Retrograde

  “You’re embarrassed?!” the girl hisses. “How do you think I feel?”

  The line inches forward. Now there’s just one group of well-tanned retirees ahead of the young couple.

  “I’ll pay for it,” the girl insists, but the boy doesn’t want that, either. Apparently the vacation is a gift for her that he can’t quite afford.

  Helena wants to interrupt them, to tell them it’s not that important, that they should just do one or the other and forget about it; there will always be enough fights to have. She’s so intent on the outcome of the argument that she forgets Joachim is standing next to her until he steps forward, claps the boy on the shoulder and hands him a fifty.

  “This is for shutting the hell up,” he says.

  The two young people look at each other, openmouthed, and then at Helena for an explanation. She looks away and pretends not to be involved. They can’t seem to decide whether to be grateful or offended, but finally the boy says, “Thank you, Sir,” and closes his hand over the bill.

  Helena follows Joachim out of the line and back to the row of shops.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “What for?”

  “Embarrassing you like that.”

  “I wasn’t embarrassed,” she lies. She wants to be the right person for him right now, the person who would appreciate and understand the full meaning of his gesture, and not see it as a show-offish impulse.

  “Should we get an ice cream?” he asks. “I don’t think they’d feel comfortable with us on the same boat.”

  “Sure.” It’s cool and the tip of her nose already feels damp, but if he wants an ice cream, who’s she to rain on his parade? She’d feel better if she actually wanted it. Not just the cone but the whole package. There’s something going on in his head right now that’s miles away from where she is, and the funny thing is, he seems to think it’s about her. About them. So why does she feel like she’s watching somebody else’s romantic moments from outside? No, she’d be more comfortable if that little were expected of her. It’s more like playing the romantic lead without knowing any of the lines. And he doesn’t even seem to be acting.

  Her feet feel chilled in her shoes once they’re out of the sunlight, waiting in front of the refrigerated counter of the ice cream shop. The older woman behind it is impatient, as if there were a line out the door behind them. Or any line at all. She must be afraid that, if they think about it too long, they’ll change their minds.

  Joachim orders a scoop of vanilla and joins the saleswoman in watching Helena.

  “I’ll just have a coffee,” she starts to say, but she can already see a twitch of disappointment at the corner of Joachim’s mouth. Guess he’s already got a pretty clear idea of how this scene should look, the two of them with their ice cream cones. If only it felt less scripted. “A scoop of coffee ice cream,” she corrects herself.

  “Mocha?” the saleswoman asks.

  “Yes.” Like it matters what she orders now. She gets what’s going on here. How often has she been in his place, been the one to plan out every detail of a perfect day and be disappointed when he didn’t go along with it? Without ever having said a word about it. Not that you could say anything without ruining it. You needed your partner to know without being told.

  He pays and they walk back to the waterfront. So this is what he wants, the two of them licking ice cream cones in the late afternoon sunlight, his arm around her waist. There’s nothing wrong with that. But the very insistence with which she tells herself that means there must be.

  She’s relieved when they board the next gondola, Joachim helping her into the back row long before the rest of the boat fills up. This is what she needs now: nothing to do, nothing expected of her, just sitting down and letting herself be carried away.

  Most of the passengers making their way onto the boat are couples, mostly older, then one family with three small children at the front, a group of twenty-somethings in the middle. Almost everyone has the same accent and is probably from a fifty-kilometer radius of this boat. It’s the end of the season and the end of the day. The end of a lot of things.

  A man makes his way down the narrow side of the boat offering drinks and candy. Joachim buys two beers and hands her one. She’s starting to feel time again, not just the fact of the past years, but time as a physical quantity piled up between here and there. She can tell because she’s starting to notice when he pays for her, to know how much time passed without anyone treating her to anything, without any of those little gestures that signal “this is a date” or “we’re a couple.”

  She wonders whether Tobias paid when they first met. She can’t remember, and of course, she couldn’t ask. But he did pay for their drinks at the bar.

  The thought of Tobias is an uncomfortable one she’s managed more or less to avoid until now. She holds her breath a moment, until the gondolier pushes the boat away from the dock, happy in the brief illusion that she can move away from this unwanted thought as easily.

  Just past the marina, the shore on either side of them loses all resemblance to a town, alternating between forest undergrowth and pastures. The scampering speckles of sunlight on the silent, green-black water have the excruciating beauty of something you don’t have time to take in fully, like the sudden, full-throated rise of a flock of startled birds.

  The gondolier tells them about local cottage industries, the route they’re traveling, and the Sorbian culture that was prevalent here before the Third Reich. Like any good tour guide, he peppers his informational program with bad jokes and teasing remarks to members of his audience. When he notices Joachim holding Helena’s hand, he begins to refer to them as “The Honeymooners” and makes it a trope of his speech that the two are too smitten to listen to his remarks. Occasionally, one of the old women sasses him back and everyone laughs along when he addresses her as “young lady.” They stop at a few makeshift stands along the river selling spiced pickles, horseradish, and obscure liqueurs and sweets from the GDR.

  Helena’s smile is painful, and she feels her hand sweating into Joachim’s despite the cool air. She isn’t one of these uncomplicated people with their jokes and their straightforward relationships. Joachim might be, but she isn’t. She’s the only one on board faking it.

  But maybe she is just overthinking it. Maybe she can turn all that off, just rest her head on his shoulder and watch the million shades of green, gold, red, and black moving by, the sky wanly shifting toward sunset, and not think about all the things she can’t say to him, or hasn’t.

  It works for a few seconds, and then for a few minutes. And then not at all. It’s nice to be here with him, to drift so smoothly and quietly down this water, waving when they pass another boat, listening to his pulse through his collarbone, flattered by his attention and pleasantly surprised not to be alone. And she’s attracted to him—not wildly, but enough. If she met him at a party now, if they had no history whatsoever and he gave her his number, she’d call.

  But the fact is, they do have a history, and even if she manages to forget that and enjoy this moment for what it is—a meaningless disjointed episode, outside of time—he can’t. It means too much to him.

  The sun is all but below the horizon when they dock again, and the little market stalls have closed down. Joachim stops her and kisses her at the edge of the water, but no one teases them now, no one claps or makes a joke. This is real, or it’s supposed to be.

  Something is lost with the onset of darkness, and even he seems to feel it. This was the last and only full day of their vacation, and now it’s dark; now it’s practically night, just the void between today and tomorrow. He wants to get the car before dinner, but she insists that they look around on foot. She feels her right leg trembling with each step, a mass of shapeless flesh.

  They stop at the first likely place, a half-lit, half-empty barnlike room, where they eat potatoes with linseed oil and a platter of local pickles. Plus a bottle of white wine to make it seem like more of an occasion. Joa
chim imitates the people on the boat, but not unkindly, and she laughs in spite of her heavy mood. They order espresso and schnapps. He doesn’t mention the past again, doesn’t try to continue the conversation they started at the lake.

  She knows it’s her fault, knows she didn’t encourage or help him, even got in the way of his confession. But he shouldn’t have let her stop him. It would’ve been painful but in a necessary way, like the quick sharp hurt of a needle going in, ending your fear. If he’d forced it, things might’ve turned out differently. If he’d said everything, she would’ve, too. And then they would’ve been, at least for the moment, in the same place. But that moment passed without ever happening, and instead of torturing herself about what to say or do, how to finally straighten out this crooked situation, she simply finds herself thinking: What a shame.

  JOACHIM

  Joachim wakes before Helena, wakes even before his own body, lying still next to hers. He opens his eyes. He’d forgotten how young she looks asleep, her mouth slightly parted, her skin pale and smooth as a child’s, her expression innocent of anything between them, whether hate or desire. He watches her for a long time without moving. He wants more than anything to lean over and gather her warmth and softness into his arms, bury himself in the intimacy of her sleep, dream one dream with her. But the moment he touches her, the spell will break, and they’ll just be two people in bed together, without any enchantments.

  He slips off his side of the bed, undresses, and pulls the door of the bathroom gently closed behind him. He takes a long shower, trying to overcome a strange feeling of cold that seems to come from within him rather than the cool tiled floor.

  They didn’t turn on the stars the night before. Well, the stars were still there, of course; you couldn’t turn them off, but they didn’t put the light on. Didn’t go out of their way to see them. He doesn’t even remember seeing them, but they were so tired last night, with that urgent kind of weariness that pushes everything aside on its hurried race to sleep. She drove because he’d had more wine than she had.

  But she liked the stars the first night. She even seemed to like the hotel. Not without irony—when was she ever without irony?—but in a real enough way.

  He soaps himself thoroughly, washes his hair twice, and holds his face under the water a long time, eyes closed, feeling like there was something he meant to feel now.

  Did she have a good time? He can’t tell whether the trip is a success or a failure. They came to talk and they didn’t. At the same time, he said almost everything he’d been keeping from her, and she didn’t seem to care.

  Maybe she’s right. What’s the point of fighting the same fights over and over again? If discussing something will only drive them further apart, why bring it up?

  Well, in the interest of honesty. That’s what he thought. He lost her the last time by not being honest enough. Who knows, maybe if he’d told her about Ester right away, she wouldn’t have left. After all, she stuck around for a few months even after she found out the wrong way.

  “I want to believe you,” she said at the time, or maybe “I want to trust you.” He thought those were just empty words, but maybe she really did want to.

  What’s different now? For weeks, he’s been doing everything right, fixing all the things she used to complain about: taking her out to dinner, taking her for a weekend away, buying her flowers, talking about his feelings, telling her the truth. If it isn’t enough, he doesn’t know what would be.

  The idea of having told her originally has planted itself in his head and he can’t get it back out. She would’ve been angry, or worse, played the martyr, but he would’ve groveled and doted on her until she forgave him. When Ester came to him about her pregnancy, he could even have asked Helena what she wanted him to do. That would’ve been marriage; that would’ve been everything, being able to turn to her in that moment.

  But he didn’t. He wasn’t. He turns off the water and reaches blindly for a towel. The air is thick with steam but there’s a chill in him he can’t get rid of. He rubs himself dry and steps out to dress.

  Helena’s still asleep, but she’s rolled over onto one side; some noise must’ve bothered her, the shower running or somebody in the room next door. And just then, for whatever reason, it clicks for him: She isn’t the woman she was then. For better or worse. Does it really make sense to do all the things Helena five years ago wanted for Helena now? And if it doesn’t, what else is there?

  He takes his key, jacket and wallet, and steps out of the room, easing the door shut behind him. Outside the hotel, there’s a heavy fog clinging to the ground, and the air has a clammy feel. Maybe that’s why he can’t get warm.

  He walks to the bakery, planning to surprise her with breakfast in bed, but when he gets there, the door is locked. It is Sunday, after all. He’ll take her for a nicer breakfast somewhere else, maybe in Cottbus. It’s only a fifteen or twenty-minute drive. He carries on down the dirt road they took to the lake, a little at a loss. It’s one thing to surprise her with breakfast, another to sit antsily in the room, trying not to breathe too loudly, waiting for her to wake.

  He never used to think of things like that, never used to make these little plans. He isn’t the same man, either.

  The fog cleaves to the houses along the road, distorts them, and it could be any time, any place now. Even any time of day, though he knows it’s still early. He knows he must’ve loved Helena a great deal when they were younger—why else would he have married her?—but when he looks back, all he can remember is the resentment, the petty remarks and the traps they set in conversation, each always trying to catch the other in a moment of weakness. He can’t remember ever having felt such gentleness toward her, such an avid desire for her happiness, as he does now. Either he did at the beginning and he’s forgotten, or he’s learned a new way to love.

  “I love Helena.” He says it in his thoughts and aloud to the silent gray fog lurking at the edge of the forest, and it feels like saying it for the first time, not just about her, but in his life. Except that this isn’t the frantic hormonal frenzy of a first affair; this is something quiet and considered you can only feel for someone you’ve known a long, long time, at her worst and at her best.

  Nor does he feel any of the lightness of adolescent love bearing him back to the hotel; rather, his love is a burden weighing him to the ground. When you’re young, anything is possible. Later you realize there are only ever two possibilities: the one that will make you happy, and the one that will make you wretched. And after a certain point, it isn’t up to you anymore.

  He’s surprised to find her in the lobby, sitting in one of the plush chairs with the backpack at her feet. He can’t tell whether she only just came down or she’s been waiting a long time.

  “You’re up.” He doesn’t know what else to say.

  “Good morning.” She kisses him on the cheek. “I didn’t know what the cut-off was so I went ahead and checked us out.”

  “Did you…” he starts to say without knowing what it was he meant to ask. They brought hardly anything with them, certainly nothing irreplaceable, but he has a sudden, gutting fear of having left something of great value in the room.

  “What do you want to do for breakfast?” she asks.

  “I thought we’d drive into Cottbus,” he says. “I wanted to bring you breakfast in bed but nothing’s open here.” Maybe it was just the room itself, their presence in it. But they’re still together now, with or without stars on the ceiling.

  Helena offers to drive and he accepts, happy to close his eyes and feel the wind on one side, her warm presence on the other. He reaches over to stroke her wrist as she rests her hand on the clutch, but she shakes him off like a fly.

  “I’m driving, Joachim.”

  They leave the car in the parking lot of the train station and continue on foot, following some tracks on which no tram ever passes. The sound of church bells is coming from two different directions, but maybe it’s only an echo. It’s a long tim
e before they pass anyone on the street, or anything open for business.

  They end up in an imitation of an American chain coffee shop, with an English name and all kinds of elaborate flavored drinks on the menu: salted caramel cappuccino, iced gingerbread hot chocolate, pumpkin spice latte. At least there’s a decent crowd.

  She orders a muffin and a latte and goes to find them a table. He drops his change while paying and has to scrabble around on the floor to catch the rolling coins. He feels everyone’s eyes on his bent back, but when he gets up, no one is looking.

  He has to relax. If he keeps looking for a fight, for her displeasure, he’ll find it. And that means finding the same old ugly side of himself, the one he’s been trying to plaster over with thoughtful gestures and close listening. He doesn’t want to see his wife as his enemy, to treat every date as a temporary cease-fire.

  She’s looking out the window at the empty marketplace and gives him a dazed smile when he sets down their tray. He might as well be a waiter. The chairs are heavy iron with lumpy cushions thrown over them, and the legs scrape ferociously against the floor.

  “Thanks,” she says.

  “You’re welcome. Are you having fun?” She looks confused so he adds, “I mean, are you enjoying this trip?”

  “Yeah.” She sips her latte and licks the foam off her upper lip. “It was a nice weekend.”

  Was. “We should do this kind of thing more often,” he says.

  “Mmhmm,” she says, or maybe just “Hmm.”

  Maybe the problem was getting so caught up in the idea of The Talk. Like it was this big monumental obstacle they had to get past. When just showing her a good time was enough. What is there to talk about anyway, three years after the fact? He wants to tell her he loves her again, but then he remembers that she didn’t answer the last time. Besides, he shouldn’t say it too often. He’ll make himself ridiculous.

  He didn’t quite catch her comment about the hotel but he laughs anyway. They talk about the man at the reception, the Spreewald and the people on their boat yesterday.