All Days Are Night (17 page)

She shut the window and went down the stairs. The house was locked, but you didn’t need a key to leave it. It was cool outside. She was barefoot and wasn’t wearing a jacket, and she was freezing, but that was part of it too. She walked along the road toward the river, ready at any time to duck among the grass if a car passed. After a while the road entered a wood, not much farther to go now. She hardly saw anything in the wood and had to walk more slowly. From the main road on the other side of the gully she heard the occasional car, but there were things closer at hand that she heard too, in the wood, as though the
darkness was subtly moving, a little quiver in the atmosphere. When she got to the serpentines that led down to the river, she could already make out the hotel lights. The forest was thinner here, and she could see farther. She ran along the tight curves and over the bridge, the soles of her feet scorched by the rough asphalt.

She walked around the big building, past the brightly lit entrance. As she turned the corner, she heard voices and laughter. The door to the kitchen stood open, where the cooks worked in their white tunics and checked pants. They were just tidying up now. It took a while before one of the trainees, a boy with long hair, saw her. He went to the door, said hello, and offered her a cigarette.

We’re almost finished, he said, and lit one himself. Then he stuck his head back in the kitchen and called out: Hey, Edo, your girlfriend’s here!

She liked the sound of that. She was Edo’s girlfriend, even though she had only met him a week ago, in the pub by the railway station. He had bought her a beer and told her about working in the hotel.

She had arranged with her father that he would come and pick her up at half past ten. When she told Edo, he made fun of her. She always had the feeling he didn’t quite take her seriously. He was in his fourth year as a trainee chef, so he was three years older than her, and even had his own car, an old rust bucket of a Fiat. When she went to the pub the following day, she told her father there was no need to collect her, someone would drive her home. He wanted to know who, and they had a fight about it. Edo wasn’t in the pub that evening, and she had to walk home, it was over an hour. The next day she plucked up all her
courage, went to the hotel after lunch, and asked for Edo. He was standing beside the back door smoking with a couple of his colleagues. She went up to the men, pretending she had turned up by chance. It was his hour off, said Edo, with a complacent smirk. Do you want to see my room? There was great hilarity among the others. He blushed. She said if he liked they could go for a walk.

As soon as she was alone with Edo, he behaved quite differently. Even his voice changed, got quieter and more careful. They walked along the riverbank, the path led through tall grass and bushes, and it was so narrow they had to go Indian file. Gillian went ahead and felt Edo’s eyes on her back. After a couple hundred yards, they sat down on the riverbank in the shade of some trees. The current was strong, Edo snapped off twigs and dropped them in the water, where they were pulled in as though by some mysterious power and immediately swept away. He told her about his plans. After his military service, he wanted to go abroad, to Africa or Asia. While Gillian was sweating over Latin and math, Edo would be seeing the world. She lay down and shut her eyes and waited for him to kiss her. But Edo went on talking. Their dreams could hardly be more different, but his enthusiasm was infectious. When they walked back, Gillian’s arm brushed against some nettles. Edo looked at the reddened place. He hesitated for a moment, then he raised her arm to his mouth and kissed it. It was as though she had been waiting for that moment. She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.

Edo, called the apprentice again, it’s your girlfriend! Then he turned to her and said, we’re all going swimming together, do you feel like coming?

Swimming? Now? She laughed disbelievingly.

Edo stepped out and kissed her on the mouth. They smoked silently. One after the other, the cooks emerged from the kitchen, said goodbye, and disappeared into the darkness. The last to go was the head chef. Don’t forget to lock up, he said to Edo, he was making him responsible.

Come on, said Edo to her and to his colleague, once the boss was gone. Inside there were three trainees busy cleaning and wiping, a big fellow with a pimply face, a smaller boy who looked like he was still a kid, and a round girl with thin braids.

Come on, said Edo again. They all went into the storeroom for two liter bottles of cooking wine. Edo went on ahead down narrow passages, then they passed through a metal door and found themselves in a corridor of the hotel. Edo stopped in front of a door labeled
SWIMMING BATHS
.

It was pitch-black inside and smelled of chlorine. Gillian felt someone take her hand and guide her. Careful, steps. Then they were suddenly standing in front of the pool. A little moonlight came in through the big plate glass windows. Outside she could sense the park, big trees and shrubbery. When she turned, she saw the others were already undressing. The boys let their clothes fall on the floor and ran hunched over to the pool and dropped into it. From the water they looked tensely at the two girls. The cook was still in her underclothes, she had enormous breasts and wide hips. She got completely undressed, and with unexpected grace walked over to the pool and down the steps into the water. The boys had turned to her, and together they swam to the glass wall at the far end. Gillian took advantage of the moment to take her clothes off too
and get in the water. Edo left the group and swam over to her. She only had a vague memory of the next hour, kisses and touchings and whisperings. The other trainees climbed out of the water, they chased each other around the pool, careful not to make any noise. She watched the boy with long hair wrestling with the fat girl, who broke away and ran off a few paces, wheezing with laughter. The boy caught up to her, there was more wrestling. Later on they disappeared down a corridor in the darkness. The two other trainees stretched out on deck chairs and passed the wine bottles back and forth. Edo kissed Gillian’s throat, and instantly she forgot the others. She shut her eyes, he put his arms around her, she let him, but she didn’t dare touch him. He stopped kissing her, laid his head on her shoulder, as though he didn’t need it anymore. She couldn’t see his face, but she felt his hand. She was lifted up till she was almost on the surface of the water. Suddenly a brief, stabbing pain, and he was inside her. She didn’t feel pleasure, but she could feel her body as rarely before. Afterward there was an emptiness in her that hadn’t previously existed.

She pushed off from the wall and swam to the steps. Edo came after her. Side by side they sat on one of the top steps in the shallows, paddling at the water with their hands, which touched sometimes as though by chance. I love you — had he said, or had she wanted him to? I love you, she whispered, and he, I love you too. Suddenly there was blue light everywhere, she didn’t know what was happening, then she saw that it came from the water. One of the trainees had switched on the underwater lighting. The other leapt up from his deck chair and ran over to
him, wine bottle in hand, and the two fought over the light switch. They kept interrupting their struggle to take a pull on the bottle. Edo had turned onto his front. She saw her body and his glow yellowishly, only the parts that were outside the water were gray. The water seemed viscous, oily, spilling over her belly. She hoped it would get dark again, she felt Edo going away from her in the light. She wanted to draw him to her, but he freed himself and stepped out of the pool. He hissed at the two fighters and switched the light off, but he didn’t go back in the pool.

A quarter of an hour later, they said goodbye outside the staff rooms. The apprentice with the long hair was snogging the fat girl. The others would surely go on drinking into the early hours.

I have to go home, said Gillian. Edo didn’t even ask her if she wanted to come up to his room. He kissed her, but it felt different from before.

Barefoot and with wet hair, she ran home. The next day she had a cold.

Oh, that’s nice, said Jill and she went on moving. When she had come and opened her eyes, she could feel a tear running down her cheek. Hubert asked if anything was the matter. Nothing, she said, and laughed, I’m happy.

They were lying side by side when they heard the door to the dressing room.

Someone’s just thrown their costumes down on the floor and left them, said a man’s voice.

Jill pulled the covers over their heads, and they waited
breathlessly for the voices to go away. Then they stood up, crept back into the dressing room, and quickly put on their clothes.

Their having slept together changed their lives less than Jill had expected, it was as though the nights were a different world into which they dived together. The next morning Jill had only a dreamy recollection of the night just past. When they made love, Hubert always wanted to leave the light on. He didn’t take his eyes off her when she got undressed. His hands went all over her body. Sometimes he got up to look at her from a distance, or he would bend her knees and spread her legs like a doctor checking the flexibility of a joint, until, half laughing, half irritably, she would grab him by the hair and pull him to her and kiss him. His kisses were chaste like a child’s, as if he were far away and unattainable. He moved and swung her around like an object. Sometimes she had to tell him not to be rough with her. The nicest moments were when they lay there side by side, touching each other abstractedly. Once she asked him if he had found her desirable when he painted her back then.

Of course I did, he said, maybe that’s why I didn’t succeed in painting you.

And now? she asked.

Why should I paint you? You’re here.

A few days later he asked if it would bother her if Lukas came up here on vacation. Jill didn’t know what to say, the idea made her a little bit nervous.

Astrid would bring him, he said.

Does she know about me? asked Jill.

Yes, he said, but not that we knew each other before.

Hubert and Jill drove down to the station to collect Lukas.

You didn’t say she was bringing her boyfriend, said Jill.

That’s because I didn’t know, said Hubert angrily, and went off to welcome Astrid, Lukas, and Rolf.

During the ride back there was silence. Only Astrid made an effort at conversation. She talked to Hubert as to an invalid, praised the beauty of the scenery and the weather as though they were all his doing. She made no mention of their last visit. While Astrid spoke, she leaned forward. Rolf and Lukas clowned around behind Astrid’s back. Jill parked outside the house.

Come on, said Hubert to Lukas, I’ll show you your room.

The two of them disappeared upstairs. Astrid and Rolf followed Jill.

Why don’t we sit outside for a bit?

Astrid asked what work Jill did.

I’m in charge of entertainment in the vacation club next to the cultural center.

Astrid asked what that involved, but her interest didn’t seem very deep. I’ve never gone to such a club, what kind of people take their holidays like that?

Rolf said he had gone to a club once when he was a young man. Loads of singles, and a party every night. Fun, I suppose.

People who don’t know what to do with themselves, said Astrid.

For a moment, Jill felt sorry for Rolf.

In our club we mostly get families with children, she said. Recently, Hubert’s started giving painting classes there.

Oh! said Astrid, apparently genuinely taken aback.

There was silence. Astrid stretched out and sighed, as though to prove that she felt at ease. After a while, Hubert and Lukas came out of the house holding hands.

What train were you going to take? asked Hubert.

I haven’t picked one yet, said Astrid.

The trains always leave at twenty of, said Hubert, if we hurry, you can be on the next one.

Shouldn’t we take a little walk? asked Astrid. Seeing as we’ve come all the way up here.

Rolf pulled a map out of his rucksack and said he had seen there was a power place very close by, he wouldn’t mind seeing that. Hubert rolled his eyes, but Jill said that was a good idea.

You don’t believe in that flummery, do you? asked Hubert.

It’s nothing you have to believe in, said Rolf. Most of those places are just very beautiful and have a special resonance.

They walked along the road for a while, then followed a narrow path into a small dip and then up a slope. There, surrounded by a wooden fence, was a large boulder exhibiting many small indentations.

That’s a stone with cup and ring marks, said Rolf, you find them all over Europe. Presumably they were prepared by Bronze Age people for purposes of worship. Look, here’s a zodiac.

And there was a wheel with spokes etched into the stone, though, admittedly, it didn’t look terribly ancient. Jill traced it with her finger. Rolf silently contemplated the stone.

Well, feel anything? asked Hubert with a grin.

Take your time, said Rolf amiably enough. You need to find a silent place in your thoughts. You won’t see your reflection in a rapidly flowing stream.

While Rolf was inspecting the rock, Astrid stood silently by. She seemed to be thinking about something. Lukas had run farther on up the slope. There were a few stunted birches up there. He had sat in the grass and was looking down at the grown-ups. Jill wondered what the little boy made of them. When she’d been a girl she had known power places long before she had understood what they were, places she had withdrawn to, that had a significance for her that no one outside could grasp.

It’s all about creating a hierarchy of space, said Rolf to Hubert — surely that’s what you do as an artist, isn’t it?

On their way back, Astrid involved Jill in a conversation, and they walked so slowly that the two men were away off by themselves in no time. Lukas kept running back and forth between the two couples, till Astrid told him to stay with them. Rolf and his father had something to discuss. When they caught up to the men outside the house, Jill looked questioningly at Hubert. Then Rolf and Astrid said goodbye to Lukas, and Hubert drove them to the station.