Authors: Peter Stamm
When the rest of my stuff comes, I’ll have you around to dinner, I said to Lucia. I’d gone to the bar where she worked. She said she was still living with her parents. She was working a lot, she said, in summer she’d totaled the car, and she wanted to buy another one in the spring. I said my grandparents’ garage still had the old Volvo standing in it, she could always borrow that. That piece of junk? she said, and she smirked.
Work at the school was difficult. I had taken courses in education at college, but the kids here were rowdy and badly behaved and didn’t make it at all easy for me. My colleagues were no help either. Most of them were local, and the talk at break was about going hunting and village gossip and the weather. Once I rang the father of one especially difficult girl. He was a hotelier, and he treated me like a schoolboy on the phone. A few days later the headmaster came into my classroom after lessons and said if I had trouble, I should talk to him, and not blame the parents for my failures. Astrid stays up half the night
watching TV, I said. And then she can’t stay awake during class.
The head looked at the cut-paper shapes I’d done with the kids and that we’d hung in the windows. Snowflakes, he said. As if we didn’t have enough snow here. He took them down one after the other, slowly and without saying a word. When he was finished, he put them down in front of me and said, You ought to work on the syllabus instead of cutting fancy paper shapes.
He left. I could hear the kids yelling outside. I went to the window. They were fighting, and then, just like that, they all ran out of the yard and disappeared down the street. They all ran off together, and I was put in mind of a swarm of scruffy birds I’d seen scavenging on the rubbish dump outside the village.
The days were short and getting shorter. For a long time that year the snow held off, instead it was cold and rainy, and often I couldn’t see the tops of the mountains because the clouds were so low. It’s worse than in other years, said Lucia, at least when the snow comes everything gets brighter. She said she sometimes feared she might lose her mind like her mother. We had gone for a walk one afternoon when there was no school, out of the village and up the slope. It was one of the few fine days that autumn. But soon enough the sun disappeared
behind the mountains, and only the upper slopes still had light on them.
If only it would snow, Lucia said, then we could at least go skiing. I asked her back for supper, but she said she had no time. On Saturday then, I said, and she said, Oh, all right. She said she could smell snow in the air, and that the old people said it was going to be a cold winter. But that was what they said every year. I tried to kiss her on the mouth, but she turned away and offered her cheek. Tell me a story, she said. You must have stories you can tell. All that time you’ve been away. I haven’t been away, I said, I’ve been at home.
THE NEXT DAY
we went walking again. We went the same way and sat down on the same bench as on the day before. From there we could see the whole village, and the ugly modern hotels on the lake. The sky was cloudy, and soon after we had sat down it started snowing, small flakes the wind blew in our faces and that settled in the folds of our clothes. The snow melted away as soon as it touched the ground. Lucia had got up. I asked her to wait, but she shook her head and ran down the steep slope, leaping from boulder to boulder like a little girl. I watched her until she was back in the village. I stayed a while longer, then I walked
down the road. I got to the school just on time. The headmaster was standing in the doorway, and watched silently as I walked past him and into my classroom.
On Saturday Lucia came around. I had gone shopping that morning and cooked all afternoon. Lucia ate in silence. I asked her how she liked the food. She said, Yeah, and went on chewing. When we were finished, and sitting on the sofa drinking coffee, she got up and switched on the TV. I said did she have to do that. Not really, she said. You can tell me a story, if you like. She left the TV on, but turned the sound down a bit. I’ve been waiting for you, I said. I haven’t kept you waiting. I mean since that time … since we … you know, since we slept together. Lucia furrowed her brow. You mean you haven’t slept with any other woman? No, I said, and suddenly I felt stupid. Lucia laughed out loud. She said I was crazy. That’s just weird. I said I’d often thought about her. Lucia got up and said it was time she went. I switched off the TV and put on a CD. I asked if she’d slept with a lot of guys. She said that was none of my business, and after hesitating briefly, Of course, what else was there to do up here? Then she said she had brought some condoms, but she didn’t feel like it anymore. She took the little pack out of her pocket and tossed it to me. Here, they’re all for you, she said, and she put on her shoes and jacket.
A WEEK LATER
we went to the movies together. From the beginning of winter, the community center had one screening per week, and we often went to see them together. But Lucia wouldn’t come back to my house again. I was allowed to walk her home, and sometimes we would stand around chatting on the doorstep for a while. When she got cold, she gave me her hand and went inside.
Finally, early in December, it started to snow in the village, and this time the snow stayed with us. For one week it snowed almost solidly, then it stopped. It was very cold now, and the sky was clear. At night I saw loads of stars, they seemed to be much nearer than they were down in the flatland. Once, just before Christmas—we’d watched an American comedy together—Lucia said I could come in if I liked. On the landing she kissed me.
Have you had any more practice since? she asked me, laughing. And when I shook my head: Do you even remember how it’s done?
She left me standing in the hallway and went into the living room. I could hear her talking to someone, then she came out again. She opened the door to her room, and I just caught her father sticking his head around the corner of the living room door to see who it might be.
When Lucia was sitting on top of me, she got a nosebleed. She leaned forward and cupped her hand under
her nose, but even so some of the blood splashed on my face. She laughed. The blood felt surprisingly cool. Later I heard her father in the passage outside. I wanted to stay over, but Lucia sent me away. She said she didn’t want anyone to see me. I got home very late.
The following afternoon I went by without phoning beforehand. Her father was friendly as always and told me just to go up. I’d spent the whole afternoon grading papers, and I was feeling drained. Lucia said she had to go right away, she was on shift at six. If I wanted to, I could go along with her. She would buy me a drink.
In the bar there were a couple of guys from the village, and Lucia wanted us to sit with them until it was time for her to start. I didn’t feel like it myself, but she had pulled up a couple of chairs. She was on first-name terms with all of them, and sat next to one she called Elio whom I’d never seen before. Elio worked as a mountain guide in summer and a skiing instructor in winter. He talked about his climbing trips and some ski race that was taking place in January, and the foreign girls who all wanted to hop into bed with him. One came back every year, a German woman from Munich. She books private lessons, but let me tell you, we don’t do a lot of skiing. Her husband was some bigwig in a bank, and he might show up in the valley for a weekend. She parked the kids on a
baby slope. Then he worked out how much he made from private lessons. He said he was in it purely for the money.
I wanted to go, but Lucia told me to stay. She put her arm through Elio’s and told him to go on. By now he was on to mountaineering, relating heroic exploits about difficult ascents and dangerous rescue missions. Lucia wasn’t looking at me. She beamed at Elio. In the middle of one story I got up and left. At home I didn’t know what to do with myself. I turned on the TV. There was a talk show, in which, to the consternation of the audience, a man was talking about living with two women. The women were present in the studio, and they kept saying what a good relationship they had. I felt disgusted and turned the TV off.
I vacuumed the whole house, washed the dishes, and took the empty bottles to the recycling center. I felt a bit better after that. On my way home I looked in on the bar again. Lucia was working now, and the whole place was full of noisy tourists. Elio was sitting at the end of the bar. When Lucia spotted me, she went over to him and took a puff from his cigarette. Then she leaned across the bar and kissed him on the mouth. She looked at me with an evil smile.
THE NEXT DAY
I ran into Lucia on the street. I had bought her something for Christmas. She took the parcel from
me without looking at it, shrugged her shoulders, and walked off.
There was no school until the new year. My parents, along with my grandmother, came up to the valley and stayed in the house. They went skiing every day, my grandmother sat downstairs knitting or dozing. She had complained because I had taken down some of her pictures, and there was a scratch in the slate surface of the dining table. I was relieved when Christmas was over and they all went away.
During the rest of my time off, I stayed in bed as long as I could, and once I got up I hardly ever left the house. In the late afternoon I turned on the TV. There was the same talk show I’d seen before, only the subject was different. After I’d watched for a while, I turned off the TV and carted it into the garage. I stood there and stared at the thing. Then I took it around to the front of the house, left it on the street, and taped a piece of paper on the screen:
TAKE ME
. I waited by the window and looked out. From time to time someone would stop and read the sign and look up at the house. But no one took my TV.
On New Year’s Eve I called Lucia. We didn’t speak for long, she said she was busy. When I tried later, there was just the answering machine. I left a message on the tape. I said, Lucia, and I loved her and I was lonely and I wanted
to spend the evening with her. I waited. At nine o’clock I gave up and went out.
The bar was packed, I could hear the music and the din of voices from out on the street. Lucia and a coworker stood behind the bar, Elio was sitting at one end of it again. I sat down next to him and ordered a beer. Lucia didn’t look at me. Sometimes she came down in our direction, leaned across the bar and shouted something in Elio’s ear, or kissed him, or had a puff from his cigarette. She smoked hurriedly, scanning the room as she did so. The smoke slid around her hand as though caressing it. I felt drunk, even though it was my first beer.
I watched Lucia at work. She laughed with the customers and moved quickly back and forth. She was wearing a skimpy top, and I saw she had a pierced navel, and wasn’t as slim as I seemed to remember her. But that only made her more alluring. I so wanted to touch her and kiss her, my whole body ached. And at the same time I saw myself hunkered in my corner, a pathetic lovelorn figure.
Eventually Lucia had some time off. She came out from behind the bar and got between Elio and me. Elio stood up and threw his arm around her shoulder, then he half bent his knees and gyrated with his hips. Then he let go of Lucia to go to the toilet, stumbled, almost fell. Lucia screamed with laughter. She moved slowly to
the music, ran her hands down my hips and smiled at me. She said something. I shook my head, and she put her mouth right up against my ear. Great vibe, isn’t it? she yelled. Then she disappeared back behind the bar. I got up and left.
I WENT HOME
. The TV was still out on the street, covered with snow. It was cold inside, I’d forgotten to fill the stove before going out. As I was on my way to the garage to pick up a few logs, my eye fell on the stack of blue exam books on the kitchen table. What I Really Want for Christmas. I flicked through them. What was it my students wanted, snowboards, game boys, a motor sled? And what had I expected? Justice? Love? Peace on earth?
I heard the bells chiming for midnight, and then cars honking and fireworks going off. I stuffed the essays in the stove and lit them. I watched through the glass panel as they curled in the heat and burned, first slowly, then faster and faster. Before the flames died down, I ripped a few pages out of an education textbook on the floor, and shoved them in too. I ripped more and more pages out of it, and when there was nothing left of it but the cover, I got another one. My eyes were tearing from staring so hard into the flames, and my face felt scorched.
I burned one book after another. I ripped bundles of pages out of the bindings and threw them in the flames. I was surprised how much strength it took to rip up a book. My hands hurt. In the end I went to bed.
The next day I carried on. I was more methodical now, I stacked my books next to the stove and burned them one by one. It took all morning. Then I pulled my notes out of my desk drawers, my diaries, newspaper clippings I’d never gotten around to reading. I burned the lot. The room was full of smoke that billowed out of the open door of the stove.
That evening I went to the bar. There weren’t so many people as the day before. Elio was in his corner again. When I sat down next to him, he looked at me doubtfully. Lucia came and took my order. She asked me if I’d made any good resolutions for the new year. I said I’d burned all my books. You’re crazy, she said. I’ll tell you a story, I said, but it was probably more for my benefit than hers. I told her about how I’d first come to the village, and how I’d met Lucia. I told her about our long hike into the next valley, and our first night.
Slowly Elio drank his beer. He was looking at the bar, it seemed he wasn’t listening. Lucia was, though. She was in the grip of a strange unrest, and wouldn’t look me in the eye. When I was finished, she leaned across the bar and
whispered something into Elio’s ear. Then she kissed him on the mouth long and lingeringly. At the same time she looked at me with an expression that was at once frightened and furious. At least she wasn’t indifferent to me anymore. I got up and left. At home I wrote her a long letter. When I’d finished, I put it in the stove and burned it.