by Peter Stamm
He made his way back to the cultural center. He was pretty sure that Arno would be underwhelmed by his idea, but he didn’t care. It had sprung organically from the situation in which he found himself and was the logical continuation of his earlier work. Whereas he had always been at pains to arrest time, now for the first time it would be incorporated into his work. He doubted that anyone would notice, but the main thing was that it convinced him.
In the cultural center, he headed straight to Arno to tell him the good news, but he wasn’t in his office. Presumably the committee meeting was in progress where they were talking about the exhibition. He thought of calling him, but he liked the idea of the committee racking their brains over something while he had already solved their problem for them. He would tell Jill about his project tonight, that was plenty early enough.
He drove down into the village to buy the things he needed, a rope, soft pencils, a few coarsely woven red place mats that would be easy to pull apart. Then he drove back to the cultural center and climbed up to the attic. The roof wasn’t insulated and it was warm in the long space, and smelled of dust and old junk. There were all kinds of things standing around, and after looking for a while, Hubert found a dozen white steles. They were a little tall to be ideal. He carted six of them down to the ground floor and carried them into the kitchen and washed them with warm water and soap. They were full of spiderwebs, and it took a long time to get them more or less clean. Then he stood them up in the entrance hall and tried out what their best positions were. In the end, he decided to stand them all in a row.
Jill was waiting in the hotel lobby.
No sooner had they sat down than Jill said she had some good news for Hubert. And I’ve got some for you, he said. You start.
We’ve found someone to stand in for you, said Jill, a young woman artist from Germany who was going to come up anyway. Thea Genser, perhaps you know her? Arno talked to her on the phone a couple of days ago, now she’s coming a little earlier than planned and bringing a series with her that she’s completed recently.
Hubert shook his head and smiled, that wouldn’t be necessary, he had had an idea himself.
When? asked Jill.
Hubert told her of his plan.
But we’ve committed to Thea now, said Jill. She’s been here before too.
You could at least have spoken to me, said Hubert.
Arno was trying to reach you all this time, said Jill, but you kept ignoring him. I’ll try and have a word with him.
The dining room was starting to empty when a young man joined them. When he had finished his plate of hors d’oeuvres and went up to the buffet, Jill explained that it was part of the concept of the vacation club that no one was to sit alone. Hubert wouldn’t have minded talking to her quietly a little longer, but now the young man cut in and told them about a hike he’d been on. Twelve hundred meters, up and down, he said. Jill praised his fitness. When she got up to get her dessert, she laid her hand briefly on his shoulder. Hubert followed her to the buffet, but only to get a cup of coffee.
Who the hell is that? he asked. Is there something going on between the two of you?
It’s part of the job, explained Jill. It’s called talking to the guests.
What if the guest gets on your wick? asked Hubert.
No sooner had Jill finished her apple strudel than she said she had to get changed and made up for her performance.
Will we meet at the bar later?
After she was gone, the young man told Hubert the whole story of his hike again, as though he hadn’t heard it already. Hubert got up and went over to the bar.
There were a few couples on sofas and armchairs by the windows, in their midst stood a hotel employee asking questions in a broad Frankish accent. It seemed to be a kind of quiz, whoever knew the answer had to call out a word, Hubert didn’t understand it.
He went outside for a stroll in the grounds. When he came back, the doors to the theater were open, he sat as far away from the two dozen or so hotel guests who were waiting for the show to begin. The young man from dinner was sitting in the front row.
The play was banal enough, but for all that Hubert sometimes had to laugh. The other members of the audience seemed to entertain no reservations. In one scene the beautiful daughter emptied a full chamber pot over the ugly sister’s dress. Jill had to take off her dirndl and stand there onstage in old-fashioned underwear, which brought her a separate little round of applause. She wasn’t especially good, though better than the others, and she clearly enjoyed it. At the end, even the ugly daughter got her man, Toni, a yokel in lederhosen. To tumultuous applause the cast bowed, and the lights came on.
Hubert waited at the bar, but instead of Jill there was Arno suddenly in front of him. He was carrying a roll of paper under his arm. Jill called me, he said.
I’ve got an idea for the exhibition, said Hubert.
I’m sorry, but it’s too late, said Arno. Hubert thought he could detect some schadenfreude in his voice. I’ve covered over all the posters. He unrolled one of the pale blue posters he was carrying. Thea Genser, Durch Wasser/Through Water.
She takes pictures of empty swimming pools in winter, said Arno, it’s outstanding work.
I don’t understand the title, said Hubert. He ordered another beer and watched Jill and the young man from dinner in animated conversation. Arno said he had to go on. Hubert took his glass and went over to Jill, who was just laughing heartily.
Armin was suggesting I always wore underwear like that.
He can’t actually be that stupid, said Hubert.
They were both silent.
I think he wants to get inside your pants himself, said Hubert.
Excuse me, said Jill to Armin.
She took Hubert by the arm and walked him over to the door.
Will you please stop insulting our guests, she said. I think it’s best you go home.
I’m not at home here, he said and emptied his glass.
Jill took it from him and said, if he liked, he could spend the night at her house.
When Hubert woke up, Jill was standing by the window, opening the curtains. The sun was shining. Jill went to him and sat on the edge of the bed.
Sleep well?
What time did you get home? he asked.
Not so late that I had trouble getting up in the morning. If you want to have breakfast with me, you’d better get a move on.
After Jill had gone off to work, Hubert looked up his e-mails on her computer and answered the most urgent ones. Although he had been pretty drunk the night before, he had taken the car. Now he walked to the cultural center, he was in no particular hurry.
In front of the building was an old minivan with German plates. A young woman was carrying a big wooden crate inside. Hubert held the door open for her. Only then did he notice the light blue poster that had been plastered over the larger, black one, giving the appearance of a window in a dark room. The steles he had set up yesterday in the entrance hall were parked in a corner, on the floor was a pile of aluminum frames in bubble wrap. The young woman had been in one of the guest rooms, and shortly after she came back. She walked up to Hubert and held out her hand. Hi, I’m Thea. Hubert, he said. Oh, she said. Well, I hope you don’t mind that I’m having the exhibition here now. He shrugged and grabbed one of the steles and carried it up to his room.
He spent the rest of the day pulling single threads out of the place mats, until there were just enough left for one to guess the original shape and size. Music started playing in the building, punctuated by the unctuous voice of a radio announcer. Hubert went into the entrance hall, where Thea was just unpacking her pictures and propping them against the wall. On the floor among the packing materials was a tinny little transistor radio. He asked her if she’d mind switching it off.
No problem, she said.
I can’t work with that sort of noise going on, Hubert said tetchily.
No problem, repeated Thea. I had no idea you were still around.
> In the evening, Hubert went for a walk. He followed the road to Jill’s house. Behind him he heard a car. Only when it pulled up alongside him did he realize it was Jill. She wound down the window and asked if he was going somewhere.
It was cold in the house. Jill hadn’t turned on any lights. The blue sky through the windows reminded Hubert of the poster for Thea’s show. Jill sat down with him and lit a cigarette.
What sort of farce was that?
You mean the play yesterday? asked Jill. That’s just for fun, you mustn’t take it seriously.
I mean the whole thing, said Hubert. The invitation to the cultural center, and then your taking the exhibition away from me in the eleventh hour, in favor of a girl who’s barely got her diploma. And you in this ridiculous hotel, you can’t mean it. That’s not you.
Maybe not, said Jill, but life here is less of a strain. Our guests like to have a bit of fun, that’s what they’re paying for, and when they get it, they’re grateful and satisfied.
They sat facing each other in silence.
To begin with, I took an ironic view of everything here, said Jill finally, but over time I got to be really fond of the people. You’d be surprised at who comes here for vacations.
Hubert made to speak, but Jill cut him off.
I think I wanted to show you that. Because of the way you cut me down to size and said I wasn’t there. She stood up and made an actorish bow to him, and smiled. Well? Do you like what you see?
The last remaining days before the opening Hubert worked incessantly. He had set out the steles in his room. On one he put the rest of the log he had whittled, and at its foot the whittlings, on the next the frayed place mats, and on the ground the red threads he had pulled out. Over one stele he looped the picked-at rope. He started covering some pieces of paper with pencil hatchings till gleaming black surfaces resulted, where the individual lines were no longer visible. Sometimes the paper was rubbed through or got warped in the course of the work, but he didn’t mind.
Thea spent days over the hanging of her pictures. Each time Hubert left his room, he found her standing in the exhibition space with a framed picture in her hand or on the floor at her feet. In the evening, Hubert left the cultural center and drove into the village to eat in a restaurant there. Then he would look up his e-mails. Astrid wrote that she was coming to the opening with Lukas and Rolf, perhaps he could reserve them a room in a nice hotel. Nina similarly said she would be coming for the opening, and bringing a couple of friends. He deleted the e-mails without answering them, he had to concentrate on his work.
He only went into the kitchen in the morning, to fix coffee. He no longer appeared at the hotel. What little he needed he bought in the village store. Some days he ate nothing but salted peanuts, until his mouth was burning with them, and drank copious amounts of coffee. He slept badly and had wild dreams from which he often woke bathed in sweat. Sometimes he had the feeling that everything he perceived stood in some relation to his slow work of destruction, the way the light crept over the floor, the rushing of the river audible inside, the cries of the children in the hotel grounds. He tore a piece out of an old shirt and then used a needle to pick thread after thread out of it. The weave was so fine that he needed the lens of his slide projector as a magnifying glass. After he had spent hours working, he pushed everything aside, only to begin right away on the next task. For many hours on end he was unaware of time passing.
The final will is that to be truly present.
So that the lived moment belongs to us and we to it …
ERNST BLOCH
Jill had gone over to the window of her office and was looking out onto the grounds behind the hotel. It was a gorgeous day, almost all the deck chairs were occupied, children were playing in the meadow, and in the background, in the shade of some mighty trees that stood by the riverbank, a dozen guests were sitting in a circle. Most were barefoot, some only in shorts and T-shirt. They had sketch pads on their knees and were attentively watching Hubert, who was standing in their midst, talking. On a basket chair next to him sat a naked young woman. Hubert gestured expansively, it was as though he was painting a picture in the air.
His course was a rip-roaring success. Jill could have filled it twice over, that’s how many people had signed up for it. A model was easily found as well: Ursina, the masseuse who had a practice in the village and came to the hotel when required. Jill knew that Ursina had sometimes done modeling when she was a student, and she agreed without demur. She seemed completely uninhibited, stretching during breaks or walking around to inspect the guests’ handiwork. Jill waved at Hubert, but he didn’t see her, and she sat down at her desk to finish the schedules for the next month.
Hubert had recovered remarkably quickly from his breakdown. On the morning of the opening, Jill had been seriously worried about him. Arno had called her and told her to come right away. It was her day off, and she was still in her nightie, but fifteen minutes later she was standing next to Arno in Hubert’s room in the cultural center. Hubert was deathly pale, he had beads of sweat on his brow. Jill called the doctor, then she got a large glass of water from the kitchen. You’re dehydrated, she said to Hubert, and helped him to sit up. The doctor prescribed something to lower his blood pressure, but what he needed above all was rest.
My wife is coming, and so are three of my students, said Hubert. They’re under the impression that I’ve got a show.
Is that all you’re worried about? said Jill. Come on, I’ll take you back to my place, no one will think of looking for you there.
During the first few days at Jill’s, Hubert wasn’t up to much. When she asked him in the evening what he had done during the day, he shrugged. After a few days he began to read. Most of the books in the house were Jill’s mother’s, they were illustrated guides to the area, cookbooks, and English novels. This rather random library had led to an improvement of relations between Jill and her mother. There was nothing arcane about her mother’s handwritten marginalia in the cookbooks, but they showed Jill a life that had had no other end in view than to provide a good home for her husband and daughter.
Ever since Jill had moved into the vacation home, her parents came up less frequently. Jill’s father had bad knees, and the stairs were difficult for him. If they went anywhere for vacation, it was to spa hotels, where he could receive physiotherapy.
Hubert seemed to read anything that fell into his hands, a collection of local legends, a book of Alpine flora, a little volume of Engadin proverbs that were painted all over the houses hereabouts.
It’s easy to find fault, and harder to do, he read. There must have been an artist living in that house. Or what about this: A little wolf is present in every one of us.
Jill was in the kitchen, making their dinner.
Love your destiny, even if it is bitter, read Hubert. Do you think that’s true?
Why don’t you wash the lettuce, said Jill.
When she came home the next day, Hubert was sitting in front of the house, sketching. She walked around and looked over his shoulder. He was just copying a sgraffito from the book of proverbs. He leafed back through the pad and showed her the drawings he had done, careful copies of mermaids, crocodiles, and zodiacs graced with sayings. He tore out a sheet and handed it to her. A year is long, ten years are short, she read.
They shared a bed. Jill went to the bathroom first. When Hubert had turned out the light and lain down next to her, she sometimes scooted over to him, and they would embrace. When Jill turned around, she felt Hubert’s erection. Neither of them said anything, and after a while, Jill crept back to her side of the bed. One evening she asked him in earnest whether he would like to conduct a drawing class in the club and was astonished when he immediately said yes.
Jill was happier than she’d been for a very long time. Only now did she realize how solitary she had been these past years. When she remembered the time with Matthias, it was as though it had nothing to do with her present life. The memory of the sessions with H
ubert, on the other hand, had remained vivid.
After she had talked Arno into inviting Hubert to hold another exhibition in the cultural center, she had been anxious for weeks. Then, when he sat in front of her in the hotel lobby again, everything was the way it had been before. And since Hubert had started living with her, she looked forward to coming home every evening. He frequently did the cooking. After dinner they often sat outside the house for hours, talking.
The first course Hubert offered was in landscape painting. A half dozen guests signed up for it. In the evening Jill met one of the participants, an old lady who had come with her granddaughter and had taken the course with her. The woman was enthusiastic, even her granddaughter had enjoyed it. Hubert too appeared to have enjoyed the day. When Jill came home, he had dinner ready. Well, how was it? she asked.
It’s amazing how many people paint in their free time, he said. There are no great geniuses among them, but at least they’re not beginners either.
You seem to have an admirer, said Jill.
Hubert looked at her with round eyes, then he said: Oh, do you mean Elena? She’s a teenager.
Actually, I was thinking of her grandmother, said Jill, laughing.
Since there were guests who stayed at the club for two weeks and wanted to carry on painting, Hubert offered a further course the following week, in portraiture. Obviously word had got out that he was a good teacher, at any rate the enrollment was twice the first week’s. At the end of the week, Jill asked him whether he would like to teach life drawing as well, that would certainly interest the younger set. And will you sit for us? he asked. If I can’t find anyone else I will, said Jill.
