On A Day Like This

by Peter Stamm

  After breakfast, he called Fabienne. She asked if he wanted to speak to Manuel, who was down in the basement.

  “Did you tell him you saw me?”

  There was quiet for a moment, then Fabienne said, no, she hadn’t, she wasn’t sure if he would have wanted that.

  “Can we see each other?”

  “Manuel and Dominik are building a hot-air balloon. I don’t know if they’re going out today or not. Maybe if the wind drops, they will.”

  “Can you get away?”

  “I’ll have to be back here at twelve by the latest.”

  She thought about it. Then she said they could meet by the camper. Would he remember the way? She said she’d be waiting for him in the parking lot in half an hour.

  As Andreas drove down the narrow gravel track, he saw Fabienne’s white camper in the empty parking lot. He was a bit late, but he hadn’t been here for twenty years, and had taken a wrong turning and gotten briefly lost. He parked next to Fabienne, and for a moment they looked at each other, as if they had happened to stop together at a traffic light or in a department store parking garage. Andreas got out, and walked around the car. He could hear music softly playing. Fabienne leaned forward, and the music stopped. She climbed out and kissed him on both cheeks. She was wearing jeans and a yellow slicker.

  “You’re prepared for anything, aren’t you,” he said. As for himself, he had his swimming trunks with him.

  “It’s supposed to rain again in the afternoon,” said Fabienne.

  Even though she had already told him on the phone, he asked her again how much time she had. She said she would have to go back at half past eleven at the latest. She asked him what he had done in the past few days. She unlocked the gate, and locked it again after them. If she ever forgot to lock it, she said, people would be in there in no time, lighting fires and leaving their trash lying around.

  They stood in a big meadow with old trees. To either side of them, the land was bordered by wild hedges, and on the lake side by a wide growth of rushes. A wooden boardwalk led through the rushes to the water.

  They strolled over the meadow, as though aimlessly, just to stretch their legs. Fabienne bent to pick up some toys in the grass, and put them away in the camper.

  “Do you think the season’s over for this year?” asked Andreas.

  “We often come here in the autumn too,” said Fabienne. “Even in winter. We have a little rowboat. Manuel and Dominik go fishing in it.”

  The sun shone in between the clouds, and everything glistened in its light. There was an almost transparent haze in the trees and the reeds. Andreas and Fabienne walked along the boardwalk through the rushes. At the end of it, they sat down on the wooden planking, and looked out across the lake. The air was very clear, and the German shore seemed almost within reach.

  “Look,” said Fabienne, pointing to a crested grebe, diving not far from where they were. They waited in silence until it emerged on the surface again. Andreas lay down on his belly and dipped his hand in the water.

  “The water’s warmer than the air,” he said. “Do you fancy a swim?”

  “Why not,” said Fabienne. “Seeing as we’re here.”

  She got changed in the camper, he outside in the meadow. She appeared in the doorway and took his bundle of clothes from him, and put it in the camper.

  He walked across the meadow after her. She was walking faster than a moment ago, perhaps she was cold, or she sensed his eyes on her. She was wearing a one-piece bathing suit and had tied a scarf around her waist. Andreas tried to remember what she had looked like when he had first met her. Ever since he had seen her again, his old images of her were rubbed out. He had told her she hadn’t changed, but she must have in all that time.

  The water was colder than he’d expected. The chill took his breath away. They swam a little way out into the lake, and then parallel to the shore. Andreas had overtaken Fabienne, and was swimming on ahead in short strokes, so as not to pull away from her. After a few hundred yards, they turned and swam back.

  Andreas climbed out of the water. Fabienne held on to the metal ladder, and did some leg kicks. She looked up at him and smiled. He paced up and down the pier, shaking his arms, and once or twice jumping up and down. Then Fabienne too came out. They wrapped themselves in their towels, and sat side by side on the pier, so close that their shoulders touched. The sun was gone. Andreas was gibbering with cold.

  “Aren’t you cold?” he asked.

  “A little bit.”

  For a while they looked out across the lake in silence, then Andreas laid his hand on Fabienne’s shoulder. Suddenly he felt very young and unsure of himself. He cleared his throat.

  “Yes?” said Fabienne, and Andreas asked her if she remembered how he had kissed her twenty years before. She said it hadn’t been so cold that day. He said he had loved her very much back then.

  He looked at her from the side, her profile, her slender neck and shoulders, on which a few drops of water glistened, the hair, darker at the ends. She looked out at the lake, and said in a slightly throaty voice that she hadn’t been aware of anything.

  “I wrote you a letter. But I never mailed it.”

  “You’re freezing,” said Fabienne. “Come on, let’s get dressed.”

  They ran along the boardwalk, and through the damp grass to the camper. Andreas got out of breath and started coughing. He followed Fabienne into the camper. She passed him his things. He was still hesitating while Fabienne peeled off her suit and hung it on a clothesline that already had a boy’s trunks on it. For a moment she stood naked in front of him. She smiled, half uncertain, half provocative, then she turned her back to him and got dressed.

  They left the place. Andreas looked at his watch, it wasn’t ten yet. In silence they walked along a path, away from the parking lot, past a couple of fenced-in estates, and a large meadow. The path was winding back toward the lake, but the water couldn’t be seen for the reeds. After a few hundred yards, the path divided, and one half led into the reed bed. Fabienne went ahead, Andreas followed. The path ended in a wooden observation platform. They climbed up the ladder-like steps. On top was a sign that said the platform had been built by the birdwatchers’ association, “for bird-lovers everywhere, who have not lost the capacity for wonder.”

  Fabienne leaned over the handrail, and looked out at the lake. She asked if Andreas was still feeling cold. No, he said, it was better now. He was standing just behind her. He grasped her shoulders with both hands. She lowered her head, and leaned forward a little. He held her hips, and pushed his hands under her waterproof jacket. She stood up a little straighter, otherwise she barely moved. He kissed her neck, stroked her breasts. She turned around. When he tried to kiss her mouth, she turned her face away. He tried to shove his hand in her jeans. She broke away, and undid her belt and top button.

  “It’s easier like this,” she said.

  They made love on the observation platform. The boards were wet and cold. Fabienne took off her jeans and shoes. She pushed up her sweatshirt and her bra, but left on her jacket. She kept her eyes shut, and lay there motionless. She seemed very naked and vulnerable. Andreas was put in mind of police photographs of crime scenes, pale, lifeless bodies by the side of the road, in forests or rushes.

  They said good-bye at the parking lot. Andreas got in his car and watched Fabienne put on her seat belt, get into reverse, and drive off. She seemed perfectly calm, as though nothing had happened. Andreas put on his seat belt, but didn’t drive away. It had begun to drizzle, and the landscape was half-obscured from sight. It was cold in the car, and Andreas’s breath made clouds of steam. He thought about Fabienne. He was surprised by the purposefulness with which she had guided his hands, the calmness of her surrender, and her sudden quick pleasure. The whole thing was over in fifteen minutes. Then Fabienne had got a packet of Kleenex out of her jacket, and carefully wiped herself. She seemed very strange to Andreas. It was as though her face had also changed from being naked. He didn’t reco
gnize her until she was dressed again.

  He didn’t know what he expected from her. He didn’t even know what he wanted. That she leave her family for him? That she go with him to France, or wherever? That she become his mistress, meet him every other week somewhere, always with a guilty conscience where she was concerned? They would get used to each other, maybe even quicker than two spouses got used to each other, because they wouldn’t share anything but their love.

  He hadn’t returned to the village to start a relationship, but to end one, to have certainty at last. If Fabienne had slapped him when he tried to kiss her, either back then or today, he would have gotten over it, as he had gotten over other unhappy relationships. He was concerned to get an answer from her, to know at last whether she loved him, whether she might have been able to love him. But in fact she hadn’t given him an answer. She told him not to call her at home. He asked her how else was he going to get ahold of her. She said she would call him tomorrow.

  He ate in the fish restaurant where he had wanted to take Delphine. Earlier, it had been renowned for its good cooking, but he didn’t enjoy the food. It would be nice if Delphine were here, he thought.

  He stayed up in his room all afternoon. He hoped Fabienne would call. Suddenly he wasn’t sure whether he had given her the correct room number. Maybe she had forgotten the number, and she was calling reception, and no one was answering.

  Fabienne called the next morning, as she had said she would.

  “Can we meet up?”

  “Manuel and Dominik are flying their hot-air balloon,” she said. “I’m free till twelve.”

  “Do you want to meet at the camper?”

  “They’ve taken the car.”

  They arranged to meet at the hut in the woods where they had first met.

  Andreas walked through the village, and through the business district. The sky was clear, except for some little shreds of cirrus clouds. The forecast was for warm weather in the afternoon, but the morning felt cool. It was the first day of autumn, the sky looked suddenly darker, and the air was so clear that everything seemed very close.

  Andreas got to the rendezvous too early. There were wet charred branches on the campfire site, and garbage on the ground. The hut belonged to the community, and on the wall, in a little metal frame, was a list of rules. Andreas perused it: garbage in the containers provided, no loud music, no dogs without a leash.

  Fabienne came almost exactly on time. Once again, she was wearing the yellow slicker. She propped her bike against a tree. Andreas hugged her, she kissed him on both cheeks.

  “Do you want to go for a walk?”

  They walked through the forest. It was probably the same path they had taken that night when they played hide and seek. It led on and on in a straight line. In the distance you could see where the forest ended. For a while they walked in silence side by side. Then Fabienne asked Andreas what was in the letter that he had written but not sent.

  “That I love you,” said Andreas. “Not much more than that, I think.”

  He asked what she would have done if she’d received the letter.

  “I don’t know,” said Fabienne. She seemed to be thinking. She said she was really fond of Manuel. They had a good relationship.

  “When did it begin, with the two of you?”

  “I suppose it was the day you kissed me. He was very attentive. He took me home. I was a bit confused.”

  “Ah, if I’d had the car.”

  “But nothing happened,” said Fabienne. “We just talked. You were so dismissive, after you’d kissed me. You behaved as though it was nothing. And then you got really aggressive. I told Manuel about your kissing me. We talked about you a long time. That brought us closer. The next day he brought me flowers. We didn’t kiss until much later.”

  Andreas said he didn’t suppose he’d ever loved a woman as much as he’d loved her. Fabienne didn’t say anything. They walked slowly through the forest, side by side. Andreas was a little surprised he didn’t feel angry with Manuel, that he didn’t even feel jealous of him. He wouldn’t have wanted to trade places with him. He stopped and pressed Fabienne to himself. He kissed her on the mouth, but she didn’t reciprocate. She hugged him like a good friend, and laid her head against his chest.

  “There’s no point,” she said.

  “One night,” he said. “Let’s spend one night together. To give us something to remember. Not just those ten minutes.”

  “Love lasts for ten minutes,” said Fabienne. “What difference would it make?”

  “What made you sleep with me, anyway?”

  “I was curious,” said Fabienne, and then, a while later, she couldn’t just stay away from home for a night, she didn’t know what he was thinking of. In the fifteen years she’d been married to Manuel, she had spent very few nights away from him.

  “Do you remember our meetings in Paris?”

  “I just remember the fact of them,” said Fabienne, with an apologetic smile.

  “In the mosque,” said Andreas. “And one time we went to the cinema. The film tore, and they were unable to show us the ending. Someone came up to the front and told us the ending.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  It was all so long ago, said Fabienne. So much had happened in the meantime.

  “Not in my life,” said Andreas.

  They had gotten to the edge of the forest, and stopped. The path led on, past the gravel pit, and through fields and meadows to the next village.

  “Are you happy?” asked Andreas.

  “I’m not unhappy,” said Fabienne. “Let’s go back.”

  Andreas said he had the feeling of having done something incredibly stupid that would never be made up for.

  “I can still remember writing the letter. I had something to eat in a pizza place near the Opera. It was evening, I was alone, and I started writing in my notebook, about our first meeting, and driving to the lake, and kissing you. Our story. And that I wanted it to continue. If I’d had an envelope and a stamp, I think I might have mailed it to you right away. But the next morning, I no longer dared.”

  They were silent. Andreas wondered if the relationship could have lasted. They had both been so young. Maybe he would have made Fabienne unhappy, maybe they would have split up long ago. Or they would still be together, one of those couples that stick together because they’re each so afraid of being alone. They didn’t really fit. At that time, it hadn’t seemed to matter to him. He wanted to convince himself that the only reason his love had lasted so long was because it had remained unrequited. He asked Fabienne what she was thinking. Nothing, she said.

  “What does your girlfriend say about you going to meet me all the time?”

  “That’s over. She went back to France. It wasn’t anything serious.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  Andreas said he didn’t know what to say about Delphine. He didn’t want to think about her or talk about her, least of all with Fabienne.

  “What does she look like?”

  “Short brown hair, quite a pretty face. About as tall as you, but not such a beautiful figure.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “I don’t think so. Certainly not as much as I loved you.”

  As I love you, he thought, but didn’t say it. He said there had been a time that he could imagine starting a family, having children, settling down somewhere. But that time had passed. He couldn’t even claim to regret it. He wasn’t sure he still wanted to love someone as passionately as when he was twenty.

  “What about her? Does she love you?”

  “I don’t know. I think she might.”

  “And isn’t that enough for you?”

  She asked what had made Delphine go back. Andreas wanted to tell her that he wasn’t going back to Paris, that he would stay in the village, but suddenly his plan struck him as absurd. He had come here on her account. If the story with her was over, ther
e was no sense in staying here. He said he had quarreled with Delphine. Something trivial.

  “That’s none of my business,” said Fabienne.

  They were back at the hut. Fabienne said she was expected at home, her menfolk would be back soon.

  “And you’re making lunch for them.”

  “Yes,” said Fabienne. “I’m making lunch for them.”

  “Will you tell Manuel? About what happened?”

  Fabienne shook her head. What for? She gave Andreas her hand and said good-bye. He shook hands, and kissed her on the cheeks. She got on her bike. She had ridden a few yards when she stopped.

  “I almost forgot something,” she said. She got down, and pulled the little book Andreas had given her out of her jacket pocket. He came a little nearer, but he didn’t take the book.

  “Did you read it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “There must be hundreds of stories like ours.”

  “But all the details. The fact that I called you Butterfly …”

  “That wasn’t you. That was Manuel’s name for me.”

  “And the cat she buys herself when she returns to Paris?”

  “I never had a cat.”

  Andreas asked if she was sure. Fabienne laughed at him.

  “That must have been a different girl.”

  “I suppose it’s the story of you and Manuel, then,” said Andreas.

  “No,” said Fabienne, “it is our story. What I have with Manuel isn’t a story. It’s reality.”

  They stood and faced each other. Then Fabienne put her arms around Andreas and kissed him on the mouth. It was their first kiss. Her lips were dry and a little rough, it was the kiss of a young girl. They kissed for a long time until they were both out of breath.

  “Keep the book,” said Andreas as they finally broke.

  Fabienne smiled. Without another word, she got on her bike and rode off. Andreas watched her go. She stood on the pedals, the bicycle swayed from side to side. The road led along the edge of the forest, past a meadow full of old fruit trees and a farmhouse. By the time Fabienne reached the first houses in the village, she was just a yellow dot.