Christopher Kloeble - Almost Everything Very Fast

By the time the sun came up they were on their way again. Violet had paid for both rooms, she’d rustled up a couple of poppy-seed rolls from a local bakery for breakfast, filled the car with gas, and on top of all that somehow managed to pick Albert a little bouquet of wild-flowers, which now, strapped tight in the Beetle’s passenger seat, he held in one sweaty hand, amazed at how sure you could be that you didn’t love someone, while in the backseat Fred snoozed in an impossible position, and Alfonsa listened to Frank Sinatra on her Walkman, and Violet chirped: “The road is all ours.”

For a hundred miles, Albert pretended to be asleep. It was the only way to evade, somewhat, Violet’s grip. Again and again she’d say his name and ask if he was awake in a tender tone of voice that left no room for any doubt that he would never be able to fulfill her expectations. Or she’d stroke his cheek. Which raised goose bumps on him. He told himself that a woman’s love he couldn’t return was better than no love at all. But he couldn’t find any comfort in that. Not today.

Violet told Fred that before she’d met Albert on the bus, she hadn’t believed in love at first sight, because she’d thought you couldn’t love someone if you didn’t know them. “Now I think otherwise,” she said. “Maybe you can only really love people you don’t know. Once you get to know them, it complicates everything.” For a fraction of a second her voice quavered. “They become … different.”

“I know,” said Fred, decisively: a clear sign that he hadn’t been able to follow her.

Albert’s eyelids stirred. These kinds of conversations were pretty much the opposite of what you wanted to hear when you were about to meet your mother for the first time after nineteen years. His mother. What a word! It sucked all the other thoughts from his head. Albert attempted to calm himself by silently reciting The Hobbit. Till he got to the part with the dragon that lived in Mount Erebor. If only he could have fallen asleep! It was more exhausting than he’d thought to keep his eyes closed for two whole hours. His left leg was all pins and needles, but he thought it was smarter not to change his position, so as not to blow his cover. He was forcing himself not to clutch at the makeup compact. The wild-flowers smelled too wild. The seat belt cut into his throat. And Violet warbled: “Albert, sweetie, are you awake?”

Mother. Mother. Mother.

Crunching gravel. Albert blinked: they’d arrived at the lower terminus of the mountain gondola, at last. They parked by the main entrance, where a few travelers bustled. In spite of the cloudless sky, the day was autumnally gloomy. Albert climbed out of the car and stretched his limbs; he showed Fred where the toilets were, and watched him trudge toward them, his rumpled poncho tossed over his shoulder, hat set crooked on his head.

Alfonsa said, “I’d better leave the two of you alone,” and vanished into the station with a meaningful nod. Her black veil, which he’d never seen her without, prevented him yet again from reading the back of her head.

Violet set down Fred’s backpack and Albert’s bag. Slammed the trunk shut. Pulled out her purse, and passed him a fifty-euro note. “For the cable car.”

“Aren’t you coming?”

“Let’s not make this harder than it already is.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I thought you always catch on to everything.”

She shoved the cash into his pants pocket.

“You …?”

“Exactly.”

“Why did you bring us here, then?”

“Should I have left you all on the side of the road?”

“You were only pretending?”

“Weren’t we both?” She looked at him, sad, intent, and he realized what it was like to look at someone when you were looking at them for the last time. “I tried, I didn’t want to just give up on us. But now I know — I don’t love you, I love what we had, once. And I think that’s how it is for you, too. When you hugged me last night I could feel how hard it was for you.”

Albert wanted to say something, but she wasn’t finished yet.

“I thought that maybe it was just a question of time for us, I thought that if I gave you some space and got rid of the camera, we might have a chance. And for a little while it was going pretty well, wasn’t it? Only, people simply aren’t made to live long and happy lives together. You get either the one or the other.” She smiled wearily. “Anyway, don’t worry. About me. It’s not the end of everything. It’s not.”

It was ridiculous, but part of him wished she hadn’t said all of this. He didn’t want to say good-bye to her here and now, it was all happening too fast for him, he searched for some objection, some solution, there had to be something that could buy him time, and he rejected one word after another. Fear. Mother. Expectation. Curiosity. Danger. Fred. Stress. Death. Bewilderment. Loneliness. Fear. None of them passed muster, and no combination expressed what it was he wanted: that she stay, and that she go, and that he love her and she him, equally, and that they might have some kind of future together, and that they’d never met.

“Albert, one last thing — and one that has nothing to do with us: if you want, I’ll drive you back. But only if we go right away.”

“Before”—his voice was almost gone; he cleared his throat—“before I’ve talked to her?”

“If you ask me, you should forget her, take Fred and clear out, and go enjoy the time you have left with him. I realize how utopian that sounds, but believe me, I know what it’s like to go chasing after something that doesn’t exist anymore. I’m an expert at that. Don’t make the same mistake. You don’t mean anything to this woman. Otherwise you’d have heard from her long ago. She’s not your problem. Forget about her, start worrying about your own life. And Fred’s. You could still have a couple of good weeks together. All you have to do is open the passenger door and climb in.”

Zwirglstein

Albert stood in the half-empty parking lot, a cigarette between his lips. The curb bent his shadow. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. Fred.

“You’re smoking!”

“You don’t say.”

Fred took the cigarette and tossed it away.

“Why’d you do that?”

“It makes your legs black! And then you go dead.”

Albert lit up another. “That’s just peachy. Didn’t you say you’d rather die with me?”

“I said that.”

“Great, so cheer up.”

Fred snatched the second cigarette and stamped on it.

“Hey!”

“We can’t all go dead!”

“Well, we’ll see about that,” said Albert, opening the cigarette pack. It was empty. “Shit.”

“Albert!”

“Yeah yeah.” He crumpled the pack, aimed, threw, and missed a trash can. “I guess you’ll have to die alone.”

Fred glanced around. “Where did Violet go?”

“Where the woodbine twineth.”

Fred looked at Albert, smiled, and suddenly threw his arms around him. Albert inhaled his sweetish smell, feeling a heartbeat that might have been his own or Fred’s — he couldn’t tell.

“You’ll find someone better,” said Alfonsa. “Believe me.”

Albert freed himself from the hug; he hadn’t realized she’d come back. “Did you know that was going to happen?”

“The breakup? How was I supposed to know that?”

“I haven’t even said that we’ve broken up.”

Alfonsa smirked.

The gondola to the top of the Zwirglstein pulled away from the platform; they were taking the cable car because you needed permission to use the road up to the old-folks home — and a car, of course. The gondola moved with a metallic rattling and clanking. It amused Alfonsa to see Albert clutching the pole for dear life with both hands. Fred stood unsupported in the middle of the car, twisting his head excitedly in all directions as they began to climb. “Ambrosial!” He stepped toward the rear window. The tips of fir trees slid past them, tossing in the wind. The station shrank away. The panorama was like a model railway’s plastic landscape.