Alice

by Judith Hermann

  She laughed, the Romanian didn’t. Alice turned over on her side, stopped listening. One moment more. Then she was out of it.

  Dawn came at half past five in the morning. The Romanian was standing at the stove in the kitchen, turning down the gas as the coffee began to rise, hissing, in the espresso maker. He had heated some milk in a little pot with a wooden handle. He poured the coffee into two round white cups, remembering that Alice drank hers with milk and no sugar, adding the milk, the foam at the end. Had he slept? He looked awake and rested. Handing Alice her cup, he made a noise that sounded vaguely like the mewing of a very small kitten. Alice was at a loss. They sat down next to each other on the bench outside the kitchen door. The sky over the mountain turned blue. A light was on in Lotte’s house. Ice-cold bird voices and the smell of lavender. The Romanian was listening to something, then he said, Did you know that birds with the largest eyes sing earliest in the morning?

  No, I didn’t know. Sounds odd.

  The Romanian nodded. Sounds odd, yes. But that’s the way it is. The more light, the more singing.

  Alice blew on her coffee. She cleared her throat and said, What’s Anna doing?

  Still sleeping, the Romanian said. I think you ought to wake her up, better do it with a wet flannel.

  I’d do it if I knew where she was, Alice said irritably.

  In my room, the Romanian said.

  How come? Alice said.

  Yes, I’d like to know that too, the Romanian said. He apparently found it highly amusing. She seemed to think we’d have an easier time being awakened by the alarm clock if we were together.

  You wake her up, Alice said. I don’t feel like it.

  The Romanian said nothing. He drank his coffee in delicate sips, calmly sitting on the bench, one leg crossed over the other. When he got up he briefly, lightly touched Alice’s hand.

  They drove into town in Lotte’s car. A white BMW, air-conditioned, with tinted windows. The Romanian drove, Lotte sat next to him, Anna and Alice slumped in the back seat, both wearing sunglasses. The landscape slipped by noiselessly, lakeshore, pebble beaches, classicist villas, pilgrimage churches, greenhouses up and down the hillsides. Lotte and the Romanian were talking about growing lemons. Thirteenth-century. Franciscan monks. Zardi de limú, the Romanian said, cheerful and polite, and then Lotte’s voice, refined, very cultivated, subtly and gently pointing at the hillsides.

  Limonaie.

  Or Limonare?

  The Romanian wasn’t sure either; he said, Up there, see those masonry posts they used to put wood and glass panes on top of them in the wintertime – protection for the lemon trees against the cold. Today they’re just ruins, he was saying this to Anna and Alice, looking at them in the rear-view mirror. Alice returned his look and knew that he couldn’t tell she was doing so because of her sunglasses. She wished he would look into the rear-view mirror once more, would look into it again a little later without saying anything about masonry posts. A silent look. But he didn’t.

  There were boats on the lake, probably red ones, and bougainvillea growing over the balconies of the houses, probably purple; the tinted windows swallowed all colour. Nobody said anything about Conrad. Lotte didn’t ask how they had slept. Alice couldn’t have answered the question. She hadn’t slept. She was out and then she was back again as though someone had hit her over the head. She looked at Anna and knew it was the same with her, and she had to laugh. Holding up her hand, Anna tried to get Alice to stop laughing, then put the hand to her forehead, indicating she had a terrible headache. We’ll get some Coca-Cola, Alice said softly. Soon. They left the lakeshore road, drove through an intersection, mundane traffic lights, suddenly everything actually did seem to be grey. Lotte gave directions matter-of-factly. A large parking area in front of the hospital. Lotte opened the car door; the sky was white. Go swimming, Lotte said. Come back at noon to pick me up. Straight-backed, her head held high, an elegant but empty-looking braided bag over her left shoulder, she walked across the car park, past a little gatehouse, a closed barricade. She looked like a young girl. Didn’t look back. The Romanian turned the car round.

  The lake was ice cold. The water clear as glass. When Alice dived in, it took her breath away, an incomprehensible, ecstatic suffocation. Everything was different. Everything was perfect. She extended her entire body underwater, a long stretching from her fingertips to her toes, then she spread her arms and swam. She swam submerged for a long time, and when she came up again she was far away from the shore. Turning, she saw the dock above the choppy surface of the water, behind it a wall of red stone, a gate in the wall, cedars behind the gate, then the mountain. On the dock, a very small Anna. In a blue bikini. Lying on a towel. Next to a bright yellow bottle of suntan lotion. To her right and left, the deserted white pebble beach.

  How am I going to tell her what it looks like? Alice thought. How can I show her, how can she know how beautiful it is?

  She raised her hand and waved while treading water, spat, out of breath. Anna waved back, calling out something incomprehensible. The Romanian was even further out than Alice; actually she couldn’t see him now, his little head. Short, choppy waves on the lake. It was as deep as the mountains surrounding it were high. Alice turned and swam back.

  What’s the difference between a cicada and a cricket?

  Is that supposed to be a joke?

  No, I’m serious. I don’t know the difference. But there must be one. I once had a wooden box with a cricket made of metal inside. It made a cricket noise when you raised the cover. Something to do with the light. The light making the metal vibrate? From a Vietnamese. From the Vietnamese market.

  Aha, Anna said. She yawned, and turned from her back onto her stomach. She gazed out over the water, cupping a hand above her eyes. I think cicadas are big and crickets are small. Are cicadas green and crickets grey? Do only the females chirp? What’s the name of the mountain on the far side of the lake? I think I’ve got to go into the water again, right now. I can’t stand it. Everything’s hot here. The pebbles. Even the suntan lotion is hot. Stop smoking, Alice, it’s unbearable.

  Monte Baldo, the Romanian said. The mountain is Monte Baldo. In our country it’s called a head cricket, it crawls into your skull and causes insanity and death. We’re surrounded by them. Cedars and crickets wherever you look. If you want to go in again, you ought to do it now. Right now. We have to get back. It’s almost noon.

  Anna repeated his words, disparagingly. A head cricket. She grimaced in disgust, pursed her lips. Alice fished for her sunglasses with her toes, put them on and looked at the Romanian. His narrow shoulders, hips, ankles, feet. Everything. He had held out the suntan lotion to Alice and Anna; it was a question. Alice had turned away; Anna had rubbed the lotion on the Romanian’s slender back. The Romanian hadn’t met Conrad yet. Neither had Anna. They didn’t share her worries. But the Romanian was very attentive, and Alice was grateful for that. She got up, slipped skirt and blouse on over her bathing suit, picked up her sandals with her left hand, climbed down from the dock, and walked back across the pebble beach to the street. She felt weak. The pebbles were glowing hot, and every step hurt.

  At the hospital Lotte was sitting right in the middle of a long bench in front of the lifts, her bag in her lap, and facing a panoramic window with a view of the car park. The lift disgorged Anna, Alice, and the Romanian with a plucking, mechanical sound. Lotte was smiling as if she were asleep; she didn’t get up, scarcely moved at all. Alice looked at the clock above the lift doors – a little after twelve. Is that what Lotte meant when she said they should come around noon? Simple arrangements, made just once, had something confusing about them. Lotte was used to making decisions, Alice could sense that. A decision maker. She looked more rested than she had that morning, more calm. Now she turned to Alice; Anna and the Romanian deferentially took a step back.

  He’s doing much better, Lotte said. The fever has gone down; he’ll come home soon; but they want to keep him another night to be on the safe
side. An infection? She raised her eyebrows and thought about the word; it seemed to be the right one. They suspect it’s an infection. That happens sometimes here; after all, the climate is almost tropical. She gave a dry laugh, then she got up. Well, he wants to see you now. It’s the room at the end of the corridor.

  She pointed down the long corridor; it was glistening, bright. It seemed like more than one could handle. Did you go swimming?

  Don’t you want to come along? Alice asked, her heart pounding in her throat.

  No, Lotte said. I was with him all morning. Go on. Go by yourself.

  Alice started down the corridor. She heard the Romanian taking up the thread of the conversation – Yes, we went swimming. Down at that little bathing spot, a private beach? Very romantic. A little dock. In front of the red wall with the gate leading to a neglected garden.

  Conrad was lying in bed, near the window. A green, half-drawn venetian blind; the room filled with rulers of light. No air conditioner, only a ceiling fan. Come, sit next to me, Conrad said. He lightly patted the bed. Alice sat down on the edge of the bed. Conrad was naked, a white, thin sheet covering his loins, that was all. Alice, seeing him naked for the first time, was amazed how beautiful he was, an old, naked man with white chest hair and brown skin, a little lighter in the soft bends of the arms and at the neck; he looked solid; there was nothing fragile about him. She thought, If he weren’t sick, I would have seen him like this for the first time when we went swimming, and she didn’t know which she would have preferred: Would it have been his nakedness in this bed? Perhaps.

  Conrad’s breathing was shallow; he gazed steadily at Alice, searchingly, proud. He said, What a lot of nonsense. What nonsense that I should be lying here and just when you’ve come. It’s high time for all this to stop. I’m going home tomorrow. It’s unbearable this way. You know I want to see you in the water, you have to go swimming with me, did you go swimming today?

  Yes, Alice said. Truthfully and obediently. We went swimming. Near your place, down at the beach near the villa.

  Was it cold?

  Yes, it was cold.

  Conrad nodded; it seemed to be very important to him that the water was cold. Alice thought it important too.

  And which room are you sleeping in?

  In your room, Alice said. She added, Anna is sleeping in the room next to it. The Romanian in the little room near the stairs. She was sure that Conrad would be enchanted by Anna. By the lightness below her dark side. Platonic affection, tendernesses – like those for people in books, imagined feelings.

  Well, Conrad said. You should drive to Salò today, and have a drink on the lake promenade, that red stuff. Lotte will tell you what it’s called; it’s what everybody drinks here in the afternoon. With ice and lemon. You do that. I’ll be home tomorrow.

  All right, Alice said.

  She didn’t know what else to say, but she didn’t want to get up either. She wondered if Conrad might still have a bit of fever; heat seemed to be rising from his brown skin, but maybe it was only the heat in the room. Midday heat, the tropical climate. Conrad raised his hand and touched Alice’s face. He had never done that before. He put the back of his hand briefly on Alice’s cheek, pinched it slightly as if she were a child. He said thoughtfully, You know, I thought I was invulnerable. That’s what I thought.

  He shook his head and looked towards the window, towards the light between the green slats of the blind; then he looked again at Alice and said, All right, then, till tomorrow. Drive carefully.

  Till tomorrow, Alice said. She got up, stood by the bed, raised her shoulders and lowered them again. They both smiled. Alice left the room, went down the long, brightly lit hallway back to the lift. They were now sitting next to one another, Lotte in the middle between Anna and the Romanian, and Alice stopped in front of them. The Romanian looked out at the car park. Anna looked at Lotte. No one said anything.

  He’s feeling better, isn’t he? Lotte said.

  I think so, Alice said. He’s feeling better.

  OK. Then let’s go home, Lotte said. She pointed to the lift. I already said goodbye to him; we can leave.

  They stopped at a petrol station halfway between the town and Lotte’s house. Grass and nettles growing between the pumps; the windows of the kiosk where you paid were pasted over with black foil. The attendant came out of the door, yawning. Please fill the tank, Lotte said to the Romanian. In the course of the day an unusual intimacy seemed to have developed between them, affection, a silent understanding. Wordless.

  The Romanian took the money Lotte handed him; got out of the car, doing everything slowly as befitted the temperature, simple movements. Would you like some ice cream? Lotte asked Anna and Alice. Anna and Alice got out too. Lotte stayed in the car. Inside the kiosk cold air came out of the chest freezer like a net, palpable. A cornetto? Anna said, leaving the sliding door on the chest freezer open. Or an ice-lolly? The attendant drummed his thick fingers on the scuffed countertop, next to the cash register, worn from coins being pushed across it. Arabic music from a radio. Air-fresheners. Alice looked at the white BMW standing between the rusty petrol pumps, Lotte’s unmoving profile unfocused behind the tinted windows. The Romanian had finished filling the tank. He was looking up at the mountain, holding his hand over his eyes, probably watching some bird, an eagle, a falcon, a buzzard. Under certain circumstances, Alice thought, you can feel jealous if another person merely looks up at the sky. She selected an ice-lolly and closed the freezer chest. The cashier pressed keys on his till. This, this, and that. Anything else?

  The Romanian strolled in, put a banknote on the counter, chatted a little longer, parlando: Come stai? Molto bene, grazie, arrividerci. As always, Alice wouldn’t touch the wooden stick of the ice-lolly, she had to wrap the paper cover around it. Sweet woodruff, raspberry, lemon. What flavour is it? the Romanian asked. Dolomiti, Alice said, as if he were hard of hearing. Anna belligerently showed the cashier her broken front tooth; inciting him. He banged shut the cash-register drawer so that it shook. In the car, Lotte smiled when they climbed in again. No sign of impatience. She was at peace with herself.

  The last stretch was familiar. This village, the next village, the church tower, the Via dei Colli, then the Ristorante Nuovo Ponte, already familiar and consequently no longer of interest; they had sat there, so that was that, walked there, still beautiful, but no longer strange. And Lotte no longer gave them directions; she assumed the Romanian knew his way by now. The Romanian gently turned off the highway, the tic-tic-tic of the indicator, and then they were driving past the Nuovo Ponte which was not yet open for business, the chairs folded up and neatly placed against the tables under the blue awning. Then the road up to the five-way intersection and through the forged-iron gate, past the goats which didn’t react in any way to the white BMW, and up to the stairs to Lotte and Conrad’s house, next to which there was a space for the car, overgrown with blooming oleander. The Romanian parked the car in the space, just so, turned off the engine, and the hum of the air-conditioning faded and stopped. Gradually, one by one, outside noises came into the car. The bleating of a goat. The shrill call of a bird. Up in the house the telephone was ringing.

  See you later, Lotte said. Thanks for coming with me. She climbed up the stairs, with deliberate haste, while the ringing in the house did not stop, the sound coming through the closed shutters. They could still hear it on their way to the yellow house, and it stopped only as Alice took the key from the flower box outside the kitchen window. Anna sat down on the bench, stretched out her legs and closed her eyes. Alice went into the kitchen and through the dining room and the living room to the French doors, pushed back the bolt, opened the doors wide, and stepped out on the terrace. Lizards darted across the tiles. Two butterflies rose up. The Romanian, close behind her, put his hand between Alice’s shoulder blades. They stood there like that for a moment, undecided. Listening. Heard the car engine start up again, saw Lotte driving along the dirt road, past the goats, and through the gate. The
n she was gone. Anna came out of the garden to the terrace stairs, and Alice took a step to one side.

  Does that mean something. Anna said. What does it mean?

  In the afternoon Alice retired to Conrad’s room. She closed the shutters and lay down on the narrow bed without pulling the blanket over herself. It was dark except for one spot of light the size of a penny, a knothole through which the afternoon sun came in. The spot of light was golden. It wandered slowly along under the table and across the red carpet with its woven black pattern. A sundial. Alice lay there, her eyes open. She was thinking: Conrad had lain on this bed in this room with the shutters closed, back then, more than thirty years ago, when he was younger and the children were still small and the house on the hill was still a barn full of sheep and goats, when he was the same age as Alice was now – he had seen this spot of light wandering just as Alice now saw it wandering. Back then he had seen the same thing Alice saw now. Something significant seemed to be concealed behind this simple detail, and she couldn’t immediately work out what it might be.

  Something was going on outside; a car came, another drove away; the goats bleated excitedly and then fell silent again. Anna’s voice on the terrace, the voice of the Romanian. Wind in the ivy outside the window. Very far away, on the lake, the howling roar of a speedboat motor. The Romanian and Anna wanted to go shopping. Lotte would return eventually. If something had happened Alice would find out, whatever it might be, and whether she wanted to or not.

  Alice fell asleep. When she woke up again the spot of light was gone. She groped her way to the window and pushed open the shutters; the mountains on the other side of the lake glowed a faint pink; the sun was gone but it was still light.