Authors: Peter Stamm
Only when she got pregnant did I believe her. She called. I asked her if she was together with the father, if they were going to get married. She answered evasively. I mustn’t tell anyone. I wonder why she even told me.
Eva visited her cousin in the hospital once, but Ivona gave her to understand she didn’t want visitors. Then after the birth she turned up at Eva’s, and pretended nothing had happened. When I asked her about the baby she gave me an absolutely terrifying look. Sophie’s living with us, I said, she’s fine. Eva nodded. That’s what I found out eventually. At first Eva feared the worst. She couldn’t say so of course, but she thought Ivona was capable of anything. As a child she was once given a cat, said Eva, a sweet little kitten. She took it everywhere with her. But in time the kitten grew bigger and more independent, and ran off when Ivona wanted to play with it. Then one day in summer it was gone. There was a great hue and cry, but the cat never turned up. Months later, when it was cold again, and we had to run the heat, one of the tenants found it starved in the coal cellar. Could it have climbed in through a window or something, and not gotten out again?, I asked. There was no window, said Eva. Someone must have shut it in there, and I’m pretty sure it was Ivona. Even though she made a great fuss, and had a proper burial for it.
Eva stood and refilled our glasses. Anyway, she said, sitting down again, it’s certainly better for your daughter to grow up with you. Ivona had no time to look after her. I took out my wallet and showed her the picture of Sophie. She looked at it briefly.
Ivona had no money, her religious friends dropped her just like that, as soon as the child was born. She gestured contemptuously. Well, and then suddenly Eva was worth knowing again. It hadn’t been a particularly good time for her either, she had just gotten divorced.
Eva had helped Ivona find another job. Later on they’d moved into this apartment together, to save money, along with Małgorzata, who worked in the hospital with her. Her relationship with her cousin, though, was no closer than before. On the contrary, since they were living as roommates, Ivona remained even more aloof. Except for the people she worked with, she seemed to have no human contacts.
Małgorzata and I often cook together, but Ivona has almost all her meals alone. She comes home and disappears into her room, or she locks herself in the bathroom for hours. It’s been like that for years. Eva tapped her temple with her forefinger, and said, there’s something not quite right upstairs. You probably think I dislike her. But that’s not it at all. I’m sorry for her, but I can’t do anything to help. She’s past helping.
Eva had to go to work. I asked her if I could give her a lift somewhere, and she accepted gratefully. While I waited for her to get ready, I looked at my cell to see who had called. It was Sonia.
Nice car, said Eva, as I opened the door for her. I said it was a leased car. My husband had an Audi 100, she said proudly. She said it was probably best if she didn’t tell Ivona about my having come by, it would just excite her. I asked if there was anything I could do for Ivona. Just leave her alone, said Eva. What if she needs money for the operation? Eva said it wasn’t a matter of money. Ivona didn’t want to have the operation, because she wouldn’t be able to have children. I did the math. She’s forty-six, said Eva, and she’s still not grown up. We stopped talking.
Ivona’s wasted her life on me, I thought. For the past fifteen years she’s been chasing the specter of an impossible love. You mustn’t reproach yourself, said Eva, as though she’d read my mind, it has nothing to do with you. In her own way, Ivona is perfectly happy. She has you. She’s been in love these fifteen years. She laughed. Look at me. I had a husband, but does that mean I’m any better off now?
Here we are, she said. I stopped the car, and she got out and leaned down to say good-bye. Can I call you?, I asked. She pulled a little notebook out of her purse, wrote something down, and gave me the piece of paper. That’s my cell. I wanted to give her my card, but she shook her head and said, call me if you want to hear how she’s doing.
I watched her run up the stairs with quick, youthful steps. At the top, a man held the door open for her. She turned toward him and said something, and I caught a glimpse of a beaming smile.
I sat in the car in front of the hospital, watching people go in and out, hospital workers and patients and visitors. People who might just have heard that they didn’t have long to live, and others who had been cured, at least temporarily. I had to think of Sophie. A while back she asked me why people existed. I said I didn’t know, and then she had replied in her pompous way that people were there to look after animals. Yes, perhaps you’re right, I said, why not. That’s the answer, said Sophie with her seven-year-old’s confidence. I asked myself what Ivona would have said. She had lost everything you could lose, but she knew what she was there for. She had a goal in life, no matter how unreasonable. Perhaps Eva was right, perhaps Ivona was happier than the rest of us.
I called Sonia, but only got her voice mail. In the office I was told she had already left for home. They had been trying to find me, the secretary said, I should phone home urgently.
Sonia picked up. I said I’d missed her call. She interrupted me. We’re bankrupt. Come home right away. What about Sophie?, I asked. Birgit’s picking her up from school, Sonia said, she’ll bring her home later.
I felt almost a sort of relief as I drove home. For years I’d had this premonition that our business was going to fail. I had felt threatened, even though there were really no grounds for it. Now at last the tension burst, and something would change, for better or worse. But by the time I climbed out of the car, my relief was over, and I asked myself worriedly how we were going to get out of this mess.
Lechner, our tax accountant, was sitting at our dining room table in front of piles of paper. Sonia was standing in front of the French window that led out into the garden. When I walked in, she turned and looked at me. Her expression was worried and tense, as though she were thinking very hard. I wanted to sleep with her, there and then. I walked up to her and kissed her on the lips, put my arm around her shoulder, but she twisted away.
The bank has canceled our overdraft, she said, I had no idea it was that bad. I said I hadn’t wanted her to get worried. If we’d gotten the job in Halle, we’d have been all right. Sonia asked how long we’d known about it. Lechner stood up, with the last year’s accounts in his hand. It had been in the cards for a while. Liquidity was the least of it. Our outgoings were too high, there were too many people on the payroll. Insurance contributions hadn’t been paid for the last three months. You’ll be lucky if you’re not taken to court. What about the firm?, asked Sonia. Does that mean we’re finished? If we apply for Chapter Six bankruptcy, Lechner said, then an administrator will come in, and he will decide what happens. Probably all current projects will be halted, and the employees will be let go, and the furniture sold. A liquidation wouldn’t realize much, there were just a few desks and computers. Perhaps the administrator would allow the firm to struggle on. That would mean damned hard work for the next three years or so.
Sonia went over to the table and collapsed onto a chair. Distractedly, she picked up a sheaf of papers, looked at them briefly, and dropped them again. I don’t understand, she said, I don’t understand, how come no one told me anything?
Lechner didn’t speak for a moment. Then he said there was another thing too. He paused. As directors, you are personally liable for losses. Sonia groaned. We should have formed a limited liability company, I said. I know, she said, it’s my fault. It’s not a matter of blame, I said. He would do all in his power to see that we could keep our house, Lechner said. Sooner or later we would have to have an asset sale, but that might not be for another couple of years. We were safe until then. We may as well shoot ourselves right now, said Sonia. Lechner pretended he hadn’t heard. The best thing is you try and find a job as quickly as possible. Try and see it as an opportunity. Opportunity?, said Sonia.
After Lechner left, we sat there in silence for a long time. Sonia was on the sofa, drinking her second gin and tonic. I walked back and forth, flicking through the paper on the table, not really knowing what I was doing. Then I sat down on the sofa next to Sonia. She suddenly jumped to her feet. She picked up the telephone, started dialing, and went into the kitchen, shutting the sliding door after her. I heard her say something. It was French, but I didn’t know what it meant.
I went out onto the terrace to smoke. A few minutes later, Sonia emerged. She said she’d talked to Albert. He had work for her, nothing wonderful, but better than nothing. I looked at her in bewilderment. Lechner said we should try and find a job, she said. I won’t find anything here the way things are. Anyway I don’t want to go knocking on the doors of our competitors. How do you think this is going to work?, I asked. What am I going to do? You finish your project, she said, and then we’ll see. What about Sophie? Sonia thought for a moment. It’s better that she stay here. It wouldn’t be easy for her to switch to a French school. And who’s going to look after her? Maybe you could do something too for once, Sonia said crossly, I’m not going away for the fun of it. We’re ruined. We’ve lost our company, and the greater part of our retirement, and the house is being auctioned off. I told her not to exaggerate the situation. You and your wretched optimism, she said bitterly, if you’d started worrying a bit sooner, we wouldn’t be insolvent now. You always told me not to bother you with the numbers. Sonia groaned. She had to call her parents and break it to them somehow. That was almost worse than the glee of our competitors. She came up to me, threw her arms around me, and burrowed her head into my chest. Oh, it’s all so awful, what are we going to do? I don’t know, I said. It’s only six months, she said. Albert is building a barracks, and can use some help in the building. I asked her if there’d been anything between them, back then. That was fifteen years ago. Is that your biggest concern? Surely you’ll be able to remember if you slept with him or not, I said. No, I did not sleep with him, said Sonia. I wouldn’t mind if you had, I said. I did not sleep with him, Sonia repeated. Would you like it in writing?
At about nine, Birgit came, bringing Sophie. They had eaten at McDonald’s, a first for Sophie. Sonia always refused to take her there. Birgit smiled provocatively as Sophie gave us her enthusiastic report. Did you have to do that?, Sonia said, but she didn’t really care. Now run upstairs and get into your pajamas. Can I get you a drink?, I asked Birgit, after Sophie had gone. One like that, she said, pointing at my beer. And how is it? Is it as bad as it sounded? Worse, said Sonia. Do you want me to give you something to calm you down?, asked Birgit. Sonia shook her head. She said she would put Sophie to bed, and she disappeared up the stairs.
I told Birgit about the situation of the company. She listened and asked one or two precise questions, it was as though she was making a diagnosis. But when I looked at her questioningly, she simply shrugged her shoulders. You’ll be fine, I said, people will always get sick. But what if they stop wanting new buildings. They’ll start again, said Birgit. Sure they will, I said. The only question is whether we’ll still have our company when they do. Well, if you don’t, you just start another one. It’s only money. Even when we were roommates, I had the feeling you didn’t like me, I said. Birgit raised her eyebrows, thought briefly, and said, no, that’s true. Why not?, I asked. I think it was because I thought Sonia was too good for you. I suppose I was jealous. The men who hung around her, first Rüdiger, well, he was all right, and then you, and I don’t know who else. And then you wanted to share our place with us. As long as it was just us girls, it was all much nicer. Maybe I really wasn’t good enough for Sonia, I said. It’s not your fault, said Birgit, you’re not the only people in trouble. But for me, Sonia would have had more of a career, I said. She wanted to go abroad and work in a big architecture company. She knew what she was getting with you, said Birgit.
I stood by the window and looked out. There was a thin rim of color in the sky, but the ground was all dark. If there was someone standing outside, I wouldn’t be able to see them, I thought, even if they were just a few yards away. I pictured Ivona with her camera, creeping around our house. We didn’t have curtains in the windows, it would be terribly easy to snoop on us.
Sonia didn’t come down. When Birgit was leaving, I said I would get her, but Birgit said, leave her be, she’s probably lying down. I brought her to the door, and we said good-bye. It’ll be all right, she said, and gave me a wink. I was shattered, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I sat in the living room into the small hours, thinking about what had gone wrong and what mistakes I’d made and how I could have averted our insolvency. I thought of breaking up the company, and about having to tell the employees, and that our colleagues would hear about it, and our creditors would come with their reproaches and demands. I had opened a bottle of wine, and the more I drank, the more confused my thoughts became. I was disappointed in Sonia. Of course she was right, there wouldn’t be any work in Munich, while I had to stay here, because I had a school building to finish in Lower Bavaria. All the same, I thought her running away was a cowardly thing to do. I would face the consequences, while she would be far away on the Med, building a barracks with her Albert, and God knows what else besides. I couldn’t imagine getting through all that, and looking after Sophie at the same time. My thoughts went around and around, my eyes were almost falling shut with fatigue, but I was so scared of the day ahead I didn’t want to go to bed.
The following months were the worst in my life. The only way I managed to get through them was by doing what I had to do one day at a time. Two weeks after our conversation, Sonia left for Marseilles. The company was put into temporary administration, and every other day the administrator came along, wanting to know this or that. She had called a company meeting right at the start, and made it clear to me that I no longer counted for anything in the firm. She sat at my desk and rummaged through my papers and began sacking people, and cutting costs wherever she could. I had to ask her for every little thing. At least she was trying not to have to shut the company down entirely. Even so, the atmosphere was terrible. There were always two or three employees standing around the coffee machine whispering, only to fall silent when I went by. I could feel their stares when my back was turned, and their hostility, as if it was my fault that the construction industry wasn’t doing well.