She stared herself farther down in the bathroom mirror for a full minute more before returning to class.
In the classroom, Roland was explaining the declension of adjectives. Anna took notes and tried to follow along. Declining adjectives. As if they were cups of tea. No thank you, I’ve had enough. She ticked through all relevant descriptives. Lonely. Mediocre. Yielding. Easy. Frightened. No, no, I have plenty already of each.
But declension, as Roland explained it, was about clarity. Constructing a sentence in a way that the function of every word is unambiguous, impossible to be misunderstood. To classify units of language by their purpose, to pin all words to their syntax by a constant, final syllable like a butterfly tacked to a board. Here is a masculine subject, there is its feminine object. Anna smirked. It was a word’s grammatical uniform. The policeman’s badge. The crown of a king.
A wife’s gold ring.
Roland droned. “Ich fahre ein blaues Auto.” Anna took absent notes; she doodled arrows and crosses and sadly drawn faces of sad-eyed women in the margins of her workbook. There was no reason for this day to be so intractable.
Roland continued. “Ich fahre ein blaues Auto. ABER—ich fahre das blaue Auto. You hear the difference?”
Anna did. It was the difference between “a” and “the.”
The disconnect between “general” and “specific.”
The vast, vapid chasm that divides “this particular one” from “some of them.”
The discrepancy that separates any two “him”s. She did not need this pointed out to her.
No, no. I have plenty. Thank you. That’s enough.
Later in the Kantine Anna sat with Archie, Mary, Nancy from South Africa, and Ed, who came from London. The English speakers huddled together. Same seeks same; we search out the familiar, just as the Doktor said. The Asians sat behind them, setting themselves apart as well. And the Australian couple, the French woman, and the lady from Moscow broke away from the group for their own reason—to go out to the patio and smoke. Underneath their table, Archie slid a hand up and down the side of Anna’s leg. She drank her coffee without blinking or shifting in her seat. Ed had Archie’s ear discussing politics, while Mary quizzed Anna about her children. Nancy bounced between both conversations, alternating interest.
ANNA BROUGHT A DREAM to Doktor Messerli.
A photographer wants to take my picture. His studio is made of sandstone. There are no windows. The room is a closed box. He asks to see my ID. I only have my Ausweis. I show it to him, but for some reason it’s not good enough.
Doctor Messerli began with sweeping generalities. “There are no authoritative rules in dream interpretation. I cannot tell you point by point the significance of each symbol. The message of the dream will depend on the dreamer’s associations. But there are guidelines. The dreamer only ever dreams about herself. Every person in a dream is a manifestation of an aspect of her psyche. Every character a reflection of her own subconscious nature.”
Anna furrowed her brow but nodded anyway.
ROLAND SIGNALED THE CLASS by tapping on his watch. Everyone rose and cleared away their coffee and tea things, the little plates and spoons that always reminded Anna of the toy dishes she played with as a child and the tea parties and coffee klatches she threw for her ladies’ league of plush animals. Anna tried to remember what it felt like to be five years old. In turn, she tried to imagine her five-year-old self imagining the physical feel of thirty-seven. Her five-year-old self could not fathom it. It was a future too far away to mean anything to such a little girl.
In the hallway in front of the elevator, Archie caught Anna’s attention and mouthed Stairs before heading straight out the fire door. Why not? Anna thought, and let the elevator fill without her. Mary motioned that there was enough room, but Anna shook her head and said “It’s okay,” and as the doors of the elevator shut she entered the stairwell. Archie stood on the landing above her.
“I missed you.” Archie took hold of Anna, sandwiched her between the concrete wall and him and kissed her. They held the kiss for a brake-screech thirty seconds before Anna pushed him away and together they climbed the stairs and returned to the classroom.
Don’t miss me, Archie, Anna thought. That’s stupid. It seemed reckless and improbable, inappropriate, personally invasive. Anna understood the incongruity. Of everything affronting or improper about their relationship, his missing her (or even, simply, his saying so) was the least indecorous.
Roland gave a lesson on conjugation.
That afternoon it was a hurried love Anna and Archie made, over almost before it began. Glenn had an appointment in Bern; it was Archie’s turn to mind the shop. They both rushed to dress. Anna would finish pulling herself together on the train.
In the hallway Archie pointed at her sweater; she’d put it on wrong-side out. The coffee stain was closest to her body. Anna didn’t bother going back into the apartment. She stood in the middle of the common, public hallway, removed the sweater, righted it, and put it back on. A minimal gesture of insouciance. Don’t miss me, Archie. She thought again. Don’t even think it.
Anna walked to Stadelhofen and missed the Dietlikon-bound S3 by two minutes. Stadelhofen is Zürich’s second busiest train station, and the one nearest Archie’s apartment. At that hour the station was crowded. Anna was grateful for so many people. She didn’t want attention. She bought a pretzel from a vendor and sat down on the north end of platform 2 with little to do in that moment but reflect.
Adultery is alarmingly easy. A delicate dip of the chin, a smile. It takes so little. He cocks his head. There’s a perturbation in the air. Your perception blinks. The exertion is effortless. Surrender is your strong suit. Assent, your forte. You abdicate a little more each day. There’s nothing you intend. You do not fight it.
Just the tip, Anna thought. And just this once. But it’s never just the tip.
Anna ate a third of her pretzel and threw the rest away.
Despite what she had said to the contrary, Doktor Messerli pressed forward and interpreted Anna’s dream. “A photograph is an honest reflection of a person’s face. As is said, cameras do not lie. But he doesn’t take your picture because you don’t prove yourself. You hand him an ID—your ‘id,’ if you will—but it is not acceptable. Your Swiss identification card isn’t good enough. For you are not Swiss and there is little you identify with in this country. His house is made of sand. It is not structurally safe. The building could collapse around you at any moment. Windowless, his studio’s dark and stifling. So too, the nature of the unconscious.”
OVER THAT EVENING’S SUPPER, Anna mentioned Mary’s invitation to Bruno and the boys.
“Im Ernst?” Bruno’s delight surprised her. “No kidding?” His voice bounced. Bruno loved sports. Soccer, tennis, hockey, all of them. He’d taken the boys to the Hallenstadion many times to see the ZSC Lions play. Of course he’d heard of Tim Gilbert. “That is so cool, Anna!” Anna took pleasure in Bruno’s genuine gladness. Bruno rose from the table, leaned over, tilted Anna’s chin to his and delivered a brief but generous kiss. “Merci vielmal, Anna.”
Later that evening, Anna telephoned Mary and plans were made for the coming Friday.
“This is our first dinner with friends since the move,” Mary said.
Anna couldn’t immediately recall the last time the Benzes had had people over.
During the next day’s class, Roland presented a lesson on false cognates, German words that sound like English words but whose meanings differ vastly. “Bad, for example, doesn’t mean ‘not good,’ it means ‘bath.’ And fast does not mean ‘quickly,’ it means ‘almost.’ Lack means ‘paint,’ not ‘absence.’ ”
And das Gift, Anna remembered, is the German word for poison.
Anna asked Doktor Messerli if there was a correlation between the English word “trauma” and der Traum, the German word for “dream.”
“There’s always a correspondence between one’s dreams and one’s wounds.”
&nbs
p; AFTER TUESDAY’S CLASS ANNA followed Archie home yet again. He took her into his bedroom and stated plainly, You are wearing more clothes than I’m comfortable with, and then he pushed a little button through its little hole and then another and when Anna was shirtless, he licked the small, hollow bowl at the top of her sternum and slid his hands into her panties as Anna gave in to the ruddy, florid bud of his erection.
But the following afternoon Mary cornered Anna into taking her shopping. “I want a new dress. We’re having a family photo made next week. For our Christmas cards. I need help. I have no fashion sense.” Once again Anna felt trapped enough to relent. “I’ll even spring for lunch …?” Mary was eager.
Anna suggested they try the Glatt, an enormous American-style mall in Wallisellen, one town over from Dietlikon. It was home to at least a dozen ladies’ boutiques and a few department stores. Glatt is the name of the Rhine tributary that flows through the Zürcher Unterland. It is also the German word for “smooth.”
“Glatt,” Mary said, drawing out the at sound. “It’s so gruff!”
Mary did the talking on the ride. Anna listened but added nothing to the conversation. Mary was green and needy. But her naïveté was tempered by an abiding kindness that even Anna found difficult to oppose.
“HAVE YOU TRULY NO friends in Zürich, Anna? No girlfriends of your own?”
Anna confessed the sullen truth. “No. Not really.”
“Are there friends that you and Bruno share?”
Edith Hammer passed for a friend. For a version of a friend. Edith’s husband Otto worked with Bruno. Anna and Edith had little in common but this: it was each their lot to love a Swiss. Older than the Benzes by a fourth, richer than them by double, the Hammers had a boat and twin teen daughters. They lived in Erlenbach, on the Zürichsee’s east bank, that precious stretch of land known as the Goldküste, the Gold Coast. Edith was fussy, class-conscious, and thoroughly, unapologetically entitled. She had an opinion about everything. When Anna mentioned her German classes, Edith scoffed and made an indifferent face. Why bother? Everyone here speaks English anyway.
Anna answered the Doktor’s question. “Not really.”
THE MALL OVERWHELMED MARY. She wrung her hands and babbled while they skimmed the racks at a few of the higherend stores. But Mary’s tastes ran less chic and they ended up at an H&M where Mary found a black wool shift that Anna wouldn’t have chosen for herself but actually suited Mary well. Mary rounded out her purchase with a pair of ribbed tights and Anna, on a whim, picked up a plum satin bra and panty set.
“Bruno will love those, Anna!”
Afterward, they took seats at a café in the middle of the mall. Mary ordered soup and Anna asked only for a bottle of Rivella, that Swiss-specific carbonated drink made of whey. Mary asked to try it. Anna warned her she might not like it. She didn’t. The milky carbonation is an acquired taste.
The pair sat without talking for an awkward two minutes before Mary broke the conversational lull. “Do you get homesick, Anna?”
This was a difficult question to answer. Anna hadn’t been back to the States since she’d left them. There was nothing she missed about America so much to want to return to it. But Switzerland had never felt like home, and never would.
“No.”
5
WHEN FRIDAY CAME, THE BENZES DROVE TO USTER FOR DINNER with the Gilberts. Uster is a village thirteen kilometers from Dietlikon on the eastern bank of the Greifensee, Kanton Zürich’s second largest lake. “You look very nice,” Bruno said to Anna as they walked up the drive to Tim and Mary’s house. Bruno pronounced his English v’s like English w’s: wery nice, waulted ceiling, wampire bat. Most Swiss do. He even slipped occasionally and said Wictor. The effect of Bruno’s kindness was charming and unexpected. He wasn’t cranky all the time—no one is. But everyone has tendencies and irritability was his.
Mary introduced herself, then Tim, then their daughter Alexis, then finally their son Max. Anna, in turn, introduced Bruno, Victor, and Charles. They had left Polly Jean with Ursula.
The Benzes brought gifts. Anna nudged the boys. Charles handed Mary a box of Lindt pralines and Victor gave her a bottle of cherry brandy. Mary thanked them but assured them it wasn’t necessary. Bruno replied, “It wouldn’t have been Swiss to come empty-handed.”
The party moved into the den, where Mary offered drinks. She spoke in a bona fide lilt as she poured beers for the men and sweet wine for Anna and herself. The children hugged the wall until Mary pointed out to Max that he and Charles were the same age and that perhaps Max would like to take Charles into his room and show him his trains. They raced away at the suggestion. “Alexis,” Mary continued, “why don’t you and Victor go upstairs as well.” Alexis was a year Victor’s senior. Neither wanted to play with the other. But Alexis had video games, and in a pinch those will always do, so the two children shrugged and lumbered up the stairs.
The adults sat down: Bruno and Anna on a loveseat, Tim in a straight-backed chair, and Mary on the floor at his feet. Anna offered her own seat but Mary pshawed, explaining she was comfortable where she was. For at least the third time since the invitation, Mary mentioned that the Benzes were their first guests since the move. “Zum Wohl!” Bruno said, leading the toast. And so the evening began.
Anna sipped her drink and examined the surroundings. The den was a homey room, which looked surprisingly lived-in despite the family’s short stay. Bookshelves lined the walls. They were filled with mysteries mostly, genre fiction, children’s books and encyclopedias, cookbooks and a few volumes of pop psychology. Framed family snapshots filled the gaps where there were no books, including what Anna deduced was last year’s Christmas portrait. The Gilberts were dressed in matching cranberry-colored sweaters. Four smiling faces in front of a fixed winter backdrop. The Benzes had never taken a family Christmas photo.
“HOW OFTEN APPEARANCES DECEIVE, Anna.” Anna didn’t need the Doktor to tell her this. When she first moved to Dietlikon Anna noticed that affixed to many windows were decals of big, black, featureless birds. Oh, this must be a custom, she thought. A trend in design. Just something people did in Switzerland, that’s what she assumed. It took months—maybe a year—before she realized that the stickers served the practical purpose of keeping actual flesh-and-feather birds from flying into the glass. She’d never lived anywhere where birds habitually smashed into windows.
She admitted this to Bruno when she realized her mistake. He laughed for ten minutes. It was the funniest thing he’d heard all week, he said. Anna was indignant, then embarrassed, then mortified. How small she felt, and stupid. She started to cry. “Oh, Anna,” Bruno said, though he didn’t quite stop laughing. “I love you very much, silly woman.” Then he leaned over and kissed her on the head, the cheek, the lips, the nose. “Very much, you very silly woman.” He’d never said anything exactly as endearing as that before. He was still laughing as he walked away. Wery much, you wery silly woman.
They weren’t real birds. And he wasn’t being mean at all. They were versions of birds. And Bruno was, in the moment, being the only kind of loving he knew how to be.
BRUNO AND TIM WERE locked into a conversation about the teams in the Swiss National League. Anna listened until Mary suggested she join her in the kitchen. They received automatic nods of departure from their husbands who otherwise didn’t disengage from their chat.
In the kitchen Mary motioned to a high side table flanked by a couple of bar stools with backrests. Anna recognized the set. It came straight from the IKEA warehouse floor. “Have a seat, Anna.” Anna sat. Mary busied herself opening doors: refrigerator, oven, pantry. Mary was at home in her kitchen, a good little hausfrau, happy as a rabbit. Mary hummed while she stirred, sautéed, and sampled. She was a pretty woman, but plain somehow, and doughy, a Canadian mother from the sticks. Her clothes were functional; she wore a sensible hairstyle and very little makeup. Aren’t athletes’ wives usually flashier? Don’t they typically have more style? Anna saw nothing immodest about he
r, her kitchen, her house, her family. Anna chalked this up to the Gilberts’ Manitoban pragmatism. Mary was four years younger than Anna. This they had discovered during a class break earlier that week.
The news rattled Anna’s vanity. Do I present as matronly as that? Later that particular afternoon in Archie’s apartment, bare-breasted and straddling him, Anna asked whether he thought she did, warning him first to think hard before he answered. He swore upon the bones of some Scottish hero Anna had never heard of that she did not. Anna felt a little bit better.
“Bruno seems very nice, Anna. And your children—oh!—so precious!”
Anna swigged from her glass and muttered something along the lines of Seem and be are cousins, not twins. Bruno was behaving sweetly and with charismatic allure. But that was one night out of thousands.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Mary said and sadness seeped through her words like water through cheesecloth. “The other men on the team have Swiss wives and I don’t know any of the mothers from Max and Alexis’s school yet. I know I’ll meet people and make friends eventually. Everyone is nice enough. But cold, you know?”
Anna told her she did know.
Mary took the roast from the oven and put it on a platter. Anna rose to help but Mary said, “No, no, I have it.” Anna eased back onto the bar stool. “Anna,” Mary started, “how long was it before you felt like you belonged here?” Her voice hung on the hope that Anna would answer with the words Not long at all.
That was not her answer.
“Oh.”
Anna retreated. “Mary, it’s really not that bad,” she lied. “It’s just a chilly climate all around. You’ll find your footing and your gait. You’ll find your stride. It’s good you’re in German class. I waited nine years too long.”
“But Anna—your German is the best in the class.”
Hausfrau: A Novel Page 5