The Summer House, Later

by Judith Hermann

  ‘Christine!’ Kaspar calls after her in an attempt to be conciliatory. ‘The hang glider pilot is coming tomorrow!’ Christine, already out of sight, calls back, ‘And when is the goddamn hurricane coming?’

  The hang glider pilot arrives early in the morning, but the islanders are already there. They must have started out at dawn, because when the hang glider pilot’s small red car comes crawling up the mountain the villagers from Stony Hill and Snow Hill are already gathered on the porch, silent. ‘Flyman,’ Cat says, as always sitting in the blue chair, and starts to laugh, Christine watches him out of the corner of her eye. Nora squats in the shade, smokes Craven ‘A’s and drinks black coffee; the hang glider pilot unfolds plastic tarpaulins, pulls out rods, perspires, inserts metal into metal.

  It is hot. The sun beats down, and there is almost no wind. Kaspar wonders how the flyman is planning to lift off here, down the hill all the way to the harbour: he has picked the big taxi parking lot as his landing site. The flyman puts on a helmet and climbs into a harness bundle resembling a sleeping bag. ‘Flying bag,’ Kaspar thinks. The flyman now looks like an angry giant insect just before it emerges from its strange cocoon, and on the porch suppressed merriment is spreading.

  ‘Flyman fly,’ Nora sings softly. Christine squats down next to her and giggles. Eagles are ascending over the hill, and far out at sea a ship is blinking. Cat gently shoos away the flies and closes his eyes. The flyman starts to run, the grass rustling under his flying harness bundle. The glider lifts off, a murmur passes through the ranks of the spectators from Stony and Snow Hill, the eagles above the hill soar and glide. The flyman rears up, the harness bundle flaps, the glider flies for twelve feet and then, with a dull thump, drops down into the reeds at the edge of the meadow.

  Someone gets up and runs into the house. Christine says, ‘I’m going to take a shower’; morning turns into noon, unnoticed. The ship far out at sea changes course and heads for the harbour. Nora is standing in the kitchen, squeezing mangoes and guavas and breaking ice into small pieces. Christine is singing in the shower; Cat in the blue chair lowers his head and opens his eyes. The islanders go around to the back of the house with Kaspar to check out the new goats, a light breeze blows from the mountains. The flyman kneels again, the glider rattles and rises. It rises three feet, then six, it shimmers blue, rises further, glides in a straight beautiful line over the meadow towards the jungle, glides at an angle, rises higher and higher. Only Cat sees it disappear, a small pair of wings above the trees, a steel strut catches the sunlight, glitters briefly, then it is gone, merging with the blue of the sea; Cat sees the ship, now nearly at the entrance to the harbour, a white banana freighter that will be heading for England.

  ‘You must learn to wait,’ Cat says that evening; Nora and Christine are disappointed because they didn’t see the flyman’s take-off. ‘For minor events too.’ Christine stares at him: it is the first time that Cat has ever spoken to her, and she doesn’t know whether she should consider it impertinent. She says, ‘What do you mean – minor events?’ Cat doesn’t answer, but Kaspar laughs and says, ‘Slow motion. Like a ship on the ocean.’ Christine leaves the kitchen, insulted.

  The radio station has increased the number of its hurricane reports to twelve a day. In Costa Rica the first evacuation measures are being taken; the Germans down in the port are contacting their embassy and booking flights to the United States. The eye of the hurricane, Kaspar says, is stationary. He buys alcohol, candles, gas, iodine and adhesive tape, canned meat and rice.

  ‘When the hurricane comes,’ Christine says hesitantly, ‘I won’t be able to fly home.’ Nora, who wants to stay longer anyway, says nothing.

  Cat waits seventeen days. On the eighteenth day he leaps out of the blue porch chair and grabs Christine, who, with paper and pen in one hand and a cigarette between her lips, is about to go inside; he holds her by the wrist.

  He says, ‘I like you.’ His voice sounds rough and unused. Christine stops in her tracks, takes the cigarette from her mouth with her free hand, and stares at him: his eyelashes curve upward in an unreal sweep, the whites of his eyes are yellow from smoking hashish, his face is very close to hers. Christine shudders; he smells good.

  Cat repeats, ‘I like you,’ and Christine laughs quite suddenly and says, ‘Yes, I know,’ twists her wrist out of his grasp and runs into the house.

  Kaspar says, ‘Cat has a wife and child.’

  Christine, barefoot, her knees, as so often, drawn up close to her body, is sitting next to him on the porch, scraping the remaining pulp from a mango pit. She says, ‘I know. Brenton told me.’

  Kaspar says, ‘And what are you doing about it now that you know?’

  Christine lowers the mango pit and looks at him with irritation. ‘Nothing. What should I do about it – I simply know. I suppose I don’t care.’

  Kaspar says, ‘His wife’s name is Lovey. She isn’t here. Two weeks ago she went back to her family because Cat started something with another woman.’

  Christine picks at the mango pit, licks her fingers and looks absentmindedly down toward the harbour. ‘Brenton says Cat would deny it.’

  Kaspar kicks the pit out of her hand and expects her to be indignant, but Christine doesn’t react. The pit falls into the grass. Kaspar says, ‘That’s not the point,’ but he might as well be shouting into Christine’s ear; he has the feeling she isn’t really listening to him. ‘Lovey was going to come back after a week, but she isn’t back yet, not even today. Cat is waiting. Whether he lies about it or not, he’s waiting, you see. For her and for his child.’

  ‘Waiting for minor events, right,’ Christine says cynically, then suddenly looks straight at Kaspar with childlike surprise. ‘He would never go after her to get her back, right?’

  ‘No,’ Kaspar says. ‘That isn’t – usually done. He would never go to fetch her, but still he’s waiting. When she comes he’ll go home.’

  Christine fishes the pit out of the grass and feels a brief pain in her stomach. ‘He says he likes me.’

  ‘I know,’ Kaspar says, getting up. ‘You are what they call “a white lady” here. It’s isn’t about you, it’s about your skin colour. You should keep out of this.’ Christine shrugs and puts her head on her knees.

  The banana freighter stays in the harbour for a week. Kaspar wonders whether the long layover has something to do with the hurricane reports; the bananas were loaded a long time ago, but the sailors are still hanging out on the docks, scrubbing the deck, lying around in the shade, sitting motionless and silent in the bars. They look Mongolian, almost like Eskimos, their faces round and dark, their eyes slanted. Nora and Christine sit on the pier and look up at the huge white ship. In spite of the heat the sailors up mere on deck are wearing red coveralls with hoods they’ve pulled over their heads.

  ‘They’re going to Costa Rica and Cuba,’ Christine says. ‘Past America to Europe. I would love to travel on a ship like that sometime. Now. We could ask them if they’d take us along.’

  Nora says nothing. She looks up at the Mongolian sailors, would like to be able to see their eyes properly. Christine leans her head on Nora’s shoulder and feels close to tears.

  ‘Oh, Christine,’ Nora says. ‘We’re here on holiday. Visiting, understand? That’s all. You pack your suitcase, and three, four weeks later you unpack it again. You arrive and stay and leave again, and what is making you sad is something entirely different. You’ll be flying home soon, and we’re not going to sail to Cuba and Costa Rica on that banana freighter.’

  ‘Are you coming back with me?’ Christine asks, and Nora says, ‘No. I think I’ll stay with Kaspar a little longer.’ Christine looks at her sideways, then says, ‘Why?’ and narrows her eyes.

  Nora shrugs. ‘Maybe I feel sorry for him? Maybe I owe him something because of what used to be? Maybe I think he needs some company? I don’t know. I’m simply staying.’

  Christine repeats, ‘You’re simply staying,’ then laughs, says, ‘Belafonte’s “Jamaica F
arewell”, do you know it? “Sad to say, I’m on my way, won’t be back for many a da-ay.”’

  ‘“My heart is down, my head is turning around,”’ Nora sings and giggles. ‘Cat. What’s with Cat?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Christine says. ‘I come and stay and leave again. What should there be.’

  That evening when Cat sits down on the porch next to Christine, Kaspar and Nora get up. Christine turns toward them, surprised, wants to say something, says nothing. They go into the house and pull the door shut behind them. Cat sits next to her and is silent. Christine is silent too. They look down across the meadow; in the jungle fires are lit, there is scarcely a breeze. Christine feels Cat’s hand on her head, he’s tugging at the elastic holding her hair; it tweaks a bit, her braid is loosened, and her hair falls over her shoulders. Cat twists a strand around his finger and smooths it, Christine gets goosepimples on her arms and neck. Cat puts his hand on the back of her neck. Christine bends her head forward and closes her eyes, the very gentle pressure of Cat’s hand at the nape of her neck, and she feels dizzy. ‘One night,’ Cat says. ‘No,’ Christine says. ‘That’s not possible.’ She gets up and takes back her hair elastic. Cat laughs quietly and softly slaps his thigh with the flat of his hand. Nora and Kaspar are sitting in the kitchen not talking; they look tense. ‘Thanks,’ Christine says to them. ‘Thanks a lot, that really wasn’t necessary. Shit.’ She slams the door to her room behind her and bolts it shut.

  ‘Lucky,’ Kaspar says, and Nora asks, ‘Who was lucky. Christine or Cat?’

  Two days later Lovey comes back. She suddenly turns up at the edge of the hill and stops there; she is accompanied by two women, one holding a white parasol over her, the other carrying a child in her arms. Lovey stands there, immobile, and looks up toward the house. Cat is sitting on the blue porch chair, his eyes as usual half closed; it isn’t clear whether he even sees her. Nora and Christine, on their way to the beach, stop beside the Jeep and stare at Lovey. ‘That’s her,’ Christine thinks, feeling strangely breathless. The second woman impassively holds the parasol over Lovey’s head. Lovey stares up at the house, arms crossed over her chest, and makes no attempt to come closer. Cat seems to hold out against this. Nora and Christine stand still and don’t move. Then Cat gets up and jumps down off the porch, his face grim; he walks stiffly toward Lovey, five steps, seven, twelve, Christine is counting. Directly in front of Lovey he stops.

  The white parasol sways a bit. Lovey says something, Cat replies. They stand facing each other. ‘What did she say, what did she say?’ Christine whispers, and Nora hisses, ‘I couldn’t hear!’

  Cat turns and goes back to the house. Lovey turns her head and looks at Nora and Christine. ‘She’s putting a spell on us!’ Nora whispers, pinching Christine’s arm, Christine feels her heart leap. Lovey grabs the parasol and closes it; the three women swing their hips and disappear as suddenly as they came.

  Cat sits down in the blue chair. Christine goes out on the porch every five minutes, circles around him, waters the azaleas, clears her throat, moves chairs around, carries coconuts into the house. Cat doesn’t react. He sits there like that for two hours, then he gets up and without saying a word walks to the back of the house. Christine knows he’s taking the shortcut to Stony Hill, the one you can only take with a machete in your hand and rage in your belly.

  The game is called ‘Imagining a Life Like That’. You can play it in the evening when you’re sitting at Brenton’s Place on the step that leads up to his store, in the dark, with cigarettes and a glass of rum and Coke. You can play it if you have a little sleeping child in your arms, a child whose frizzy hair smells of salt. Nora imagines Brenton standing behind the worn counter. Christine chooses Cat, who, since Lovey came back, no longer sits on Kaspar’s porch, but instead plays dominoes with the old men or retreats to the bamboo bench far back at the edge of the clearing.

  ‘Imagine,’ Nora says. ‘Imagine the child in your arms is your own. It is tired after a long hot day. Cat is your husband. He’s playing a game of dominoes and drinking a little rum. You rock your child and wait till Cat is finished, then you walk home on the Stony Hill road. There are no street lamps, only the stars above you. Cat carries the child and walks in front; he is of course very strong because he works in the fields all day. You walk like that through the night into the jungle, and from time to time he has to clear the path with his machete, you’re impressed by that.’ Nora takes a deep breath. Christine shuffles her feet and says impatiently, ‘Go on!’

  ‘Well,’ Nora says. ‘Of course the two of you don’t talk, what is there to say to Cat? He’s the best goat butcher, the strongest worker, he has a hut in the mountains and some money under his mattress. That’s a lot. You’re quite happy with him, not least because the women in the village envy you for him. When you reach your hut, you put the child to bed and then you make love. In the dark, probably. Then you fall asleep, tomorrow is another day, and that you once … you’ve forgotten that.’

  Christine smokes, listens, and looks at Cat. He’s playing dominoes, and now and then he looks up and gives her the hint of an aggressive smile. Nora rubs spit on the mosquito bites on her legs and scratches them with relish. She says, ‘Go on. It’s your turn.’

  ‘And when all of us have gone,’ Christine says, ‘you kiss Brenton, turn off the radio, close the shutters, and it becomes quiet. You put away the glasses and the rum and count the day’s takings. You wonder whether the next thing you want to buy is a refrigerator or, after all this time, a very small television set. Brenton is a good man. He sells rum, cigarettes, bread, adhesive tape, paper and pencils. People say he has a lot of money under his mattress; you would know if that’s true. Brenton is gentle, and has never had a fight with anyone; people also say you have him under your thumb. No matter – he loves you very much, and most of all he loves your hair and the little white hollow at the base of your throat. You chase the chickens out of the hut, bring in the dogs, smoke another cigarette, and then turn out the light. I think you sleep on small cots at the back of the store; I know the child sleeps in the compartment on the right side under the counter. Brenton snuggles up against your back and puts his arms around you, you fall asleep, and everything – is all right.’

  Nora laughs, and Christine nudges her with her shoulder. The child in her arms is breathing quietly and moves its hands in sleep.

  The hurricane brushes Costa Rica, destroys some hotel facilities and causes a tidal wave in which two fishermen lose their lives. Then it moves back out to sea again and becomes stationary one hundred and twenty-five miles north of the Island. Christine sits at the foot of the hill and watches the horizon. The radio is still issuing hurricane reports twelve times a day. The tourists in the clubs, so the islanders say, left days ago. The embassy phones to ask if Kaspar wants to book a flight to the United States, but he says no. He is restless; spends less time than usual working in the fields; instead repairs the roof and the shutters, carries water and coconuts down into the cellar. The people from Stony Hill and Snow Hill come with baskets on their heads and store them in the house.

  ‘I want it to come,’ Christine says sitting at the foot of the hill, her hand shielding her eyes, the sky white and cloudless. ‘I want the hurricane to come, damn it all.’

  ‘If it does come, you’ll shit in your pants, damn it all,’ says Kaspar, who is standing behind her. He looks at the back of her neck; she has become tanned, the skin on her shoulders is peeling. ‘You’ll be wailing and blubbering. A hurricane isn’t a melodrama. A hurricane is terrible. You may want it to relieve you of having to make decisions, but not at the expense of the Island, not at my expense.’

  Christine turns around and looks exaggeratedly surprised. Kaspar’s face is white and he is biting his lips.

  ‘Look here,’ Christine says softly, furiously, ‘what’s this all about?’

  ‘I called the airline,’ Kaspar whispers in reply. ‘It’s no problem at all for you to leave in two days, they’ll be flying out t
ill the end of this week. Only then, only after you’re back home, will it start.’

  Christine does not answer. The grass under her naked feet is prickly and stiff. I’d like to have soles like Cat’s, she thinks, soles like a hard rind, and no step I take would hurt anymore. Nora is standing on the porch, is watching her, Christine sits there and doesn’t move, and Nora turns around and walks into the house.

  Of course Christine kissed Cat that last evening. Kaspar didn’t want to drive to Brenton’s, but Christine and Nora did, so they went. Kaspar drove the Jeep down the rocky road, the white beams of the headlights eerie in the total darkness; a huge moth smashed into the windshield, and Christine reached for Nora’s hand. Down at Brenton’s the children were just coming back from a soccer game, the old men were playing dominoes, Brenton had a new refrigerator, and Cat was nowhere to be seen.

  Christine, feeling restless and sad, stared nervously at all the black faces. She wanted to drink some dark rum, quickly. ‘Bee-uutiful refrigerator, Brenton,’ and Brenton laughed, was very proud, put all the Coke bottles into the freezer compartment where after six minutes they froze into fat brown lumps. ‘Is Cat here?’ Christine asked, looked pleadingly at Kaspar. He didn’t answer. Nora presumed Cat was sitting on the bamboo bench; someone seemed to be sitting there, a shadow, not quite recognizable.

  Christine drank some rum, smoked one cigarette after another, and was unable to really listen to anybody. Out of the darkness, off and on, came the metallic snapping of a cigarette lighter. Christine understood only after the fourth time, then ran off toward the bamboo bench – ‘Cat?’ Cat showed his white teeth, and Christine sat down beside him, breathless, her heart pounding. She leaned against him, said nothing.

  Nora and Kaspar, outside in the clearing, in the bright glow of the lamp on the step in front of the store. Brenton was busying himself with his refrigerator while the children squatted around Nora and pulled on her long smooth hair.