by Herman Koch
It was a difficult farewell. Julia and Lisa were in tears. No, we couldn’t take the cat with us. It wouldn’t be allowed on the plane, a cat without the required shots; it would end up spending months in quarantine. And apart from that, Caroline and I tried to convince the girls, wouldn’t the cat be much happier here on its own island? With its family and friends? Where it could hunt mice and lizards? Where the weather was always fine?
“But where is that family of his?” Julia wept. “Why haven’t they ever come by to see how he’s doing?”
Whenever I think back on that last day, my eyes go misty. The cat thought it was supposed to come along; it was getting ready to jump onto the backseat. It trotted along behind the car as we bounced down the bumpy dirt drive to the road. In the end, the only thing I could do was climb out and throw stones at it. Our daughters refused to look and lay crying on the backseat. Caroline dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. And I cried, too. I cried like a child as I picked up the first stone from the road. For a moment the cat thought it was all a game, but I aimed well, and the stone hit it in the head. Hissing and with the fur standing up on the stump of its tail, it raced off toward the house.
“Sorry, Bert,” I wept—on the second day, Lisa had named the cat Bert, after a stuck-up teacher at her school—“we’ll come back someday to see how you’re doing.”
Now I looked at the fledgling in my hand—and regretted that it was uninjured. It was only little. Too little and too vulnerable to take care of itself.
“Go into the house and be quiet, don’t wake anyone,” I said to Lisa. “A cardboard box, a shoe box or something. And some cotton wool and a flannel washcloth from the bathroom.”
“They have a sort of zoo here,” Judith said. “Before you get to the beach, if you turn left, the road that goes up the hill. We drove past it once. There’s a wall and a fence and a few flags. There’s a sign saying ‘Zoo’ above the gate, and pictures of animals painted on the wall.”
It was breakfast time already. We were on the patio. The fledgling was in a cardboard box that had once contained bottles of wine. The sides of the box were actually too high; when you looked over the edge and saw the little bird down there, snuggled up against the washcloth, you couldn’t help being reminded of a prison yard.
“What do you think?” I asked Lisa. “He’s not sick or injured. He’s just really little. Too little to take care of himself. Shall we take him to the zoo?”
Lisa looked grave. The box with the bird in it sat on the chair beside her. Every twenty seconds she peeked into it. “He’s drinking,” she would say. Or: “He’s shivering again.”
I expected—no, I hoped—that Lisa would refuse to take it to the zoo, that she would say she wanted to care for the little bird herself. Until it was big enough to stand on its own legs. Then we would let it go. This was not like with a dog or cat that becomes attached to you. With a bird, all you expect is that it will want to fly, that someday it will want to go away.
It would be a nice moment. A moment I’d be pleased to share with my younger daughter. You hold the little bird carefully in the palm of your hand. You hold up your hand. The bird flutters its wings and takes off, hesitantly at first, clumsily. But then it regains its balance on a low-hanging branch. It sits there for a bit. It fluffs up its feathers and looks around. At us, its rescuers. It’s grateful, we tell ourselves. Then it tilts its head to one side, fixes an eye on the sky, and flies away.
The plan was that we would leave on Monday. I doubted whether the little bird would be strong enough in two days’ time. But we could always take it along, I reasoned, in the box on the backseat.
That was the ideal scenario. My ideal scenario. But Lisa asked, “Will they think he’s special enough, there at the zoo?”
“What do you mean, special enough?”
Lisa nibbled on her lower lip, then sighed deeply. “In a zoo they mostly have tigers and elephants and stuff, right? And this is a real normal little bird. Maybe they won’t think he’s special enough.”
At that, everyone burst out laughing. Judith, Ralph, everyone—even Emmanuelle laughed along from behind her sunglasses, but without bothering to ask anyone what we were laughing about.
The zookeeper wore khaki shorts and a white T-shirt. When he peered into the box, a tender smile appeared on his face.
“It’s really kind of you to bring him here,” he told Lisa. “A little bird like this often won’t survive a single day without its mother.”
“What’s he saying?” Lisa asked.
I translated what the zookeeper had said. Lisa nodded seriously. “So what are they going to do with him?”
“We’ll keep him here for a few days,” the keeper said. “For a week, if necessary. Until he gets his strength back. But you see sometimes, with birds like this, that they don’t want to return to nature. That they’ve already become too attached to people. If that’s the case, then he can stay here for the rest of his life.”
The zookeeper led us to the aviary so Lisa could see where the little bird would be staying. I didn’t see much in the way of spectacular animals along the way. A few deer, sheep with big horns, an immensely fat black pig, and a couple of peacocks and storks. A wolf stood rubbing its fur against the bars of a cage that was too small for it.
“Do you also have llamas?” I asked the zookeeper.
He shook his head. “All the animals here are fairly common, as you can see. We have a chamois and a couple of springboks, but that’s about all.”
“Imagine there’s someone around here with a llama,” I said. “And suddenly that person can no longer care for it. Or for his other animals. Would you take them in?”
“We would be very pleased to welcome a llama. But we draw no distinctions. We’ll give shelter to any homeless animal. Temporarily or permanently. Sometimes we find a new owner for them. But we’re very careful about that. We always look first to see whether someone is truly an animal lover.”
“That’s nice to hear,” I said. “If you give me your phone number, I’ll think of you if I hear anything.”
At the summer house we found Alex, Julia, and Thomas in the pool.
“Your wife went into town with my father and Stanley and Emmanuelle,” Alex said when I asked where the others were. “My mother and grandmother are the only ones here.”
I looked up at the second floor of the house. I saw Judith’s mother sitting in front of the kitchen window. She had her back to me. Lisa had already run to our tent to get her swimming things.
“Did they say when they’d be back?” I asked Alex.
“No. But they only just left. Maybe ten minutes ago.”
Judith and her mother were sitting at the little kitchen table. Judith was painting her mother’s nails. Nothing flashy, something pinkish, almost transparent—a suitable color for an old woman.
“Well?” Judith asked. “Did you find the zoo?”
There was a pot of coffee on the stove and a saucepan with a little steamed milk. I looked at the clock above the kitchen door. Eleven-thirty. Why not? I didn’t feel much like coffee, anyway.
“They were very nice,” I said as I opened the fridge and took out a can of beer. “That made it easier for Lisa to say farewell to her little bird.”
There was an empty chair at the kitchen table, but somehow I felt it would be unseemly to sit down beside the two women with a beer in my hand. So I remained standing. I leaned against the counter and opened the can. After only two mouthfuls it already felt light in my hand.
“Are you my daughter’s new doctor, too?” the old woman asked without looking at me.
“No, Mom,” Judith said. “I already told you. He’s Ralph’s new doctor, that’s all.”
Now Judith’s mother turned her head to look at me. “But when you called that time you said something else. You said—”
“May I?” I stepped forward quickly and picked up the pack of cigarettes and the lighter from the table.
“Mom, would you please sit still? Ot
herwise I’ll get polish all over you,” Judith said.
“He said he was your doctor,” Judith’s mother said.
I lit a cigarette and tossed the empty beer can into the trash. Then I opened the fridge and took another one. Judith looked at me questioningly. I shrugged.
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said, looking at Judith the whole time. “I’m sure I must have made a mistake. I must have said I was your daughter’s doctor.”
That always worked, I knew from a doctor’s experience: complimenting old people on their ironclad memory.
“You see?” Judith’s mother said, sure enough. Judith winked at me. And I winked back. “You see, I don’t have Alzheimer’s after all.”
“You’re much too young for that, anyway, Vera,” I said.
Perhaps it was the beer that made me overconfident. I had never called Judith’s mother by her first name before. But that always worked, too, I knew, not only from the practice but also outside the professional context: calling women by their first name. As often as possible. Preferably in every sentence.
Judith’s mother—Vera—giggled.
“He’s sweet,” she told her daughter. Her nails were finished. She stood up and flapped her hands. “No, he really is sweet. I’ve seen the way he is around his daughters.”
Only then did she look at me. I saw two red blushes on her cheeks. Cheeks that were almost without a wrinkle. A cautious life. Without excesses. A life of whole-wheat bread and buttermilk. Of long bicycle rides through nature reserves.
“Oh yes,” she went on, looking me straight in the eye now. “I have eyes in my head. I’ve seen how sweet you are with your daughters. Not all fathers are like that. And I’ve seen how your daughters show how much they love you. They’re not pretending. It’s for real.”
Now it was my turn to blush slightly. First of all, I couldn’t recall ever having heard Judith’s mother speak so many sentences one after another—and especially not addressed to me. Secondly, I thought I detected a critical tone, a slightly sarcastic intonation when she said “Not all fathers are like that.” I may have been imagining things, but I thought she glanced over at her daughter as she said that.
I looked her straight in the eye, too. I tried to warn her against myself. Perhaps she was disappointed in the choice her daughter had made. Not all fathers are like that. She thought I was “sweet.” Sweeter than Ralph Meier, from the sound of it. But then I wasn’t all that sweet—at least not in the way she thought.
The sound of laughter came from the yard. Someone clapped his hands. Someone else whistled through his fingers. Judith’s mother turned to the window, and Judith looked outside, too.
“Oh, look at that!” she said.
Two steps and I was at the window. I had a choice between the left side of the kitchen table, beside Judith’s mother, or the right side, where Judith was still sitting.
I chose to stand beside her mother.
Below us, at the pool, Julia and Lisa were standing by the diving board. Alex and Thomas were sitting on the edge of the pool, their feet in the water. First Julia walked out to the end of the board. She paused there for a moment, rose up on the balls of her feet, and raised her arms in the air like a ballerina. Then she lowered her arms to her sides, made two full turns, and walked back. Alex applauded; Thomas whistled loudly through his fingers.
Then it was Lisa’s turn. She walked much more quickly than her older sister. In a flash she was at the end of the diving board, where she spun around so quickly that she lost her balance and fell backward into the water. Now both boys clapped their hands. Alex picked up the garden hose that was coiled beside the pool, opened it, and turned the spray on Julia. I expected my daughter to run away, but she stayed put. She even rose up on tiptoes as the water splashed across her bikini and bare stomach. She placed her hands behind her head, lifted her wet hair as though she were going to do it up, then shook it loose again.
“Are you kids being careful?” Judith shouted from the window. It was a needless warning: It was perfectly clear that the spraying was a matter of mutual consent. Fascinated, I looked at my older daughter. No, I wasn’t mistaken: Behind the jet of water, or rather, behind the space where the water created a fine haze of droplets, there danced the colors of a miniature rainbow.
“We’re playing Miss Wet T-shirt, Mom!” Thomas shouted through cupped hands. “Julia’s winning!”
“No she’s not!” shouted Lisa, who was just clambering up the ladder onto the side. “Now you have to spray me, Alex! Now you have to spray me!”
Judith turned her head and looked at me. I could tell from her expression that she was trying hard not to laugh. I shrugged and smiled back.
“They’re such sweet girls,” Judith’s mother said. “You’re a lucky man, Marc, to have such lovely daughters. I’d take very good care of them if I were you.” She stepped away from the window. “But now I’m tired. I think I’ll go to my room for a bit.”
Then we were sitting across from each other at the little kitchen table. Judith had poured herself a glass of white wine and added two ice cubes. I had taken my third beer from the fridge. On the table between us was a bowl of olives. We had both lit another cigarette.
For a while we said nothing at all. We looked out the window, at the yard and the pool where the Miss Wet T-shirt contest had come to an end. Alex and Julia were lying together in a deck chair. Julia was leaning her head against Alex’s upper arm; her open hand lay on his stomach, just below his navel. Thomas and Lisa were nowhere in sight, but from behind the house we could hear the sounds of a bouncing Ping-Pong ball.
For the first time since we’d arrived, Judith and I were alone together. I looked at her. I slid my hand across the tabletop, took her middle and ring finger between my thumb and index finger, and gently pulled her hand toward me.
“Marc …” She laid her cigarette in the ashtray. She breathed a deep sigh, glanced outside, and then looked at me. “I don’t know, Marc … I don’t know whether—”
“We could take a walk,” I said. “Or we could go to the beach. In my car.”
I was still tugging at her fingers. I caressed the back of her hand. I could drive us somewhere, I thought. Not to the beach, but into the hills, along one of those windy sand roads along the coast. I remembered a clearing in the woods and an almost deserted parking area we’d driven to once. From there it had been more than an hour’s walk to one of Ralph’s beaches. But we didn’t have to go to the beach at all. The parking area would be good enough.
“I don’t know whether my mother …” Judith said. “I don’t know what she’ll think if she wakes up and we’re not there.”
“We’ll leave a note,” I said. “That we’ve gone out to get something.” I held up my can and grinned. “Maybe we’ll run out of beer all of a sudden.”
Judith tossed a quick glance at the kitchen door, which was slightly ajar. “Marc, this feels … weird.” She was speaking very quietly now, almost in a whisper. “I think it’s weird. I feel uneasy. My mother. The kids. Your wife … I mean, they could come back any moment.”
I put down my can of beer and laid my cigarette in the ashtray, too. “Judith …” I leaned across the table, my face closer to hers. She looked out the window, at the pool. “Wait a minute,” she said. She pulled her fingers from my grasp, got up, and walked on tiptoe to the kitchen door. There she turned and raised a finger to her lips. “Just going to take a look,” she said.
She left the door open. I watched as she went, soundlessly still, into the living room and then turned left, into the hallway where the bathroom and bedrooms were. I raised my cigarette from the ashtray and took a drag. The first cigarette, the one I’d had a little less than a week ago at the campground, had still tasted like the first cigarette ever. I had felt the same dizziness as back then, as an eleven-year-old boy on the playground. But in time the cigarettes had started to taste the way they had fifteen years ago, in the days before I quit. Normal. Like cigarettes. A few days ago I had b
ought a pack of my own.
I heard muffled voices from the bedrooms. I sighed and stood up. There was still one can of beer in the fridge. It was indeed high time for someone to do a little shopping.
I popped open the tab and raised the can to my mouth. I was still standing by the fridge when Judith came back. It went very fast. I put my arms around her waist and pulled her against me. First I kissed her neck. I put the can down on the counter. With my free hand I pulled her up tight and kissed her again, closer to her ear this time. She giggled. She placed both hands on my chest and acted as though she was trying to push me away, but she barely applied any force. I let my hands slide down to her rear end. She was wearing only a thin, unbuttoned blouse over her bikini. From below, I worked my fingers up under the elastic band of her bottoms.
“Marc,” she whispered. “My mother … my mother is awake. She—”
“Judith,” I said into her ear. “My sweet, lovely Judith.”
Then I felt her hand. Her fingers. They were doing something to the front of my body, around my stomach. I was wearing a buttoned sport shirt that hung loosely over my shorts. She pulled the shirt up and at the same time loosened two of the buttons. With her nails she tickled the area under my navel, then her fingers slid down. It was only a short distance from her ear to her lips. A short distance over which I tried to take an eternity. Meanwhile, I had my whole hand in her bikini bottoms. I spread my fingers over her buttocks and pressed, first gently, then harder. She tilted her head and stuck the tip of her tongue between my lips. She licked a little at the tip of my own tongue, then pulled hers back. I saw that she had her eyes closed. Like all women. I kept mine open. Like all men. And because I had my eyes open, I also saw the kitchen door. Behind Judith’s hair. Behind my own forearm and the hand (my other hand, the hand that wasn’t pressing against her buttocks) that still had its fingers in that hair.