The Sweet Indifference of the World

by Peter Stamm

  I heard a chiming and woke up. It was dark in the room, and it took me a while to locate the telephone and reply. It was the bookseller, calling to check that I’d arrived and whether he should pick me up at the hotel. I can find my own way, I said, I haven’t been away that long.

  My previous anxieties turned out to have been misplaced. I didn’t know anyone in the audience, and no one seemed to be interested in the fact that I had grown up in their village. After the reading, there were the standard questions, the listeners seemed to have no interest in anything personal. Later I went along with the bookseller and one or two of his customers for a glass of wine in a restaurant. Even though we didn’t have much to say to each other, time passed and it got late. I asked after a few people in the village, but most of them were either unknown to the present company or known just by name, having moved away or grown old and no one minding about them anymore. Instead, they talked about all sorts of village subjects, political intrigues, bits of tittle-tattle about people I didn’t know and had nothing to do with. When the bar closed at midnight, I had trouble keeping the bookseller from walking me back to the hotel.

  During the short walk through the dark and empty streets, for the first time that day, I felt a kind of familiarity, but it was less a matter of the place than the time of night, which evoked memories of going home at the end of pub crawls, endless goodbyes with friends at crossroads, before we each went our separate ways, all our lofty plans and great expectations.

  The hotel entrance was down a dimly lit arcade, the glass door was locked. I pushed the after-hours bell. As I was waiting I noticed I was completely drunk. I pressed one hand against the cold glass. After a while, I rang the bell a second time. I remembered doing my rounds when I used to be night porter there. With flashlight in hand I had walked through the theater, across the empty stage, through empty passageways and conference rooms, and down to the underground car park.

  Finally, I heard a door bang, and shortly afterwards saw movement in the corridor, the inner glass door opened, and a young man approached me. While he fiddled around with the lock, I saw his face next to the reflection of my own, but not until he held the door open for me did I realize that he was me.

  FOUR

  How do you mean? asked Lena. We had reached the end of the gravel path, and were standing in front of a big, ocher cube that was adjoining the Grecian portico. In a funny voice she read the sign on the wall that enclosed the building, a Swedish word that after some puzzling we concluded must mean Resurrection Chapel. Next to the chapel was a long low building that housed washrooms and had various other metal doors. Do you suppose the dead are laid out here? asked Lena, laying her palm on one of the doors. Do you think someone’s lying there, waiting to be resurrected? Her expression was one of mock horror. Where shall we go? I asked. I don’t care, she said. But I don’t want to turn back. We chose a direction at random and strolled slowly on through the rows of graves.

  What did you mean, that you were him? Lena asked me again. Hard to explain, I said. As soon as I clapped eyes on the young man I knew that he and I were one and the same. Because you’d worked there as a night porter before? Not just that, I said. It was like looking into a mirror. Amazingly, he seemed to have no sense of the resemblance, of the identity. He gave me a perfectly ordinary greeting, and walked ahead of me to the reception desk, handed me my key, and said good night.

  It took me a long time to get to sleep that night. I kept thinking of the night porter, and how he was now the one walking round the unlit spaces, and it felt to me as though I was there with him, and I had the mixture of fear and excitement I had then, when I was doing my rounds. My predecessor had been an old man, who explained and demonstrated everything to me in the course of two or three nights. The main hotel entrance had to be locked at midnight, and then there were the security rounds, doors to lock and lights to turn off. While doing that I also had to do a few further chores, all in all not more than a couple of hours. I swept the yard, sorted the empty bottles in the restaurant, admitted the odd returning guest. At two or three in the morning, I would help myself to something from the kitchen fridges. After that I could have lain down on a little put-me-up bed behind the reception desk, but I never slept; instead, I read or gambled away my wages on the slot machine beside the entrance. Sometimes I even aimlessly wandered around, took in my surroundings, a place of strangeness in the middle of the familiar village. It was a place of travelers who met like the members of a secret sect, unnoticed by the villagers. Shortly after four, the driver who supplied the local kiosks with newspapers and magazines would rap on the door. I let him in and got each of us a coffee from the machine. The driver was a nice man who’d had a difficult life that he would tell me about in his soft voice night after night. Soon after he left, the day porter would turn up. I was still living at home, and would breakfast with my parents, for whom the day was just beginning, even as mine was coming to an end. Usually I would just sleep till noon or so. I can well remember my curious afternoons when I felt simultaneously very tired and strangely alert, that sense of having fallen out of time, and following my own irregular rhythm.

  I had meant to go back early the next morning, but by the time I was out of bed, I had to hurry so as not to miss breakfast. There was a young woman sitting at the reception desk now, and for a moment I wondered if I had just imagined my nocturnal encounter with my other self, or maybe dreamed it.

  FIVE

  My book was selling well, and I toured around a lot, giving readings and being interviewed. I even had some foreign deals, and corresponded with translators and publishers abroad, and got invited to literary festivals in other countries. I was awarded a scholarship, by my standards a vast sum that would permit me to live frugally for over a year. But no amount of success could blind me to the fact that I had no idea what to write next. I kept embarking on new projects, only to abandon them after a couple of dozen pages in boredom and irritation. It wasn’t just that I had no ideas, my language was stale, maybe because writing wasn’t a necessity for me, just an obligation. There were times I didn’t write a word for weeks, killing time reading or vaguely researching some project I ended up ditching anyway. I was still living in the apartment I had shared with my girlfriend. Everything reminded me of her, and happy as I was about my literary success, I suffered just as much from the loss of my girlfriend.

  My encounter that night wouldn’t leave me. One time, I even called the hotel and asked after the night porter, but my description of him was so sketchy, and my purported reasons for making the inquiry so threadbare, that the woman on the phone got suspicious, and asked me what was my name again, and then stopped talking altogether. I started writing about my doppelgänger; as with my first book it wasn’t so much the attempt to write a literary text, as a desire to fathom what had happened. This time, though, I wasn’t successful, the story was too eccentric and peculiar for me to be able to grasp it.

  I thought a lot about my girlfriend, read the letters we had exchanged, looked at the photos of the holidays we’d taken together. We’d had hardly any money, but still we’d got around a lot, went hitchhiking and on walking holidays, slept in youth hostels or tents. She was an actress, and often had weeks off between engagements. We were happy together, even if I might wonder what she saw in me, and what I did to deserve her. We were together for three years; even so, she remained in many respects an enigma to me.

  SIX

  I’m an actor too, said Lena. I know, I said. How do you know? she asked. What makes you claim you know everything about me? Have you been snooping? No, I said, I wouldn’t call it that. I have no idea why I’m even listening to this, she said. Maybe because you’re curious? Lena shook her head a little, as though surprised at herself. I hate it when someone pursues me. But I don’t think that’s what you’re doing. This isn’t about me, is it?

  We had got to the end of the cemetery and had left it behind us and carried on, first through a pa
rt of town with modest wooden houses, then another section with blocks of flats. Between the blocks were densely planted trees. In some places, the granite poked through the earth, as though to shrug off the thin layer of civilization. It wasn’t four o’clock yet, but it was already starting to get dark.

  Shall we stop for coffee? suggested Lena. I was happy to do that, and after a bit, we found a bakery with a few plastic chairs and tables. We got cups of watery coffee at the counter and sat down in the big plate-glass window that was blinded by steam and still had Christmas decorations stuck to it, a Santa Claus sitting on a sleigh drawn by reindeer, laden with parcels. For the first time, Lena seemed properly aware of me. She looked directly at me, smiled, and said, Crazy story. It’s a long way from over, I said, and carried on.

  * * *

  —

  My book had been out for almost a year when a professor at my old university invited me to take part in a seminar on contemporary Swiss literature. He asked me to read aloud to his class, and to tell them about my writing. I was glad of the distraction and spent far too much time over the little talk I meant to give.

  It was a rainy day in late March, the seminar met in the late afternoon. The college premises were little changed since my own time there, students still sat around cross-legged on the cold stone floors in the hallways, and the bulletin boards were full of posters announcing various courses and lecture topics and student politics, only the coffee seemed to have gotten better. I thought about the boredom during the lectures, and the dozy hours spent in the library. I had spent weeks writing up various papers, in the knowledge that no more than two or three people would ever read them, a thought that was both comforting and discouraging. I could no longer imagine what it was that had driven me in those days. I hadn’t been idle, but in my memory those years were characterized by a profound indecisiveness. I’d been trapped inside that warren of university buildings as in a labyrinth, with the difference that it held no terrors for me, but rather gave me a sense of security. All the images I retained in my mind from that time were dim, as though lit by low-watt lightbulbs.

  The professor’s seminar seemed to enjoy considerable popularity. It was held in a large lecture hall. When I stepped in, there were already at least forty students sitting on the benches; just like in my day, more women than men. While the professor gave a brief introduction, I looked around and suddenly saw him, the night porter, the younger version of myself. He was sitting by the aisle most of the way back and was holding a plastic cup that he sipped out of from time to time. The sight of him so utterly disoriented me that I no longer heard what the professor was saying. Only when there was an expectant silence did I realize he must have finished and given me the floor. I got a grip on myself and started on my talk, in which I compared writing to the search for a path in an unfamiliar landscape, and posited the difference between the private and the autobiographical. There were questions afterwards. The young man from my village seemed to have been paying close attention, each time I looked up at him our eyes would meet, and I quickly looked away, as though he might otherwise recognize me and give me away. He didn’t ask a question, just made occasional notes in a small notebook that he tucked away in his pocket each time. After the bell rang, the professor said a few words by way of conclusion and reminded those present of the author who was due the following week. I wasn’t surprised that my double was one of the first to leave the lecture theater, with hurried steps, as though he had another class to go to. I had half a mind to follow him, but a few students ringed me with books to sign, one young woman asked me for a piece for the student magazine, and another wanted advice in finding a publisher. By the time everyone went away satisfied, the young man was long gone. I asked the professor if he knew him. Brown hair like mine, a plastic coffee cup in his hand, sixth or seventh row, far left. He couldn’t place him. Probably a freshman, he said, they come and go, I can’t possibly know them all.

  The following week, I visited the German department again, waiting in the hallway for the seminar to finish. No sooner had the bell gone this time than there was my double running down the steps. I followed him out of the building and along the street. He only had a sweater on, even though it was cool and rainy. He headed in the direction of the lake, turned off at the theater, and zigzagged through the lanes of the old town to an old-fashioned café I had often patronized myself in my time as a student.

  The place was almost empty. I sat down at a table behind him. The waitress took his order, a toasted sandwich and a small beer. I’ll have the same, I said, when she approached. She looked at me in bewilderment, and I repeated his order. He didn’t seem to hear, because he had taken down a newspaper from a rack by the door and was leafing through it. I went and helped myself to one as well, but I couldn’t concentrate on any of the articles because I kept squinnying across to him.

  It was as though a playmate had copied my every word when I was a child, copied every movement, which used to put me into a seething rage. Now too I had the feeling that the other party was copying me, my way of crossing my legs, of folding the newspaper, of adjusting the silverware on the table. He used my words to thank the waitress, ate his toasted sandwich as slowly and carefully as I did. When he was finished, he pushed his plate back, took a big notebook out of his rucksack, and started to read in it. Sometimes he would cross things out, or write something in with a fine push pencil of the kind I had once favored myself. I made a few notes too, but when I read them back to myself later, it was just confused stuff.

  At the end of an hour or so, the student paid and left. For a brief moment I thought of speaking to him, but I found a strange reluctance, even timidity. I paid in turn and trailed him through deserted streets and lanes. I knew this quarter very well and wasn’t at all surprised to see him walk into the building I had once had an attic room in as a student. On the top bell was my name in a script that was the spit of mine.

  SEVEN

  Three young women had come in and sat down at the next table, each of them with a baby monitor. Look at that, said Lena, pointing to the three baby carriages parked outside in the cold, they’re getting their kids used to the fact that life is no bundle of laughs. I don’t think it’s possible to get used to cold, I said.

  Lena stood up and took our empty cups back to the counter. On her return, she stopped and looked at me briefly. There are simple explanations for everything, she said in a cheery voice. What’s that then? I asked. You’re mad, and this is all a product of your imagination. In that case you’d better go back to your hotel, I said. I’m not scared of you, she said. I want to hear how the story ends first. I can’t tell you the end of the story, I said, the only stories that have endings are the ones in books. But I can tell you what happened next.

  Neither of us knew where we were, so we just decided to go on in the same direction, wherever that led us.

  This second encounter with my doppelgänger threw me for a loop, I said. Once again, I tried to make a story out of what had happened, but whatever I tried or wrote, I had the feeling someone was standing behind me, making fun of me. My whole life seemed ridiculous and false. When I thought about telling my girlfriend I loved her, I seemed to hear the other fellow saying the same thing to his girlfriend like an echo from the future. His words sounded as though they’d been taken from a cheap romance. When I remembered how we used to kiss, I saw him and her kissing. I was jealous of him, it was as though he was stealing my memories by reliving them. At the same time, I could feel, years before he first met my girlfriend, how he would lose her again. But the worst thing was that I started to question my love and hers, and everything that had happened between us. Our whole history felt like a failed rehearsal for a theatrical flop.

  EIGHT

  In the meantime, it had gotten completely dark. We had negotiated a rather disagreeable neighborhood crisscrossed by wide highways, had crossed a high bridge, and at last entered a long shopping street. The buildings on eit
her side were identical, most of the businesses were international chains, we could have been anywhere. As we walked slowly on, people passed us and we passed others who were probably coming off work and were on their way home. Lena linked arms with me, as though afraid of getting lost in the crowd.

  I know the feeling, she said. Sometimes, when I can’t find my way into a part, I can watch myself act, and then it feels like I’m not playing the part, the part is playing me, as though the character were aping me, and poking fun at me. I don’t think the audience notices anything, but I can feel all the strength draining out of me, as if I was just an empty shell at the end of the performance, a costume that needs to be hung up till the next time.

  But I missed my girlfriend so badly, I said, I sometimes had the feeling I was half a person, as though I couldn’t exist without her. Did you say that to her? Lena asked me with an urgency that surprised me. Did you try to win her back? I didn’t reply. Lena let go of my arm and stopped. When I turned towards her she looked at me sharply and said, I don’t think he’s anything like you. No, he really isn’t. And it’s not such an unusual name as all that either. Anyway, everyone calls my boyfriend Chris. No one ever called me that, I said. And he doesn’t have writer’s block either, said Lena, walking on, he’s working and he’s doing well. What’s he writing about then? I asked, though I already knew the answer. He doesn’t like to talk about things he’s working on currently, she said. Then how do you know he’s actually writing anything? He’s almost at the end, she said, it’s a very special project. He’s writing about you, isn’t he, I said. What if he is? said Lena.