by Peter Stamm
Regina got up once more, and stepped into the landing without turning on the light. She stood in the dark, and listened. There was no sound. She went into the bathroom. The streetlamp outside shed a bit of light in the room. The towel was lying on the rim of the bathtub. Regina picked it up and buried her face in it. It felt cool against her forehead, and it had an unfamiliar smell. She put it down, and went back to her room.
When she was back in her bed she thought about Australia, where she would never go. She would probably never see Spain again either, she thought, but she was maybe good for one more trip somewhere.
THE WALL OF FIRE
There was only a hiss coming out of the television. Henry turned up the sound as far as it went, and stepped outside. It was still hot. He adjusted the satellite dish, which was mounted on an improvised wooden stand on the asphalt. He knew the rough position of the satellite, southeast. West was where the sun went down. Then the hiss was suddenly gone, and Henry could hear music and voices. He climbed up the metal steps. It was airless in his little cubbyhole behind the driver’s cab that he called home. Bed, chair, TV, fridge, everything a man needed. There was no window, but on the walls were a couple of American flags, a Marlboro poster, and a placard for some Erotica Fair that Henry had pulled off a wall somewhere. He turned off the TV, picked up his deckchair, and sat down in front of the truck in the evening sun. The piled up containers cast long shadows.
The caravans of the others were still in the next village, where they had performed yesterday. It had taken them the whole day to get the cars and all the rest of the stuff over here, and to put up the wooden grandstand. At noon it had rained, but Joe had been in a foul mood even before that. Joe was like that, up and down the whole time. And Charlie had been God knows where, and Oskar had been tooling around with his motorbikes. With the result that once again Henry had done all the work on his own. Henry the daredevil. Actually he was more like the nightwatchman, the maid of all work, the odd job man, the spare prick at the wedding. Only during the shows he was the fire devil, who lay on the roof of the car as Oskar drove through the wall of fire.
The others had nice trailers, Joe’s you could extend every which way, it was like a proper apartment with a lounge unit and a video and all the works. Henry wanted a trailer like that for himself. And he wanted a woman, too, and a kid. He wasn’t far short of forty now and the boss wouldn’t object, so long as it was the right girl. One like Oskar’s Jackie, or Charlie’s Verena, or Joe’s Petra, who cooked for Henry as well, and sometimes washed his clothes. The others had it all, and he had nothing. But then a woman set you back more than a new pair of pants.
Henry couldn’t complain. He had his peace and quiet, and he got to see places. In fact, he could hardly do much better for himself. What did he lack? He was doing fine, better than in the old GDR. Back then, he’d been a milkman. After the Wall came down, he was out of a job. He’d let them make a monkey of him. He had hung around on corners, got into scrapes, and went through his little bit of unemployment benefit in gambling saloons. Then one evening Joe and his boys had come into town, and after the performance Henry had gone over to the artistes and helped them take down the stand. They could sure use someone like him, Joe had said, and Henry grinned. It wasn’t something he often got to hear. Then he joined the troupe, just went along with them when they left town the next day. And ever since then, he’d been traveling with them, from village to village and town to town. He put up his antenna, kept an eye on the cars, and every night crashed head first through the wall of fire.
The fire devil, that had been Petra’s idea. Henry the Fire Devil. He’d been with the troupe now for six or seven years, living behind the cab. This year you’re getting a trailer, Joe had promised, but then he said he didn’t want them to get to look like a bunch of Gypsies, and someone after all had to mind the vehicles at night. Some day, Joe said, you’ll find yourself a woman. And then we’ll think again. And Oskar promised he would teach Henry how to drive on two wheels.
Henry heard a noise, a quiet thump. He got up and walked over to the cars. The asphalt was still glistening with rain, and as Henry ran through the piled up containers, he felt like an Indian in the Grand Canyon. There was another thump. Henry ran to the cars, just in time to see a stone fly through the air and smash against the rear window of one of the cars. He ran in the direction from which the stone had come. And then he saw the kids running off. He swore, picked a rock off the ground, and flung it at them. But they had already run around the back of the containers.
Henry stood on the tracks, which seemed to go on endlessly in either direction. He looked left and right, and then he set off. On the other side of the embankment, he stopped. He waited for a long time till a goods train came. He counted the cars, just as he had done when he was a kid. In America, there were people who hopped on the goods trains, and traveled the length and breadth of the country. Henry wondered where this train was going. He counted forty-two cars. Gravel.
The sun had dipped behind the nearby line of hills, but it was still light. Henry walked along the embankment till he came to a path, which led to the main street. From afar he could make out the yellow M, and when he was closer, the life-sized plastic clown who was sitting on a bench outside the snack bar, smiling.
Seated at a corner table were three forestry workers. Behind the bar was a young woman. Manuela, he read on her name tag. Henry ordered a burger and a Coke. They didn’t serve beer, Manuela had said. One moment.
“Are you from the East?” she asked him as he paid.
From the East, said Henry, and that he was an artiste. Over there, he said, pointing towards the container depot, there would be a show tomorrow. Car stunts. If she liked, he could get her in for free. Cars, said Manuela, cars didn’t really interest her. A stunt show, said Henry, cars driving on two wheels, motorbike leaps over forty people.
“Forty people?” asked Manuela.
“Not actually forty people lying there,” said Henry. “Earlier, we used to.”
On Monday they’d be gone already, he said. They were headed south, for Greece or Italy or someplace.
“Greece is beautiful,” he said. “You can go swimming there every day.”
He said his name was Henry. Manuela, she said. I know, said Henry, and he pointed to her name tag. Manuela laughed. Was he really a stuntman? Yes, kind of thing, he said. Did she have a boyfriend? Because she could bring him along as well. No, said Manuela. Her accent was sweet. She was sweet altogether.
“Me neither,” said Henry. “On the road the whole time.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Manuela said, wait. She disappeared and came back and gave Henry a baked apple pie.
“Here you go,” she said. “But careful. It’s hot.”
Henry thanked her.
“If my boss saw me do that,” said Manuela, “I’d be out of a job.”
“Then you can come along with us,” said Henry.
Manuela had to work till midnight. But tomorrow morning she was free, sure. She didn’t go to church or anything. There was nothing to do here on Sundays. Small animal show jointly sponsored by the fur sewing association and the ornithological society.
“Do you like that sort of thing? Birds and bunnies?”
“Sure,” said Henry. “It’s worth a look.”
They arranged to meet at the bus stop at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. But he had to be back by noon, said Henry, to get ready for the matinee.
The pet show didn’t have much to offer either of them. After fifteen minutes they were done. They sat in the refreshment tent and drank coffee.
“My father used to have a dog,” said Henry. “A German shepherd.”
“I used to have a hamster,” said Manuela.
“What did you like the best?”
“The rabbits. The baby ones.”
“See them in their cages,” said Henry. “They were shit scared.”
He’d liked the birds best, they were so colorful, the budgies an
d the finches and all the others. One of the breeders had told him the names and the countries they came from, a big man with a face like a bird and a high squeaky voice. That was from some disease he had, said Manuela. “Do you want some cake?” she asked.
“What? A baked apple pie?” Henry grinned.
“If my boss had caught me,” said Manuela.
Then they were quiet for a time. There was a folk music tape playing in the refreshment tent.
“Do you know any jokes?” asked Henry. “D’you like the music?”
“I like Elvis,” said Manuela. “Used to. Still do, really.”
They drank their coffee and went. They headed out of the village in the direction of the container park. They passed through a development with high-rise blocks. This was where Manuela had grown up. A couple of years ago, her parents had moved away. Now she lived in the village with a girlfriend. The path went along beside the railway tracks. Henry plucked a flower that was growing on the embankment, and offered it to Manuela. She said thank you, and giggled.
“Where I live isn’t much more than a rabbit stall,” said Henry.
He hadn’t thought Manuela would go with him. The poster of the Erotica Fair embarrassed him. But it didn’t seem to put her out at all. Bachelor pad, she said, and sat down on the unmade bed.
“Do you often have girls up here?”
“I wish,” said Henry. “I’m always on the road. Shitty life.”
He kissed her, not very skillfully. And when he tried to take her clothes off, Manuela had to help him. Her jeans were so tight that she had to lie down, while he tugged at the cuffs. Her bra didn’t have a fastening, she just pulled it over her head like a T-shirt. Never seen one of those before, said Henry. The rest Manuela did by herself. Then Henry got undressed, quickly, and with his back to her. He sat down on the bed without turning around, and quickly slid under the thin blanket.
“It’s cozy here,” said Manuela, when Henry was already dressed again, fixing coffee.
“I don’t need anything else,” he said. “I’ve got everything I need here.”
The others, his colleagues, all came from long lines of artistes, he said. All except him and Jackie, who was married to Oskar. She had hooked up with them, and gone along, same as he had. That kind of thing went on sometimes. She had a husband and three kids. And then she’d met Oskar, and run away, and never gone back. Just left her family behind.
“It happens,” said Henry.
“I guess,” said Manuela.
The others had done high wire acts before, Henry said. But there weren’t the audiences for those anymore. And then Oskar’s brother had had a fall. The rope broke. Verena’s first husband had fallen off as well. With his motorbike. Henry talked about the accidents, as if he knew the dead people and was proud of them.
“Horrible,” said Manuela, and drank her coffee.
“That was in Chemnitz,” said Henry.
What did he do in the performance, asked Manuela. He did everything, he said, he was just a sort of odd-job man. And then he explained his number to her.
“You’re mad,” said Manuela.
“No,” said Henry, “not really.”
He talked her through the whole thing again. How Oskar accelerated, and he lay on the roof, holding on with his hands and feet. He looked up, saw the wall of fire directly ahead of him. Kept looking, as long as he could. And then: gritted teeth, and head down. He hears the board splinter before he feels the impact. The car crashes through the planks at the bottom. There’s a smell of gasoline. The boards shatter, the burning fragments fly through the air. It’s like …
“It’s the greatest feeling.”
“You’re mad,” said Manuela.
“Don’t you get it,” said Henry. “It’s like …”
“Doesn’t it hurt?” asked Manuela. “You’re mad. I’ve got to go.”
It was almost twelve. Henry was glad Manuela was going, he didn’t want the others to see her. She promised to come to the evening show. Henry said he would meet her at the entrance. She was to wait for him there, on the left-hand side. Then he would take her in, and she wouldn’t have to pay any admission.
“I’ll meet you there,” he said.
When Manuela was gone, Henry tore down the poster of the Erotica Fair, and made the bed. He wondered what else he could do to make a woman feel at home in the cubbyhole. Manuela had said it was cozy. Perhaps she was like Jackie. Perhaps she just wanted to get away from here, and didn’t much care how. The bed wasn’t very wide, but it would do for the moment.
Joe was moaning because the kids had smashed a couple of windshields. Hadn’t Henry been doing his job. He couldn’t be everywhere at once, said Henry. Together they prepared the cars for the afternoon show, tied the doors shut and fixed tires on the roof of the car that Oskar would turn over in. One tire on the Toyota that Henry went through the wall of fire on was completely bald. I really need to watch out here, said Henry. But the rim on the replacement didn’t fit, and he put the old tire back on.
“Well, whatever,” he said. “If it bursts, it bursts.”
Then Charlie turned up with the articulated truck, bringing the two scrap cars that would be crushed later, a Passat and an Alpha Spider. I used to have an Alpha like that, said Charlie, as they unloaded the cars. Oskar revved up the engine of his Kawasaki, and took a couple of turns around the arena. He was always nervous before a show. The first of the spectators were already standing around by the entrance. Petra turned on the P.A. Rock music boomed out of a couple of enormous speakers, and then Petra’s voice.
“You will see cars and bikes flying through the air. Things you only thought you’d ever see in films and TV will pass before your eyes …”
Slowly the grandstand filled up. A few kids, who could only afford standing seats, clambered up onto the tractor-trucks. It was hot. Henry disappeared into his cubbyhole to put on his blue overalls and get his helmet. He must have crashed through the wall of fire a hundred times, but he still looked forward to his turn every time. The appearance of Henry the Fire Devil.
“It’s no good if you don’t applaud,” he heard Petra’s voice over the PA, as he climbed down the steps. Oskar on his bike was flying off the ramp. He flew over what was claimed to be twenty, thirty, forty persons. Then Joe and Charlie in their cars drove around in circles on two wheels, and waved out the windows. The spectators gave them some half-hearted applause.
“That was nothing,” Petra said. “Things are going to get really hot around here.”
Henry had put up the plank wall, and splashed gasoline over it. He lit it, and ran back to the car, which Oskar had already started up. He climbed onto the roof. The windows were down, so that he could reach inside and get a better grip. He spread his legs. Oskar moved off, accelerated, the wall got nearer. Tonight, thought Henry, I will go through the wall for Manuela. He would give her a sign, or wave, or do something he had never done before. I’ll keep my eyes open all the way through, he thought. For Manuela. And maybe she would come back to his van when it was all over and everything was tidied away, and the others were gone.
He never heard the tire burst. He only felt, suddenly, the car seem to stagger and turn aside. Henry’s legs lifted off the roof, his belly, he had the feeling his hands were being torn away. Then he let go, and became completely airborne. He was flying, and he saw the astonished faces of the spectators, and he was astonished himself. It was as though the earth below him had come to a stop, as though only he were moving. Henry flew through the air, he flew ever higher and farther. It was lovely. He saw the blue heaven above him, and there were a couple of dark clouds too that had gathered. Maybe it was going to rain.
Manuela spent the afternoon at the gravel-pit with her friend Denise. She had shown her the bite-mark Henry had left on her neck.
“How old is he?” Denise asked, and they both laughed.
“He’s sweet,” said Manuela. “An Ossi.”
“What kind of name is Henry,” said Denise. “Ho
nestly, I don’t know where you get them from.”
“He’s a stuntman,” said Manuela. “He was so sweet. He can’t have done it much. Certainly didn’t feel like he had.”
“I’m going in the water,” said Denise. “Are you coming?”
But Manuela didn’t like the water. She lay in the sun, and her body kept getting heavier and warmer. She felt the sun burning on her skin, and when she pressed her ear to the ground, she heard the dull echo of footsteps. She thought of the summer just begun, the long summer ahead, the many evenings she would spend at the gravel pit with Denise and her other friends. She thought of the fires they would light, and the boys who drove too fast in their souped-up cars when they went somewhere after bathing, maybe the Domino, or the town, or just the bar behind the station. She would have liked so much to fall in love with one of the boys, but they were all such babies. Last summer, she had gone out with Andi. It was Andi who had the kiosk at the gravel-pit, and didn’t do badly out of it. In the winter he didn’t do anything, by lunchtime he’d be in the pub, chatting up the Yugoslav waitress. You’ve got to make up your mind, she said to him. In the end, it was she who had decided. They had known each other from their school days.
Manuela thought about what it might be like to be on the road with the artistes. But she didn’t feel like living with Henry in that dirty cubby hole, with no bath or anything. It felt hot in that tiny space, and there was a smell of dirty clothes and reheated meals. And she didn’t know the others. Jackie, who had left her family. And the rest of them she barely even knew the names of. Funny names, too. Manuela tried to picture herself hanging up laundry outside a caravan, and she wondered where the kids would go to school, if you spent the whole time on the road going from town to town. In Greece, too. She had been to Greece once, one summer, with her parents. It was incredibly hot, stiflingly hot, and she hadn’t understood a word. When he gave her the flower, that was nice. But Henry had to be ten years older than she was. I’m still young, she thought, I’m not going to fall for that.