the night table will be like a sign of his presence — and she finds her joy at that puzzling and complicated. She opens the front door and looks out into the now-whispering rain for a while. Jason’s car is in the driveway, a sign of his presence to the outside world; it’s all much too simple. Mister Pfister won’t ring the bell tonight. Whenever that car is parked in front of the house he’ll busy himself with something else, and he’ll collect all the things that are intended for Stella and put them all together. He’ll save them up for Stella.

*

On the third evening she fetches the box from the shed. The garden, overwhelmed by the rain, is a fertile, lush wilderness. Honeysuckle, broom in bloom. The feeling of actually wanting to do something else and not knowing what and instead fetching this box out of the dirty darkness under the workbench is like a symptom. Stella carries the box across the lawn into the house. She is about to put it on the kitchen table and then changes her mind after all; she puts it on the floor, in front of Jason’s feet, leaves it to Jason to lift off the cover.

She says, Careful.

Jason says, Good heavens.

He sits there bent over the box. Takes things out and lets them drop back in again. The lighter, the roll of packing twine. He opens the red envelope that Stella didn’t open, takes out a piece of paper with dense writing on it, leans back and reads.

What does it say, Stella says.

Can you just wait a minute, Jason says. He says, Please.

Then he says, Nothing bad. It doesn’t say anything bad. But something … sick, incomprehensible. Drivel, Jason says it as if the entire world were held together by drivel, as if drivel were a principle of life.

He says, Here, take it; it’s all right; you can read it.

He holds the piece of paper out to Stella, a little too close. Stella pushes it away.

I don’t want to read it.

She looks at Jason and suddenly wonders whether it might be possible to understand Mister Pfister after all. Impossible for Jason maybe, but possible for her? She understands Dermot; she understands Julia’s final, decisive silence; she understands Esther’s irritability and Walter’s indistinct speech; after all, she understands quite a few things; maybe she should just find out more about Mister Pfister’s way of thinking. About the hints, the chorus of voices that seem to vibrate from the box. Also for strategic reasons. To know what makes Mister Pfister tick, how he functions.

But she says, I don’t want to read any of that. None of it. I only want to know that there’s nothing in there about Ava. Nothing that might signal something, do you understand? A threat, an intrusion, something that would go beyond this here.