Adam and Evelyn (11 page)

Instead of answering she took off. Adam swam back and forth a little, then stood up, in water to his belly button, and watched her swim away.

Hands on his hips, he sunned himself. Once in a while he opened his eyes, but Katja had disappeared beyond the sailboats.

When he finally saw her swimming back toward him, he set out to meet her.

“It’s not so icky this far out.”

“Not all that pleasant either,” she said, turning briefly to one side and adjusting her top.

“Can I ask you something?”

“What is it?” She ran a hand over her short hair.

“Was there something wrong yesterday? Something I said?”

“No, not exactly.”

“So there was?”

“Think about it. You’ll come up with it.”

“What am I supposed to come up with?”

“Do I have to tell you?”

“No, you don’t have to. Except all sorts of stuff is running through my head now.”

“I thought, Your wife is around here somewhere, and suddenly you want to camp out with a girl who promised you a favor.”

“Promised?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”

“You thought I wanted to cash in my reward.”

“That’s about it. What’s so strange about that? It is pretty weird after all, keeping your wife waiting.”

“What does that have to do with my wife?”

“I thought she was here already?”

Katja slowly swam toward the shore. Adam waded beside her.

“It’s more complicated than that,” he said. “It’s not an easy story to tell all at once.”

“I can see how it might look stupid for you to show up with me attached.”

“Evelyn isn’t alone. She’s here with her girlfriend.”

“I see, a woman-woman thing?”

“Oh no, nothing like that.”

“Can happen.”

“She’s bad company for her, she really is.”

“That’s what my father used to say sometimes—‘bad company.’ ”

“A woman she used to work with, always the big mouth, blowing nothing but hot air. It was her fault that Evi dropped out of university.”

“So what’s she doing now?”

“Training as a waitress. When she really wanted to be a teacher.”

“Education science?”

“German and geography, but mainly German.”

“They wanted me to be a teacher, too. But I didn’t go along with it.”

“And so what did you do?”

“Carpentry, even completed my apprenticeship.”

“Evi reads a lot. Whenever she’s got the time, she’s reading.”

“A teacher has to work at softening up the boys, so they’ll become professional military or officers or at least put in three years with the army. You don’t have time left to do any reading.”

“She could at least have finished her studies.”

“And what does any of that have to do with you two now?”

“She doesn’t even know I’m here.”

“A surprise?”

“You might call it that too.”

“Are you spying on her?”

“We had a fight. She took something the wrong way, and now I’m afraid she’s about to screw things up.”

“Cut and run for good?”

“No, not that, I don’t think. But at twenty-one—”

“I’m twenty-one myself! And you’re?”

“I’ll be thirty-three in December.”

“Well preserved.”

“Would I have been way out of line?”

“Out of line how?”

“Well, last night?”

“That’s not the issue.”

“What is?”

“Maybe that I just wasn’t in the mood.”

“Hm.” Although the water was now barely to his knees, he still couldn’t see his feet.

“If you have to know. My pills are gone, they were in my neck pouch, and I have no real interest right now in getting pregnant, not even by you,” she said. But now stood up straight. “What’s she up to there? Do you know her?”

A young woman was leaning against the driver’s side of the Wartburg, her arms stretched out along the roofline, her face to the sun.

“Holy shit,” Adam whispered.

“Your wife?”

“Nope.”

“The truth, Adam, nothing but the truth.”

AN HOUR LATER
Adam and Katja were sitting at a kiosk on the campground, they were eating langos and drinking coffee and cola. Katja was wearing the straw hat, the box with the turtle had been set between their chairs.

“Are you mad at me?”

“You shouldn’t have told her about that. She doesn’t believe us anyway.”

“About what a hero you are?”

“I don’t trust her. She doesn’t need to know stuff like that. Besides, it sounded made up.”

“But she was so nice, so friendly.”

“Friendly like a cat—you need to be careful.”

“I didn’t catch on—that she’s the ‘bad company.’ I really thought she was your friend.”

“I don’t know why she’s so goddamn friendly all of a sudden.”

“And Michael? Who’s he?”

“Her cousin, her cousin from the West. She claims that he’s her marriage ticket out. At any rate they’ve invited us to the wedding.”

“When?”

“Ah, it’s all a lot of hot air.”

Over the loudspeaker Bobby McFerrin announced: “Don’t worry, be happy.” The people at the next table snapped their fingers in time.

“Is he good looking?”

“He’s old, midforties maybe. Has a big mouth, plays the big shot if the service is a little slow, gives women perfume, and if he’s pissed off, he says ‘Merde.’ If it weren’t for him, this whole mess would never have happened.”

“What mess?”

“They stole the perfume from Evi, from her locker or wherever she’d put it—eh, it’s a long story.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Me either. She quit her job, on the spot, and then, because I still had stuff to do and was waiting for my new car, she took off with him—with her and with him.”

“And you right behind them?”

“Me right behind them.”

“And why didn’t she want to wait?”

“I told you, she took something the wrong way.”

“And now all three of them are staying with people you know here?”

“Actually they’re friends of Evi’s, I’ve never been here before. She got to know Pepi in Jena, the first year she studied there, and Pepi spent two weeks with us last year.”

Katja stared into her cup. “This stuff used to be called mocha.”

“You want another one?”

“Sure, but this time if possible with milk. And a little more of it.”

Adam went to the counter. The woman in front of him had very fair skin, except for red shoulders and ears. He ordered coffee and bought some bread, cold cuts, cheese, and water.

When he came back two teenagers with freckles and coppery hair were sitting at their table. They were eating ice cream.

“You shouldn’t buy that stuff here,” the one with tight curls said. “You need to drive into town, get it at the super. Damn expensive even there. But here, no sirree. Wurst used to cost a little under four forints, that was socialism. Now they want three times that!”

“There are still tents here from people who took off over the border last Saturday,” Katja said.

“Every once in a while we use that Trabi there, the key’s in the ignition. We always park it back in front of the tent, but nobody ever shows up, and it’s getting pretty grungy in there!”

“We broke into one car because of a bird inside,” said the other kid, who blushed when he spoke.

“It would have died of thirst otherwise,” the curly-haired one said.

“I’m going to be on my way,” Adam said, once Katja had finished her coffee. He picked up the box with the turtle. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“I’ll walk with you part way,” Katja said and picked up the groceries from the table. “Bye, guys,” she said to the two boys.

“So long,” they said, stood up, and would have shaken hands with Katja if she hadn’t had both hands full.

“Think your money will last you?” Adam asked.

“We’ll see how close a check they keep. I can pay one night for now.”

“I’ll look in tomorrow about this time.”

“You’ll see. When I have to be, I’m a goat—I can get along on nothin’.”

Adam placed the bottle of water, which he had held for her, back on top of the pile.

“I’ll miss you, Elfi,” Katja said.

“She’ll miss you too,” Adam said.

Simone had sketched a map on the back of his note with the address. He drove back to the main road, first turned left, and at the church took another hard left onto Római út.

Even from a good distance, he recognized Evelyn’s white poplin skirt with the red polkadots, the one he’d made for her last Easter. Actually it was meant to be worn with a matching headband. It was fabric left over from Desdemona. Michael was walking alongside Evelyn. Adam passed them but didn’t turn around. He now found the
green arrow with an 8 on it, took a right, and drove up the long driveway lined with bushes and trees and a shed.

Adam stopped in front of the house and got out. He watched the two of them approach him. They weren’t saying a word. Evelyn was walking a little faster now. When Adam tried to give her a hug, she went stiff and backed away.

“Hello,” Adam said. “Simone said I could have our tent, and her sleeping bag and air mattress, since you all have rooms.”

“Yes, sure. You want them right now?”

“I was planning to set it up here in the garden—”

“Here?”

Michael had arrived by now. Adam shook the hand extended to him.

“The campground is way too expensive.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?”

“You still don’t get it, do you? That I want to be left alone and not be constantly afraid that you’re lurking round the next corner?”

“And so what should I do, in your opinion?”

“You,” Evelyn said, stressing every word, “should just go away!” She left him standing there and disappeared behind the house. Michael stared at the ground, gave him a quick nod, and followed her with their beach bag.

Adam got into the car. He turned around and drove back slowly. There was already a short line at the gas station. A Shell tanker was parked between the pumps. Adam pulled in behind the last car. He rolled down the window, took a deep breath, and rubbed his chest. At least he knew how he’d be spending the next hour.

ADAM STOPPED EVEN
with the shed and walked up the last part of the driveway. The lid on the mailbox shone in the evening sun. On the right was a metal plate with the number 8, there was no name under the doorbell. A path of small flagstones led around to the back of the house. Adam tugged at his shirt, which despite the breeze from the lake was stuck to his back again. The sunburn on his shoulders stung. He would have loved to have waited until some of the sweaty patches were dry. But he thought he had already been seen, so that his waiting like that would appear odd. He pushed the bell a second longer than necessary.

The windows were closed, except for a canted cellar hatch. He had already stuck his finger out to ring a second time when a woman in a green apron dress came hurrying toward him from around the corner of the house. The motion of her arms seemed to propel her small slippered feet. She laughed and, just before extending him her hand, wiped her nose with her forearm.

“Herr Adam,” she said before he could even introduce himself. “Come along, I am Pepi’s mother, I thought that it was you. Walk on, walk on.”

“Is Pepi here?”

“No, you see, she is in Pécs, with her aunt and her cousins, but you
can move into the room. She said that you and Frau Evelyn can move into her room—”

“That’s very generous, Frau Angyal, but I just wanted to talk with Pepi—”

“Pepi comes next week, but until then you are welcome to her room. Walk on, walk on.”

Behind the house the lot sloped upward. Opposite a doorway hung with colorful strips of plastic stood a large table under a pergola, its trellis overgrown with grapevine. On a small lawn beside it clothes-poles propped up lines hung with shirts and towels billowing in the breeze.

“Sit down, sit down please,” Frau Angyal said and pointed to the table. She then vanished into the house. She spoke with someone, but the voice answering her was barely audible. There was a smell of laundry detergent and Palatschinken and coffee.

Adam got up to help Frau Angyal when she came out again, carrying two bottles and two glasses and several picture frames clamped under one arm.

“Please, please, Herr Adam, drink, in this heat you must drink. I drink all day.” She filled one glass with water, another with white wine so cold that the glass immediately beaded with moisture—cause enough for Adam to reach first for it and toast Frau Angyal. Then he picked up the other glass and downed the water.

“Ah, our Pepi,” Frau Angyal said as she stacked the framed photographs in front of him. “She had told us so much about you. And believe me, Herr Adam, that suit that you made for her, your present, that suit is her favorite—how do you say it?—favorite outfitting. Look at her, here she is speaking in her seminar. That was last October. And you know, with that suit she doesn’t ever become fat. No joke, no joke, no, no. Our Pepi says if she must alter it, then it is all over, then it is no longer the stitch of Herr Adam. I would rather eat nothing, that is what our Pepi says.”

Adam held the picture in both hands. Frau Angyal poured him more wine and water. “Drink, please drink,” Frau Angyal cried—and at that very moment Evelyn came around the corner and walked toward them with a smile.

“Yes, Frau Evelyn, why did you tell me nothing?”

Frau Angyal hurried into the house to fetch more glasses.

“Hello, Adam,” Evelyn said. “You seem to be doing fine.” She sat down across from him.

“I came to get the tent, then I’m out of here.”

“That won’t work, Adam, you know very well it won’t. You can’t run off again now.”

“Why not?”

“Thanks,” Evelyn said with a smile to Frau Angyal, who set down two glasses in front of her. She had brought out a green bottle and a liqueur glass for herself.

“Here’s to a lovely vacation, my dear Herr Adam, Frau Evelyn. Prosit!”

“Prosit!” they both replied and drank.

After the glasses had been set back on the table, they fell silent. Frau Angyal poured more wine and water.