Unformed Landscape

by Peter Stamm

  When Kathrine woke up, Jurgen was gone. There was a knocking on the door, and then more knocking. She opened it without getting up. It was the sleeping-car conductor. He handed her her ticket back, and her passport, and said they would arrive in Paris in a quarter of an hour, and he wished her an enjoyable stay. Kathrine looked at her watch. The houses outside must already belong to Paris. The train traveled through endless suburbs, past tall, narrow houses, through suburban stations. There were lots of people standing on the platforms, watching as the train rushed through. A few were reading newspapers, a few turned their heads to watch. There must be a Kathrine among them, or a Catherine, with a child and a husband and a lover. Someone who stood there every morning, went to work, made coffee, ate lunch with her colleagues, and went home again.

  Kathrine lay on her bunk and looked out the window. Outside, a very crowded commuter train slowly passed them, and the commuters stared across at her, quite unashamedly they stared, in the certainty that nothing would happen to them. Kathrine felt like pulling the blanket up over her head, but instead she stood up and went over to the window, dressed only in her panties and T-shirt. She tried to make the men look at her, but they all lowered their eyes. Only one young man kept looking, their eyes met briefly.

  The sleeper slowed down. The other train had now overtaken it, and beyond the tracks, Kathrine could see gigantic warehouses and factories, ugly yellow-white or gray buildings, with the names of companies on them that she had never seen before. The city looked different from the way Kathrine had imagined it, different from Thomas’s descriptions of it. But then, this isn’t Thomas’s Paris, she thought, this is my Paris.

  She got dressed, and went to the washroom. She was astonished to see herself in the mirror. When she looked in her eyes, she saw the fear she had almost forgotten she had.

  In the metro an old man and a young woman were performing together. The man played an accordion while the woman sang. Kathrine knew they were from Russia, she didn’t need to look at the little cardboard sign they had in front of them on the ground, next to a little saucer of money.

  She thought about Alexander, who was dead, who was no longer there. If they at least manage to find him, and give him a burial. Even the dead deserved a place. But he was gone, just gone, vanished in the same way as she had vanished. Nothing was where it was supposed to be anymore.

  She got on the first metro that arrived. As it drove off, it made sounds like a ship and swayed a little from side to side. Kathrine had sat down on a folding seat. Opposite her was a man in white socks reading a newspaper, who looked at Kathrine over the top of his reading glasses from time to time. She looked out the window. The name of the first station was Poissonniere. Poisson, as she remembered, was the word for fish. That’s what it said on the boxes at Nils H. Nilsen’s. Filet de Poisson.

  She traveled a couple of stops, and then got off. She walked along tunnels and underground lobbies and found herself—without having seen daylight—in one of the vast department stores Thomas had mentioned to her. But everything was different from the way he had described it. She wondered whether he had lied to her, or she had perhaps deceived herself, not understanding what he was telling her. There must be a colored glass dome in a café somewhere. She took the elevator to the top floor, where the café was. But there wasn’t any colored glass dome. The place was very big, with cheap decor, white-painted wooden lattices, and plastic blossoming boughs, which gave it the appearance of a garden café. Printemps, Kathrine knew, meant spring. She had never been in a garden café before, but she knew right away what it was, and perhaps for that reason mistrusted it. It looks, she thought, the way a Norwegian who has never seen a garden café might imagine one to look. She smiled. She got herself a coffee, and sat down at one of the tables.

  Nearby sat a man of about fifty. He wasn’t eating or drinking anything. Beside him he had a sheaf of papers covered with writing. He looked over at Kathrine. She smiled, but he didn’t react, and just looked at her for a long time with curiosity. She put her tray back, and took the escalator downstairs. Then she saw the colored glass dome, over the atrium in the middle of the building. It was pretty, but Kathrine had imagined it would be bigger and prettier.

  She walked along between counters, as though looking for someone. Everything was much too nice for her. Undergarments were called lingerie in French. She took an unbelievably sheer nightie, all trimmed with lace, off a rack, held it in front of herself, and looked at the effect in the mirror. It was a ridiculous sight, the dark blue fleece over her shoulders and the fine, flowing silk. It’s so delicate, she thought, I could just stuff it in my pocket and leave with it. But that’s not my style. She looked at the price tag. That wasn’t her style, either. The whole department store smelled of vanilla.

  On the ground floor, she bought herself some perfume. She passed the counters of the various cosmetics firms, the young salesgirls who were no prettier than she was, but much better dressed, and carefully made up. They spoke to the customers, and squirted perfume on their hands, the backs of their hands, their wrists. None of them came up to Kathrine. At one counter, there was a little purple bottle, with the word Poison on it in gold. Fish, she thought, what a strange name for a perfume. She held out her hand to one of the salesgirls, who took it between her fingertips, turned it over, and squirted some perfume on her wrist. Kathrine sniffed at it, but she couldn’t smell it in the suffocating scent of a thousand other perfumes. She could only smell the alcohol, which slowly evaporated and chilled her wrist. The salesgirl had already turned away. She was talking to a colleague, and Kathrine had the feeling they were both making fun of her, maybe for the suitcase she was carrying around with her. Then she said she wanted a bottle of Poison. It was very expensive, but who cared.

  She went out on the street. A man walked by, dressed like an orange. Kathrine was relieved when she saw the steps down to the metro. She was relieved that she knew where she was going. She was looking forward to seeing Christian, and hoped he would be pleased at her visit. She was annoyed she hadn’t traveled through to Boulogne.

  She imagined how Christian would touch her, how he would kiss her neck, push his hand under her fleece, under her T-shirt. He was lying next to her, kissing her, his hands were everywhere, he was whispering in her ear, he was lying on top of her, she sat on him. The room was furnished with beautiful antiques. There was even an open fireplace, with a fire burning. It was warm, and there were lots of blankets and sheets on the bed, and a very soft mattress that squeaked when they moved.

  Kathrine took the metro back to the Gare du Nord. The Russian singer and her accompanist, her father or her lover, weren’t there anymore, but maybe that was a different tunnel than Kathrine was going through this time, she couldn’t be sure.

  Dusk was falling as Kathrine arrived in Boulogne. She asked a taxi driver for directions to the Hotel du Vieux Matelot, and then walked there, even though it was raining, and it was a long way. The hotel was an ugly modern building. The door was locked. Kathrine rang. It took a long time for someone to answer, then a young man came along. Before letting her in, he scrutinized her through the glass door. She asked whether Christian Nygard was staying at the hotel. The young man nodded, and asked whether she wanted a room. Yes, she said. The man had her fill out a form, and handed her a key. She asked what Christian’s room number was. Seventeen, said the young man, he had put them both on the same floor. But Monsieur didn’t get back from work until very late. The room was furnished with old pieces that didn’t go together. On the wall there was a color print of Venice. The heating was off, and the room took a long time to get warm, after Kathrine had turned the knob. The view out of the window was of a narrow street. There was no one around at all.

  So this was where Christian was staying, and this was his life, these little rooms in hotels, in some town or other. Kathrine wondered what he had in the way of possessions that he took with him, if he had books or pictures from home. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure whether it was such a
good idea to come. They had liked each other quite well, but maybe there was a woman here whom Christian liked too. A woman who walked through these streets every morning, who had caught his eye, whom he had spoken to in a café or a bar. A customs employee, thought Kathrine, called Chantal or Marianne, with a baby. Unhappy. Christian will meet her, they will drink wine together, he will show her the home page of his company, later on he’ll send her e-mails, which will say that the women in Denmark are different from the women in France. She will write back, first in the hope that the episode was more than that, because she will believe she’s found at least a friend, and then later on out of habit. Christian won’t make her happy, Chantal, or Marianne, or whatever her name is.

  Christian was no sort of Don Juan, he hadn’t so much as kissed Kathrine. But maybe he just hadn’t liked her. Her breasts were on the small side, too small, she thought. And she was too boyish altogether, she hardly had any hips. And she’d rather have been blond. Why didn’t she get her hair dyed, Thomas had suggested once, but she didn’t want to do that.

  Perhaps Christian liked women better who had big breasts and blond hair. Perhaps he liked exuberant women with long, painted fingernails. Women who laughed aloud and had a slinky walk like cats. Maybe French women were different, the way Portuguese women were different. That’s what he’d written to her after all, back when he’d been in Portugal. I’m sure, thought Kathrine, that he’s got a girl here and a woman there. He’ll be annoyed that I showed up. I’ll see him at breakfast, she thought, I won’t knock on his door. He can’t do anything about me staying here, it’s a free country, I can do as I please. But what’s that good for? It got darker in the room. Kathrine didn’t turn the light on. She was incredibly tired, she had never felt so tired. She lay on the bed, she thought about Thomas, she thought about her son, her mother, Alexander. It was as though she was thinking twice over, as though a second stream of thoughts were following the first, that only occasionally left her with a picture and penetrated her consciousness, a dark, blurry picture where you couldn’t make out much, a room, people who were doing things or had done something, some expectation or memory.

  She was afraid. She felt she was losing her mind. As if she were very old and had a life full of enigmatic encounters behind her, of which she had only a dim memory. There were hints of dreams, maybe dreams she had once had, and that now that they were coming at the wrong time, only frightened her. Stories waiting for their endings. There was something to be done, but she didn’t know what it was. Someone wanted something from her. People were crowding her. A shadow, which seemed to be her, was running off ahead, and she couldn’t catch up with it. There was a world waiting for her, just by her, an incredibly big, dark world, with laws of its own. Nothing went away. The other figures only moved when she moved. Just like the game she’d played when she’d been a child. You had your back turned to the others, and they ran toward you, and when you turned round, they stopped still. It was Kathrine’s turn, but she didn’t dare to turn away. She was afraid the others would jump on her if she turned her back.

  She didn’t move. She stood by the window and waited, just waited for the figures to disappear. It was cold in the room. Kathrine pulled her uniform out of her suitcase, and put it on. She looked at herself in the mirror, ran her hands over the stout material of the overalls. A customs inspector, she thought, but it didn’t help. She took the bedspread off the bed, rolled herself up in it, and lay down on the floor next to the radiator, which was slowly getting warm. She cried silently to herself. She was afraid.

  Kathrine didn’t know how much time had passed when she heard a knock on the door. She was still lying on the floor next to the heater. It was dark in the window, she could see a slice of sky, but no stars. She heard Christian’s voice. Kathrine, he called, are you there? Yes, she called back, I’m coming.

  When she saw Christian’s shocked expression, she almost had to laugh. She threw herself around his neck and said, I’m so glad you’re here. He held her a little awkwardly, gave her little pats on the back, and asked if she was all right. And what she was doing here. And how she had found him. And why she was wearing her uniform. They let go of each other. Kathrine sat down on the bed. Christian switched on the overhead light and shut the door. Then he sat on the bed, a little bit away from Kathrine.

  “Your parents told me where you were.”

  “You saw my parents? Did she let you in?”

  “Have you got time for me? I don’t want to… have you got a girlfriend here?”

  “A girl in every town,” Christian laughed. “I have so much work to do…”

  “What time is it?”

  “Nine o’clock. Shall we go and eat something? The restaurants close early in winter here.”

  Kathrine went into the bathroom. She left the door slightly ajar, and talked to Christian while she got changed. He asked her what she felt like eating.

  They ate in a bistro near the hotel. It was cold. The waiter pushed a paraffin stove nearer to their table, but it didn’t help much. The food was not especially good. The wine warmed Kathrine up, and gradually dispelled her confusion. Christian asked why she’d left, what she’d come here for. And she told him about Thomas’s lies, and her flight. She told him how she’d followed Thomas to his parents’ hut, and how he’d sat there motionless. That she’d been frightened. She didn’t talk about Morten.

  “Why does everyone up there have those little huts? What happens in them?”

  “They go there on Saturdays,” said Kathrine. “They sit at tables, and drink coffee or beer. And on Sunday, they go back home again.”

  Christian laughed.

  “Since I’ve left, I haven’t seen the sun,” said Kathrine. “I felt frightened.”

  “Are you frightened now?”

  “I’m not sure. It might come back. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

  “Fear is the possibility of freedom,” said Christian, and he smiled. “How did you like Paris?”

  Kathrine said she hadn’t seen much of Paris. Christian pulled a yellow envelope out of his briefcase, and took a pile of photographs out of it.

  “I was there last weekend,” he said. “Do you want to see the pictures I took? I picked them up today.”

  They looked at the photographs together. The waiter brought coffee, and offered them each a calvados. He filled their glasses up to the brim.

  Paris looked the way Kathrine had imagined it, the way she’d seen it in travel brochures and book illustrations. A beautiful city under a blue sky.

  “It’s beautiful, even when it’s raining,” said Christian. “You should have seen it.”

  “What happens now?” asked Kathrine.

  “I go home in two days. It took longer than we planned, but we’re done now. The final run-through is tomorrow.”

  He asked if she had enough money, and if she felt like visiting the factory tomorrow, and having a look at the machinery.

  “Do you want to meet me for breakfast?” he asked, once they were back at the hotel.

  “OK,” she said. “Christian…?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m not going back.”

  “I see.”

  “And thank you. Thank you for dinner.”

  The fish factory was in a little southern suburb of the city. Kathrine and Christian took the bus. They walked the last bit along the cliffs. The sky was still overcast, but it was starting to clear in the west, and the sea had a white sheen in the sun.

  “Has the sun come back where you are?” asked Christian.

  “Probably, for a couple of days now,” said Kathrine. “Hard to say. It comes back so slowly. You hardly notice.”

  She hated the darkness, she said.

  In the factory, Christian gave her a white coat and a white gauze hood. He waited for her outside the women’s locker room. He was in a coat and hood as well.

  “It’s crazy,” said Kathrine. “I come to France for the first time in my life, and I see a fish factory. I have
n’t even seen the Eiffel Tower.”

  “You’re right, this isn’t much different from Nils H. Nilsen’s,” admitted Christian. “Sorry. I didn’t think of that.” He pointed to a machine. “A Baader 142 Princess Cut Slaughtering machine.”

  “I wish you’d saved it to impress your other girlfriends,” Kathrine said, laughing.

  “If we leave early tomorrow, we can go and see the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Would you like that?”

  Kathrine hesitated.

  “Sure… well, I don’t know what your plans are,” said Christian.

  “What about you? What do you want?”

  “I’ll be happy to show you the Eiffel Tower,” said Christian. They passed long rows of male and female workers who picked the split fish carcasses from the conveyor belt, and trimmed them to filets with a few swift knife strokes, and tossed the pieces on another conveyor belt. Kathrine remembered her father, the way he stood there, slightly hunched forward, his back hurting. He turned around, and threw her a half a fish, which she caught and threw back. That’s a nice fish you caught, said her father, and he carried on working. They were paid for piecework.

  “But you’ve seen it all before,” said Christian.

  Kathrine said she’d go back to town, she wanted to walk on the beach. He said the test run was starting at ten o’clock, it wouldn’t take much longer. Actually, the tests had all been done, and this was more by way of a demonstration for the management.

  “After that we go for lunch, and drink wine and calvados, and I should be all done by around two o’clock.”

  He took Kathrine back to the locker room. They arranged to meet back at the hotel in the early afternoon. Kathrine washed her hands, dropped her coat in a blue laundry tub, and left the factory.