by Peter Stamm
“Whores,” he called out.
Eric paid the check, and left the bar. Valdis came after him. While they walked to the hotel, Valdis said he could get Eric any woman he wanted. It was just a matter of money. Eric thought of Elza. He wondered if Valdis was faithful to her. And what about her? She could certainly have any man she wanted. Valdis staggered and grabbed hold of Eric’s arm, before finally pushing his arm through his. A hundred thousand, thought Eric, for a woman. “You’re drunk,” he said. “I don’t want a woman.”
Outside the hotel, he put Valdis in a taxi, asked him for the address, and gave the driver some money.
“Kiburgas iela 12,” said Valdis. “Third story, left-hand side.”
Before Eric closed the taxi door, he asked Valdis if he was okay. Valdis looked at him with moist eyes and said: “You are my friend.”
The following morning Eric was in the office early, and had already gotten through several items on the audit before Valdis arrived. Eric said if Valdis felt up to it, they might be able to finish the job today. Valdis seemed pretty monosyllabic, but he worked quickly and didn’t complain. He was pale and took a lot of bathroom breaks, and to judge by his face he probably had a headache. At lunchtime they sent out for sandwiches, and by late afternoon they had finished the audit.
Valdis asked what plans Eric had for the evening. Valdis looked as though he’d do better to go home, said Eric. He was pretty tired himself and would just have a snack at the hotel, and maybe go to the movies. Valdis nodded and asked whether they would see each other the next day. Eric said he would call him.
“I must show you the city,” said Valdis. “And the celebrations. Eight hundred years is a long time.”
Valdis called while Eric was at breakfast. The woman at reception gave him a note with the number on it, and said the gentleman had asked to be called back. Eric went out on the street, and wandered through the Old Town, which he had seen only at night thus far. At about noon, he returned to the hotel and called Valdis. It was Elza who picked up. She said her husband had been waiting for Eric to call, but half an hour ago he had taken the children into town. He had said he wanted to see something of the celebrations. The symphony orchestra was playing in the cathedral square.
“That’s where I’ve just come from,” said Eric.
Elza said Valdis had said he would go by the hotel to see if Eric was there. Did she not feel like coming out at all, Eric asked. No, said Elza, she didn’t like crowds.
“I’m just enjoying having the place to myself. It happens rarely enough.”
“What about the fireworks later on?”
“I’m not sure.”
Eric said he might call later on. Then he asked Elza how she was feeling.
“Fine, thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry we won’t see each other this time. Yesterday I felt sure you would come over.”
“Valdis didn’t say anything.”
“He said you wanted to go to the movies.”
“I think we were both pretty tired. We’re not getting any younger, after all.”
Elza laughed. She said she had rarely seen Valdis as drunk as he was that night. The taxi driver had brought him to the front door, to be sure he made it safely up the steps.
“I gave the man a big tip,” said Eric.
Elza sounded fine, and after Eric hung up he wondered for a moment whether she might not actually be sick at all. But then he thought, no, she’s just brave. Presumably she didn’t know that Valdis had come to him for money.
Eric went downstairs and asked the receptionist for the way to the market. Valdis had said that was something he absolutely had to see. He would be back in the evening, said Eric, in case anyone called for him.
The market was housed in four former zeppelin hangars behind the railway station. There were some old women standing on the pavement outside, selling plastic bags that had the names of various western products on them. Everyone here seemed to have something they were trying to sell.
Some people sat on the ground, with just an old cardboard box in front of them on which they’d laid out a few things, tapes, ballpoints, broken toys.
Eric didn’t stay long at the market. He found it all pretty dismal. He went back to the Old City. There were flags up in the streets. That morning already there had been choral singing on the stages that had been put up everywhere. More and more people were squeezing into the narrow alleyways, holding hands and walking quickly, as though they had somewhere to get to.
Eric walked back to his hotel. The woman at reception told him a man had come asking for him. He had waited for at least an hour, and then he had gone away again. He had said he would try again later. Eric asked her to change his return flight from Sunday to Saturday. Then he took one of the taxis that were lined up outside the hotel, and gave the driver Valdis’s address, Kiburgas iela 12.
He had the taxi stop at the edge of the project, got out and walked about among the crumbling tenement blocks. They were widely separate, with lawns in between them, and the occasional birch tree. The grass hadn’t been cut for a long time, and it sprouted up between the pavement slabs and in the cracks of the curbs.
Eric looked for the house that Valdis and Elza lived in. Suddenly he couldn’t remember their surname. There were only numbers next to the buttons at the entrance. He tried the door. It was unlocked. He climbed up the steps. In some places, the wallpaper was in shreds.
The individual apartment doors also only had numbers. On the third floor, Eric stopped and listened. He thought he could hear a vacuum cleaner, but he wasn’t sure which apartment the sound was coming from. He stood there for two or three minutes, thinking about Elza, and hoping she might just come and open the door. Then he wondered what he would say if she did. Finally, he went back down the steps, as quietly as he had gone up them.
He walked through the project. There was no one around, except for a few kids playing. The road ended in a large cul-de-sac, in the middle of which there was a flat garage building. A man was leaning over the engine of a car. He scratched his head. Then he looked up. Eric gave him a nod, but the man only looked suspiciously at him as he moved on.
Eric crossed the patch of grass between the last two blocks. At the very edge of the terrain there were a couple of vegetable patches, then an overgrown piece of wasteground, and then forest. Eric followed a narrow path that led into the forest, and then immediately lost itself among the trees. The air was damp, and Eric began to sweat. It was very quiet. He wondered what he was doing there.
When he got back to the hotel at about eight, the woman at reception handed him an envelope with his name on it. Valdis wrote that he had been told Eric would be leaving tomorrow. So they probably would not be able to meet after all. He would be watching the fireworks this evening,at the apartment of friends. If Eric needed anything, he could find him there, or at home tomorrow morning. And if he didn’t hear anything more from Eric, then he merely wished him a safe flight back, and all the best in the future. He looked forward to seeing him next year.
The air in Eric’s room was warm and close. All at once, he felt very tired. He opened the window and lay down.
He was awakened by the fireworks. He stepped up to the window, but he couldn’t see anything from there. He went out into the hall. Some hotel guests stood in front of the window next to the elevator. Bengal lights were reflected on their faces. Three times three hundred and thirty meters made a kilometer, said an elderly man. In the shadow, next to the stairs, stood the young woman from the hotel bar, watching the spectacle over the heads of the guests. When the fireworks were over, she hurried down the steps, back to work. A group of Americans applauded halfheartedly. It was worth it after all, a woman said in German. She had already been asleep, and merely thrown a coat over her nightdress. But it had been worth it. Eric wondered what it was all for. With the money they had gone through here, it would have been possible to pay for Elza’s course of treatment, three times over.
The other hotel guests wandere
d back to their rooms. Eric looked at his watch. It was a little before midnight, too late to call Valdis’s friends. He went downstairs to the bar.
“We’re closed now,” said the bar woman.
“Just one little beer?” Eric asked beseechingly.
The woman smiled, shrugged her shoulders, and raised her eyebrows in apology. Eric sat down on a barstool, and watched her as she counted up the till. He put a banknote down, enough to pay for the beer many times over. He asked the woman what her name was. She looked at him reproachfully. Then she took a beer bottle out of the refrigerator tray, opened it, and set it down in front of Eric. She pushed the banknote away.
“I’ve already done the accounts,” she said, picked up the bag containing the money, and crossed the lobby to the reception. She wore tight black pants in some shiny stuff. Eric followed her with his eyes. She walked with a light, quick step, almost a hop, and Eric remembered how she had run down the stairs when the fireworks were over. She had taken them two at a time. It looked almost as if she were flying, like a child, like an angel. At the turn in the stairs, she had put one hand on the balustrade, swung round, and disappeared.
FADO
Everything in Lisbon was damp. Even though it wasn’t raining, the streets were dark with moisture. Moss sprouted from the walls and facades, and the sky was full of clouds.
I had wanted to take ship and go, but there was a delay in the loading of the freighter and I was forced to wait. I had already moved my things into my cabin. Lisbon had nothing for me. In my mind, I had already said goodbye to Europe, I thought what lay ahead would be more interesting than what lay behind. But the prospect of waiting on the ship was deadly. There’s nothing more boring than a ship in port.
I walked into the city. I spent the whole day tramping the streets without looking at anything. I strolled through obscure parts of town, where men had spread porn mags on big cloths and were selling them. I sat in cafes, watching the people getting off ferries and going to work. From up on the hill I stared down at the city, and out to sea, till it lost itself in haze. Toward evening I got back to the port, and heard that now the ship wasn’t going till the next day,which was a Sunday. I headed into the city again, to get something to eat. In a side street I found a restaurant where they played fado music.
The food was poor but I liked the music, it suited my mood. I sat on after my meal was finished. I had already drunk half a liter of wine, and I ordered another. The other half, I said to the waiter, a little dark-skinned man, but he didn’t react. I felt better, and started to jot a few things down. I had just noted some foolish thought when a young woman came up to my table and asked me, in English, whether I wanted to come and sit with her and her friend. I had noticed her earlier. She was sitting with another woman at a table near me. While they ate, they both laughed a lot, and looked across at me a couple of times.
“You looked so all alone,” she said. “We’re Canadian.”
I took her invitation and followed her with my glass and carafe of wine.
“I’m Rachel, and this is Antonia,” she said.
We sat down.
“I’m Walter.”
“Like Walt Whitman,” said Antonia. “Do you keep a diary?”
“Oh, I write whatever comes into my head,” I said. “It’s almost as good as talking.”
“My father always used to say only intelligent people can bear solitude,” said Antonia.
“Being alone doesn’t make anyone intelligent,” I said.
It was past eleven. The fado singer packed up his guitar, and came over to our table. He seemed to know Rachel and Antonia. He sat down, and we talked about Lisbon and fado music.
“The last piece was nice,” said Antonia, “what was it called?”
“If you don’t know where you’re going, why don’t you stop walking,” the fado singer quoted. “Heart of mine, I won’t go with you anymore.”
“Amalia,” he said, and his face suddenly looked ridiculously tormented. “This strange sort of life.”
“What sorts of life are there?” Antonia asked.
“Long, for one,” said Rachel, “or short. Whichever.”
“My heart lives on wasted lives,” the fado singer continued to quote.
Rachel asked me what sort of life mine was.
I said I didn’t know. Presumably none at all. With both her hands, she outlined the shape of a woman in the air.
“Woman …” said the fado singer, and then some nonsense or other. I knew what he was after, and I knew he wasn’t going to get it tonight. He seemed to know it too. But just the same, he wrote down his phone number on a napkin, and passed it to Rachel. He said they could call him anytime. Any time at all. Then he shook hands all around, and went.
“Man …” said Rachel, and laughed. Antonia told her to stop being stupid.
“Would you have gone with him, then?” asked Rachel, drawing up her eyebrows in surprise. “Do you fancy bullfighters?”
“Portugal doesn’t have any bullfighters,” said Antonia. “He had a nice voice.”
Rachel laughed. She had met a man once with a nice voice. “I only knew him from talking on the phone. And when I finally got to see him … he was indescribable.”
Antonia said Rachel should stop being stupid again. Rachel said the pitch of a man’s voice was important. Men with low voices had a lot of testosterone. My voice, for instance, was deep.
Rachel laughed and said they had fixed with Luis to meet up in the disco. “The little waiter, you know. Once he’s finished here.”
For the past three weeks, Rachel and Antonia had been touring around Europe. In a week they would be flying home, from Barcelona. Rachel talked about the small town in Canada where they both came from, and Antonia kept interrupting and correcting things she was saying. I listened and didn’t say a lot. I was just glad to have some company.
The last of the customers left, and Luis put the chairs on the table and swept the floor. Then he walked over to our table.
“This is a friend,” said Rachel. “He’s coming to the disco with us.”
Luis said it wasn’t far. His English wasn’t up to much, and he had a heavy accent.
“What a low voice,” said Rachel, and she laughed. She asked Luis if he had a lot of testosterone. He asked what that was.
“Toro,” said Rachel. “You like a bull?”
Antonia told Rachel to stop it. She was drunk.
“You bull, me cow,” said Rachel. Luis looked at her in bafflement.
“You Tarzan, me Jane,” said Rachel.
“Tarzan.” Luis nodded. “We go.”
Luis said he would show us the best disco in Lisbon. He walked very fast, so that we had trouble keeping up. We zigged and zagged down narrow little streets. After just a few, I had no idea of my bearings. Rachel was talking about her boyfriend, who was a pilot in the air force.
“He’s got a really low voice,” she said, “like a prop plane.”
I asked Antonia whether she too had a boyfriend. She shook her head. She had just started university in Montreal, and didn’t know anyone there.
“She had a boyfriend but she broke his heart,” said Rachel.
“Nonsense,” said Antonia, “he was never my boyfriend.”
“Hey, Luis,” said Rachel, “slow down!”
After half an hour, we were finally there. The place we were standing outside was scuzzy and small. Luis knew the doorman, but we still had to pay a ridiculously large sum of money to get in.
It was dark in the disco, except on the slightly raised dance floor, which was brightly lit. It was empty, but some of the tables had people at them. It was almost completely guys. The music was loud. We sat down at the bar, drank, and talked. Luis didn’t say much. Suddenly he stood up, climbed up onto the dance floor, turned his back to us, and started dancing in front of a large wall-mirror. I could see his face reflected in it, he was looking serious and concentrated. I thought he was staring into his own eyes. His movements were mechanical a
nd aggressive. I asked Rachel to dance. Antonia remained behind at the bar, alone.
I had been feeling fairly drunk, but the long walk had sobered me up. I danced with Rachel for a long time. We looked at each other, Luis seemed only to have eyes for himself, in the mirror. After a half hour or so, he said there was nothing happening, he knew some better places. Antonia said she wanted to go to bed. Rachel whispered something in her ear. She said she wanted to go to bed too. She laughed.
The four of us walked down empty streets. Rachel had taken my arm. Luis tried to take her other arm, but she shook him off. She said she wasn’t a baby. Luis instead linked arms with Antonia, who didn’t resist, and walked along stiffly beside him, not looking at him. Luis said he came from Faro, in the south of Portugal, but there was no work there. Then he was silent. None of us spoke. We walked more slowly than we had on the way there, more carefully, as though to postpone the goodnights. Too little had happened, and then again too much for an easy leave-taking.
Rachel and Antonia shared a room in a private house. When we got to the house, they said goodnight, and we kissed on the cheek. Antonia unlocked the door, and went inside. Rachel stood in the open doorway for a brief moment, with a childlike smile. Then Luis went up to her, and forced her back to the staircase. I followed them. The door fell shut behind me with a crash. Then there was silence.
The staircase was dimly lit by a single bulb. Antonia was waiting on the staircase, looking down to us. Rachel and Luis stood facing each other, and staring.
“Goodnight,” said Rachel.
“I’m coming up,” said Luis.
“We’re tired. Thanks for the fun evening.”
Rachel followed Antonia up the stairs. Luis and I came after the two women.
“Goodnight,” Rachel said again.
“I’m not tired,” said Luis.
“But we are.”