In Strange Gardens and Other Stories

by Peter Stamm

  “Maybe he was a relative of yours,” said Stefan, and grinned.

  Ever since we’d arrived in Italy, it had been hot, so hot that not even the shadows of the trees offered any cool. In the daytime we were sleepy, but at night we hardly slept because of the heat and the cicadas, whose cries were so loud it was as though there’d been some calamity. I think we all wished we could have been back home, in the cool forests or the mountains, even Maria. But there was no way out of the heat, we were trapped in it, in our indolence, and unless the weather broke, our only hope was that the holidays would pass as soon as possible.

  We hadn’t done anything for days. Then Anita heard there was a riding stable somewhere nearby. She had enjoyed riding as a child, and she wanted to try it again. Stefan didn’t feel like it, and Maria said she was frightened of horses. Finally I told Anita I would go along with her. That evening she told all kinds of riding stories, and I had to sit backwards on a chair so she could show me how to use the reins, and what to do if the thing ran off with me.

  When she saw the horses the next day, she was disappointed. They were old dirty beasts, standing around apathetically with drooping heads in front of their stables. We paid for the ride, and joined a little group of people waiting. After a while, a girl in riding boots and tight pants came out. She said something in Italian, handed each of us a whip, and allocated us our horses. She showed off in front of us, and talked to the horses as if it was they that had paid for us. A young man strolled across the yard toward us. Even before reaching us he called out a greeting, and asked whether we all spoke Italian. When a few said they didn’t, he said in English: “We will explore the beautiful landscape on horseback.”

  He helped us into our saddles, jumped up himself, and rode off. He had briefly explained to us how to steer the horses, but regardless of what we did they trotted slowly along in Indian file. I felt ridiculous.

  We rode through a dense forest. Everywhere in among the trees, there was rubbish in the underbrush, plastic bottles, an old bicycle, a defunct washing machine. The tracks we followed were deeply marked into the ground, because they had been taken so many times. I rode at the back of the column, and sometimes my horse stopped to nibble at bushes by the path. Then our leader would turn around and shout: “Hit him!” And if I didn’t hit the horse hard enough, he would hit his own and shout: “Hit him harder!”

  Anita, who was riding in front of me, turned and laughed. She said: “You’re not hurting him.”

  I could feel the warmth of the great animal in my legs, which I pressed against his flanks, and the movements of his muscles. Sometimes I held the flat of my hand against his neck.

  Our ride lasted barely half an hour. Anita and I had brought our swimming things. We got changed under the trees.

  “I can’t wear my clothes anymore,” I said, “they stink so.”

  “I like the smell,” said Anita. “I wish I could start riding all over again. It’s only the riders I don’t like. They’re only interested in horses. And sex.”

  I said, “I think it’s the smell that does it,” and Anita laughed. We climbed up the steep dunes. Our feet sank into the soft sand. Anita went ahead of me, and I thought I would like to clasp her neck in my hand, and feel her warmth. Then she slipped over. I caught her by the waist, coming from behind her, stumbled over myself, and we both fell down. We laughed and helped each other up. We had been sweating, and sand stuck to our bodies. Before we went on, we helped to get it off each other’s backs and arms.

  We didn’t stay long at the beach. It was dirty here, and the water was murky and too warm and smelled bad. It was much too hot now, and there were too many people there. When we got back to the house, we found Stefan and Maria had gone out. The blinds had been rolled down. It was dark, but no cooler than it was outside.

  Still in our swimming things, we slumped down on Maria’s and my bed. I looked at Anita. She raised her arms over her head, stretched, and yawned with closed mouth. “It’s my favorite time,” she said, “when you can lie down in the dark in the daytime, and not have to do anything.”

  “On days like this, I wish I could be an animal,” I said. “I only want to drink and sleep. And wait for it to cool down some time.”

  Anita turned to face me. She propped herself up on one elbow, and cradled her head in her hand. She said she and Stefan had grown apart. Their relationship was boring. Stefan was boring. He couldn’t get enthusiastic over anything with her. It was typical that he hadn’t wanted to go riding with her. Even though she hadn’t minded finally. “It’s much more fun with you.”

  “I always thought you were the perfect couple.”

  “Who knows,” said Anita, “maybe we were. And now we aren’t anymore. What about you two?”

  “So-so,” I said. “I sometimes catch myself looking at other women. It’s not a good sign, it seems to me. Maria must notice, but she doesn’t say anything. She takes it. And I feel guilty.”

  “I noticed,” said Anita, and she laughed, and let herself fall onto her back.

  And then it got even hotter. In the morning the air was clear, but by noon everything had disappeared into a milky-white haze, as if the country below us were slowly going up in a smoldering fire. For the next few days we did absolutely nothing. Sometimes we got down to the sea early in the morning, or in the evening as the sun was going down. We did our shopping before the stores closed down for the afternoon, bought cheese and tomatoes, unsalted bread, and cheap wine in big liter bottles. Then we sat around and tried to read in the shade of the big pines in front of the house, but mostly we just dozed, or had futile conversations. In the evenings we cooked a meal, and over dinner we would quarrel noisily over matters that we didn’t really know or care about. Maria was generally quiet during our debates. She listened as we quarreled, and when we made things up, she would get up and disappear somewhere with a book.

  “I love the smell of summer,” she said one time, “I don’t even know what it is. It’s more a feeling than a smell. You smell it with your skin, with your whole body.”

  “I used to have a better sense of smell,” said Stefan. “Strange, isn’t it? I even used to be able to smell the air, and the rain and the heat. Now I can hardly smell anything. It must be the pollution. I can’t smell anything.”

  “You smoke too much,” said Anita.

  “Sometimes,” Stefan said, “sometimes when I spit in the mornings, there’s blood in my saliva. But I don’t think it means anything. It might just be the wine.”

  “Dogs need more than half their brain capacity, just for smelling,” I said.

  “Everything’s so complicated,” said Anita. “Things used to be simpler.”

  Maria said she was going down to the beach. The rest of us went on with the conversation for a while, and then we set off after her. It took us a long time to find her, sitting in the dark, looking out to sea. The crashing of the waves seemed to be louder now than in the daytime. Maria said: “When you get along with each other, you’re even worse than when you’re quarreling.”

  Sometimes, Maria would cook Italian recipes for us. Then she would do the shopping herself and spend hours in the kitchen, and not let anyone in. She would have liked to be a good cook, but she wasn’t.

  Maria suffered least from the heat, and I noticed her getting more impatient with the rest of us by the day. One evening she said she had rented a car for the next day, she wanted to go on a trip. We could come along if we wanted. Anita and Stefan were delighted, but I didn’t feel like driving anywhere, and I said so. Maria didn’t say much, beyond that she couldn’t force me to come. I had drunk too much wine as I did every evening, and I said I was going to sleep. As I lay in bed, I could hear the others discussing their outing, what they wanted to see, where they thought they might go.

  “We should set out early,” Maria said, “so that we arrive before it gets really hot.”

  “I’ll take the camera,” said Stefan, and Anita said she wanted to buy herself a hat, a straw hat.
>
  I thought I’d like to stay like that forever with the open window, listening to the others making plans. Then they blew out the candles and brought in the dirty dishes, quietly, so as not to disturb me. When Maria crept under the covers next to me, I pretended to be asleep already.

  That was the evening I felt such sympathy for Maria, when I felt so sorry for her and for myself, and for the whole world. As I lay in bed now, unable to sleep, hearing Maria’s breathing next to me, I again had the feeling of absolute meaninglessness, which was at once sad and liberating. I thought I would never feel anything other than this sympathy, this feeling of connection with everything.

  The others were already gone by the time I woke up. The whole house smelled fresh of soap and deodorant. I put on some coffee. I had finished my cigarettes the night before, and I had resolved to give up smoking now. Then I saw Stefan’s cigarettes lying out on the table, and I helped myself. I drank my coffee, and I walked through the woods into town to buy more cigarettes. It wasn’t even nine o’clock, but it was already heating up, and there were people everywhere making their way to the beach.

  When I got back the house seemed deserted, as though no one had lived in it for ages. From the garden next door, I heard children playing, and in the distance there were cars and motorbikes going by. The garden chairs were standing under the pines, where we’d left them yesterday in our quest for shade. They had our magazines on them, and open books, lying face down. In the top of a tree, a bird screamed very loudly and very briefly. The children were quiet now, or they had gone inside, or around to the front. I felt empty but I didn’t feel like eating, and just smoked another cigarette.

  In the time we’d been here, I’d gotten much less reading done than I’d thought I would. Now that I finally had time I yearned for life, but I was still happy not to be sitting in a stuffy car, or traipsing through a sleepy town, through pedestrian precincts full of sweaty tourists, or drinking coffee on a crowded café terrace. I felt lonely, the way you only feel lonely in summer, or when you’re a kid. I felt all alone in a world that was full of groups and families and couples, who were all together somewhere, far away. I read, but before long I put my book down. I leafed through some of the magazines, then I made some more coffee, and smoked. It was noon by now, and I went inside to shave for the first time in many days.

  I had started to worry about the others when they finally came back in the evening. They seemed to be feeling guilty for having had such a lovely day. They had already returned the car.

  They walked through the garden into the house, laden with plastic bags and packages. Anita was wearing a straw hat, and Stefan had a kite. Maria gave me a kiss on the mouth. She was hot from the long drive, and she smelled of sweat.

  We went down to the sea, where there was hardly anyone left now. The sun was just over the horizon. The others ran out into the shallow water. I sat on the sand and smoked, and watched them splashing each other. Anita still had her new hat on.

  After a while, they came out of the water. Maria stopped just in front of me, and dried herself. Against the light, I could only see her outline. Then she tossed the damp towel at me and said: “Well, and did you have a nice day, you stick-in-the-mud?”

  Only now did they begin to talk about their trip. Briefly, I regretted not having gone with them, not because it had been anything special but because it would have been nice to share the memory with them. I said I had spent the day reading, and maybe they felt a little envious of me. Anita said they had brought me something, a present. Stefan ran along the beach with his kite but there was no wind, and in the end he gave up. We stayed by the sea till the sun had gone down, and then we went into the house to eat.

  All through supper, Maria kept making little digs at my sluggishness till I lost my temper and told her to stop it. Surely she could get through one day without me. But she said I was always boring like that, even at home. I got up and went out into the garden. I heard the others finish their meal in silence. Then Maria came out. She stood in the doorway and looked out at the trees. After a while she said: “Don’t be so childish.”

  I said I wasn’t hungry anymore, and she said she wanted to go for a walk with me, down on the beach.

  It wasn’t quite dark. We walked along the beach close to the water, where the sand was firm and it was easier to walk. For a long time we didn’t speak. Then Maria said: “I’ve been looking forward all day to seeing you again.”

  “You should have said something yesterday,” I said. “I had too much to drink, and I didn’t feel like going anywhere. I don’t like the heat.”

  “We’re too different,” said Maria. “I don’t know. Maybe …”

  “Surely we can manage to be apart for one day.”

  “It’s not that,” she said, and then, more in surprise than anger, she asked: “What do you want anyway …?”

  She stopped but I walked on, faster than before. She came after me.

  “You always dramatize everything,” I said. “I don’t want anything.”

  “I’m not dramatizing anything,” said Maria. “We just don’t get along.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Maria stopped again, and this time I didn’t walk on. I turned to face her. There was a jellyfish on the sand in front of her, a small, transparent mound of aspic. She nudged it with her foot.

  “Silly things,” she said. “They’re beautiful when they’re in the water. But when they get washed up onto the shore … there’s nothing you can do for them.”

  She picked up a handful of sand and crumbled it onto the jellyfish. She waited.

  Finally I said: “Do you want to …?”

  “When the sun shines, there won’t be anything left of it,” said Maria. She hesitated, and then she said yes.

  “It’s Italy,” I said. “It’s only because we’re in Italy. Back home, everything will feel completely different.”

  “Yes,” said Maria, “that’s why.”

  She said she didn’t feel good here. “It’s not the heat. But I don’t have any feeling of having come from here. It doesn’t say anything to me. I can’t imagine my grandfather living here. I can’t even imagine my father coming here for vacation. I thought there’d be something here for me. But it’s all completely foreign. And you … I have to feel I belong somewhere, with someone.”

  She turned and walked back. I sat down on the sand next to the dead jellyfish, and lit a cigarette. I stayed there smoking for a long time.

  When I got back to the house, the others were still sitting outside, talking and drinking wine. I went inside without a word. Maria followed me. We stood together in front of the sofa in the living room, where Maria had made up a bed for herself. She didn’t say anything, and I didn’t either. I went into the bedroom, got undressed and lay down. I couldn’t sleep for a long time.

  I awoke because there was someone in the room. Outside, it was getting light. Maria was packing her things. She didn’t make any effort not to make any noise. I watched her secretly, but when she turned toward me, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. She carried her bag down into the living room and then came back once more and stood by the bed. She stayed there for a long time and then she left, closing the door softly behind her. I heard her making a phone call. After a while, a car drew up outside. It stopped, but the motor was running. Then I heard doors slam, and the car moved away. I stood up and went into the living room.

  The sofa was empty. The bedclothes were folded up beside it on the floor. There was a piece of paper on the table. While I read it, Anita came out of her bedroom. She asked what was happening, and I said Maria had gone home.

  “Something went wrong,” I said. “I don’t know what, I must have done something wrong.”

  “What time is it?” Anita asked.

  “Six,” I said.

  “Is that all? I’m going back to bed for a while then.”

  We went back to our rooms. There was a T-shir
t of Maria’s next to the bed. I picked it up. It smelled of her, her sweat, her sleep, and for a moment I felt she was still there, that she’d just gone out for a while.

  At breakfast we didn’t talk about Maria not being there. But later, when Stefan went to the beach to try to get his kite to fly again, Anita asked me why Maria had left me: “Was it something to do with Italy?”

  “Yes,” I said, without much conviction, “it’s all so complicated.”

  “Do you think you’ll get back together?” Anita asked.

  I said I didn’t know, I wasn’t even sure I wanted that.

  Anita said she envied us really. “I’ve wanted to do that for such a long time. If I wasn’t so passive …”

  “I can’t imagine her life without me,” I said.

  “That’s always the way of it, but life always goes on somehow,” said Anita.

  Stefan came back. There hadn’t been any wind, and as he was dragging the kite across the beach, a dog had grabbed at it and chewed it up. Anita grinned.

  “You should have buried it on the spot,” she said.

  “When I was a kid I always longed for a kite,” said Stefan, “but all I ever got were clothes and books and schoolbags.”

  “You haven’t given me my present yet,” I said, “the thing you brought back for me.”

  “Maria’s got it,” said Anita. “She must have taken it away with her.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know. We weren’t with her when she bought it.” Maria had been all secretive, and hadn’t wanted to tell anyone.

  “I expect it was something stupid,” said Stefan.

  “Maybe she’ll send it to me,” I said, “or I’ll call her.”

  It was the last day of our vacation. We packed our things and cleaned the house. There was sand all over. In the evening we went to the promenade. We wanted to go and eat in a restaurant.

  “Why do Italians always keep their shutters down?” Stefan asked, as we passed through the settlement of vacation homes.

  “With that heat …” said Anita.