Seven Years, page 6
Sonia said she was going to take the films to be developed, would I like to go with her. We went to the photo shop down the street and then we had a drink in a bistro in the old harbor.
The next day Sonia wanted to take a look at the Château d’If. Antje had told us that boats went from there to a couple of small islands where you could bathe in the sea. We packed our swimming things, bought a few sandwiches, and picked up the prints in the photo shop.
The boat left from the old harbor. Even though it was early in the morning, bathers thronged the jetty. When the ship left port, it crossed various little fishing boats and farther out an enormous ferry that was probably coming from Corsica or from North Africa. The light and the salt smell and the ships reminded me of family holidays, and I felt a bit like I used to then, at once lost and full of expectation.
Not many passengers got off at the Château d’If, most of them were staying on till the bathing islands. The fortress fascinated me right away with its monumentality and its deployment of simple forms. It consisted of a quadratic central structure, with three massive towers at the corners. It had been built five hundred years ago, and had been used, almost from the start, as a prison. The central keep had a small inner courtyard with a well and galleries, from which you gained access to the cells. The cells were dark, with very little light reaching them through the narrow, low-set archery slits. Sonia said the walls were ten or twelve feet thick in places, and she began copying some of the details into her sketchbook. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be imprisoned here. Oddly, I had a sensation of shelter and protection rather than confinement.
On the castle roof, the light was dazzlingly bright and threw sharp black shadows onto the reddish stone. You could see the city in the distance, but the land was already so hazy that you could only make out the outlines of the buildings. After an hour we took the boat out to the islands. It was full of tanned young people in plastic flip-flops and bathing suits and not much more.
The ship docked at Frioul, the first of the islands. At the jetty a little train stood by to transport the visitors to the beach, but Sonia first wanted to look at the ruins of the German fort on a cliff overlooking the harbor. We climbed the rocky path. The heat was stifling, and when we got to the top, I was in a lather of sweat, and took off my T-shirt. Sonia seemed unaffected by the heat, she still looked fresh as a daisy. Paul Virilio compared these bunkers to grave sites, she said, while she walked among the ruins. He said it was as though the men went freely to their graves, to protect themselves from death. We had reached the highest point, and on the horizon there was a collection of concrete crosses. As we approached, we saw that they weren’t part of some military cemetery, but supports that must once have sustained something heavy, like a roof or antiaircraft artillery. Even so, the crosses lent a sort of morbid aspect to the place. Virilio calls the bunkers temples without religion, said Sonia.
On the way downhill, she asked me if I was religious. She wasn’t happy with my reply, my views were too diffuse and frivolous for her liking. You had to have a standpoint. She believed in people and humanity and progress. You’re just a child of the modern age, I said, and Sonia laughed and said, that to her was a compliment. I thought of something Le Corbusier had said, that I’d seen in a vitrine in the Cité Radieuse: Everything is different. Everything is new. Everything is beautiful. And for a moment I thought I could believe in that.
The little beach at the foot of the hill was too crowded for us, but not far off we found a bay with fewer people. The rocks were jagged, and we searched for a while before we found a flat spot where we could spread our towels. It was sheltered, and the air carried a faint smell of mold. Fifty yards offshore a couple of yachts rode at anchor, with no one to be seen on them. I put on my swimming trunks, Sonia sat down without changing. Won’t you come for a swim?, I asked. She shook her head and said she preferred swimming pools, she was afraid of jellyfish and sea urchins and various other sea creatures.
I had to clamber over some rocks to get to the water, which seemed surprisingly cool for the time of year. I swam out a few yards. Looking back, I saw Sonia taking the photograph envelopes out of her bag. I swam as far as the yachts, rounded them, and turned back. Sonia was sitting there just as before, staring out to sea. When I dropped onto the towel next to her, she took the pictures that had been in her lap and handed them to me without a word. I dried my hands and looked through them, photos of the Cité Radieuse, other buildings, and places in the inner city. Then there were the pictures I had taken of Sonia asleep. They weren’t as good as I had hoped they would be, but Sonia still looked very good in them, almost like a statue. I turned to her. She had lain down and shut her eyes, it was almost as though she was imitating the pictures, but her attitude had something stiff about it. She had drawn up her legs and was pressing her knees together, and she seemed very young. I think she was waiting for me to kiss her, at any rate it didn’t seem to surprise her when I did. She put her arms around my neck and pulled me down to her.
We walked hand in hand back to the jetty, not saying a word. Sometimes I stopped and pulled Sonia toward me and kissed her. My mood was a mixture of formal and light-hearted. I had thought a lot about Sonia, and she probably had about me. We hadn’t kissed out of some whim, and it was clear to me from that moment on that the kiss was a decision we had come to together. On the boat back, Sonia asked me what my plans were, and whether I wanted to do a training course abroad, and later start my own architectural firm and family. We spoke lightly, but under everything there was the seriousness with which only young people talk about life. I didn’t feel so much in love as happy and confident and maybe proud.
Outside the apartment Sonia kissed me again, a short, concluding kiss, as if to make it clear to me that our relationship was to be kept secret from Antje. But in the course of the evening, we gave up our discretion. We had dinner on the balcony again, and were sitting there talking about architecture and Marseilles. Sonia said she hadn’t just come here for Le Corbusier. She also wanted to look for an internship. She had a couple of addresses of firms that interested her, and was going to go around and look at them. If you don’t mind, she said, taking my hand. Antje raised her eyebrows and smirked. Well, at least I’ll have my bed to myself tonight, she said. She looked at Sonia. Or won’t I? No one said anything, and I think even Antje was a little embarrassed by the silence. Maybe Sonia and I were too well acquainted to become lovers just like that. When going swimming I had often enough changed in her presence, but now when I thought about sleeping in the same bed with her, I felt a little bashful. With a quiet, uncertain voice, she said if it was okay with Antje, she would like to stay in her room. She got up, kissed me—as if by way of compensation—quickly on the mouth, and disappeared into the apartment. After she had been gone a little while, I followed her inside. I found her in Antje’s room. She was sitting on the bed, crying. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her, and asked her what the matter was. I’m so happy, she said, but I’m embarrassed. Embarrassed with me? No, silly, not you, in front of Antje. I was pretty sure she felt embarrassed in front of me as well, and maybe even with herself too. It doesn’t matter, I said. We’ve got all the time in the world.
In the morning Sonia was the same as always. When I went into the kitchen, she was just fixing coffee. I reached around her waist and she kissed me, as though we’d been going out for years, and then she turned away and fished the milk and butter out of the fridge. Today I’m going to visit architects’ studios, she said cheerfully, do you want some orange juice? I asked her if she didn’t want to call ahead to set up interviews, but she shook her head. The best thing was just to drop by, once people saw you they had more trouble saying no to you. You mean your beauty will win them over? She looked at me furiously. That’s mean, I can’t help the way I look. I said it could be worse, and laid my hands on her shoulders and pulled her against me, and now she hugged me and kissed me properly. She asked if I’d slept well. I said, I dreamed about you. That’s not true, admit it.
Sonia spent the next days traipsing around various architect firms in Marseilles. I went with her and waited nearby in a bistro, drank a cup of coffee, and read until she came out. She shook her head, and before we got out the door she unfolded her list, put a line through the entry, and looked for the next one. So many rejections didn’t seem to affect her self-confidence in the least, she was tough, I’d noticed that at school. Whereas I reacted aggressively to criticism and referred to the professors as idiots, she listened carefully and tried to do better.
We were out all day, I’d already switched from coffee to Pernod, and had stopped reading and instead just watched the people in the cafés, when I saw Sonia emerging from a building she’d gone into a half an hour before. A good-looking man of middle age held the door open for her, and the two of them walked down the street together. I paid at the bar and followed them, but even before I’d caught up, the man opened the door of a white minivan and showed Sonia in. I looked for a taxi. Of course there were none to be seen. I stood there for a while not knowing what to do, before finally setting off back to Antje’s apartment.
Antje was sitting in the living room reading. She asked me what I’d done with Sonia. Nothing, she climbed into a car with a man and drove off. Sounds promising, said Antje, would you like a mint tea, I’ve just made some.
In the kitchen I asked Antje how she met Sonia in the first place. She was friends with Sonia’s parents, Antje said, she’d known Sonia from when she was a little girl. Was she like that then? Antje nodded. A bit precocious and terribly serious. She had a way about her that commanded respect, even when she was just little. Basically everyone did what she said, often without realizing it. She always seemed to be thinking of other people. It never occurred to you that it might be to her advantage too. One of my professors introduced Sonia’s parents to me. They used to go to every opening back then. I had a problem with an unwanted pregnancy, and Sonia’s father helped. Afterward he treated me free of charge for many years. I gave him the occasional picture by way of thanks, but I think he only took it so as not to give me the feeling of owing him. He never put any of them up on his walls, that’s for sure. Maybe his wife didn’t like them. He’s a very cultivated man, said Antje, did you get to meet him ever? Only briefly, at an end-of-semester presentation. Sonia introduced me to both of them. But she was still going out with Rüdiger at the time. Antje laughed. She brought him to visit me once too. I was at the Villa Massimo in Rome at the time. He was classy. How do you mean? Antje shrugged her shoulders. Oh, she said, I don’t know, he was something special, crazy guy. We turned Rome upside down, me and him. Sonia spent the whole day touring cultural sites and went to bed early. I asked her when that was. Last year. Antje looked at me, laughed, and said, there wasn’t anything. You didn’t think that, did you? No, he’s not that type. We just hit it off together. But even then I sensed that their relationship was rocky.
She said she was very fond of Sonia, initially on her parents’ account, but she struck her as being a bit earnest. I recalled that Ferdy had once said Sonia was the most humorless person he’d ever come across, she would ask to be excused when she laughed. At the time I’d contradicted him, just as I contradicted Antje now, but presumably they were right and I wasn’t.
Sonia turned up an hour later. She asked where I’d gone, she’d been looking for me in the café. She was too excited to be upset about my disappearance, but I was angry. I saw you drive off with a man, I said, the least you could do was tell me where you were going. Or are you ashamed of me? I was standing there like a piece of trash. Sonia hugged and kissed me. You poor thing, that was Albert, he says I can do my internship at his firm. And I suppose you had to go and celebrate that together right away, I said, still irritated. He showed me a construction site, he had to go anyway and just took me with him. I didn’t know it would take so long.
Maybe Sonia did have a bad conscience after all. That evening she was especially sweet to me. This time we went out to eat, in a little bar in the old harbor, where Antje claimed they served the best fish in Marseilles. We drank a lot of wine, Sonia drank more than she usually did, and we toasted all kinds of things, Sonia’s internship, the future, architecture, Sonia and me. Afterward we went to a club where it was so loud that most of the time we just sat there and looked at each other helplessly and shook our heads and laughed. Antje ran into someone she knew and motioned to him to join us. She laughed even more than before, and put her hand on the man’s thigh, and kept leaning across to him, and yelled things in his ear that he seemed to find very droll. After about an hour we left. Outside, Antje introduced the man to us and said he was a photographer. The two of them decided to go on to some other place together. Sonia said she was tired, and I didn’t feel like going along either. I wondered if Antje hadn’t hooked up with the photographer so as to leave us alone in the apartment, at any rate it wasn’t until much later that I heard her come home.
I kissed Sonia on the stairs, and then we kissed in the hallway. She was a bit drunk, and kept bursting out laughing while I was kissing her, also her hands were busy, now clasping behind my neck, my shoulders, my back, running through my hair. Probably we were more nervous than stimulated. I couldn’t manage to undo Sonia’s belt. She giggled nervously and said she had to go to the bathroom quickly. She turned the key in the lock, and I heard the toilet flush, and her brushing her teeth, but when she finally came out she was still dressed. I’ve got to go too, I said, and disappeared.
Sonia lay in my bed, with the covers pulled up to her chin. She had hung her clothes over the back of a chair. I started to undress, then she turned out the light, and I had to cross the room in darkness, and banged my foot against the chair with her clothes on it, which fell over with a loud crash. I swore and slipped into bed. Hello, said Sonia in a silly voice, and put out her hands toward me, as though to push me away. I said I wanted to be able to look at her, and leaned across to switch on the bedside lamp, but she clasped me around the neck and began kissing me. I felt for her body. She was in her underwear. When I went to pull off her panties, she grabbed my hands and asked me if I had condoms. Aren’t you on the pill?, I asked. No, she whispered. I’m sure Antje’ll have some, I said, and got up, don’t go away. In the darkness I stumbled over the upset chair. I didn’t find any condoms, neither in the bathroom nor in Antje’s bedroom. I went back to Sonia. This time I switched on the overhead light. She blinked and turned away from the light. No luck, I said, and slipped under the covers, I’ll be careful, promise. Sonia said that was too risky for her, couldn’t I go out to the night pharmacy and buy some. She lay there as stiffly as she had on the beach the first time I’d kissed her. I stroked her hair. Go on, she said, be quick. When I returned half an hour later with the condoms, the light was out and Sonia was asleep.
We woke early in the morning, I don’t know which of us awoke first. Silently we started caressing each other, it was as though our bodies were reaching for each other, while the rest of us was still half asleep. Sonia kissed me, she shoved her tongue in my mouth, it seemed very big to me, and I got the taste of her sleep. She had pulled off her underwear and laid herself on top of me. I still remember my surprise at her weight and warmth. We moved slowly together like two sleepy desirous animals trying to become one.
We stayed in bed all morning making love, almost without a word. Once Antje knocked on the door, put her head around the corner, and asked us what our plans were, and if we meant to have breakfast any time. When we said no, she went out without a word. Later, Sonia asked me to get her a glass of water. I pulled on my shorts. In the hallway I ran into the photographer, and we said hello. It didn’t feel embarrassing at all, on the contrary, I felt a kind of satisfaction. Are you getting up at last?, called Antje from the kitchen. I didn’t reply, and disappeared into the guest bedroom. Sonia had gotten dressed and pulled up the blinds, and was looking out the window. I stood behind her and embraced her. She took the glass from my hand and drank it in slow sips.
Our remaining days in Marseilles were perhaps the happiest in our entire relationship. We strolled hand in hand through the city, looked at old buildings, and stopped in front of construction sites to watch the work. At noon the sun was vertical, and in the sea of light the shadows of the trees were like little islands where we took refuge. When the heat became unbearable, we went back to the apartment. Sonia sketched, and I would read or flick through Antje’s collection of antique illustrated books on all sorts of subjects.
I think Antje was a tad jealous of us, anyway she passed occasional remarks about young love, and said it prevented her from working if we hung around necking all the time. She had a show coming up in the fall, and she wasn’t happy with what she’d done so far this year. At night she stayed out on the balcony with a half-bottle of wine, while Sonia and I disappeared to bed. Sonia used the bathroom first and then waited for me under the sheets, and we would kiss and embrace. Then she would turn out the lights and we would make love. When I woke up in the morning, she had pulled on her pajamas, and when I hugged her, she got up and said she didn’t want to waste the day in bed. I had the feeling of her withdrawing from me, perhaps our nocturnal pleasures were embarrassing. She went to the bathroom, and when she returned, she was freshly showered and dressed. I was still lying in bed, and she sat down on the bedside, and sometimes let me pull her back in, but she fought off my caresses and gave me only brief kisses, and said laughingly I was a lazybones, and would never amount to much.
