Alice (14 page)

Alice, who was by herself with her small towel, her newspaper, and yellow bottle of suntan lotion, ranked lowest here; she accepted that and always smiled, grateful just to have someone speak to her. She rolled up her towel, moved aside, making room for more mothers with pushchairs,
toting melons like cannon balls, pop bottles, Thermoses, mountains of folding chairs and plastic bowls full of pasta salad. Ensconced in this dreamlike atmosphere, she fell asleep. Shrill voices, laugher, children crying, the smell of peaches, tropical oils and wet stone, chlorine and the fine, dry smoke of cigarettes. And falling asleep she forgot that Raymond had died, forgot that he no longer existed, simply stopped thinking exhausting, wordless, terrible thoughts about him. She let go. Drifted away into the noonday heat, for one whole precious hour. Last night I dreamed that my teeth were falling out, a woman next to Alice was saying. It's supposed to have something to do with repressed sexuality. Oh, I don't believe it, said another, adding, as though that had settled it, It's a beautiful day.

I have to tell Raymond about that, Alice thought, sleepy and amused. I have to imitate the tone of her voice, the self-assured disparagement, followed by the casual remark about the weather. Then she remembered that this was no longer possible, and she came back to reality, wide awake, sat up as though someone had called her. She rubbed suntan lotion on her shoulders, legs, feet, and sat there a little while longer, holding the insides of her arms up to the sun. It had been a long time since she'd last sunned herself like this. The last time, probably a hundred years ago, when she'd been at Lago di Garda with Anna, really long ago. It was an aching, longing memory, a loving one – a state of being – nothing about this love would ever change. Anna's hair, dulled by the sun, her eyes, shiny black, rough hands like a child's. Lying next to each other, sunning themselves, just talking, looking
out over the water, hands cupped over their eyes, rummaging among the water-worn pebbles, picking out a few but then leaving them behind. In the evening, checking out their tans in the mirror, the white breasts above the brown stomachs. She certainly hadn't done that with Raymond.

At midday Alice packed up her things, put her dress on over her bathing suit, and said goodbye to the mothers. They didn't reply, probably just out of laziness. Then she left. Passing the pool with the fountains where boys were dunking girls in the water, again and again pushing them down, then at the very last moment pulling them up by their hair, and the girls flew out of the water and screamed, triumphant and shrill. What kind of ritual was that? Alice was sure she and Raymond had also performed this ritual, long ago, both alone and with others, but she couldn't remember exactly. By the time she met Raymond, almost all the rituals had already been performed, almost all, except for just a few. Who would have thought? She dipped her feet into the lukewarm water of the shallow pool just before she came to the dried-up lawn, then put on her sandals.

Men with gold teeth were playing cards, under sun-bleached umbrellas in front of the kiosk where Raymond as a child had bought ice cream in a soft waffle, chocolate-coated vanilla wrapped in silvery foil. Tattoos, anchors on chains and hearts pierced by daggers, faded blue: For ever and ever. Naked people were sunning themselves on the lawn. Lying around singly under the white sky like people who'd been shot dead. Nothing was moving, except a threatening cloud of mosquitoes above a puddle at the
end of the path, and the red and white barrier tape rattling between the trees in an imperceptible breeze.

Alice pushed her bike home through the afternoon streets. Some days she would push it all the way; she had the feeling that she was in danger and had to watch out and take care of herself, too tired from the heat and too deeply preoccupied to ride a bike – she thought, if I ride I'll have an accident, fly over the handlebars, and be run over, break my neck, break all my bones.

Take care of yourself.

You too.

And so she didn't ride. Bought strawberries at the corner from a stand shaped like a giant fruit. It had a green plastic stem on the roof, and in the shade inside were mountains of glowing strawberries in cardboard boxes stacked into pyramids. No, not a whole kilogram, thanks. Only half a kilo strawberries for Alice alone. She carried the berries home in a transparent bag. Locked the bike to the rack in front of the house. Since Raymond's death she no longer kept it in the courtyard. It was too much trouble, and she'd done it only for his sake; he thought the bicycle was safer in the courtyard.

The hallway was stifling. The apartment, quiet. Alice washed the strawberries long and thoroughly, letting the cold water run over her wrists, her rapid pulse. She cut the berries in half, then into quarters, sugared them, added a shot of vinegar, and put the bowl into the refrigerator. The blue flowers on the windowsill extended their austere,
sturdy little petals – thirteen on each stem – towards the sun, impassive but purposeful.

Alice changed the beds. One sheet, two pillowcases, two blankets. She put on a fresh duvet cover. Crisp and cool the first night. She didn't dream that her teeth were falling out. Or that new ones would grow in their place.

She went to visit Margaret. Driving her car out of the city to the house-with-garden where Margaret now lived. A house in the suburbs, decentralised in many respects. They sat next to each other on the porch made of tropical wood and gazed at Margaret's flowers, the luxurious splendour of her flower beds: snapdragons, hydrangeas, and columbine, Japanese lilies.

Acqua Alba. The sky was blue, the planes were flying elsewhere. In the distance, the summer sounds of lawnmowers, water sprinklers, the clatter of hedge shears. A cat came noiselessly onto the porch, sneezed dryly, settled down in front of them, straightening her front legs, and turning sideways, showing them her cat profile.

Cats do that, Margaret said. With two people they always position themselves so as to form an equilateral triangle. They always do that.

Alice looked at the cat, its reddish brown fur; the white spot at the end of the tail twitched slightly. Malte, Frederick, Pumi. It was reassuring to put everything she had together in her mind, put it together and see what the result would be.

And how to go on from there? Even with all the exhaustion – it was after all still early. The first days and weeks and months without Raymond – the days would never again be this clear and luminous; maybe she would have to learn how to find pleasure in it; any other way was impossible.

Richard said I would need three years, Margaret said. Just like that, he said it, imagine that. You'll need three years, then things will be easier for you.

And is it true? Alice asked.

No idea, Margaret said. A year has passed now, only one year, I'm far from understanding how he meant it. Three years. Would you like to take a few flowers home with you?

Yes, I'd love to, Alice said.

The lawn had been mown. Alice stood in the grass, barefoot. Margaret walked along the flower beds with a pair of scissors. Dahlias, sunflowers, and one thistle stem. The lawnmowers were silent now, wasps hummed around their nest in a pine tree. Cold orange juice. A wind sprang up, the porch door slammed shut, flat clouds in the sky.

Later on Alice went inside. Walking on the light-coloured tiles. Past the bookshelf on which stood a black and white photo of Richard. Taken in front of the bookshelf on Rheinsberger Strasse.

After that she gave away her car. It was quite clear that she had to give it away. It was too expensive, she couldn't afford it now that she was by herself; she used it far too rarely. Without Raymond, in fact, she didn't drive anywhere, and she didn't have to pick him up any more or take him
somewhere; she'd stay put now. For that the bicycle and tram were adequate. She placed an ad in a car magazine, filling out the form in capital letters. Year: '87. Colour: red. Small dent on offside bumper. Windscreen slightly scratched. She worded it as best she could, and at the end thought up a price, not knowing whether it was appropriate or not. It seemed fair to her. Any price. What should it cost? It didn't matter.

The telephone began to ring in the middle of the night, at four a.m. Alice was lying on her back in bed, listening to the voices on the telephone answering machine, their graphic statements, foreign accents, thrice-repeated phone numbers, feverish promises. Requests to call back. Somewhere in the city all these people were wide awake. Busy. They had plans and were carrying out intentions. They had goals. She couldn't get herself to pull the plug out of the wall. Towards morning the phone stopped ringing. Quiet. Alice fell asleep. The first ball bounced against the fence of the basketball court. In the courtyard the wind rustled heavily in the trees.

At noon she walked to the car, carrying a blue bin bag and wearing sunglasses. Tropical temperatures. People were sitting in a row in front of the cafés in the semi-shade of the awnings; butter melting on their plates. Market stalls stood huddled at the edge of the park; the sun beat down on the cobblestone pavement. Cherry time. The last of the strawberries. Someone full of confidence had planted beans in the dust-dry soil surrounding the locust trees. Her car was parked at the planetarium. Alice unlocked the car door. Half-kneeling on the passenger seat, she opened the
glove compartment and pulled out everything in it. Everything. Raymond's matchbooks, a chemist's calendar, petrol receipts, advertising leaflets. His supermarket discount coupons, other coupons. A creased photo of a chair standing next to a birch tree in front of a collapsed factory building. Ruins. Some sort of object on the ground next to the chair; Alice squinted, staring at the photo, but couldn't make out anything. She wouldn't be able to make out anything tomorrow either, or the day after tomorrow, not ever. Into the blue bag went the photo. Everything else too. And then among all the scraps of paper, suddenly – it could happen that quickly – she saw the plastic card, a green laminated card. Not the one from the gypsy back then, ages ago, but another one; still, they were probably all the same anyhow.
I am interested in your car. Now or later. Anytime. Give me a call. I'll be right over.
Alice crawled out of the car, whipped open the boot lid, stuffed everything that was in the boot into the blue bag. The picnic blanket – a colourful tartan, frayed at the edges, some of last autumn's leaves still in its folds. Hellsee. Or Lanke. Müritz. Water bottles, into the bag. An umbrella, the Thermos flask actually had something in it, some ancient liquid, probably tea made of leaves that Raymond had held between his fingertips. Holy, holy. Should she drink it? She dropped the flask into the blue bag and could hear the glass inside it breaking, a delicate splintering.

Was that all?

That was all.

The dream-catcher hung on the rear-view mirror, lashed to it.

Alice took her cellphone out of her bag, punched in the number on the card. Her hands were shaking, she didn't really know why. She said, I'd like to give away my car, please come and get it, yes, exactly, thanks, that would be very kind. She sat down on the kerb and waited. The car key in her hand, attached to it a metal token with a series of numbers stamped into it that must have had something to do with Raymond's life, but she had forgotten exactly what. Blocked synapses. She thought hard. Sitting motionless so that the jackdaws came quite close, their gleaming black wings, eyes, blunt beaks – little dinosaurs, absolutely indestructible.

She saw Raymond daily. Every day. She saw him everywhere; it was amazing how many manifestations, physical shapes he must have had – he could be everyman. He was standing on one of the escalators at the main railway station, moving through the high-ceilinged hall, a lightweight suitcase in his hand, his face in half profile, a traveller who was not in a hurry. Alice pushed someone aside and hurried through the hall, saw him step off the escalator, stroll over to the exit; it wasn't him, it was someone else. Her heart jumped with indignation because she saw him in the last carriage of a departing tram, at the traffic light on the other side of the street, in the queue at the supermarket; he got out of a taxi, lay sleeping on a park bench, rode a bicycle round the corner. He was sitting in an Italian ice-cream parlour, a dish of gorgeous fruit before him; an old man with dim eyes who saw Alice looking through the window, and shooed her away with his hand as if she were an animal. They were
all Raymond. The way he walked, stood still, touched the back of his neck with his hand, rubbed his head, threw his shoulders back, yawned, put on his jacket, walked away. He isn't here any more, Alice, Alice told herself, addressing herself by her name as though she were her own child. Alice, Raymond isn't here any more.

What mattered was to preserve his memory, without going crazy in the process. To think of him without going crazy or becoming angry. Carefully. Over and over again. Starting from the beginning.

Where's your husband? the Indian cook asked.

Travelling, Alice said.

Oh really, for a long time? the Indian cook asked. He was sweeping the kitchen floor; the second Indian cook was sitting on an overturned bucket by the damp wall next to the dishwasher; his glasses were fogged up, he was smoking. Arabic music was coming out of a transistor radio, and he was beating time to it with his key chain, in restless, exact syncopation. Alice was leaning against the door to the hallway. The threshold was slippery. The Indian cook swept parsley stems, tomato halves, onion peels, rubber bands into a heap. Quitting time. He was humming to himself, then he put the broom down and drank apple juice from a bottle, taking large gurgling swallows. The day before, the second Indian cook had poured a bottleful of mineral water over his head in the middle of the kitchen, just like that. He didn't do it for Alice, but in spite of that Alice had enjoyed it.

Oh yes, for a long time, Alice said. It was impossible to say anything else. It was impossible to say, Raymond is dead. She had said that to the waitress, the tattooed one, in front of the house, on the street.