Everything Like Before, page 13
He signaled to the waiter and ordered a beer. Then he said: She asked me if I thought you meant what you said.
I hope so, I said.
You’re real fucking smart all right, he said.
Why don’t you go find yourself another table, I said.
He remained seated, staring intently at me. I didn’t want him to see that it bothered me. I rolled a cigarette.
I can see right through you, he said.
Can you? I said.
I lit up the cigarette and pocketed the tobacco pouch, along with the lighter. I looked around but I could feel him staring.
I see now why she became such a slut after she left you, he said.
I blew smoke in his face.
The waiter came with the beer; Georg paid.
I continued to blow smoke in his face.
He said: Quit doing that.
I continued.
Fine, he said, well, suddenly you seem to have run out of all your words. Well, that’s just fine, means you won’t be able to fool people anymore, but that’s okay, blow your smoke, go ahead.
He leaned back in the chair to get away from the smoke.
I continued to blow it.
To think you used to be such a wiseass, and now all you can do with your mouth is blow smoke out of it. But that’s okay, I’m leaving.
He rose from the chair.
I put the cigarette out and drained my glass.
He remained standing.
Weren’t you going? I said.
He didn’t reply. Then he said: I’m not the one who should be fucking leaving.
I signaled to the waiter for another beer. I could feel my heart pounding. I took the lighter and the pouch of tobacco from my pocket and rolled a fresh cigarette.
Gerhard P
A couple of weeks after Gerhard P, at the age of forty-three, lost his parents in a car accident, a sense of calm descended upon him that he did not understand and that at certain moments left him feeling slightly guilty.
He was the sole beneficiary of the will, and as he had taken for granted he would outlive his parents, he had often dreamed of at some point taking over his childhood home – a spacious detached residence on the outskirts of the city. Now the house was his and before a month had passed he moved in.
It was a Friday in early December, a light snow was falling and dusk was gathering.
When the removal men left, he switched off the lights and undressed, then walked naked from room to room, whether heated or not, and on entering each one, he said: here I am.
He put the most feeling into this statement when standing in his parents’ bedroom. The large marital bed was unmade; it had been left as it was since that afternoon they had set out in the car and drove eastward, for an uncertain purpose and destination. They had only made it thirty kilometers; at which point his father came over into the oncoming lane and collided head-on with an articulated lorry.
Gerhard stood naked in the middle of the room and, with his eyes fixed on the unmade bed, said in a low voice: here I am.
Then he went down to the living room, got dressed and switched on the light.
* * *
—
Later, after eating a simple meal, Gerhard set about rearranging the furniture, starting with the living room. Nothing was to remain as it was.
He had figured out beforehand how he wanted it, but after a while he realized his plan was not feasible and he pushed the furniture back into place.
He fetched one of the wine bottles his parents had left, poured himself a glass, sat down in the sofa and looked around. Everything was the same way he seemed to recall it had always been.
He thought: here I am.
Gustav Herre
Gustav Herre stood by the window looking down at the street below; he often did, although there wasn’t much to see – it was a quiet street in a quiet part of town. He looked toward the windows opposite also, but with his head bowed, so that the neighbors across the way would not take him for a Peeping Tom.
He had never seen anything of consequence, neither behind the windows nor on the street. And what he saw on this September afternoon, at around four o’clock, was itself highly inconsequential: a dark-skinned man in his sixties, with a slight stoop, who was lame in one leg, a defect that made him easy to recognize. Gustav Herre had seen him before, from his third-storey window, but without it giving rise to any reaction or reflection.
He viewed himself, with some satisfaction, as a dispassionate man, and his reaction now, although not strong, surprised him. He thought: poor man, so far away from where he would rather be, so far from his country, its landscape and language.
Gustav Herre watched the man until he disappeared from view by the hairdresser’s on the corner, then returned to his desk further into the room to continue work on his essay “Modernism as Liberation and Pretext.” He sat looking at what he had already written and soon realized he was not going to get much more work done today after all.
He checked his watch; to his mild irritation, he found he was already waiting for the woman who had called earlier that day and said she could come over if he wanted her to.
* * *
—
A few hours later she was there, in his bed. He lay awhile looking at her – at her forehead, hair, one visible ear, cheek, and nose. She had closed her eyes. Then he got up and covered her with the duvet.
Do you feel like shrimp? he said.
Lovely, she said.
He set the table, put out the shrimp, bread, butter, mayonnaise and a bottle of white wine. He drank a glass of brandy.
She came out of the bathroom and told him she could not stay late because her husband would be back early the next morning. Gustav Herre said that that was mean of him.
Yes, she said.
She asked if he was jealous.
No, he said, should I be?
She made no reply.
They sat down at the table. He filled their glasses. They ate shrimp and drank wine. Gustav Herre apologized that there was no roe in the shrimp, however she actually preferred that.
Gradually the wine enlivened them. She mentioned, in relation to something or other, how she sometimes derived satisfaction from throwing away chocolate wrappers or the like on the sidewalk; The funny thing is, she said, it gives me a bad conscience.
Gustav Herre viewed that as quite natural, after all she obviously did it in order to be disobedient; In our world, he said, throwing away paper on the street on purpose was an immoral act and a protest against the established order.
She laughed.
That’s a bit lofty, she said.
Gustav Herre poured more wine into the glasses.
Aesthetics elevates or reduces to morality, he said, an empty cigarette packet or an empty cola can on a pavement; all of a sudden what is otherwise acceptable becomes unacceptable because it’s in the wrong place.
I’ve always been interested in that, he continued, when I was around nineteen or twenty I went through a phase of planting different objects in places where they didn’t belong.
He laughed.
It started, he said, when he came across an old broken frame in the attic, the kind one put family photos in. The glass was intact and when he had made a reasonable job of fixing the frame, he placed a picture in it, which he had cut out of a magazine or periodical; it was a detail from an old painting, probably from the 17th century; it showed an old couple, both blind, welcoming home their son, who was also blind, and the father was biting the son on the cheek.
Or something like that, he said, he could not remember exactly, but it was a powerful, distressing image that he had had his reasons for liking.
Then he had taken the picture to one of the forests outside of town and nailed it up on a tree trunk some fifteen or twenty meters from the trail.
Why? she said.
So that someone would find it and not understand why it was hanging there, Gustav Herre said: Jesus, I was young…
He poured wine into their glasses while he searched for something to say.
What a stupid story, she said.
Yes, he said.
Konrad T
On Tuesday, Konrad T visited his father. He had been doing so ever since moving back to the capital after the breakup of a long-term relationship. He took no pleasure in calling on him but did so; he could not bring himself not to.
On this particular Tuesday Konrad was running late. Less than a half hour before he was due to leave, a relatively recent acquaintance, Vibeke, dropped by. He told her she should have phoned in advance. She said she had acted on impulse, having had an errand nearby. She kissed him. His relationship with her was unclear; he seldom missed her when she wasn’t around but her physical presence almost unfailingly aroused his desire, due in no small part to the change that came over her when she was feeling amorous: from being a woman who was composed and proper, she became quite uninhibited, in both what she said and did.
They had slept together.
This led to his arriving a half hour late. He made up an excuse. His father could not tell he was lying by looking at him. He was blind. Some few years previously he had got cataracts in one eye and refused to be operated upon, saying he didn’t need more than one eye. Then his other eye had become affected and the subsequent surgery was unsuccessful.
* * *
—
His father was seventy years old. Konrad knew he had home help. When he visited he always brought a couple of daily newspapers along; his father liked Konrad to read aloud the op-eds and letters to the editor concerning current events. But first he had to read out the stock market listings for two equity funds in which his father had an unspecified number of shares.
Konrad was unable to interpret his father’s reactions, after all, his eyes gave nothing away. And he did not ask. He had once and his father, after a sudden, impatient toss of the head, had replied: Unchanged.
Sometimes his father asked Konrad how things were with him, and if he did have something to relate, his father seemed to listen patiently but did not come with any follow-up questions and usually an oppressive silence would then arise, prior to his father puncturing it with a laconic well. This particular evening his father was more taciturn and preoccupied than usual, and when Konrad opened the pages of one of the newspapers, he had said: No, no, not today.
Is anything wrong? Konrad asked.
No, he said.
After that they sat in silence for quite awhile, before his father said: You’re not exactly talkative.
I probably take after you, Konrad brought himself to say.
Maybe, he replied, although your mother didn’t say a whole lot either.
Mom, yes she did, Konrad said, she talked all the time.
No, he replied, your memory fails you.
They continued to sit in silence.
* * *
—
When Konrad felt he had been there long enough, he asked his father if he was tired. His father did not answer, but asked instead: Are you leaving?
I was just wondering if you were tired, Konrad said.
Tired? his father said, and after a few moments added: Before you go, please fetch me a bottle of wine and a glass.
Konrad stood up.
I didn’t say I was leaving, he said.
There were four bottles of red wine at the bottom of the cabinet; Konrad took one, went to the kitchen, opened it and brought it and a large red wine glass in to his father. He poured his father a glass, handed it to him, and then placed the bottle on the small table beside his chair.
His father groped with his free hand to ascertain where exactly the bottle was.
Thanks, he said.
Konrad hesitated; a mildness had came over his father that put him at a loss; he suddenly found it more difficult to leave than to stay. He said: Is there anything else I can do for you?
No, thank you, his father said, everything’s fine now. Just fine.
Konrad was standing right beside him and his father turned his head and looked at him. That was the impression Konrad had, that his father was looking at him, and he thought: I haven’t done anything to him.
And while Konrad stood allowing his father to look at him, his father let go of the glass. Again, Konrad had the distinct impression that was the case – his father had let go of the glass, it had not slipped from his grasp. The glass landed on his father’s lap, as did most of the wine. Konrad picked up the glass and placed it on the table. His father got to his feet but remained standing still.
Just a moment, Konrad said.
He hurried to the kitchen, grabbed a tea towel and roll of kitchen paper. His father was standing in the same spot, his mouth half-open. Konrad blotted up the wine from the sunken area of the leather seat.
You can sit back down now, he said.
His father sat. Konrad pressed the tea towel against his wet trouser thighs and thought: I haven’t been this close to him since I was a child. He felt how hard and thin the thighs had become.
Okay, it’s fine now, his father said.
Konrad tore a long ream off the roll and dried up the wine stain from the floor. He heard his father pouring himself a new glass.
His father said: Everything was bright all of a sudden.
Bright? Konrad asked.
Yes, his father said, for a moment everything went completely bright.
Konrad went to the kitchen, threw the paper in the bin, then washed his hands. He took his time; he felt perplexed.
When he returned to the living room his father was sitting with the glass in his hand. Konrad asked if he should stay a little longer.
No, no, his father said, I’m fine now. And thanks for cleaning up for me.
It’s the least I can do, Konrad said.
Yeah, maybe, his father said, but thanks all the same.
Konrad turned off all the lights, said goodbye and left.
* * *
—
On the street, Konrad found the next bus was not due for a quarter of an hour, so he began to walk toward downtown. He passed two stops but halted at the third. It had a shelter and a bench. He sat down.
A woman, not wearing any coat, emerged from a covered entryway about ten or fifteen meters further along the street; she walked to the edge of the pavement and stood there, her back to the road. Shortly afterwards a man came out from the same entryway, he was also inadequately dressed. He walked slowly toward her. They stood face-to-face for a few moments, not saying anything. Suddenly the man slapped her, Konrad both saw and heard it. The woman’s head was thrown to the side but she did not make a sound. The man struck her again, then once more. The woman stood with her arms by her side and let it happen. Then she took a step forward and kissed him; the man grasped her hair with one hand and steered her in front of him into the entryway. At that moment the bus came.
The scene Konrad witnessed gave rise to a sexual reaction in him, and on the bus home a short story by Anaïs Nin came to mind, in which, as he recalled, she describes a scene where a woman, standing watching a public execution, is groped by a man behind her in the packed crowd. With her making no attempt to resist, the stranger eventually penetrates her, and as the axe falls, decapitating the condemned man, she reaches orgasm.
Upon arriving home, Konrad telephoned Vibeke, but she did not answer. To compensate, he took Nin’s book from the bookshelf and read the short story. It struck him while reading, but even more so afterwards, how wide off the mark he had been in his recollection.
* * *
—
A couple of nights later he had a dream. He had never made any attempt at interpreting dreams, he knew it was not possible, but he did not deny that they could make an impression. He dreamt about his father. There was no plot in the dream, just a face, a severe-looking, contorted face. It bore no resemblance to his father’s, but he knew that it was his. It appeared and disappeared over and over. He was awoken by it pressing against his eyes, wanting to get into him.
He got up, it was half three in the morning. He drank a glass of water then went into the living room and wrote down the dream in the form of main points: “Father, not father. A face. Wanted to get inside me.”
* * *
—
That same morning he went out to take some photographs. He took four separate photographs of the trunks of two pine trees, with a beach, the sea, horizon, and sky as a backdrop. A linear motif, composed of approximately seventy percent clouds. The dream was on his mind the entire time. It felt as though he did not want to forget it. He continued walking, past the trees, down toward the shoreline, into the motif, so to speak. Then he turned and walked to the café where he had arranged to meet Vibeke.
Vibeke put down Journey to the End of the Night and lit a cigarette. He sat down.
Well? she said.
Yes, he said.
The sea? she said.
Yes, he said, that too, but mostly sky and beach.
Marion
It was not yet noon, and hot. I was lying in the shadow of one of the large birch trees at one end of the park, watching how the clouds dissolved right above me. I’d never seen it so clearly before. They came from the north and, here by the coast, went no farther.
The red-haired man passed by again, and this time I pretended not to notice him; I don’t know why but he didn’t interest me, I’m certain of that. There was nothing striking or interesting about him other than maybe – and only maybe, because strictly speaking even that was neither striking nor interesting – his passing by for a third time.
If he walks past one more time, I thought.
