Judith Hermann - Where Love Begins

Paloma is back from church and has set the table with her best dishes; the teacups are dark blue with stars glittering at the bottom. There is marble cake with raspberries she picked herself, apricots and chocolate cream to go with it. Ava sitting on three pillows says, I’m as hungry as a wolf. Do you know how hungry a wolf gets?

Paloma who seems softer and more tired here in her own house than in her life in town, pours Ava some hot cocoa and pushes the sugar bowl close to her cup. She says, If you want to, we could go to the lake. We could go swimming and see what the beaver is doing. Paloma is usually alone in this house, going to the lake alone, watching the beaver alone, drinking her tea alone, but surely not from the dark-blue cups. Or maybe she does?

I heard a raven, Ava says; she tilts her head, opens her eyes wide, and raises her index finger; did you hear it too.

That’s my house raven, Paloma says. If you’re lucky, he’ll do a trick for you; he’s a performer; he can turn around himself twice in flight.

Stella feels so numb that she’s almost happy. As if this kitchen were an island; who would have expected that. She is grateful to Paloma for the fact that she apparently doesn’t intend to say anything about the present situation, nothing about the real reason for Stella and Ava’s visit. But on the other hand, Stella wishes Paloma would say something about it, ask about it, that there were some possibility of it, like a way out.

We have a stalker, Ava says. She turns away from Stella as if she’d read her mind, as if it was finally time. She spits out an apricot pip and puts her hands over the ears of the hedgehog in her lap.

We have a stalker; what does he actually look like?

Unremarkable, Stella says. He looks unremarkable, quite normal, like you and me. If we see him on the street, I’ll point him out to you. But actually you don’t have to know what he looks like; we won’t be meeting him any more. And you mustn’t be afraid.

She meets Paloma’s gaze, the alert, intent look in her eyes.

*

Early Sunday afternoon, Mister Pfister, who had slept in his clothes, puts his shoes back on. He kicks some object out of the way, reaches for the last bottle of beer, and goes out, leaving the door and the gate wide open behind him.

He walks past the bicycle mechanic’s house without looking at it. The bicycle mechanic is not there either, having driven, as he does every Sunday, to the countryside. Mister Pfister walks along the street; the hunchbacked, keen-eyed child crosses his path as always, crossing from right to left, not looking at him and disappearing into the now luxuriant garden. Mister Pfister can hear people talking to one another. The clatter of coffee cups from the shady terraces, a murmur. He can hear dogs barking far off; he hears the wind in the field.

An overcast afternoon sun above Stella’s house. No car in the driveway, the front door closed, the dormer window open, but the orange flag has been run up.

No one in sight.

No one is in sight. Is Stella home?

In the course of yesterday evening, the hours at the police station, the amazing conversations, the clean-up, the rearranging, the morning on the floor wrapped in the old blanket, Mister Pfister had lost touch a little. The general picture. He’s slightly off-kilter, but that can be remedied; it can be re-established. He stops in front of the gate and looks it over. He looks at it very closely. And this time he doesn’t ring, he simply omits the ringing and instead just kicks the garden gate open; he just kicks it open for the second time, the same way as on the day with the photo of the bed, a picture from another time, and he… and here he just can’t think any further; here his thoughts break off. The gate swings open; Mister Pfister steps into the garden. Opalescent, drastic colours and over the colours, the fantastic humming of insects. Stella’s house begins to sway. Something pushes the glass panes outward from inside. Pebbles and old screws jump up off the stairs in front of the door to the house; that child’s penchant for junk; the spade leaning against the brick wall slips sidewards; the red brick wall glows from the heat. Mister Pfister has now reached the front door. He could ring here; after all he’s never rung the bell here. He could give her one very last chance to open the door like a damned totally normal human being and say, Hello. Nice that you passed by, come in, sit down, what can I offer you. Does she deserve a very last chance.

Stella. Thirty-seven years old, a nurse by profession, married, mother of a child.

She doesn’t.

Mister Pfister takes a running jump, taking the stairs in one leap and throwing himself against the door so hard that the walls tremble. He keeps kicking at the door at the level of the lock, against the dry, white-painted wood, against the leaded glass panes, which surprisingly don’t yield. Then he takes a break. Stands still, out of breath, waiting. The door opens.

*

Jason stands in the doorway. He is holding the stick Stevie gave Ava, the stick with which Ava practises kata for Stevie, bunkai, shotokan, H-shaped base lines, star-shaped base lines; the stick is heavy and solid. Ava practised in front of the house last week, strolled back into the house, dropped the stick on the floor, and went to the kitchen to have a glass of ice-cold lemonade. Stella picked up the stick and propped it against the wall next to the coat rack. Jason took the stick, and with this stick in his hand finally opened the door.

He strikes out immediately. Raises the stick, hauls back, and strikes out. He strikes Mister Pfister from the top of the front steps back out to the driveway; at first it’s easy to beat him back to the driveway because Mister Pfister is quite surprised, but then he suddenly starts yelling and fends off Jason’s blows, yelling.

Jason hits his knees, his back, his spine, his shoulders. But only after Mister Pfister manages to break the bottle, which he simply hasn’t wanted to let go of, on the top step, and then tries to ram the broken-off neck of the bottle into Jason’s belly, does Jason bash him on the head.

He whacks the stick against his skull and Mister Pfister goes down, lets go of the bottle neck, kicks at Jason, already holding up his hands, but then keeps kicking at Jason, slobbering and screaming. Pretty soon the bright pebbles in front of the stair landing are full of blood. Mister Pfister skidded through the broken glass and apparently also has a hole in his head. He wets his pants. The smell of linden, clover, of urine, sweat and shit. It seems that Jason for one moment — it’s a golden moment — just can’t stop himself any more from bashing Mister Pfister’s skull. Solemnly smashing this skull, he keeps hitting it. Again. Over and over again.

Then it passes.

Jason grabs Mister Pfister by his dirty, warm, bloody, wet sweater and drags him down the driveway, away from the front door towards the gate; he drags him out onto the pavement and leaves him lying there. He goes back into the house, throws the bottle neck, the glass shards into the rubbish bin, puts the stick back in the hall, and locks the front door, which shows the clear traces of Mister Pfister’s shoe soles, behind him. He walks out of the garden into the street. Mister Pfister is sitting up, leaning against the fence; he is crying, his face is smeared with blood; with his right arm he holds his left arm away from his body; his hands are bloody and he’s spitting blood as Jason passes him.

Then he collapses. Something trails over the asphalt, Mister Pfister’s sobbing sounds childish, then stops.

*

Jason walks down Forest Lane.

The street has a Sunday feel. Everything remains behind.

*

Stella, Paloma and Ava are on their way to the lake when Stella’s mobile phone rings. The path is swampy and muddy; the beaver has dammed the lake and cut down the willows; sedge grows high between the tree stumps. The path is enchanted; ducks start up out of the reeds; Ava, picking cowslips and arum, walks far ahead.