Judith Hermann: Alice

Want a beer? Maja asked.

Sure.

For a long time Alice rummaged among the plastic spoons for an opener, finally found one with the name of a service area near Bad Zwischenahn on it, took two bottles of beer out of the refrigerator, ice-cold. They clinked bottles, without saying a word. The beer tingled, tasting sweet; slowly it toned down something inside Alice’s head and made it go away. Expanding, stretching inwardly with alcohol? She’d read that somewhere; it seemed to be true.

It was nice at the hospital, Maja said. Very peaceful. They let me lie down next to Misha. We lay together like that for the first time in a long time. He was breathing quietly. I don’t think he was in pain. Tomorrow, around noon, I can talk with the doctor after he’s been to see Misha. Could be I even fell asleep for a little while. We slept together.

When did you first meet actually? Alice asked casually.

Don’t you know? Maja said. Pleasantly. Amazed.

No, Alice said. She really didn’t know. Misha had never mentioned it, but then she had never asked him.

The day you came back from the trip you took together.

Oh. Really? Alice said, astonished. That trip had been years ago; it was the only trip she’d ever taken with Misha, and at the end of it they had agreed to separate. I’m breaking it off now, Misha had said, once and for all. And Alice had answered, confidently, Yes, me too. They’d been content together, didn’t argue, maybe that’s why they were able to break it off. Misha had left first. Alice had stayed on a few more days. She suddenly remembered how she had started to cry after she’d taken him to the station and was driving back to the house by herself. As if he had died — she thought, Well, I’ve gone through that. I have it behind me.

Maja said, Misha was happy when he came back. When I first met him. He was doing well, he was fairly well rested.

It was the sea air, Alice said. The change in climate.

They said nothing for a while. Alice hesitated, then she said, The last evening of our trip we were sitting together — just like you and me now. Together at a table, with two bottles of beer, only it was in a garden, and it was June — but you know that already. The millennium-summer June. Still very hot, even in the middle of the night.

She thought about it, how suggestive that sounded — hot, middle of the night, millennium-summer June. Together, you and me. How vivid, the words behind the words. But that’s how it had been, one evening before Misha met Maja; who would have thought.

And then? Maja asked.

And then a spider began to spin a web between our two beer bottles, Alice said. The first threads between the bottlenecks. She indicated the size of the spider with her thumb and index finger, a grain of rice. The fine, thin strand strung between the two bottles as if over an abyss. They had been sitting next to each other, shoulder to shoulder. Watching the little spider for a while, weaving so serenely, so self-absorbed.

He was sorry, Alice said. He was sorry that he’d have to destroy her work.

And did he destroy it? Maja asked.

Well, take a guess, Alice said. They both laughed, each one softly to herself.

C’mon, let’s go to bed, Maja said. It’s already half past one. We have to get up early tomorrow. Do you want to go and see him in the morning?

And Alice said, Yes, I’d like to see him again in the morning.

They brushed their teeth. Standing next to each other at the sink on a blue towelling mat, in front of a mirror that had gold and silver shells glued to its frame. They saw each other in the mirror, their different faces.

Misha would like this, Alice thought, to see us like this. He’d be very happy, he’d say, Well, you see? — He knows. He’s got to know.

Good night, Alice said. Sleep well, Maja.

Yes, Maja said, good night. You sleep well, too, Alice.

Alice woke up when Maja knocked on her bedroom door, calling her name. Maybe she’d been knocking for quite a while already. Alice was having a hard time emerging from a deep, exhausted sleep. Later she wondered why Maja hadn’t simply come into the room. Then she was awake. A momentary memory of her childhood and what it was like to be roused in the middle of the night to go on summer holiday. Terror and excitement. She threw back the covers and called out, I’m awake. Maja opened the door and stood there with the child on her arm, a cut-out, silhouetted against the bright living room where the lamp above the table was on again, and she said, Misha is dead.

How late is it? Alice asked.

Four o’clock, Maja said. The hospital called. He died two hours ago; they just wanted to let us sleep a little longer.

Wait. I’ll get up, Alice said. She put a sweater over her nightgown, then walked barefoot into the kitchen. The child was sitting at the table, thumb in mouth, without her sleeping bag, wearing a little blue shirt with snap fasteners on the shoulder. Petit Bateau. Alice rubbed her eyes. Maja was just standing there in the middle of the room. Astronauts, Alice thought, we’re like astronauts, there’s no place to hold on to.

They wanted to know whether we’d like to see him once more, Maja said. If so, they’d wait for us. She looked utterly frightened by that.

I have to think about it, Alice said; it sounded like a question. She sat down next to the child, propped her elbows on the table. Just a moment. I have to think.

Have you ever seen a dead person?

No. I haven’t.

Maja called the hospital and said, We’re coming. Could they please wait, we need a little time because of the child and the time it takes to get there, maybe half an hour, would that be possible.

Who was on the phone? Alice asked.

Don’t know, one of the nuns, Maja said. Not the old, severe one; a young nun.

All right then, Alice said. Let’s go.

That afternoon she left for Berlin.

Maja might have stayed, but Alice felt she’d go crazy if she had to spend one more night in that apartment with the view of the hospital in which no one was lying any more. The hospital was hollow, empty. A silent shell.

If we’re not careful, Alice thought, we’ll disappear too, Maja, the child, and I; we’ll vanish without a trace in Zweibrücken.

She phoned the railway station and they gave her an exhausting train connection; she wrote the times down in her diary, a magic formula, something to hold on to. Maja and the child would fly back that evening. Together they tidied the apartment, stripped the beds, rinsed the cups, and packed their things, while the child played on the floor in front of the TV, building towers with the plastic blocks and destroying them again, building and destroying, until she lost control.

Come, let’s go back to sleep, Maja said to the child, lying down on the bed with her and breaking into tears. Alice carefully closed the door. She sat down at the table and drank three large mugs of cold, bitter, black coffee, one right after the other. In the garden on the hillside that sloped down to the valley the man was sawing some cheap wood; he didn’t look up to the terrace. He hadn’t given Alice another glance, hadn’t said a single word to her, everything had already been said. But he embraced Maja when she paid for the night and had to tell him and his wife what had happened. Maja took no notice of the embrace. No damage done. Alice had watched in amazement; Maja was a widow, vulnerable and sacred, she didn’t have to be asked whether she had everything she needed, and her answer would surely have been different from Alice’s. The wife had stuffed the rental money into the pocket of her cardigan, pretending she wasn’t going to count it, and then as if on cue, had begun to lament, raising her hands to heaven. Alice had gone into the bathroom and waited there till it was over.