Where Love Begins

by Judith Hermann

  She says, We had a quiet time. I felt detached. I’ll have to see.

  Julia doesn’t turn to Stella. She is looking towards the window as if she were sitting in the kitchen by herself; the spoon in her lap turning like the needle on a compass. It doesn’t matter to Stella. Still, it would be a gift if Julia would say something, unexpectedly, something simple and absolutely right.

  The night under the open sky was beautiful, Stella says. The night under the open sky was actually the most beautiful part.

  *

  In the garden that evening at home Stella gets the lawn sprinkler out of the shed for Ava and turns it on. Ava squeezes her eyes shut, trembling in expectation before the jet of water pivots and falls on her; she stands under the lawn sprinkler, arms close to her body, hands balled into fists. Stella collapses the garden umbrella, sets the table. Two plates, two glasses. Too little. Voices from the other gardens, the slamming of screen doors, the chinking of ice cubes. The telephone rings, and Ava, soaking wet, runs into the house. It’s Jason.

  Is everything all right? How are you?

  It’s hot, Stella says. You’re not here. We’re all right.

  *

  And now Mister Pfister puts something into the mailbox every day.

  A letter in a red envelope, sturdy, heavy paper, like an invitation to a children’s birthday party, dropped in at three o’clock at night.

  A letter in a yellow envelope with nothing on it but Stella’s name.

  An awful piece of graph paper covered with tiny letters from the first to the last square, an ants’ scrawl with whorls and circles twining through them, all doodled with a ballpoint pen.

  On Tuesday morning he puts a slip of paper into the mailbox with the word Wednesday on it.

  He puts a Dictaphone into the mailbox. A USB flash drive. A self-burned CD in a sleeve sealed with gaffer tape. A small, transparent bag with some indefinable things inside – pips?

  He puts a piece of cardboard into the mailbox; a symbol has been drawn on the piece of cardboard that perplexes Stella because it resembles the symbols somebody or other once scratched into the doorsill of Stella and Clara’s apartment in the city ten years ago; three intertwined circular arcs, the symbol for an infinite connection; what does this symbol signify for Mister Pfister?

  Mister Pfister puts a roll of twine into the mailbox. A burned-down match, a cigarette lighter and a dirty lollipop on a gnawed stick.

  For one entire day he puts nothing into the mailbox, a nothing full of insinuations, a pulsating caesura.

  Then he puts a sheet of music paper into the mailbox with scribbles between the lines of the stave and the clef thoroughly scribbled over.

  I haven’t been listening to music for a long time, Stella thinks. Anyhow, not for a long time.

  She waits for mail from Clara. For Clara’s perspective on Mister Pfister’s abyss, the spiral with the botanical name, for her energetic protection. But it seems that Clara thinks Stella can take care of herself.

  *

  On Friday there’s a photo in the mailbox. Stella tries not to look at the photo, and fails. On her way to the shed, to the shoebox, she stops in the glaring sunshine, holding the photo in her hand, bends down to look at it, studies it, can’t help herself.

  Is that Mister Pfister?

  No doubt about it, it is.

  Mister Pfister next to his mother or next to his grandmother, in any case Mister Pfister next to an older woman in a living room; the living room is gloomy, a couch, a low table, and a puny Christmas tree, half of its branches draped with tinsel. Mister Pfister’s facial expression is indescribable. The woman beside him sits with staring eyes and seems petrified as if she were facing a serious threat; the atmosphere of the room is totally depressing. The room isn’t a room in Mister Pfister’s house, Stella is sure of that; the window behind the couch isn’t the kind used in the housing development. Possibly it’s a window in an apartment house, maybe a window in a high-rise building. The photo is out of focus, blurry, bad. It is so bleak that it makes Stella feel sick, a sick feeling somewhere between fear and anger. What is this photo doing in her mailbox anyway and in her hand. Why should she have to concern herself with a photo like this, with a stranger’s private horror? Stella stands outside the shed with the photo; turning around, she looks across the garden out to the deserted street. Noonday. No shade, no birdsong, not a soul. She’d like to tear the photo into little scraps, but she has to show it to Jason, she has to pass it on, definitely must hand it over; she feels an intense need to wash her hands. The shed is stuffy and dark. The shoebox under the workbench has a pronounced heft.

  *

  That evening Stella sits by Ava’s bed until Ava falls asleep. Ava’s breaths changing from sighs, questioning sounds, into a slow rhythm that Stella listens to for a long time. Breathing as if there were nothing to fear in this world. Ava’s tight grip on Stella’s hand relaxes; then she lets go, turns onto her side and straightens her legs. Stella pushes up the window, switches on the night-light in the globe, and leaves the room on tiptoe. In the kitchen the radio is humming, the tap dripping, the remnants of their supper still on the table. For a while Stella leans against the door to the already dim living room with her arms crossed, then she goes into the kitchen, back to the living room, into the hall, and finally into Jason’s room; she sits down at Jason’s desk and turns on the computer. Sits there and watches as the screen lights up; then she enters the word stalking into the search field, one letter at a time.

  To stalk – to hound, chase, walk stiffly, strut Obsessive and abnormally long pattern of menacing by means of harassment directed towards a particular individual

  A manner of behaviour in which one person repeatedly forces unwanted communication and contact on the other person; the behaviour must occur several times and be perceived as undesirable and invasive, and it may cause fear and anxiety

  To be categorised as the victim of stalking, at least two separate behavioural patterns that violated the private sphere of a person must have been reported, and whereas these must have continued for at least eight weeks and must be causing fear

  It’s almost funny. What is she supposed to do with such phrases. Delusion of love, reflection, psychological intimidation. Person. Strutting person. Boundary. Recognition of a boundary. Violation of a boundary. Stella’s fingertips feel numb. She’d like to have a cold beer. Smoke a cigarette. Open a book. Go to sleep.

  Did Jason read the same thing she did?

  I read about it, Stella can hear Jason’s voice. She turns off the computer, leans back, and remains sitting in Jason’s environment that has now suddenly become disquieting; his mail, his glasses, his pencils, 6B pencils sharpened with the blade of his cutter and equipped with a protective silver cover. Photos above his desk and on the wall, Stella in the morning, an old model Lada Niva car, Ava lying on her tummy, her little head raised, a drop of saliva on her chin, and a photo of a suburban town on a river taken on the only trip Stella and Jason took together, a trip before Ava was born. What does the choice of photos imply. And what does it mean that Stella is looking at them, not Jason. What does Jason’s absence signify.

  Stella tilts her head and looks for a long time at the photo of the suburban town. Innumerable balconies above and next to one another; the meadows along the river’s edge, muddy; the water, glittering. Jason had said, This is where I’d like to live with you. The day had been rainy, they had walked hand in hand; Stella was pregnant and hadn’t known. They didn’t move to the development by the river. They moved into another housing development, into this one, and at some point they’ll move elsewhere. Mister Pfister will stay here. He is going to stay here; he won’t move elsewhere; that’s how it will be.

  Mentally, Stella counts off the days. Twenty-five – not even half of the eight weeks have passed. She gets up from the desk. Then she leaves the room.

  Twelve

  Jason comes back along with the cold. Steady rain and gusty wind; he’s standing in the hall, al
ready thoroughly soaked from the short walk through the garden from the car, and pushing his bag and backpack into the house with his foot.

  You’re here, Ava says.

  She goes on sitting at the kitchen table, drawing her picture: a house in the woods surrounded by giant butterflies; she draws an endlessly long butterfly antenna, and Jason takes hold of her and lifts her up. He says, You’re just like a cat, you’re only pretending you’re not glad to see me, and Stella sees Ava’s chin quivering with joy.

  Jason has brought a perch he caught himself. He’s brought a sceptre carved from birchwood for Ava and a lake pebble for Stella. He is tanned and looks unkempt, unshaved. You’re so scratchy, Ava says, and for one selfish moment Stella wishes she could be all alone with Jason.

  You got very tall, Jason says. You’ve grown like crazy, both of you.

  Like crazy.

  Ava stands with her back against the door frame in the kitchen, and Jason draws a new line above her little head, one metre and three centimetres. Ava has grown two centimetres since the last line, a line drawn in the winter, in long-ago January. She continues to stand in the door frame and looks at the new line, proud and doubting.

  How long will you be staying, Stella says. When do you have to leave again; she turns away before Jason can answer her.

  *

  They eat the fish that evening. Daylight fades away; rain falls outside the kitchen window like a wall. The barrel at the corner of the house fills up and overflows, the rain drums onto the outside metal windowsills and against the windowpane. Jason takes a bath. Ava sits down near him. Stella dries the dishes. Listening to their voices. Jason’s stories about perch, sunken boats, about trips, and about the summer, Ava’s questions.

  It was very hot here when you were gone. So hot. In kindergarten we all played only in the shade, nobody wanted to go into the sun.

  You have to do what the chickens do when it gets so hot.

  What do the chickens do?

  A chicken just lies down flat on the ground. As flat as possible, with its wings spread out. It lies down in the dust with outspread wings.

  Ava says nothing. Then she says, we’re not allowed to do that. In kindergarten. I’m sure we’re not allowed to lie down in the dust, and Stella hears Jason’s absent-minded laughter. She clamps Ava’s picture under the magnet on the refrigerator. She unpacks Jason’s bag, putting the book he’s pretending to read on the bottom step of the staircase – he’ll take it up with him later; the book on the night table will be like a sign of his presence – and she finds her joy at that puzzling and complicated. She opens the front door and looks out into the now-whispering rain for a while. Jason’s car is in the driveway, a sign of his presence to the outside world; it’s all much too simple. Mister Pfister won’t ring the bell tonight. Whenever that car is parked in front of the house he’ll busy himself with something else, and he’ll collect all the things that are intended for Stella and put them all together. He’ll save them up for Stella.

  *

  On the third evening she fetches the box from the shed. The garden, overwhelmed by the rain, is a fertile, lush wilderness. Honeysuckle, broom in bloom. The feeling of actually wanting to do something else and not knowing what and instead fetching this box out of the dirty darkness under the workbench is like a symptom. Stella carries the box across the lawn into the house. She is about to put it on the kitchen table and then changes her mind after all; she puts it on the floor, in front of Jason’s feet, leaves it to Jason to lift off the cover.

  She says, Careful.

  Jason says, Good heavens.

  He sits there bent over the box. Takes things out and lets them drop back in again. The lighter, the roll of packing twine. He opens the red envelope that Stella didn’t open, takes out a piece of paper with dense writing on it, leans back and reads.

  What does it say, Stella says.

  Can you just wait a minute, Jason says. He says, Please.

  Then he says, Nothing bad. It doesn’t say anything bad. But something … sick, incomprehensible. Drivel, Jason says it as if the entire world were held together by drivel, as if drivel were a principle of life.

  He says, Here, take it; it’s all right; you can read it.

  He holds the piece of paper out to Stella, a little too close. Stella pushes it away.

  I don’t want to read it.

  She looks at Jason and suddenly wonders whether it might be possible to understand Mister Pfister after all. Impossible for Jason maybe, but possible for her? She understands Dermot; she understands Julia’s final, decisive silence; she understands Esther’s irritability and Walter’s indistinct speech; after all, she understands quite a few things; maybe she should just find out more about Mister Pfister’s way of thinking. About the hints, the chorus of voices that seem to vibrate from the box. Also for strategic reasons. To know what makes Mister Pfister tick, how he functions.

  But she says, I don’t want to read any of that. None of it. I only want to know that there’s nothing in there about Ava. Nothing that might signal something, do you understand? A threat, an intrusion, something that would go beyond this here.

  This here. Gesturing at the box.

  There’s nothing about Ava in this, Jason says. He’s reading as he says it; he’s reading the page with the ant-like writing, shaking his head as he reads; he says, Disgusting, there’s something disgusting about it. It’s probably good that you don’t want to read it. There’s nothing in here about Ava and nothing about you. Nothing really about you.

  What would a sentence about me be, Stella wonders. A sentence about me that would mean something to you, and the impossibility of finding an answer to this question is clear and stark. She thinks, I’m actually a mythical figure for Jason. A mythical figure. There’s nothing that he could say about me really, no description that could apply to me.

  Stella gets up. Now Jason is holding the photo and looking at it with a critical expression. He says, My goodness. This is the last straw, isn’t it.

  He holds up the photo; shows it to Stella as if assuming that she hadn’t seen it yet. He looks at Stella, he sees that she is pale, but she doesn’t seem pale enough for him to reach out to her, to touch her.

  He says, I’ll go by there. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll go over there.

  He says, You were there already, weren’t you. Passed by his place, didn’t you.

  No, of course not, Stella says. I haven’t gone by his place.

  As far as she can remember, this is the first time she has ever lied to Jason.

  Thirteen

  Jason takes Ava to her kindergarten on Stella’s bicycle. He comes back, spends an hour at his desk with the door closed, looking through his mail and telephoning. Then, taking a garden chair to the edge of the meadow, he sits down there with his back to the house.

  He brushes his hand from the back of his neck over his head, a gesture Stella loves – not that she would ever have told him that. She assumes that if she told him he would no longer do it.

  *

  She’s sitting at her desk upstairs in her room, writing a letter to Clara – the entire garden smells like a greenhouse, and in the evening the rabbits venture out of the field; Jason is back; I live like a war bride; you know, don’t you, what I feel like? What is your life like, and how far removed is that life from the life we imagined ten years ago, and does it even matter – She can hear Jason downstairs in the kitchen; the refrigerator door opening and closing again; he moves the chairs closer to the table and puts the dishes into the dishwasher that Stella never uses, and turns it on; then he sweeps the sunroom. He takes the bottled water crates out and sets them next to the car; goes back into the hall, closes the front door behind him, stands in the hall doing nothing; maybe he’s looking through the little window at the garden. He goes back through the living room into the kitchen and seems to stop and hesitate next to Stella’s armchair with all the books around it; if he were observant, he’d be able to see that Stella hasn’t sat in that armcha
ir for the last two weeks, not really read anything in it for two weeks; the pile of books is completely neglected; how observant is Jason actually, and which book is Stella trying to read just now in spite of everything; I’m trying to read a book by an author in which there actually are sentences like: A man in love walks through the world like an anarchist, carrying a time bomb. There’s nothing more to do in the kitchen. Jason clears his throat; there’s a note of warning in it. Then at last he comes up the stairs, stops at Stella’s door, and says, Am I bothering you.

  No, Stella says.

  She puts the pen down on the paper and turns to face him.

  *

  Jason is sitting on the guest bed, his back leaning against the wall, his legs crossed, a rare visitor. Stella stays at her desk; suddenly she finds it odd to see Jason in her room surrounded by things that belong to her: on the same bed – under the shelf attached to the wall on which there sat a porcelain cardinal bird next to a snow globe, a golden Buddha, and a row of pebbles from the Black Sea – the bed on which, day after day, she had fallen into restless sleep at noon in the apartment she shared with Clara ten years ago. Stella’s bookshelf, Stella’s desk, her pens and candles, to Jason some surely foolish-seeming incense sticks, the pearl necklaces around the chair leg, the bird feather on the wall, and the orange cloth clamped for the last two weeks into the window frame and tied around the window handle, an orange cloth with white peacocks on it. Stella suspects that at some point Jason made contact with all this, made contact with Stella’s world. As if he’d been on an expedition, maybe it was arduous, painfully slow. Has he, leaning back on her bed, arms crossed over his chest, and eyes almost closed, arrived now? Would he like to stay, or would he like to travel onward, or go back again, or somewhere else. Stella sees Jason’s – to her beautiful and unapproachable – face. She feels that she can’t change anything in his movements, wherever they will lead, forward or back, and surprisingly, this is bearable.