Authors: Peter Stamm
I had sworn to Sophie by all that was sacred never to leave her alone again at home, but one night I did it again. Although it was mid-September already, it had been hot for days, and I felt a weird disquiet, a hard-to-describe excitement. I called Antje, but there was no one home, and Sonia didn’t pick up when I called her cell either. I worked and I drank, and every half an hour I tried Marseilles. Finally, at eleven o’clock, Antje answered. She said Sonia was already asleep. Half an hour ago there was no one home, and now she’s already asleep? Antje said people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. I said I didn’t know what she was talking about. Then think about it, and call back in the office tomorrow. Good night. She hung up before I could reply.
I was quite sure that Sonia wasn’t home, that she had a lover, and that Antje was protecting her. I tried her once again on her cell, but once again I was put straight through to the voice mail.
I stepped outside and lit a cigarillo. It was a warm night, and I thought about my student summers, when we stayed up until morning and only went home when the birds started singing, drunk but clear-headed and full of expectation. The house felt like a prison to me, a stifling cell I was locked up in, while life rampaged outside, and all Munich—my competitors, my creditors, and even the workmen on my building site—celebrated. It would take years for the business to clear its debts, years in which we’d have to tighten our belts, maybe live in some cheap hole somewhere.
More or less instinctively, I got into the car and drove off. Sophie had a sound sleep, and I didn’t mean to be gone for long. I had had a fair bit to drink, but I felt in control of the car. There wasn’t much traffic on the roads, and I got through easily. Half an hour later, I was parked in front of Ivona’s building. Maybe she was still at work, and I could pick her up and take her for a spin, or just bang her on the back seat. Then I’d be able to sleep, at long last sleep quietly. I switched on the radio, listened to music, and smoked. After a bit, I opened the window and turned off the radio, to listen to the city and the sounds of the night. Gradually I sobered up. I had already decided to drive home when the phone rang. It was Sonia. Sounding incandescent with fury, she asked me where I was. In the car, I said. Are you crazy? Who’s looking after Sophie? She’s asleep, I said. Now that I was speaking, I felt tipsy again. I said I was just on my way home. Sonia said I was a fool. And where were you hanging around?, I asked.
When I got home, the next-door neighbor was in the sitting room. She had a key, and Sonia had called her and asked her to keep an eye on Sophie until I got home. She looked sleepy and didn’t have much to say, just that everything was fine. Of course everything’s fine, I don’t know what’s gotten into Sonia. The neighbor said nothing. Well, good night then, I said, thanks. I know you’re having a hard time of it, she said, but you need to pull yourself together. Imagine if something had happened. I walked over to the door to usher her out. If you want to talk, she said. No, I said, I don’t want to talk. Good night.
The following day Sonia’s mother called me in the office and said they would be happy to look after Sophie for a while. Has Sonia talked to you? She hesitated, then said it would surely make things simpler for me now, when I had so much on my mind. I wondered whether Sonia had told her what happened. She sounded perfectly calm and neutral. She has to go to school, I said. My husband can drive her, said Sonia’s mother, he’s happy to do that for you. I didn’t say anything. You can see her whenever you want, she said. It sounded as though she was depriving me of custody. I still didn’t say anything. I’m sure it’s best for her, she said. I said I had to talk to Sophie about it. Then we’ll come by tonight and collect her, she said.
I asked Sophie how she’d like to spend a couple of days with Granny and Grandpa. Your daddy’s got lots of work to do, Sonia’s mother said, when they came around that evening. She promised her a doll that could make pee-pee. And they would go out on a boat on the lake, and she’d baked a cake, a chocolate cake. You don’t have to talk to her as if she’s a moron, I said. I promised Sophie I’d look in on her every day. I felt like a traitor.
I imagined everything would be easier without Sophie, but it turned out to be the opposite. I started drinking even more, and started looking clearly ravaged. After work I stopped by my in-laws’, played a bit with Sophie, then I drove into the city and back to the office, to work some more. When I couldn’t go on, I went to a bar where I could be sure of not meeting anyone I knew. I got into conversation with all kinds of people, listened to the life stories of men I would have crossed the street to avoid only months before. And more and more often I told my own story, and got bits of advice back. Just leave them, urged someone who had deserted his own family many years ago. Since then he’d only done the bare minimum of work, so they couldn’t take anything from him. Another man told me he’d been married to a Polish woman too. I’m not married. Then marry her, he said. I said I am married, and he gestured dismissively. Women are all the same. Sometimes women accosted me and wanted me to go home with them. When one wouldn’t give up, I said I didn’t pay for sex. Then what’s this about, she asked, pointing to my wedding ring.
That time in my life has turned into one long night, a night full of mad conversations and loud music and laughter. I talked incessantly, not caring whether anyone was listening. My story was just as interchangeable as the man or woman next to me, we all stared in the same way, clutched our glasses, ordered another round of beer or schnapps. I staggered to the toilet, which was brightly lit. Cool night air came in through the open window, and for a moment I thought I could escape, climb out the window and run away from my life, a sort of film scene. But then I went back into the bar and sat down again. The stool next to me was empty, and I could hardly remember the man who had just sat there, listening to me.
At the end of my pub crawls I often drove to Ivona’s house at dead of night and waited, I don’t know what for. I felt my life had shriveled to a single moment of expectancy. I was no longer bothered by what had happened and what would happen, I sat there in a sort of trance, staring at Ivona’s door and waiting.
One time I fell asleep in the car and only woke up when a couple of kids on their way to school banged on the windows and ran away laughing. I felt ashamed of myself when I imagined Sophie finding me in this state, but not even that could induce me to pull myself together. That day I didn’t go to the office. I went home and lay down, and when the secretary called at nine o’clock, I claimed I was sick and went straight back to bed. I woke late in the afternoon with a splitting headache that only got better when I’d drunk a beer. I called my in-laws and said I couldn’t come by today, I didn’t feel well. Sonia’s mother said that didn’t matter, she thought it was better anyway if I didn’t come every day. Sophie had settled in well with them. From then on I only visited her on weekends.
I knew things couldn’t go on this way, that I was destroying my health and my family and my company, but I didn’t have the strength of will to do anything about it. My decline felt like a huge relief, coming as it did at the end of years of strain. I imagined a life without ties and obligations. I would find a job somewhere and a small apartment, and live there on my own. At last I would have time, time in which to think and reflect. I felt calmer, often it was as though I was looking at myself from the outside—as though this was a person with whom I had nothing in common. Then everything around me became peaceful and beautiful. Sometimes I felt I was waking up in the middle of the street, I was standing somewhere and looking at a schoolyard or a building site, or some other place, and I didn’t know how long I had been standing there like that, and I had to stop and think before it came to me what I was doing and where I was going.
When I stayed late in the office, it was just to delay the onset of drinking. I sat at my desk, playing solitaire on the computer until my hand hurt with the repetitive motions. It was almost eleven when I finally left. That evening there had been an important Bundesliga match, and the bars were full of drunk soccer fans. But what I wanted was boredom, I didn’t seek distraction, my time was valuable. I found a small corner pub that didn’t have a TV and was practically deserted. I sat down at a table and ordered a beer, and started staring into space. A heavyset man was sitting at the bar, who seemed to be more or less my age, and who kept looking across at me. After some time, he came up to my table, glass in hand, and asked if he could join me. I nodded, and he sat opposite me and started talking right away. He had a faint accent, perhaps he was French and had learned German out of books. His sentences were long and complex, and he used quite a few obsolete words. It wasn’t altogether easy to follow his account. A woman had died, it wasn’t clear to me what the relationship between them was, but he blamed himself for her death. He seemed to be quite obsessed with the idea of guilt. More than once he asked me if I thought I was guiltless, but before I could say anything he was off again, till I stopped listening and was only nodding. I thought about his question. I had treated Ivona badly, but I couldn’t feel guilty because of that. If anyone had the right to reproach me for something, it was Sonia. But I didn’t exactly feel guilty toward her either. It seemed to me that everything had just happened to me, and I was as little to blame for it as Sonia or Ivona. I wasn’t a monster, I was no better and no worse than anyone else. The whole question of blame seemed absurd to me, but in spite of that I realized that although I’d never given it much thought, it had always played a role in my life. It was as though I’d felt guilty from childhood, but not for anything specific, anything I could have done differently. Perhaps it was the aboriginal guilt of humanity. If only I could get rid of this feeling, I’d be free. This insight in my drunkenness struck me as a great wisdom, and I really had a sense of liberation.
It’s not that one’s a bad person, the Frenchman was saying, but you lose the light. He was still talking about his guilt, but he could have been talking about mine. He had treated me to a schnapps, and as soon as we’d emptied our glasses, the bartender stepped up to our table, I don’t know if he’d been given a sign or what, and refilled them, anyway I drank far too quickly, and even more than usual. When I stood to take a leak, my chair fell over behind me, and the room started to spin before my eyes. The Frenchman stopped in midsentence, and when I came back continued at exactly the same place. He was talking about the most difficult things with a wild merriment like a madman, or someone with nothing left to lose. The more I drank, the easier I found him to follow. His thoughts seemed to have a compelling logic and beauty. It’s too late, he said at last, and sighed deeply. It will always be too late. Just as well. Then he got up and left me at my table, in my darkness. I called the bartender and ordered a beer, but he refused to give me any more. You’d better go home now, he said, I’ll call you a cab. If I hadn’t been so drunk, I’d probably have gotten into an argument with him, but I just pulled out my wallet and asked what I owed. Nothing, said the bartender, the gentleman’s already paid. So I am home free, I thought, and had to laugh. The bartender grabbed my arm to support me, but I shook him off and tottered out the door. I’m free.
I sat in the taxi, and was surprised that it didn’t drive off. Only then did I appreciate that the driver was talking to me, he needed to know where to take me. I was tired and felt sick. I looked in my wallet, and saw I was almost out of money. Without thinking about it, I told him Ivona’s address.
It wasn’t a long drive, or maybe I passed out. Anyway, the driver tapped me on the shoulder, saying we’ve arrived. He waited for me to go to the door and pretend to fumble for a key. I turned around and saw he’d gotten out and had come after me. He asked if he could help. I said someone was just coming, he’d better go. I asked him where he was from. Poland, he said. I thought that was funny, and took a step back and would have fallen over if he hadn’t caught me. He asked me what bell to ring, and I said ground floor, left-hand side.
It was a while before Eva came to the door. She was in her robe, just like the afternoon I’d first gone round there. For a moment she looked at me in bafflement through the glass door, then she appeared to recognize me. She unlocked the door and asked the taxi driver if I’d paid him. He nodded, and said something in Polish. Eva chuckled and replied, and took me under the arm. I can still remember the bang of the lock falling shut, and then the silence and cool in the stairwell. I felt sick and had to vomit. Eva kept hold of my arm, and stroked my back with her other hand. She spoke to me as to a child. She walked me to the apartment, led me to the bathroom, and sat me down on the toilet. Then she brought in a plastic bucket and rag and disappeared. I was still dizzy, but felt clearer in my head, and finally a little better. I heard doors and murmured conversation, then Eva returned to the bathroom and said I could sleep in Ivona’s room. I stood and rinsed my mouth out with cold water. Eva had stepped up to me from behind and held me in a nurse’s secure grip. I can manage, I said.
The room was dark except for a feeble night-light. Ivona stood beside the door with lowered head. Eva handed me over to her, and she took me to the bed and helped me get undressed and lie down. The whole situation was oddly ceremonial, almost ritual.
I lay in bed and shut my eyes, but I had terrible pillow-spin, and I opened them again and stared at the ceiling to try to keep myself still. I heard noises and, turning my head, saw Ivona padding around, tidying her room. She pushed things here and there, looked at the results, and moved something else. It was hopeless, the room was so jam-packed with stuff, it was impossible to neaten. Ivona’s movements became more desultory. She picked something up, stood still for a moment, then put it back in the same place. What are you doing?, I asked. My voice sounded hoarse. Ivona said nothing. She waited there, with her back to me. Come to bed, I said. She took off her robe, turned out the night-light, and settled down beside me.