Where Love Begins (11 page)

Twenty

At midday, after Jason's departure, Mister Pfister puts a yellow slip of paper into the mailbox.

Stella sees him coming from the bedroom – she is straightening up the bureau, sorting Jason's shirts, extending his presence that way; she doesn't want to lose touch – she sees Mister Pfister walking down the street, hoodie top, dark trousers, swollen face, left hand in his trouser pocket; he stuffs what he has in his right hand directly into the mailbox. Then he presses the bell, looking up towards the bedroom, leaving his thumb on the bell while looking up.

Stella, upstairs in the bedroom, looks down at him. The bell shrills. She stands at the open window with Jason's shirts in her arms looking down at Mister Pfister; he stands, as if framed by the window, the mullein on the left, the edge of the forest on the right, what a picture. Then the bell stops ringing. Mister Pfister turns and walks back home.

*

Stella finishes sorting the laundry. She makes the bed, partially closes the window. In the kitchen she puts the breakfast dishes into the sink and shakes the tea leaves out of the teapot; she neatly folds up the newspaper Jason read that morning, looking for a while at the photo above the headline: three Chinese astronauts who have landed on a desolate landscape. Carefully she wipes off the kitchen table, just can't stop wiping the kitchen table. She goes into the hall and lets down her hair in front of the mirror, combing it and pinning it together again. She pinches her cheeks, the way Clara always used to. Clara always did that. She puts on her jacket, locks the front door behind her, and unlocks the mailbox.

*

Hello, so what does it feel like to be stalked

*

Stella closes the mailbox without touching the piece of paper. She leaves the garden and walks out into the warm day, turning left down the street, in Mister Pfister's violently vibrating tracks. The house of the female student, that of the Asian family, that of the old woman, her deserted garden, the pruned rhododendron, a garden umbrella at the edge of the field, open above an overturned chair. The fallow land of the empty lot, poplar pollen in the gutter, dandelions, then the pool, the terrace where a man sitting in the shade turns disinterestedly to watch Stella, and at last the familiar, fairy-tale house of the bicycle mechanic, a house made of glass, the smell of which Stella knows once and for all – linen and curd soap and mint; she knows how the light falls onto the tiles in the room under the roof and that there are things standing on the stairs for which no place has yet been found, a wooden coffee grinder, juice glasses, film spools; she knows that there's a picture of a dog hanging on the wall between the living room and the kitchen and that the bicycle mechanic prefers green army jackets – his house is quiet. The two folding chairs lean against the wall, and the first of the bicycles next to the door is still hers.

Stella looks at the place in passing. She doesn't stop, doesn't really slow down; she arrives in front of Mister Pfister's house, locked gate and black windowpanes, nothing in the garden that would say anything about Mister Pfister, no twist in the plot.

Stella rings.

She can hear the bell shrilling inside the house, a bell like her own; still, it sounds different, a bit muted, muffled. She realises with surprise that Mister Pfister has actually got her to do exactly what
he
usually does – ringing the bell at a house where they don't want to open the door for her. Pressing her finger down hard on a bell in anger and fury and thinking, I know you're there.

He's managed to turn Stella into a mirror image of himself; so it would seem.

Stella says, she hisses: Come on out. Open the door. Open-the-door. Come on out.

The intercom crackles and she can hear his voice.

This is a private home.

Stella has to laugh at that. She makes a face, leans forward and says, Oh, yes, I know. Damn-it-all, I know that. And I don't even want to go inside your house. I would like to talk to you; open the goddamn door, open it.

Mister Pfister presses the buzzer. Stella leans against the gate; the gate opens. At the same time the front door opens, and Mister Pfister comes out. Stella sees him step onto the doorsill, and she has the feeling that with the opening of the door a sort of energy escapes the house like a liquid, a stream of thoughts and apprehensions, excess tension, oxidising fear. Mister Pfister looks as if it were the first time in his life he ever opened the door for someone. Walked towards someone, into the brightness, into the light. He sets his feet down like a sick person, just like Walter, Esther, Julia; he comes down the three steps towards Stella, a person who doesn't trust the ground under his feet. The air is thick. Stella feels she's starting to perspire; she can hear herself breathe. But her hands are ice cold; her mouth is dry; she visualises Ava, Ava's soft face, and she can hear her little hoarse voice; she also hears the voice of the bicycle mechanic, You can talk to him, go and talk to him.

Mister Pfister, as far as she can see, isn't holding anything. He comes towards her with empty hands. He makes a helpless, unambiguous gesture, he gestures at his door – he is inviting her in.

He is inviting her to come into his house, to sit down. To see what his house looks like compared to hers.

He has come outside for Stella; she has got him outside; is it possible, Stella thinks vaguely, that this was what it was all about for him. Again she sees how good-looking he is, how young, and how tired; his face is ashen grey; the expression in his eyes is desperate; he exudes a stale, sour smell; his mouth is childish and much too large. He grimaces; maybe it's supposed to be a smile. He is attempting something, trying to find a tone, something he can hold on to.

Stella thinks of Jason. On the airplane, of his open hand; she hears herself say, I have a fear of flying. I'm really very afraid of flying, and she hears Jason's voice, his reassurance.

She shakes her head. I don't want to go inside your house. And I don't want to stay long. You asked me a question; I want to answer your question.

Mister Pfister stands still. Stella continues to walk towards him; she could touch him, the dirty material of his hooded sweater; make sure that he really exists. His expression changes from desperation to confusion, then to a questioning lack of understanding.

The piece of paper, Stella says. She spits out the words. Your yellow, filthy piece of paper with the question, What is it like being stalked. Yes?

Mister Pfister nods, it dawns on him, he retraces things. The piece of paper. The question, the preclusion of a conversation, his obsession, piecemeal things seem to occur to him, fragments; he looks as if someone whom Stella can't see were whispering something into his ear.

It's horrible being stalked. It's wrecking my life. It's wrecking me. I want you to stop it. I want you never again to ring the bell at our house, never again to put anything into our mailbox; I want you to get lost, once and for all. Do you understand. Do you hear me?

It's a bit like talking to Ava. Somewhat like saying to Ava, You have to keep your hat on your head. You should never cross the street when the light is red. It's high time you went to sleep now. Do you hear me. Are you listening to me?

Stella has a feeling of incipient nausea; maybe it's pity; it almost makes her stumble. Why doesn't she sit down with him on the steps in front of the house, one cigarette-length of time, just for a quarter of an hour, how hard would that be. She can't. No, she can't do it.

I just want to talk to someone, Mister Pfister says. He has trouble saying the words, difficulty pronouncing them, word by word, actually unconnected. To talk with somebody. I didn't know. I didn't know that it is terrible for you.

It is. It's terrible. And I'm not the right person, Stella says gently. She says it almost affectionately. You have to understand that I'm not the right person for that. You have to find someone else; we have nothing to do with each other; don't you see that? I'm not the person you think I am. I'm a completely different one.

How odd to say – but I'm not the right one. Simply to reject the look of another person. How do I know, Stella thinks, that I'm not the right one; where did I get that from.

They stand facing each other, looking at each other; Stella looks at Mister Pfister; she can see him, she'll never forget him. His green eyes, a yellow circle around the shaded iris, and behind the weariness, concealed amusement. His large mouth, a sickle-shaped scar on his upper lip, an expression of being overtaxed and at the same time knowing better. His posture, the total opposite of Jason's posture, of the bicycle mechanic's, his limp, tormented aura.

He extends his right hand. Chapped skin, flaky, incapable of squeezing something tight, of holding on to something. Stella raises her hands; she shows him her palms; it is impossible. Her hands. Good Lord. He pulls his hand back.

I wish you well.

Stella turns around. She sees the gate slamming shut before her, but that's only an illusory sequence, a panicky image, the gate is open and she walks through it and back out to the street, pulling the gate shut behind her without turning around again. She is trembling; everything is trembling.

*

Mister Pfister comes by that afternoon.

Did she assume he wouldn't come any more? Did she seriously think the matter was finished, that she could turn to other things (a page in a book, a poem, the magazine section of the Sunday paper, harvesting raspberries, cleaning windows); did she think she had done everything right.

She hadn't.

Mister Pfister rings that afternoon at three o'clock, and Stella gets up out of her chair behind the house, and not taking the time to put her shoes back on, she walks barefoot across the lawn and towards the gate, towards Mister Pfister, she runs. He's standing there, waiting for her, looking towards her. The bicycle mechanic was wrong.

Stella follows the
House Rules.
She lets anyone in, whoever-may-come. She pulls open the gate, Mister Pfister is not shocked by this, but he does take a small step back, only a small step, and without averting his fervent gaze from Stella's face.

Stella says, You can't leave it alone. It isn't possible, or what. Impossible for you, or what. She has the feeling that she is white with rage. She feels she can't see properly; all the contours are much too precise, they hurt her eyes.

Mister Pfister says, No, no, not possible. It's impossible, I can't let it be. Can't let it be.

He is standing in front of her on the street, quivering.

I slept on it. I went back to bed again. You have to understand, I slept on it, I thought about it. And I woke up, and I think I don't agree. And I won't stop. I'll not only kick in your garden gate, I'll also kick in the door to your house. I'll trample your entire life to pieces; it's something I can do. You'll lie under the bedcovers and bite your fingernails; your teeth will chatter.

Stella hears him, but can't comprehend any of it. She holds onto the gate and hears something in Mister Pfister's speech tip over and then splinter. His mother. Every evening. The nights. Hooks and systems, the police, as far as she can follow him, he is inviting her to go to the police. She listens – it's like listening to Walter – and she sees in his face the splintering of the words; she can actually read it, and she can also see that he senses this and wants to hold it back and cannot hold it back. He looks awful. And in spite of that Stella thinks that she wants to kill Mister Pfister, shoot him, beat him to death, stomp on him, cut him into pieces like paper, here and now, on the spot. To stop this. So that it can just stop.

Mister Pfister breaks off. Livid.

He says, Register a complaint. Register a complaint now, go ahead.

I will, Stella says. I'll do it.

Twenty-one

I've painted Chinese motifs on two silk foulards,
Clara writes to Stella,
lotus blossoms and birds, but there's something else hidden among the lotus and the birds, something very tiny, rather ugly; you have to search for it. One scarf for you and one for me. Alma is having a lot of trouble getting used to kindergarten, and Ricky is losing all his teeth at the same time; it's really a strange arrangement, don't you think, all those nights awake with screaming babies when they're getting their milk teeth, and five years later they simply spit them all out again. Do you remember Ava's toothless baby smile? How tired we were then? Alma's teacher tells me that Alma is still very childish, and I could have said, Yes, what the hell else is she supposed to be; after all, she's still a child. I always think of such answers too late, only after we're already home again. Luckily I'm very busy; otherwise I'd just take Alma out of there. But I have to finish two pictures, and I completed the sketch for the mermaid; the mermaid has your face. After I've cast her, you'll have to come and baptise her. Ava is allowed to pick a name for her. If the children don't see each other soon, they'll walk right past each other on the street later on and not even recognise each other. That's a horrible thought, I find. But maybe they'll recognise each other after all? Recognise something in the other, something indefinite, like a vague memory of something that once was. We ordered wood for the winter; the man who delivered the wood just let it slide out of the truck onto the middle of the lawn, and now I'm stacking the wood into piles; there's no better work in the world. Stupid and good. The smell of the wood is wonderful, arranging the pieces of wood, extremely calming. Actually, from now on I want to do only things like this. Cleaning up, tidying, sorting, carting off. Is that idiotic? What would you say? I think the older I get, the more I simply want to have my peace and quiet. I want to sit in peace at my kitchen table and smoke, thinking about this and that; I'd never have thought that this would one day be so important to me. The children keep pulling me away from it. That's the way it is. Quartering apples. Doing laundry, ironing shirts. Before, I used to be able to imagine being someone else. Today I'm only myself. Tired and overextended. But in spite of that the foulards turned out gorgeous, and I keep thinking of you; it feels as if you had just gone out for a little while and would come back right away. I keep thinking you'll come right back. Stella, how are you? Are the ravens still flying around the tower?

*

I'd like you to pack your things, Jason says on the phone.

I'd like you to pack a bag with sweaters and socks and books for you and for Ava, and I'd like you to get out of there. Go to the country, go to Paloma's house; stay there a while. I'd like it if, for once, you'd listen to me and do what I say. Just one single time.

When haven't I listened to you, Stella thinks. What's that supposed to mean. Were there ever any moments when I should have listened to you, done what you said and instead did something else? What?

She listens to Jason, does what he says. Packs a bag, sweaters and socks, Ava's hedgehog, two toothbrushes and seven books. Sets the bag down in the front hall. Puts Ava's rain jacket on top of the bag, puts her rubber boots next to it.

*

This place, the bicycle mechanic says, was here before you, and it'll still be here after you're gone. Places do something to you, but you don't do anything to them. This development will remain whether you happen to be here or not. Your house will continue to be a house; it won't turn to ashes after you walk out the door for the last time. Everything you feel or experience takes place only within you; there's only the ‘inside us' – nothing else. This is sobering. But also obvious – you are the constant.

He sets the wheel he's just put the spokes into rolling. The wheel rolls evenly. Sunlight catches in the spokes and is flung out.

*

Well, there are this kind of stars and that kind, Ava says. Really little ones with lots of points and regular stars with five points; she indicates the points with the fingers of her left hand. Aunt Sonja says all the stars have been dead for a long time; what's that supposed to mean anyway. I broke my hairslide, my hairslide is gone now. I'd like to have curly hair some day, very long, curly hair, just once. When you were a child, you didn't want to be called Stella. Papa told me. You wanted to be called Silvia. Is that right? Is that really true? I only like your food and Papa's food. I never want to eat in the kindergarten again. Oh, how Stevie can laugh. You have to hear that sometime. Can we drive to the sea? Can we drive to see Papa at the construction site? Will this summer get even hotter? I wished it would always be very hot. We went to the puppet theatre today, and do you know what they had – the play with the three little pigs and the wolf. I want to stay here. Here there's Stevie. I never want to leave here. Never!

*

The police officer who takes the complaint has melancholy eyes and a moustache, his shirt is wrinkled and he looks as if he'd been on duty for twenty-four hours. He has to leave the room when Stella bursts into tears – she breaks into tears like Ava, can scarcely speak through her sobbing – but he comes back bringing a little packet of tissues and a cup of hot, sweet tea with milk. His office is dreary, the windows are high up below the ceiling, impossible to get a view outside. In spite of that, there's a plant on his desk, and there are postcards on the wall from the Canary Islands, Mexican pyramids, just as in Paloma's office.

Stella is interrogated. She is supposed to provide detailed information, but she considers it an interrogation.

Since when do you know Mister Pfister.

I don't know Mister Pfister at all.

Didn't you meet him?

I meet him every day. He rings at our house every day, but I still don't know him; he is fixated on me without knowing me. Don't you understand what I'm saying; can't you imagine what this is like, can't you?

Yes, yes, I know what you mean, I can imagine it, the police officer says, trying to sound reassuring and looking at Stella sceptically. He says, But in spite of that, we have to write it all down step by step, from the beginning.

And Stella pushes the shoebox across the desk; she hands it over. She describes the bell-ringing, the things in the mailbox, the encounter at the shopping centre, the first and the last conversation between her and Mister Pfister. She watches the policeman as he takes the scraps and pieces of paper, the matches, lighters, CDs and dictation machine, and the photos out of the shoebox, and even as he is reformulating and summarising her sentences and entering them into his computer, she can see the shock, anger and fear disintegrate.

Not communicable. The bicycle mechanic had already understood this; that there is only what's inside us, nothing else.

In spite of that, she says, Do you believe me? I mean do you believe me when I say that I can't stand it?

The policeman says, I believe you. I can also tell you that you have every reason for coming here. It's just that you're coming rather late, I think. By the way, what is your profession?

Nurse, Stella says. I'm a nurse.

She thinks that she can read in the policeman's face that her profession explains some things for him. Nurses are very stable, but they have a helper syndrome. Can't defend themselves very well, are always somewhat slow on the uptake.

I have a child, Stella says. I'm married. She says it as if it would change something.

The policeman goes to the toilet, and Stella waits until she can no longer hear his footsteps in the corridor; then she leans forward and turns the computer screen so she can look at it.

The woman making the complaint is visibly affected by the incidents.

Visibly affected.

This sentence is a gift. Stella sees it, accepts it, and turns the screen back to its original position, puts her hands in her lap and waits.

*

What came of it, Jason says on the phone.

We'll have to wait and see, Stella says. They're going to go to his place and tell him that from this moment on it will be a punishable offence if he approaches me in any way. They call it a de-escalation visit. They told me that according to previous experience the situation will get worse following the deescalation visit.

Good grief, Jason says. What kind of people are they sending over there.

Policemen specialised in dealing with hooligans, Stella says. In a certain way it feels wonderful to be able to say it like that.

Well then, I'll set off, Jason says after a while. I'll get going. I'll drive home first and then I'll drive out to the country to see you. Take care of yourself, Stella.

Till soon, Stella says off-handedly. OK then, see you soon. Take care!

*

I'm glad that you wanted to say goodbye to me, Esther says pleasantly. That's gone completely out of style, saying farewell like that; people think it's not at all necessary to say goodbye any more. Good-bye. She draws the word out scornfully. We two have to think of another farewell word, for we'll never see each other again. Not in this life at least. What shall we say – Adieu? Well, it's not time yet anyway. I've made myself beautiful for you, did you notice?

Esther is wearing a sweater with silver and gold threads over her pyjamas; she picked this sweater out herself and put it on, then fiercely insisted on making it to the living room by herself. She's painted her cheeks red and combed her hair in all directions, draped a necklace of ivory elephants around her neck; she looks like a feverish clown.

Yes, Stella says. I noticed. You look smashing; thank you.

Esther laughs, as if she knew better. Open the left cupboard door, please. Take out two glasses, not those tiny round ones, the big cut-glass ones are the right ones. You can choose what you prefer, blackcurrant or cherry; I always liked blackcurrant best. You'll have to reach down, the bottles are at the very bottom, at the back. Move them around a little, farther to the left. There, wonderful, I had no idea that there was so much left in the bottle.

Actually it isn't permitted, Stella says.

Exactly, Esther says. Actually it isn't permitted.

Stella fills both glasses.

Right up to the very top, Esther says; never hesitate! All of life is an abyss, and the less afraid you are and the longer you look down into it, the more you'll enjoy it. You'll come to realise that one day; I consider you somewhat less dim-witted than all the others. Cheers.

The alcohol is sweet and strong; Stella feels it immediately in her legs and in her head, a spaced-out heaviness in the middle of the day at noon. Esther smacks her lips. She takes the bottle from Stella and pours the glasses full a second time. She says, You could eat an apple with it. You look like someone who always eats apples. I never ate apples. Never.

She leans to one side and with an amazingly forceful gesture brushes the pile of old newspapers off the sofa and onto the floor. I have something for you, a little farewell gift; where is it; I hid it here, I'm quite sure. She pushes the boxes of sweets aside, lifts up the cushions. Here it is. Please take it with you; put it in your handbag, which, by the way, is much too big.

It's a little box. A rectangular little box of brown wood, cherrywood perhaps, as small as a coffin for a mouse.

Stella opens the cover and looks inside. The box is empty.

Of course it's empty, Esther says triumphantly. Save something in it. The first thing that matters to you in your new life – put it in there, and check on it from time to time; perhaps it will change into something else. I wish you all the best, I really do; you may trust me on that. And you've got problems trusting people, or am I mistaken?