Adam and Evelyn (3 page)

She kept saying, “What can I do? What can I do?” to which Adam could only respond with whispers of “It’s not so bad” and “It’ll be all right.”

But what he had really wanted was for Lilli to finally shut up. Every word she spoke only chained him to her all the tighter. And no, he hadn’t been in his right mind. Otherwise why hadn’t he put clothes on, instead of trailing after Lilli in his bathrobe, and then picking up Evelyn’s bike from where it had slid down to the base of the quince tree. So that his bathrobe had spread wide open. He couldn’t have made it any clearer to the neighbors what had just happened. Lilli should have done her talking before, not after it was too late: “He’s in the garden. I think he’s outside in the garden.” Just that. He would have slipped upstairs to his workshop—and fine. Nothing would have happened, not one thing.

Back in the house, Adam had for one brief moment actually believed that everything would be all right—just as everything was always all right once he was inside his house. That’s why he had hung up Evelyn’s keys and carried the bag into the kitchen. She was always leaving stuff lying around. He had found the half-eaten bowl of quince preserves on top of the breadbox and put it in the fridge. Instead of the cutting board, she had sliced bread on a newspaper—she had taken to buying a copy of that fish wrap of late. As usual it had been left to him to shake the newspaper out over the sink, fold it up, and add it to the stack in the cellar. He’d been brought up short by the felt-tip circle around the museum tour: “History of the Laocoön Group,” even though Evelyn knew she wouldn’t have time for it.

Upstairs Evelyn was moving back and forth. She had slammed
doors and flung them open again, books had fallen to the floor. Hadn’t it been his responsibility to go upstairs, to take that first step?

But it was quiet again now, except for the hum of the fridge. Now and then Adam would brush more breadcrumbs away, only to return to the same position. He was thankful for every minute that he could sit at the kitchen table without having to say anything.

Suddenly he felt the pain. A burning under his breastbone, as if a hard lump had got stuck there. Adam could see himself stretched out on the kitchen floor, unconscious, Evelyn at the door.

Suddenly he became frightened that Evelyn might harm herself. But then almost immediately came the sound of the toilet flushing and her footsteps, and that was just as frightening. Adam stood up. Holding the bag in one hand, massaging his chest with the other, he looked up at the ceiling as if he could see Evelyn. All he could think to do was say he was sorry, to apologize. He went to the stairs, sat down on the second step, and placed the bag beside him. Adam was disappointed to notice the pain easing. His elbows on his knees, he propped up his head, which felt unnaturally heavy the longer he held the pose.

ADAM GOT
to his feet as if about to fight a duel. Evelyn came to a halt a few steps above him and set down her suitcase. The green tent was wedged under one arm. She smiled. “I’m going to Simone’s, for now.”

“For now?”

“Well yes, and then I’ll see. She has a visa too, maybe we’ll take the trip together.”

Adam wanted to correct her—what was pasted in their papers wasn’t a visa. So instead he just asked, “And where to?”

“Why, the Caribbean, where else?”

Adam let go of the newel so it wouldn’t appear that he was barring her way. He would have liked to put both hands in his pants pockets, but in getting to his feet he had grabbed the paper bag of fruit, and it was still there in his left hand. “Don’t you want to wait?”

“What for?”

“Shouldn’t we talk?”

“What about?”

Adam grimaced in agony. “About what happened.” He could barely take his eyes off the bright red toenails sparkling at the tips of her sandals.

“If you have something to say to me.” She cradled the tent in her arms like a baby and sort of halfway sat down on her suitcase.

“I’m so sorry, I apologize.” He looked directly at her, for as long as it took to get a nod. Then his eyes fell to her feet again. While he was dealing with the fear that she might harm herself, she had evidently been painting her toenails.

“I’m so very, very sorry.”

“Me too, Adam, very, very sorry.” Evelyn said this with exaggerated nods, as if speaking to a child.

“And if I were to tell you that it wasn’t anything, nothing at all like what you think it was. Lilli and I have known each other—”

“Are you kidding?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re lying.” There was resignation in her voice, as if she had been afraid it would go like this. “I’m leaving, before you can come up with more nonsense.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“You’re the one who wanted to talk.” Evelyn stood up.

“You’re going to cut and run, just like that?”

“ ‘Just like that’ is good. I’m trying to get out of here before the other shoe falls.”

“What shoe?”

“When it finally hits me what actually happened.”

“It meant nothing, not a thing.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

“To me it means practically everything.”

“Go ahead and shine a light in every corner—it means nothing, nothing, do you understand? You can ask me anything you want.”

“About what? How long it’s been going on? Is Renate Horn from Markkleeberg the only one? Do the plump ones turn you on? Do you need something slutty to get you up to speed? Some things you don’t trust me with? Or is it just about variety? Does the designer want proper pay for his work? Is it your services that make them so easy,
or do they come to you because they’re not getting enough at home anymore?”

Adam sucked in his lips and massaged his chest with his free hand.

“I’d always hoped I’d never be exposed to any of it, that I wouldn’t be forced to seriously think about what’s going on when silk blouses touch naked skin, about the plunging necklines you create, about those asses that you can tighten better than any plastic surgeon—”

“Evi—” he said, banging his right hand on the knob of the newel post.

“I had hoped that the betrayal only went as far as my shoes, or the garden or the couch, for all I care they could have … if that’s what you need, fine by me. But I didn’t want to know about it, didn’t want to see it or feel it, understand? As I was running away from the rathskeller today, suddenly there was this little man in my ear, who said, Watch out, be very careful! But I didn’t listen to him. And now I’ve seen it, and felt it, and that’s that. End of story.”

Evelyn picked up her suitcase, shoved the tent under her left arm, and descended the last few steps until she was almost touching Adam. Her gaze swept past him. She waited for him to make room for her.

Adam stepped to one side, holding the paper bag against his chest with both hands, like a bouquet.

“And why are you quitting your job?”

“Now’s not the time.”

“Come on, tell me.” Adam leaned against the wall.

“They stole something from me, if you must know, and then they blamed me for getting so upset about it.”

“And what was it they stole?”

“Perfume.”

“Your perfume?”

“My perfume.”

“That I got for you?”

“No. I’d just been given it.”

“Aha.”

“Simone had stopped by, with her cousin, he brought it along for me, because—”

“The guy from last year? That smug little prick? Put down your suitcase.”

“At least he noticed how much I liked the perfume. I put it in my locker, and then it was gone.”

“Did these goodies come from him too?” Adam held out the bag to her.

“You don’t have to look so disgusted. Those are fresh figs.”

“Even after he hit on you like that, you said yourself—”

“Why shouldn’t I let someone hit on me?”

“Somebody like him?”

“You mean I should have reported to you about my contact with the West. I really wanted to, but you were busy. Too bad. A real shame!”

“I’ve told you—”

“And told them I’d be happy to talk about the whole thing, but first I wanted my property back. And that’s when Frau Gabriel said that she doesn’t allow vague suspicions like that. I asked her if that was her final word, and when she stuck by it, I said that I would take my vacation starting now. She demanded I stay to the end of the shift, and work tomorrow too. And with that I quit. Over and out.”

“And the swanky cousin was waiting outside to greet you with a smile.”

“Baloney. They’d left long before that.”

“I thought you said he was pushy?”

“Should I have said I won’t accept it, that I first have to ask my husband and my boss?”

“And now you’re moving in with him?”

“Oh, Adam. If that’s all you can come up with.” Evelyn picked up her keys in the entryway and opened the front door.

“You could at least have dressed right for the occasion,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well … stripes and plaids.” Adam followed her out and helped her clamp her suitcase and tent onto the bike’s rack.

“Want me to give you a lift?” he asked. “That’s not going to stay on.”

“Wait a sec,” Evelyn said, and now walked back to the garden, where she sat down on the low bench and scratched under the turtle’s neck with one finger.

“Be good to Elfriede,” she said, giving her right pants leg a couple of rolls. “Fresh water every day. And lay the grating across at night, on account of the marten.”

Adam preceded Evelyn, opened the garden gate for her, and handed her the bag of figs.

“Thanks,” Evelyn said and rode off. After a few yards the tent slumped to one side. Adam watched Evelyn reach back with the same hand holding the figs. He strode back into the house and closed the door behind him as carefully as if he were afraid to wake someone. “It’s not going to stay on,” he suddenly said, and repeated the sentence several times while he went back to massaging his chest.

ADAM WANTED
to lie down and close his eyes, at least for a few minutes. But the realization that at some point he would have to get up again kept him on his feet.

He climbed to his workshop. He carefully smoothed out Lilli’s skirt and pinned it on the dummy, draping the suit top over it. He slipped the record back in its jacket, turned the record player off, closed the window, left the skylight open just a crack. When he picked up the tray with the empty glasses and sugar bowl and turned to leave, he spotted something dazzlingly white in the space between the wall and the open door—Lilli’s bra. On one cup was a dark semicircle, his shoeprint.

Balancing the tray in one hand, Adam picked up the bra between his fingers as if testing the quality of the fabric, but then pressed it to his face like a mask—it had no smell—and hung it back on the door handle.

As he passed Evelyn’s room he cast a glance inside. It had been tidied up, the white blouse, the black skirt, the waitress’s apron had all been neatly folded and laid on the sofa, beneath them stood her work shoes.

He almost stepped on a fig in the kitchen. It must have fallen out of the bag.

While he washed dishes he was still picturing Evelyn, the way she
had stared first at him and then at Lilli. He kept rubbing away at the rim of the glass, although any traces of Lilli’s lipstick had long since disappeared. Doesn’t matter much now anyway, he thought, and heard himself let out a sound, a groan or a battle cry, and would gladly have repeated it, even more fiercely, with his face to the ceiling. He thrust a fist into the dishwater, Lilli’s glass banged against the bottom of the sink.

Adam didn’t bother to dry his hands. He slammed the door behind him and walked to the garage. He backed his old Wartburg out.

He used the first rag he found in the garage to wipe dust and cobwebs from the two twenty-liter jerricans and loaded them in the trunk.

Adam drove as far as Puschkin Strasse and turned left to skirt the old city. As he passed the museum he saw a group of people coming out, the tour had evidently just ended. Sometimes even from this point, he could see the last car in the long traffic backup. But Adam was in luck—stinking good luck, Evelyn would have said. There were only seven cars ahead of him. No sooner had he turned off the engine and pulled the brake than traffic was moving again.

Adam’s red-and-white Wartburg 311 was one of the favorite cars of the garageman, a short guy with black hair and big glasses. Last fall, without even being asked, he had been able to come up with a replacement for a missing hubcap, and the bill that Adam had folded twice over disappeared into the bib pocket of his blue overalls without so much as a glance.

“Well, things still lookin’ up?”

Adam nodded. He was in a hurry to get the cans out of the trunk before the next car pulled in. He opened them and set them down beside the pump.

“Where you headed?”

“The coast. Warnemünde,” Adam said. He himself didn’t know why he lied.

“Lucky dog. Booked at the Neptun?”

“Private lodgings,” Adam replied and walked back to the trunk, where he pretended to search for something. Under the old blanket he found his father’s guides to birds and wildflowers. He smiled as he folded the blanket, stood up straight, the books tucked under his arm.

“Anything happening with the castle?” Adam inquired. From here you could see the gap left by the fire more than two years ago.

“They’ll have the Junkers’ Dormitory restored in forty years or so,” the garageman said, never taking his eyes off the cans.

“Along Teich Strasse,” Adam said, “there were still twenty pubs after the war. My father kept trying to chug a beer in each one, but never could do it. And now? Now there’s one left.” Adam suddenly had a hunch that it was the garageman who had told him this story.

“And that one’ll be closing soon too,” the garageman said, pressing the heel of his hand down on the cap of the second can. He pulled a ballpoint from behind his ear and jotted down the charge. Then he cranked the pump back to zero and started gassing up the car.