Summer House with Swimming Pool: A Novel

by Herman Koch

  “Call him,” I said. “While you’re doing that, I’ll go look down there.” I pointed toward the sea, to the place where the sand stopped and the rocks began. The rocks in the water itself were fairly low, running out dozens of yards into the sea, but close to the beach they rose quickly. Behind one of those tall rocks, a half-moon had just appeared.

  And it was in the pale light of that moon that I now saw the little group of people. They were standing together a few hundred yards from us, half hidden by one of the rocky outcrops close to the waterline. Five or six of them. They were looking at something. At something on the ground. They were standing around something.

  “Ralph?” Judith said. “Where are you?”

  Someone left the little group and started running toward the beach club.

  “What did you say? Where?” Judith stuck a finger in her ear and turned away from me. “What do you mean? Why aren’t you …?”

  I didn’t hear the rest. I took a few giant steps at first, then I started running, too, toward the spot where the group had gathered, at the same time trying to cut off the man who was running toward the club: He was so close by then that I could see that it was indeed a man, a man in white three-quarter pants and a white T-shirt, wearing tennis shoes. Those are the kinds of details you remember later. By that time you already know that both the little group and the man in white have something to do with you—have everything to do with you.

  What is it? I shouted in English. What’s happened?

  An ambulance! the man shouted back breathlessly. We have to call an ambulance.

  I’m a doctor, I said. For the second time that night.

  Julia was lying in the wet sand between the rocks. The group parted when I knelt down beside her and felt her pulse. I laid my ear to her chest and spoke her name quietly. She was deathly still. Her face felt cold, but I could detect a weak pulse. Weak but regular.

  I put my forearm behind her neck and raised her head slightly. It was only then that my gaze traveled down the rest of her body. I was her father, but I looked with a doctor’s eye. As a doctor I saw within those few seconds what had happened. The visible marks left no room for doubt. As a father, I won’t go into detail about the precise nature of those marks. Not even so much because I swore an oath of confidentiality, but simply because of the right to privacy. My daughter’s privacy, that is.

  So I’ll stick to presenting the thoughts that flashed through my mind at that moment.

  The person who’s responsible for this is alive only in the biological sense, I thought. He’s walking around here somewhere right now, because that is what human organisms happen to do. Walk around. The heart pumps. The heart is a mindless force. As long as the heart keeps pumping blood, we keep moving. But one day it would stop. Better sooner than later. I, as a doctor, would see to that.

  “Daddy …”

  Julia blinked her eyes briefly, then closed them again.

  “Julia.”

  I shook her head gently, I laid my other hand against the back of it, against her hair. I dug my fingers into that hair and pressed her against my chest.

  “Julia,” I said.

  Caroline didn’t say anything. At least she didn’t say the things I’d been afraid she’d say. For God’s sake, how could you have let her go to that beach club by herself? Why didn’t you go looking for her right away? If you’d gone looking for her right away, this never would have happened!

  No, she didn’t say anything as I lifted Julia from the backseat of the car and carried her up to the summer house. All she did was bury her face in her hands—only for a moment, two seconds at most. Then she pulled herself together and went back to being her daughter’s mother. She caressed Julia’s hair and whispered sweet things to her.

  But even later on, she never said those other things. You sometimes hear that the first minutes and hours are crucial when there’s a tragedy in the family. Those first minutes and hours determine whether the bonds are strong enough to survive the tragedy. A person who starts making accusations can cause irreparable damage. I was familiar with the statistics. Divorce was more the rule than the exception. You’d think that a tragedy would bring people closer together. That the bond would be strengthened by shared grief. But that’s not the case. A lot of people actually want to forget the grief. And it’s that other person who keeps reminding them of it.

  I can’t blame the people who choose to forget. And I don’t mean to claim higher moral ground for us simply because we did draw closer together. I wouldn’t even dare to claim that we chose to do that. It’s just the way it went.

  We were standing at the foot of the steps to the summer house. I still had Julia in my arms. There was a moment of hesitation. Did I really want to carry my daughter up there? To put her down on the couch in the living room? Where everyone could see her? But Ralph and Judith’s bedroom or her mother’s or the boys’ didn’t seem like good options, either. Better, then, to go to our tent. I knew what I wanted more than anything else. I wanted to hide my daughter from the eyes of others. I wanted to be alone with her. With us. I wanted her to be alone with us.

  At that same moment Emmanuelle came out of the house. She appeared in the doorway of the ground-floor apartment and waved us over.

  “Come,” she said. “Come here.”

  First I had carried Julia to the beach club. There I had a brief moment of doubt about what was best. Judith suggested we call an ambulance, but I cut her short. No ambulance, I said decidedly. I thought about the flashing lights, about the people crowding around the gurney as it was slid into the back. About the siren. About the inevitable destination: a hospital. At the hospital, other people would see to my daughter. Helpful nurses. Doctors. I was a doctor myself. I had been the first to assess the situation. I had posed the only correct diagnosis. There was no need for others to pose that same diagnosis all over again.

  Then Judith suggested that she get the car and that I stay with Julia. I have to admit, she reacted efficiently. She kept it together, as they say. To be honest, I was almost expecting her to lose control. But she remained dead calm. She didn’t try to argue with me. Okay, she said, if that’s what you want, that’s how we’ll do it. She tried to lay a hand on Julia’s forehead, but when I turned away from her, she didn’t try again. I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. People had already come over and were standing around us. I was enraged by the way they looked at my daughter. Too many people had looked at her already. I’m a doctor, I said. So please keep moving. Everything is under control.

  No, I told Judith. We’re getting out of here. I’ll carry her.

  And that’s how it went. As I walked, Julia lost consciousness again. I shook her awake. She had to stay awake. At the first beach we found Alex, Thomas, and Lisa. No trace of Ralph or Stanley. Given the circumstances, I remained fairly levelheaded. I kept an eye out for Alex’s reaction. He looked at Julia only quickly, then looked away. He didn’t come any closer. Looking back on it, I suppose my body language was clear as a bell. I was like an animal that growls when an intruder tries to approach its young. No, I corrected myself, not like an animal. An animal.

  The crucial thing now was Lisa. I saw her face as she came running up to us. “Julia doesn’t feel well at all,” I said quickly, before she could ask. “Come on, we’re going back to the house.”

  Thomas danced around us a few times, yelling “Soccer! Soccer!” until Judith grabbed him roughly by the arm and yanked on it so hard that he fell onto the sand. I saw the tears in his eyes, but Judith pulled him up just as roughly by both wrists. “Just act normal, Thomas,” she said. “Get moving!”

  And that is how we walked to the car. Me, carrying Julia in my arms, and right behind us Judith, who was holding Lisa’s hand, followed by Alex and a moping Thomas. On the way back from the other beach club, Judith had told me that Ralph was already at the summer house, he had taken their car. Stanley was nowhere to be found.

  “My God, what happened to your car?” Judith as
ked. She pointed at the front bumper, which was hanging loose on one side. The chrome ring around the left headlight was dented and broken in one place, the glass was shattered. Go to the garage tomorrow morning and have them fix it, Stanley had said to me just a few hours ago, here at this same spot. I’ll pay for the whole thing; it was worth every penny.

  “We took that dark road up there,” I said. “I think we must have swiped a tree.”

  Judith asked no further. She held open the back door so I could lay Julia on the seat. Then she crawled in beside my daughter and took Julia’s head gently into her lap. Sliding up a little toward the middle, she waved to Alex to get in. She told Thomas and Lisa to sit together up front.

  “But that’s not allowed!” Thomas said. “That’s against the law!”

  “Thomas …” Judith said—and that was enough; his arms crossed angrily over his chest, he moved in beside Lisa in the passenger seat.

  Before I started the car, I called Caroline.

  “Don’t get upset,” I said quietly. “It’s not really all that bad.” It really was all that bad, but I didn’t want anyone to panic before we got there. At the same time, I did my best to speak so quietly that Julia couldn’t hear me. “No one has been hurt,” I said. That, too, was a lie.

  “I’m on my way now,” I said, and hung up.

  Emmanuelle straightened the quilt on the twin bed and fluffed up the pillows. As I lowered Julia onto it, Emmanuelle went into the bathroom and came back a minute later with a towel and water in a porcelain bowl. She sat down on the other side of the bed, close to the head end, moistened one corner of the towel, and held it gently to Julia’s forehead.

  “Voilà,” she said. Then she looked at me. “Do you know what happened? Do you know who …?” I shook my head. Only then, when I looked straight at her, did I realize that she wasn’t wearing her sunglasses. For the first time since we’d arrived. For the first time I was looking into her eyes.

  “Mom …”

  I took Julia’s wrist. “Mom will be here in a minute,” I said.

  Judith and Caroline had gone upstairs with Lisa and Thomas. Judith had offered to stay with them and put them to bed, but after a brief exchange of glances with me, Caroline took Lisa by the hand and climbed the stairs with her. I could see in her eyes how torn she was; she wanted to be with Julia, first of all, but on the other hand she didn’t want to leave her younger daughter with a stranger, not under these circumstances. Parents often forget one child when they’re worried about the other. Caroline followed her intuition from the start. I tried to, too, but I have to admit that it was harder for me.

  Just then I heard a sound behind me. I turned and saw Ralph standing in the doorway. He looked like he had just come out of the shower. His hair was still wet and plastered against his skull. And he had changed his clothes after coming back from the beach: He had on a clean pair of white shorts and a red T-shirt.

  “I heard …” he began; he leaned with one hand against the doorjamb above his head and made no move to come in. “Judith just told me …”

  My memory of what I did then is still utterly clear. I had no desire to see Ralph here in my daughter’s presence. What I felt like most was telling him to buzz off and leave us alone. But I also thought about the future. About the various suspects. I had seen Ralph in action on the beach. I had witnessed the way Julia had grabbed at her bikini bottoms that time by the Ping-Pong table. Still, somehow, I found it too big a leap. The leap from the Ralph who slobbered over young girls, violent Ralph—to this. Logistically speaking, it also wasn’t very likely. After what had happened on the beach, would Ralph really have walked all the way to the other club, then back to the parking lot, and then finally driven all the way home? I tried to squeeze it into a credible time frame, but it all seemed pretty improbable. We had still been at the other beach club when Judith called home and got Ralph on the line. No, I corrected myself quickly: She got ahold of Ralph, who said he was at home. I had to pay close attention, the way I had earlier with Alex. Not rule out anything or anyone in advance.

  Now I was paying attention. I shifted my gaze from Ralph’s face to my daughter’s face. Julia had her eyes open. I saw what she was looking at. She was looking at Ralph. She blinked her eyes.

  “Hi,” she said quietly.

  “Hi, girlie …” I heard Ralph say.

  Now I turned to look at him. I studied his face. I looked at that face the way I look at the faces of my patients. Through the eyes of a doctor. At a glance I could see whether someone drank too much, whether they suffered from latent depression, or whether they were weighed down by the burden of bad sex. I rarely get it wrong. I know when people are lying. “Half a bottle of wine at dinner, Doctor, no more than that …” I never let them fob me off with answers like that. And what about after work? I ask on. Don’t you stop at a bar for a drink then? “One or two beers, max. But that was only yesterday—I don’t do that every day.” Does your husband perhaps ejaculate prematurely? I ask the woman with the deep, blue bags under her eyes. Are there perhaps things you wish he would do with you but that you’re uncomfortable talking about? I hear someone whistling in the waiting room. When he comes into my office, he’s still whistling. Suicide is a realistic option, I hear myself saying a minute later. Some people take comfort in the realization that they have control over the way their life ends. What they dread most of all is the implementation. The way in which. A train is so violent. Cutting your wrists in the bathtub is so bloody. Hanging is painful—it takes a long time before death comes. Sleeping pills may be vomited up. But there are substances that bring about a painless, easy death. I can help you to get them …

  Ralph Meier pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. He pressed his fingertips against the corners of his eyes. “Aw, damn,” he murmured. Not for a single moment did I lose sight of the fact that he was an actor. One of the rare good actors. “Do you want something to drink, Marc? Shall I get you a drink? A beer? Or maybe a whisky?”

  I shook my head. I looked at my daughter again. When I saw her face, something fell from me. Something. Not everything. A tiny little part of the weight that had been pressing down on me for the last hour or so. That would continue to press down on me for the rest of my life, I realized that even then.

  Still looking at Ralph, a faint smile had appeared on Julia’s face.

  “I’d like something to drink,” she said. “I’m so thirsty. A glass of milk would be great.”

  “A glass of milk,” Ralph said. “Coming right up.”

  That evening, the rest of our lives began. Let me say right away that I’m not a big fan of melodrama. I also have a natural aversion to dramatic statements. The rest of our lives … I’d heard people say that often enough. People who had lost someone or something. Who’d had something happen to them that you wouldn’t wish on anyone—something you would never get over. Still, it had always sounded fake to me. It’s only when it happens to you that you know it’s not fake. There is simply no better description for it than “the rest of your life.” Everything gets heavier. Especially time. Something happens to time. It doesn’t really stand still, but there’s no denying that it slows down. Like in a waiting room with a huge clock on the wall. You sit in the waiting room, and when you look at the clock five minutes later, only three minutes have gone by. The time of the mind. A day during which we have all kinds of things to do “flies by,” as they say. A day you spend waiting slows down. All the more so when you don’t know what you’re waiting for. You sit in the waiting room. You try not to watch the clock. You don’t know what you’re waiting for. The doctor’s office or government institution to which the waiting room belongs probably closed a long time ago. But there’s no one to wake you from your spell. No one who comes by to say you might as well go home.

  One moment you’re a family with two lovely daughters, the next moment you’re in a waiting room. You’re waiting for nothing. In fact, you’re waiting only for time to pass. All your hope is focu
sed on the passing of that time. No, not all your hope. Your only hope. And the more time that passes, the further away you move from the point where the rest of your life started. But you don’t know where it ends. The rest of our lives goes on and on to this day.

  Later I would keep reconstructing that first evening, down to the slightest detail. Ralph bringing the glass of milk and leaving again. Then Caroline coming downstairs. She took Emmanuelle’s place at the head of the bed. She held Julia’s hand. Every once in a while she ran her hand over Julia’s head.

  There was one moment I don’t want to talk about much. For reasons of privacy. I asked Julia cautiously whether it was all right with her if I looked to be sure there wasn’t … I was a doctor. But I was also her father. “If you don’t want that, just tell me,” I said. “We can also go to a doctor here in town. Or to a hospital.” When I mentioned the word hospital, Julia bit her lower lip. “No, it’s nothing that bad,” I said quickly. “We don’t have to go to a hospital. But I do have to look at what we have to do. Someone has to look …”

  She nodded and closed her eyes. I drew back the blanket carefully and looked. Years ago, Lisa had slipped in the shower and fallen hard on a metal edge. She had bled a bit. Also … there. It wasn’t too serious; she was more shocked than anything else. I calmed her down. As her father. And at the same time I did what I had to do. As a doctor.

  I tried to do the same thing now. But this was different. Julia cried with her eyes closed. Caroline used the corner of the towel to wipe away her tears and whispered sweet words. I tried to ask as few questions as possible. I did what had to be done, then I pulled up the blanket again.