Alice

by Judith Hermann

  Yes?

  He stood there with that scarred skull and his grey sweater over his fat stomach and those incredibly dirty tracksuit bottoms. He gave off a distinct, sour smell. You don’t have to lock the door here, he said.

  Oh, Alice said. Her heart was beating fast. She could hardly understand him. She said, What’s the matter?

  He was smiling now, in a knowing, explicit way. Just wanted to see if you’ve got everything you need. That’s what he said, if Alice understood him right.

  Do you have everything you need?

  He looked at Alice, her body, from the toes up, still smiling, deliberately and calmly. Alice knew what he meant, and he knew that she knew. Maybe in a figurative sense both of them might not mean the same thing, but in a direct sense they did.

  Actually, I don’t have any of the things I need, Alice thought. None of them. She said, Thanks, I have everything I need. We have everything, really. Thank you very much.

  He thrust himself one heavy step forward and looked past her into his old apartment. Heard the familiar whispering of the dishwasher. Maybe it all seemed different to him now, what with all of Alice’s, Maja’s, and the child’s things in it. Alice’s jacket hanging on the coat rack. And the child’s soft, tiny shoe on the floor under the table and next to it the green plastic ball – all of it dipped in sadness; he could see how different it was.

  Alice let him look. She looked too. She waited, knowing that it didn’t matter what her answer had been. He had ten minutes, fifteen at most – in that time anything was possible. But she didn’t come towards him, that made him hesitate, and the sadness repelled him, like an illness.

  Alice said, Well, then, good night.

  He still hesitated.

  She said, Good night, again.

  He retreated. Clop, clop, back up the stairs. Stopping before the last step – maybe she’d call him back. Alice wondered what Misha would have expected her to do. She didn’t have a clue. Holding her hand to her mouth, she listened as the man got to the top. Then at last the TV chatter stopped as his apartment door closed.

  Maja came back around midnight. Alice had made another pot of fennel tea, with honey, drinking it all, along with three of the child’s biscuits. She had pulled open several kitchen drawers, had gazed at the contents and closed them again. In the cutlery drawer, countless little spoons rattling around, spoons from cough-medicine packages, tiny ice-cream spoons, plastic spoons. Messy, she said under her breath. Below the video recorder there were cassettes with handwritten labels, dubious content. On the recessed shelves, art paper, scissors, and used-up glue sticks. It was getting more and more depressing. She forced herself to stop looking.

  She’d emptied the dishwasher, putting the plates and cups into the cupboard above the stove, an involuntary imitation of a different life. Had tried to resist watching TV, then capitulated. She had fallen asleep at the table, head on her arms, safe in the random order of the objects around her: teats, Maja’s barrette, tea bags, crayons, and a children’s cardboard book with soft corners. Suddenly she started up, her hands were numb. But the child was still sound asleep, her left hand tightly clamped around the rabbit’s ear, and no heavy shadow in the hall outside the door. Alice went into the room where she would be sleeping, had opened the couch and made up her bed. A blue sheet. Her nightgown next to the pillow. Shades down, patio door open. A gentle breeze outside, the brave constancy of things, their unambiguous names, the child would learn them all: tree, chair, garden, sky, moon, and hospital. Lit-up windows, dark windows. Small figures behind them, a Maja, a Misha, a nun.

  11:45 PM.

  Night watch.

  Maja came back silently, without making a sound on the stairs or in the hallway; there was only her knock on the frosted glass pane. She was surprised to find that Alice had locked the door, Was everything all right? Yes, Alice said, everything’s all right, but it made me feel better this way.

  Maja went to check on the child, briefly and conscientiously; she always seemed to have just enough strength for the things that had to be considered or done, no more and no less, precise and appropriate. Alice, sitting at the table, waited, her back erect, hands folded in her lap.

  Want a beer? Maja asked.

  Sure.

  For a long time Alice rummaged among the plastic spoons for an opener, finally found one with the name of a service area near Bad Zwischenahn on it, took two bottles of beer out of the refrigerator, ice-cold. They clinked bottles, without saying a word. The beer tingled, tasting sweet; slowly it toned down something inside Alice’s head and made it go away. Expanding, stretching inwardly with alcohol? She’d read that somewhere; it seemed to be true.

  It was nice at the hospital, Maja said. Very peaceful. They let me lie down next to Misha. We lay together like that for the first time in a long time. He was breathing quietly. I don’t think he was in pain. Tomorrow, around noon, I can talk with the doctor after he’s been to see Misha. Could be I even fell asleep for a little while. We slept together.

  When did you first meet actually? Alice asked casually.

  Don’t you know? Maja said. Pleasantly. Amazed.

  No, Alice said. She really didn’t know. Misha had never mentioned it, but then she had never asked him.

  The day you came back from the trip you took together.

  Oh. Really? Alice said, astonished. That trip had been years ago; it was the only trip she’d ever taken with Misha, and at the end of it they had agreed to separate. I’m breaking it off now, Misha had said, once and for all. And Alice had answered, confidently, Yes, me too. They’d been content together, didn’t argue, maybe that’s why they were able to break it off. Misha had left first. Alice had stayed on a few more days. She suddenly remembered how she had started to cry after she’d taken him to the station and was driving back to the house by herself. As if he had died – she thought, Well, I’ve gone through that. I have it behind me.

  Maja said, Misha was happy when he came back. When I first met him. He was doing well, he was fairly well rested.

  It was the sea air, Alice said. The change in climate.

  They said nothing for a while. Alice hesitated, then she said, The last evening of our trip we were sitting together – just like you and me now. Together at a table, with two bottles of beer, only it was in a garden, and it was June – but you know that already. The millennium-summer June. Still very hot, even in the middle of the night.

  She thought about it, how suggestive that sounded – hot, middle of the night, millennium-summer June. Together, you and me. How vivid, the words behind the words. But that’s how it had been, one evening before Misha met Maja; who would have thought.

  And then? Maja asked.

  And then a spider began to spin a web between our two beer bottles, Alice said. The first threads between the bottlenecks. She indicated the size of the spider with her thumb and index finger, a grain of rice. The fine, thin strand strung between the two bottles as if over an abyss. They had been sitting next to each other, shoulder to shoulder. Watching the little spider for a while, weaving so serenely, so self-absorbed.

  He was sorry, Alice said. He was sorry that he’d have to destroy her work.

  And did he destroy it? Maja asked.

  Well, take a guess, Alice said. They both laughed, each one softly to herself.

  C’mon, let’s go to bed, Maja said. It’s already half past one. We have to get up early tomorrow. Do you want to go and see him in the morning?

  And Alice said, Yes, I’d like to see him again in the morning.

  They brushed their teeth. Standing next to each other at the sink on a blue towelling mat, in front of a mirror that had gold and silver shells glued to its frame. They saw each other in the mirror, their different faces.

  Misha would like this, Alice thought, to see us like this. He’d be very happy, he’d say, Well, you see? – He knows. He’s got to know.

  Good night, Alice said. Sleep well, Maja.

  Yes, Maja said, good night. You s
leep well, too, Alice.

  Alice woke up when Maja knocked on her bedroom door, calling her name. Maybe she’d been knocking for quite a while already. Alice was having a hard time emerging from a deep, exhausted sleep. Later she wondered why Maja hadn’t simply come into the room. Then she was awake. A momentary memory of her childhood and what it was like to be roused in the middle of the night to go on summer holiday. Terror and excitement. She threw back the covers and called out, I’m awake. Maja opened the door and stood there with the child on her arm, a cut-out, silhouetted against the bright living room where the lamp above the table was on again, and she said, Misha is dead.

  How late is it? Alice asked.

  Four o’clock, Maja said. The hospital called. He died two hours ago; they just wanted to let us sleep a little longer.

  Wait. I’ll get up, Alice said. She put a sweater over her nightgown, then walked barefoot into the kitchen. The child was sitting at the table, thumb in mouth, without her sleeping bag, wearing a little blue shirt with snap fasteners on the shoulder. Petit Bateau. Alice rubbed her eyes. Maja was just standing there in the middle of the room. Astronauts, Alice thought, we’re like astronauts, there’s no place to hold on to.

  They wanted to know whether we’d like to see him once more, Maja said. If so, they’d wait for us. She looked utterly frightened by that.

  I have to think about it, Alice said; it sounded like a question. She sat down next to the child, propped her elbows on the table. Just a moment. I have to think.

  Have you ever seen a dead person?

  No. I haven’t.

  Maja called the hospital and said, We’re coming. Could they please wait, we need a little time because of the child and the time it takes to get there, maybe half an hour, would that be possible.

  Who was on the phone? Alice asked.

  Don’t know, one of the nuns, Maja said. Not the old, severe one; a young nun.

  All right then, Alice said. Let’s go.

  That afternoon she left for Berlin.

  Maja might have stayed, but Alice felt she’d go crazy if she had to spend one more night in that apartment with the view of the hospital in which no one was lying any more. The hospital was hollow, empty. A silent shell.

  If we’re not careful, Alice thought, we’ll disappear too, Maja, the child, and I; we’ll vanish without a trace in Zweibrücken.

  She phoned the railway station and they gave her an exhausting train connection; she wrote the times down in her diary, a magic formula, something to hold on to. Maja and the child would fly back that evening. Together they tidied the apartment, stripped the beds, rinsed the cups, and packed their things, while the child played on the floor in front of the TV, building towers with the plastic blocks and destroying them again, building and destroying, until she lost control.

  Come, let’s go back to sleep, Maja said to the child, lying down on the bed with her and breaking into tears. Alice carefully closed the door. She sat down at the table and drank three large mugs of cold, bitter, black coffee, one right after the other. In the garden on the hillside that sloped down to the valley the man was sawing some cheap wood; he didn’t look up to the terrace. He hadn’t given Alice another glance, hadn’t said a single word to her, everything had already been said. But he embraced Maja when she paid for the night and had to tell him and his wife what had happened. Maja took no notice of the embrace. No damage done. Alice had watched in amazement; Maja was a widow, vulnerable and sacred, she didn’t have to be asked whether she had everything she needed, and her answer would surely have been different from Alice’s. The wife had stuffed the rental money into the pocket of her cardigan, pretending she wasn’t going to count it, and then as if on cue, had begun to lament, raising her hands to heaven. Alice had gone into the bathroom and waited there till it was over.

  I’ll drive you to the airport, the woman said to Maja. Of course I will. I’ll drive you to the airport this evening; and Alice had said she’d take a taxi to the train station even though no one had asked her.

  Maja and the child slept for two more hours. Then they got up, each in her own way sleepy and confused. The child’s bare feet on the kitchen floor made a sound that Alice couldn’t stand. She said, I have to go now. She had to restrain herself to keep from putting on her jacket then and there.

  I know, Maja said. It’s all right; I still have some things to do here, and then in a little while we’ll be driving to the airport. Would you take Misha’s suitcase with you? I’ll pick it up later at your place in Berlin.

  It was a small suitcase. With wheels, not heavy. At the hospital that afternoon when the room had to be cleared, Maja had sorted Misha’s things. Sunlight was falling on the shiny linoleum and on the plastic sheet covering the freshly made bed. The nurses had given them a bin bag. Alice held the bag open and Maja lifted up each item in turn: pills, information about alternative cancer treatments, new socks, new pyjamas, slippers – all went into the bin bag. The things Misha had worn when he was flown to Zweibrücken went into the suitcase; the photo of Maja and the child, into the suitcase; the notebook with the blank pages, into the suitcase. They took the bag back to the nurses’ station. The child was sitting in the lap of one of the nuns and was saying newly learned words to herself, repeating them over and over, proudly, but hard to understand. Actually it sounded like: Abra. Ca. Dabra:

  Abracadabra. It really did.

  I don’t mind taking the suitcase, Alice said. I’m grateful to you. I don’t mind at all. She had no words for what she really wanted to say.

  The cab driver was walking up the garden path. On the broken paving stones, past the flower beds and the clay turtle. The taxi was black, a limousine with tinted windows, no name of a cab company visible.

  But this is a taxi, isn’t it? Alice said, not at all sure; everything was out of sync, anything was possible. The cab driver didn’t deign to answer the question. He took the suitcase from Alice, her overnight bag, retraced his steps, and loaded everything into the boot; then he got in, waiting.

  We’ll see each other in Berlin, Alice said.

  Yes, Maja said. She was standing in the open doorway with the child on her arm. The straw witch rustled in the draft. The azaleas in the conservatory. Afternoon light. Have a good trip.

  Alice turned and walked through the garden, out to the street, and to the cab. She got into the back, rolled down the window and waved. Maja waved back. She said something to the child, the child waved too. The cab started up. Maja stepped inside the front hall with the child, closing the door behind her.

  II

  Conrad

  They had directions for getting there. Conrad had sent them to Alice in Berlin the old-fashioned way, by mail: the address, telephone number, and a little sketch of the house in which he and Lotte lived, a white rectangle, and the yellow house south of it. Conrad’s handwriting was delicate and shaky, already familiar to her. How quickly you can get to know someone’s handwriting, Alice thought, much more quickly than the person himself. The sketch was in her lap. She was wearing a crumpled, flowered skirt and sitting in the passenger seat. Anna was sleeping in the back, her head leaning against her backpack, her arm over her face. The Romanian was driving. Ever since they had crossed the border into Italy, he had been speaking Italian. Seemed to have become another person. He asked, Know what the word for cream is in Italian? Alice said she didn’t know. Why of all things, cream? Incomprehensible.

  And the other way round – from Italian into German – macchiato? Latte macchiato?

  I don’t know, Alice said Aren’t you listening to me? I don’t know it the other way round either.

  Stained milk, the Romanian said. Stained milk.

  They took the Rovereto Sud exit. Continuing in the direction of Riva, still thirty kilometres to Gargnano Bogliaco. Then the mountains opened up to a view of the lake. Glorious. Dark blue. Countless white sails, a flotilla. It got hotter and yet at the same time cooler – all you had to do was look at the water. The water is ice cold;
it’s a mountain lake, after all, said the Romanian who had been here before.

  Frosta or something, Alice said irritably.

  Something like that, the Romanian said, smiling to himself. He’d also been holding the wheel differently since they’d crossed the border, more relaxed, with just his left hand, steering with just his left hand into a tunnel. Its blackness took her breath away until she realised that she ought to take off her sunglasses. Anna, in the back seat, woke up. They were gliding out of the tunnel again – cypresses to the right, the lake to the left, blinding light and very sharp turns, then another tunnel. Can you sense your pupils contracting, Alice said to Anna, turning round, and she felt how sweaty she was.

  This is crazy, Anna said. We’ve got to stop, right now. I feel really sick.

  They stopped after a bend in the road. Anna and Alice stood next to each other beside a stone parapet and looked out over the water, so misty in the distance, you couldn’t see the other shore. Palm trees. Lemon trees. The mountains, dark and gloomy. There was nothing but the mountains, then the road, then the water. Actually no landscape, little space for people, cramped and spacious at the same time.

  Do you think this is beautiful? Anna asked.

  I don’t know, Alice said. It probably is very beautiful. Isn’t it?

  The Romanian, standing somewhere behind them clicked the shutter of his camera. They could hear it. A panoramic view: Anna and Alice at the lake.

  OK, Alice said, you have to keep your eyes open now. I think we’ll be there soon. Attenzione, capito?

  Five o’clock in the afternoon on the road between Gargnano Bogliaco and Toscolano-Maderno. Seen from above, a little car on the road that runs along the shore of the lake – Anna in the back, the Romanian and Alice in the front, baggage in the boot, water bottles rolling around on the floor and ashtrays full of cigarette butts, paper ice-cream wrappers and foil from packs of cigarettes. The excitement now infects all three, the car windows are open, Anna holding her hand out of the window into the air rushing by, and Alice calls out: Turn right! Here. Bear right, up there on the right towards that restaurant, keep to the right, go past it. Right, exactly. We’re almost there. Fifty metres from here, Conrad had written, there’s a spot where five roads come together. Take the one that leads through the forged-iron gate, the ‘fifth road’. It leads to the yellow house.