Seven Years, page 7
Wouldn’t it be nice to live here?, she asked once. Yes, I said, either to do her a kindness or because at that moment I really believed it, forgetting that I could hardly speak a word of French, and would never land a proper job in this city. I didn’t think about Munich, or of the future; time seemed to stand still, as though there was only the sea and the city and the heat. When a wind picked up, I thought about Africa. I had been looking at a picture book on the Kalahari Desert, and was sitting there dreamily. I saw great expanses of veldt full of animals, herds of animals moving over the plain, quickly and aimlessly. They trotted, galloped, and grazed. They ran across the expanse, following some invisible routes, always the same routes since the year one. They reached a water hole, a pasture, they disappeared into the distance, the wind blew away their traces.
Once there was a trivial quarrel with Antje. I had left a couple of dirty cups in the sink, and she accused us of using her apartment like a hotel. She wasn’t some chambermaid, with nothing better to do than tidy up after us. Sonia felt bad, though it wasn’t her fault. We quickly patched things up with Antje, but the atmosphere wasn’t the same. Two days later we left.
Antje didn’t get up until we had had breakfast. I made her some coffee. Sonia said she was going shopping in town. Antje asked Sonia to take her along, she had to check in on the gallery and run a couple of errands besides. I asked her if she wasn’t tired. No, she said roughly, and drank her coffee standing up.
Sophie wanted to watch a movie. Just this once, said Sonia, although it was really a very common occurrence. Sonia had distinct notions of how to raise a child, and even though she kept having to make compromises, she wasn’t prepared to abandon her ideal line. That way, Sophie’s upbringing presented itself as a sequence of exceptions. Sophie had learned how to live with that. Each of her appeals ended in “just this once.” And since Sonia and I were generally overworked and felt guilty for not spending enough time with Sophie, we rarely denied her. But only once you’ve fed Mathilda and changed her litter, said Sonia. Why is it always me who has to do that, groaned Sophie. You wanted a cat, said Sonia, now you have to look after her.
The two women set off. I put in a DVD for Sophie and went out to the garden. The fog had lifted a little and the sun was peeping through, but the air was still chilly. We had a few vegetable beds where we grew lettuces and vegetables in summer, but this year had been so rainy that we hardly harvested anything, and had neglected the garden out of annoyance. The tomato plants had rotted away, their fruits had gone black and fell off at the slightest touch and splattered on the ground. A few tiny cabbage heads lost themselves in the rampant grass, the cucumber that I’d once trained up a wooden stake had been attacked by mildew and was dried out. I ripped everything up and tossed it in the compost bin. I wanted to hoe the beds, but the ground was frozen. Instead I started to rake up the leaves that had dropped from our neighbor’s great sugar maple onto our tiny patch of lawn and onto the front yard. Once Sophie came out of the house and watched me, then she disappeared inside again. Shortly before noon, Antje and Sonia returned with bulging shopping bags. Half an hour later Sonia called me in to lunch.
After our meal we pulled on our coats and sat down outside to drink our coffee. Sonia talked to Antje about her time as in intern. Antje said Marseilles had changed, even since Sonia’s latest visit. The city was much cleaner than before, but it had gotten a bit boring too. Which is fine by me, she said, I’m not twenty anymore. Sonia said she had found it hard to settle in there, if Antje hadn’t introduced her to a few people, she would probably have spent the entire six months alone. You had so many visitors, said Antje. That’s not true, said Sonia, I did nothing but work all the time. Even so, it was perhaps the time of her life. Albert had trusted her, and she had learned an incredible amount. Do you remember the silly fellow who visited you?, asked Antje. The one who went on and on about udders? Jakob?, I asked. He didn’t visit me, Sonia said, he just turned up one day. Anyway, he came and stayed with us, said Antje. You thought he was so frightful, didn’t you?, I said. He just wrote to me a couple of times, said Sonia. He got the address from my parents. He called them and said he was an old friend, and they had no reason not to believe him.
Jakob had written Sonia long, wild letters that she didn’t answer. Then, in spring, shortly before she was due to return to Munich, he had gone to Marseilles and rung Antje’s doorbell.
And I let him in, said Antje. How was I to know that he and Sonia hardly knew each other? When she got back that evening, she was in for a shock. Why didn’t you just throw him out?, I asked. He was all right, said Antje. And he cooked for us too.
Jakob had come with veal sausages from his village butcher, and pretzels and beer, a whole little barrel from a local brewery. Sonia laughed, Antje had asked a few friends over, and they celebrated a proper bierfest, bang in the middle of Marseilles. We taught the French German songs, said Antje. “Annchen von Tharau.” Remember that? She started to hum the melody, and Sonia recited the words.
Würdest du gleich einmal von mir getrennt,
Lebtest, da wo man die Sonne kaum kennt;
Ich will dir folgen durch Wälder, durch Meer,
Eisen und Kerker und feindliches Heer.*
German chansons, said Antje laughing. After that we clearly couldn’t throw him out anymore.
Jakob stayed a whole week with the two women. He cooked for them every night and entertained them with his strange stories. How we used to laugh, said Antje. His village must be populated entirely by idiots. He wasn’t always like that, said Sonia. He seriously tried to convert me to Catholicism. We sat up whole nights arguing. You never told me about that, I said. You don’t tell me everything either, said Sonia. Antje shot me a dark look. No one spoke. Then Sonia told us about how one night Jakob declared his love for her. Seriously?, I said, and had to laugh. It wasn’t funny at all, said Sonia. He cried when I told him I was going to marry you. But he took it like an absolute gentleman. To this day, he sends me a card every birthday. And we exchange the occasional e-mail. Jakob was still living on his own, she said. He was a vet, and lived in his parents’ house in the Bayerischer Wald. When we were going through our rough patch, she had often called him on the phone, and he had been very helpful. He urged me to stay with you, she said. For Sophie’s sake. He respects the institution of marriage and family. I wanted to say something, but when I caught the look in Sonia’s eye, I just said, I’m going for a walk.
I walked through the village down to the lake. On the grounds of the Academy, I sat down on the shore. I sat in the shadow of a tree and looked out onto the water. A steamer went by, it had to be a charter tour, because the regular passenger steamers had stopped a month ago for the winter. There was no one to be seen on deck, but I could make out some shadowy shapes behind the tinted windows.
Sonia and I had chartered a boat when we got married. Her father paid for everything. There must have been eighty guests, loads of family on Sonia’s side, and friends and people who stood in some relation to her and her parents. I would have been quite happy if things had been more modest, but Sonia said her parents would be disappointed if we didn’t have a proper celebration. We almost argued when I said, whose wedding was this anyway? Sonia had spoken against me. A wedding was a social occasion, she said. And that’s what it was. If I hadn’t happened to be the groom, I’d have enjoyed it, I think. Everything was perfectly organized, the food was excellent, and the speeches were funny and suited the occasion. Only my father’s speech was a bit embarrassing. He wasn’t used to public speaking, and he was inhibited. In spite of that, he still seemed to feel it his duty to say something. He hadn’t prepared anything and lost his way. When I saw the smug, sympathetic looks on the faces of Sonia’s family, I hated her for a moment. Then my father managed to finish, and there was warm applause. Sonia hugged him, and her mother, evidently moved, went over and toasted with him. I had too much to drink that evening, and when Sonia and I were finally able to get away and disappeared into our hotel room, we were both so tired we collapsed into bed. Even so, I was unable to sleep for a long time. I could hear people talking and laughing outside long into the night, and felt slightly sorry for myself. I lay there in that grotesque four-poster bed with canopy and heart-shaped pillows, and could think of nothing but how much I was missing my friends.
A few bigger waves slapped against the shore, and then the lake was calm again. It was a strange notion, that Jakob had made a declaration of love to Sonia a matter of weeks before our wedding. I talked to her often on the phone that spring, to discuss the wedding and the honeymoon, but she never mentioned Jakob’s visit. I wondered if she had any feelings at all for him. I could remember her criticizing him after Rüdiger’s New Year’s party. That was the night I had proposed to her. Jakob had been unlucky and too late. Probably he loved her more than I had ever done. Maybe that’s why she chose me.
* If you were ever sundered from me / and lived somewhere that’s always winter / I will go through forests and seas for you / and brave prisons and chains and enemy armies.
We got back from Marseilles in a day as well. North of the Alps the weather was changeable. The sky was cloudy, and there were lots of showers.
Sonia dropped me off at the Olympic Village. She got out of the car with me, but when I tried to kiss her, it seemed to embarrass her. Shall we have a drink?, I asked her, but she said she was too tired, she was going straight home. When shall we see each other? I don’t know, said Sonia, I’ve got a lot going on in the next few days. In the end we made a date for Saturday.
Sonia had left me by the subway station. I got myself a cup of coffee from the stand there. The rain had stopped. The sound of the evening rush-hour traffic on the wet roads surrounded me like an invisible space. I walked to the tennis courts, where it was quieter. After the long drive, I felt like being outside, but I was tired, and all the benches were wet from the rain. My coffee had gotten cold, and I dumped the half-full cup in a bin. I was relieved to be on my own again. In my recollection, the past few days appeared more real than they had to me while I was living them. It was as though it was only just dawning on me now that Sonia and I were going out together. I felt like talking to someone, to convince myself, but I didn’t know who. In the end I went to the bungalow and called my parents. I told my mother about the trip, but not about Sonia. She was only half-listening, I could hear the TV on in the background.
When I called Sonia a couple of days later, to fix a time and place, she said she had arranged to go to the cinema with Birgit, one of her roommates. They were going to see Rain Man. I said I thought we had a date. Would it bother you if she came along?, said Sonia.
After the film, we had a glass of wine in a bar, and argued about Dustin Hoffman, whom I’d never liked, and who the girls thought was amazing. We didn’t agree about the film either. I said I couldn’t understand how Sonia could fall for such kitsch. She was hurt. She had treated me like a stranger the whole evening, and our difference of opinion didn’t help things. When I tried to kiss her, she turned her head away, and when I tried to take her hand she withdrew it. Fairly early on, she said she had to go to bed, she was tired. I walked the two of them home. I had hoped to spend the night at Sonia’s, but she said good night outside the door so emphatically, I didn’t want to say anything. I’ll give you a call, she said.
A couple of days later, she visited me. The weather had picked up, and we ate in the beer garden of the Olympic Village, and after that we walked in the park. For a long time we sat by the lake and discussed the competition entry Sonia was working on. She’d stopped asking me if I wanted to participate, and that was fine by me. The project didn’t interest me, Sonia’s ideas were all too practical for me; I didn’t listen to her, and watched the girls jogging by alone or in little groups, and thought about other stuff. When Sonia paused, I cut in to ask her if we were actually an item still or not. Of course we are, she said in astonishment. I said I thought she had treated me like a stranger on Saturday. She said she was tired. Anyway, her roommates didn’t know about us yet. Are you ashamed of me? Oh nonsense, said Sonia, and shook her head.
She went back to the bungalow with me that evening, and we slept together, but I had the sense she was doing me a favor. The bed over the steps wasn’t especially solid, and it creaked so loud that Sonia finally asked if I was sure it would hold up. Do you think your neighbors are in? Never mind them, I said. I’ve heard them at it often enough. But the thought that someone might be listening to us bothered Sonia so much that she stiffened and grabbed hold of me. Not so hard, she said, or we’ll crash. She kissed me mechanically a couple of times, then she said she’d better go home, she had something in the morning she didn’t want to be late for.
We were now seeing each other regularly. Sonia invited me back to her place, and told Birgit and Tania about us. She did it in such a weirdly formal way, it felt like I was being introduced to her parents. In spite of that, I didn’t really have the feeling Sonia was my girlfriend. I would occasionally spend the night with her, but when we made love, I could feel her anxiousness. The least noise made her flinch. You know this isn’t a crime, I said. You don’t understand, said Sonia.
My internship started in September and Sonia’s in October. After she had sent in her competition entry, we had a couple of days free and drove to Stuttgart, to look at Mies van der Rohe’s Weissenhof Estate. She had been there once before, with the class, but I’d been low on funds and hadn’t been able to go with them. Now Sonia showed me around like a tour guide. She talked about stereometric form and the absence of ornament as a sign of spiritual force. To my mind the buildings were superficial and uninteresting. In their naive functionalism they were somehow of no particular period. Living isn’t just eating, sleeping, and reading the paper, I said. A living room is first and foremost a place of refuge. It has to offer protection from the elements, the sun, hostile people, and wild animals. Sonia laughed and said, well, I might just as well go to the nearest cave in that case.
We spent the night in a pretty basic hotel. On the staircase there was a vending machine for drinks, and we took a couple of bottles of beer up to our room. The floor in the hallway was linoleum, but the room was carpeted, with thick curtains in the windows, reeking of cigarette smoke. We sat down side by side on the bed, drinking our beer. Suddenly Sonia started laughing. I asked her what the matter was. She said this place was so awful, you had to laugh or cry. And she preferred the former. That night we made love. Sonia was much less inhibited than in Munich, perhaps the ugliness of our surroundings had a liberating effect on her. When I stood by the window later, smoking, she came up to me and took the cigarette from my hand, and had a puff. You’re cute when you smoke, I said, clasping her waist. Kiss me. Once in a blue moon, she said, pressing herself against me.
Sonia insisted on paying for the room, her father had given her money when she graduated. But surely not to keep a fancy man on, I said. Do they even know about me? Sonia hesitated, and I noticed that the subject was difficult for her. I had told my parents about Sonia, albeit in a casual way, and they hadn’t asked me any further questions.
Then my internship began, and now it was me who never had any time. The firm was on the edge of the city, and I rarely got back from work before nine or ten. I was so exhausted then that I didn’t feel like going out afterward. Sonia called me every day, but it didn’t seem to bother her that we only saw each other on weekends.
At the end of the month I had to move out of my bungalow in the Olympic Village. Birgit and Tania were fine with me staying in Sonia’s room until further notice. Before I could offer Sonia my help, she had already carted her things back to her parents’ house and tidied the room. I didn’t have a lot of stuff. A tabletop on two sawhorses, a mattress, and a couple of cardboard boxes full of books and records. I bequeathed the rest of my stuff to the person moving in after me. Rüdiger and Sonia helped me move, then we went for a meal together, and then they took the train back to Lake Starnberg. I had asked her to stay with me, but she wanted to spend her last few days in Germany with her parents. On the eve of her departure we met up one more time. Sonia was nervous and eager to get home. We said good-bye without making any promises. Be good, was all Sonia said as she got into her car. You too, I replied, and waved to her till she turned the corner.
We were a good match, so everyone said, but we both knew that plenty could happen in six months. Sonia had said she didn’t want to commit herself in any way. She was right at the beginning of her career. Maybe she’d stay in Marseilles, or she’d accept an offer to go somewhere else. She would love to work in a big bureau in London or New York. We’ll see, I said. Maybe it’ll be good for us to be separated for a while, Sonia said, and if we’re still together come the spring, well then, so much the better.
Sonia wrote me every week, so regularly that it seemed to me to express a duty rather than a need. She wrote to say she was fine, and she asked when I could visit. I replied that I had a lot on my plate, and wouldn’t be able to get away from Munich very easily. Maybe over the holidays. But she’d be in Starnberg with her parents then, she wrote. I got the sense she didn’t really mind conducting a long-distance relationship. She could use it to keep other men away, and give herself wholly to her work. Her boss was a genius, she wrote. She always referred to him by his first name, as though they were old friends, and after a very short time, it was all “we” and “us.” We’re building a day care. We’re entering a competition to build a conference center. We think architecture should appeal to all the senses, it wants to be seen, touched, smelled, and felt. I resisted the temptation to tell her to cut the crap. Presumably I was just jealous. The office where I was an intern specialized in unimaginative office buildings. The company motto was the customer knows best, or maybe money doesn’t stink. In one of her letters, Sonia quoted Hermann Hesse. So that the possible can come into being, the impossible has to be attempted again and again. I pictured her walking along the beach with her Albert, the mistral playing in her hair, and her appealing to all the senses of her boss. She was gazing at him adoringly and he was quoting Hermann Hesse to her. Every beginning has its magic. I felt good in my jealousy, even though I was sure that Sonia was faithful to me, and that she took our relationship seriously, maybe more seriously than I did. When we talked on the phone, occasionally we made plans, we discussed founding a firm one day, after we’d accumulated some experience. But I wasn’t accumulating any experience, my work consisted principally of constructing models and filling in work schedules. For months I sat in a windowless office, sketching identical staircases. Even though I was kept busy, I was bored. Boredom had a seductive charm. Secretly I enjoyed having no responsibility and nothing to aim for. I didn’t go looking for a better job, ordered no competition guidelines, and read no architectural journals. Instead I immersed myself in books by dead authors. I read Poe and Joseph von Eichendorff, Mircea Eliade and Giambattista Vico, and it was as though their writings contained a truth that I could at least sense, though it could never be proved. By way of Aldo Rossi I came across Étienne-Louis Boullée, a pre-Revolutionary French architect who designed melancholy monumental structures not one of which had been built. I became fascinated by his way with light, which in his drawings wasn’t a given, but more like a substance. It looked as though the buildings were pushing back against a stream of light, against the stream of time.
