Judith Hermann: Alice

She tapped him lightly on the arm with her fist, and he smiled and moved aside. They were sitting on the balcony. You can sit here from nine o’clock in the evening until four in the morning, the Romanian said, then it gets too hot. Thirty degrees in the shade. Look at my plants — a regular biotope, wild clover and primeval mallows. He plucked at things in the flower boxes, pulled at some stalks, pointed at flower petals the size of a match head. Look at that. The prototype of a pansy.

Alice looked. A little cat face. She drank some water, the Romanian was drinking wine. The sun sank lazily. Then the half-moon rose. The sky, far away at the TV tower, above the Marienkirche and the neon sign of the Forum Hotel, was black. There won’t be any thunderstorms, the Romanian said, clicking his tongue and nodding knowingly. Not until the full moon. It’s the same as back home in Romania — a great open plain with lots of sun, no water, but apple trees in spite of that; shade under the apple trees, chickens running around, scratching in the soil, raising a little dust and so forth; and everything’s still, holding its breath, waiting, and then suddenly there’s a thunderstorm and the rain roars down on the plain and washes everything away. That’s how it goes, but we’re not there yet.

I’m hungry, Alice said, would you make me a sandwich?

Of course, the Romanian said, left and came back with a wooden board on which there were two open-face red-cherry jam sandwiches. My mother’s jam. Watch out, you’re dripping.

Alice ate the sandwiches, carefully and thoughtfully; it seemed as if she were eating a piece of bread with cherry jam for the first time in her life; the jam was so sweet, it made her mouth pucker — fruit and sugar. Tears came to her eyes. They looked down on the city, bare land, that was where the Wall had been, now sheep were grazing there, a warehouse, then the new buildings of the West; the first lights came on in the windows. All of it looked like a stage setting. Placed there. An installation. An aeroplane scraped diagonally past the moon. The S-Bahn came rolling in from the right, leaning heavily into the curve, a wonderful cadence on the rails. Wave to me if you should ever go by, because I’ll be able to see it from here, the Romanian said.

I will, Alice said, I promise.

They didn’t talk about Raymond. The Romanian didn’t ask about Raymond, and Alice didn’t mention him. Raymond hadn’t cared much for the Romanian, maybe he’d been jealous, maybe he knew something or guessed or had a suspicion. The last shall be the first? Or the first shall be the last? But there was nothing to know. And there wouldn’t be.

They didn’t talk about any of the other things either. Actually, Alice realised that they were talking right past these things; possibly they were both too exhausted or couldn’t decide whether they should. Whatever. She was glad it was this way.

Misha’s child is doing well, the Romanian said at one point; she’s growing up in the cemetery.

How do you know, Alice said.

I heard, the Romanian said casually. She plays in the cemetery, at Misha’s grave. Her mother is always there. It’s actually quite pleasant at the cemetery. In this weather. Nice and shady.

Yes, Alice said. Shady and cool.

The street lamps went on an hour before midnight. The climbers at the artificial rock wall next to the sheep meadow slowly roped down in wide arcs. Scissor-cuts. They made no sound. Crumpled moths tumbled into the light cast by the street lamps. Lightning bugs, the Romanian said. Alice knew that wasn’t right.

If you stay a little longer you’ll be able to see the space station. It passes by here, from back there; he pointed up and to the left, up into the black sky. And Mars, Saturn, Jupiter — they’ll show up too. Believe me.

How does that old saying go? Alice asked.

Which saying?

The saying we used to remember the planets by when we were children. My very enthusiastic mother just served us, and so on and so forth.

You must know it, the Romanian said. I recited it for you many times.

Say it again anyway.

My very enthusiastic mother just served us noodle pudding.

They said it together, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. It doesn’t apply any more, the saying, that is, the Romanian said. I hope you know that Pluto’s been disposed of. In its stead there are now two other planets.

I know, Alice said. We could think up a new saying.

Later on she went home. Through a very friendly night. She continued to wave for quite a stretch without turning round, watching her shadow on the street, a distinct shadow, sharply outlined, the waving hand much daintier than her own. She knew that the Romanian, standing on his balcony, would be waving back until she had turned the corner. Goodbye. She walked past the closed cafés where the chairs were stacked and leaning against the tables, along the edge of the park towards the apartment house where she continued to live and where she had left the light on in the room on the third floor. All around the park, the smell of grass. Raymond was sitting in front of the house. On the step leading to the front door, his back against the wall, calm and waiting. Surprisingly, he was smoking; Alice could see the glowing tip of his cigarette. She walked a little faster, crossed the intersection, her shoes clattering on the cobblestones; the figure at the front door got up, and Alice wasn’t disappointed when she saw that it wasn’t Raymond at all, but the second Indian cook.

Four Eyes. In the end, a magician too. In his own way.