Judith Hermann - Where Love Begins

She says, No, he wasn’t standing outside the front door. He was standing outside the garden gate, and I spoke to him through the intercom. She says, He came again on Thursday, and again yesterday. Yesterday he dropped this letter in the mailbox, and today I’m showing it to you.

Jason says, And you have no idea. You have no idea, but you’re certain that you don’t know him. Never saw him before.

I’m sure I don’t know him. I’ve never seen him before.

Jason pulls his hand from hers. He says, Shit.

You can say that again, Stella says.

*

Later, the light of dawn wakes her up. It’s five o’clock in the morning. Beside her Jason is asleep, lying on his back, his arms stretched out, relaxed. She wakes up because it’s unusual for him to be there, lying next to her and reaching for her in his sleep. She lies awake next to Jason and thinks that Mister Pfister’s sentences, his words, that for her don’t really fit together — each word standing alone by itself is a foreign word and toneless — apply to her and Jason in a spooky way. She wishes that Jason would look at her. She wishes that he would listen to her. She wants to show him what she sees. She wishes she could always have known Jason, although she knows that if she had always known Jason, she would certainly not still be with him today. She has got older. Jason has got older. Ava is growing up.

*

Noiselessly Stella goes to Ava’s room; she flips Ava’s sleep-warmed blanket over. She goes into her room and stands by the window for a while; when Ava was a baby, she used to stand by this window too, in the evenings, with Ava in her arms, and at night, after nursing her, she would stand here by herself. The waxing moon is setting over the house across the street. No birdsong yet. Stella can hear Ava and Jason breathing.

Jason stays four days. He takes Ava to kindergarten and picks her up from there.

*

Jason is here, isn’t he, Paloma says as Stella comes into the office. She says it casually, pleasantly, not necessarily to embarrass Stella.

Yes, Jason is here, Stella says. He’s — how would you say — onshore?

And Paloma smiles and prudently says nothing.

*

The days have turned unexpectedly warm, and the hedges and trees have suddenly burst into white bloom, hastily, as if belatedly. After work Stella rides home on her bike, sees Jason’s car in the driveway and cycles past the house and farther on, along the edge of the forest until there are only fields on both sides of the road. Rabbits crouch in the ditches so motionless that Stella can look into their blank eyes. She cycles straight ahead until she comes to an invisible boundary; she couldn’t say why she turns around there and cycles back, but at some point she turns around. She thinks, tomorrow I’ll ride farther, but she doesn’t ride any farther. On the second afternoon she goes to the movies and sees a film that takes place in San Francisco: American light, middle-aged women who, after running, support themselves on park benches to tie their trainers more tightly, who turn their possibly make-up-free faces to the camera with an expression that seems docile and idiotic to Stella, a stubborn faith in better times ahead. Stella used to like going to the movies alone in the afternoon, but ever since Ava came along, she can no longer forget about reality unless the cinema is totally dark. She sees the exit sign in the left-hand corner of the theatre glowing throughout the entire film; she has to go to the toilet and can’t think of anything else. As she comes out of the cinema, the day outside is still bright. She pushes her bike through the pedestrian zone; she is hungry, thinks vaguely about not wanting to work as a nurse any more, taking a trip, having her hair cut; she thinks of nothing at all as she pushes her bike home through the pedestrian zone.

*

Paloma stops by in the evening. She brings tulips and ranunculus, a bottle of wine, and a game for Ava in which she can fish little cardboard fishes out of a golden box with a fishing rod. She brings films, banana gummies and candyfloss in a plastic container. Goodbye, till later. Ava forgets Stella, forgets Jason. She waves to them from the kitchen table, casually and without looking up. It’s the golden box and the candyfloss, but it’s also Paloma’s way of speaking to Ava, looking at her for a long time, thoughtfully and candidly.

Take care, Paloma says to Stella and Jason. She stands by the open door, her arms crossed over her chest; then she disappears into the house.

*

Right or left, Jason says. Stella knows that Jason is really asking himself and that he would drive in exactly the opposite direction she would like anyway. Automatically. A reflex; she could think about what this reflex actually meant, but she has the feeling that she wouldn’t arrive at any conclusion. She thinks, Right, and they drive in the car along the dark forest in the direction of Main Street. Let’s turn left and drive along the lakeshore, Jason says. Let’s see what we’ll find.

There are impressive rain clouds above the tile roofs of the new development. Traffic is sluggish; Stella says, almost casually, Can you turn off the radio; she rolls down the window and sticks her hand out. They drive out of the city, along the shore of the lake, across the bridge to the other side and up into the hills. Jason parks at the observation platform, and they get out and walk down towards the valley; they share a beer on a bench with a view of the water. We’re sitting next to each other the way we were on the airplane, Stella thinks, and she wonders about the silence between them that seems to be closed and taken for granted. Jason, in any case, is a taciturn man. But maybe the silence is cryptic, expectant; perhaps Jason is being watchful. Is Stella watchful?

On the other side of the lake, some late rockets soar up above the trees. Fountains of cool blue and silver sparks shoot up and spread out, opening up like flowers or stars. The explosions sound faint, and it is starting to rain. They continue to sit there until the rain starts to come down through the dense foliage of the May-time trees, then Jason gets to his feet, pulling Stella up from the bench. They walk back to the car; Stella’s face is wet, and she is suddenly awake and exuberant, and happy. She turns to Jason and holds him tight, even though she knows that it will make him suspicious.

Get in, Jason says. Not fending her off, more likely embarrassed. Get in, let’s drive a bit farther, and Stella regretfully pulls the car door shut.

She thinks, Well, so that’s how it is then. Doesn’t matter; it doesn’t matter. That’s how it is then.

How is Esther doing, Jason says. What’s Walter doing; what has Dermot got to say; he starts the engine, turns the car around and rolls back down to the street. For Jason it’s easiest to ask questions and talk while he’s driving a car. Having a conversation with him while sitting across from each other at a table, perhaps eating, drinking, is almost impossible. While driving he can look at the street, he’s busy, it’s easier for him then; the street is a red thread that leads through the imponderable, seemingly mined territory of a conversation. Stella thinks she knows this, and it makes her both inattentive and relaxed. She gazes out the window, turns back to look at the lake; the surface of the water is choppy and metallic; a last rocket shoots up over the trees.

She says, I have to stop, Jason. I have to stop working for Paloma. I have to get away from Walter and Dermot. She says, Thanks for asking what Dermot says; because Julia doesn’t say anything at all any more. Julia sits in a chair by the window twiddling her thumbs all day long.

Jason says nothing, and Stella is silent for a while, then she says, Maybe I’d like to sit at a cash register in the shopping centre. I’d like to sell coffee and croissants there in that little booth. For one season I’d like to pick strawberries. Train as a florist. Help out in a bookshop. Sit around in an office like Paloma. Maybe I’d like to be Paloma?