Adam and Evelyn (20 page)

“Don’t be scared, it’s as good as three lanes here.”

“And then?”

“Suddenly there she was in my room. At first I thought she was just looking to play around a little. But she was so uptight, at least to start with, that I thought it was going to have to be a quickie, so that Mona wouldn’t pick up on it. But she was so, I don’t know—she said such beautiful things. I never dreamed that a woman with looks like that can be that way.”

“Be what way?”

“The way a man actually always wants her to be. I figured that’s only in the movies. Plus no kids, never divorced, and still young, but then different somehow too. That’s what I thought at least. My mistake. Merde!”

Michael banged the steering wheel again.

“How do you mean ‘different’?”

“If somebody is suddenly willing to leave everything behind, her whole life, just for you, that’s pretty incredible, don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

“It gave me such self-confidence, that’s why I went along with the whole thing. She was constantly apologizing because the Angyals took his side, of course. For them I was the evil Westie. That really hurt Eve deeply.”

“And you too.”

“What’s a man supposed to think when a woman like that suddenly dumps him?”

“But she hasn’t dumped you.”

“She wanted me to stay on, to stay another whole week.”

“And then?”

“She might come with me—maybe. I told her that people are waiting for me, that I’ve kept them waiting for two weeks now. Waiting doesn’t even come close. Without me they can’t move ahead.”

“So she just wanted to stay on at Lake Balaton?”

“Yeah, right.”

“Nothing beyond that?”

“What do you mean, ‘beyond that’?”

“Well, but maybe if she—”

“I have to work, goddammit, work! Why doesn’t anybody get that?”

They hardly spoke for the rest of the way.

When they arrived at the border station at Sopron, Katja unwrapped the T-shirt from her head and fished her provisional travel pass from her purse.

“And what if they send me back now?”

“They don’t care what that thing is you show them, or who stamped it.”

They heard the bright putt-putt of a Trabant pulling up behind them, and some excited voices. Only when they were almost up to the barrier did they notice the people at the edge of the road. There weren’t more than twenty. But they were making such a hullabaloo that Katja smiled and waved at them.

But they weren’t paying any attention to the red Passat and the two people inside. They were cheering two men in a white Lada with Dresden plates and the Trabant behind them, which pulled up so close now that they could see tears running down the cheeks of the woman in the passenger seat.

“There are cameras up ahead,” Michael said. “Brace yourself.”

“THAT’S FOR YOU
to decide,” Evelyn said.

“You know very well what I want. But what if he suddenly shows up here again?”

“You don’t need to trouble your head about that.”

“But I do.”

“He’s not coming back. This has nothing to do with him.”

“Aha.”

“Do you move back in with me or are you staying with Pepi?”

“What do you mean, ‘with Pepi’?”

“Adam, please! I have eyes in my head.”

“I was with her just one time, for a fitting—”

“I don’t want to hear about it. Spare me.”

“Spare you is good. As if you’ve spared me.”

“So it’s time to start blaming each other? The skirt you did for Pepi turned out beautiful, I’d love to have one like that.”

“It’s yours. There’s still fabric left.” Adam reached for the bottle of water. It was empty. He held it up and waited for the waitress to look his way.

“Were you two here often?” he asked.

“Once, to dance—the time they robbed us.”

“Not a pleasant memory.”

“All depends. The place was jammed.” Evelyn avoided looking at
the man with big glasses and black hair who was sitting three tables behind Adam and constantly staring at her.

“Could you ever have imagined our guys would pull it off?” Adam asked.

“What?”

“We’re going to get a real opposition.”

“Forget it. Day after tomorrow it’s history. You’ll see just how quick they all end up in the West.”

“All the same. Hungary is like a trip to the West now. And the Poles aren’t playing ball anymore either.”

“The less they’re given to eat, the wider they’re allowed to open their mouths. And pretty soon they won’t be letting us into Hungary anymore.” She stubbed her cigarette out.

“Have you got any money left?”

“Almost all of it. Somewhere around twenty-five hundred.”

“I’ve exchanged the koruny, the tank is full.” Adam pointed to their empty coffee cups and the bottle of water.

“Enough for this, anyway.”

“Didn’t you make some good money here?”

“I’ve got unlimited room and board, at least till Christmas.”

“You wouldn’t have gone home?”

“Not without you. I could have more work here than you can shake a fist at.”

“Pepi asked me if I wanted to give German lessons. She knows two Russian teachers who were told they’re going to have to teach German now—from one day to the next.”

“How long do you want to stay?”

“A couple of days yet, as long as the weather holds. What’s up with Heinrich?”

“The starter, the fact is I need a new starter. I just hope he makes it.”

“Our Herr Angyal has quite a knack. Have you seen the box he built for Elfriede?”

“First-class turtle luxury is what it is. Elfi’s definitely going to want to stay on here.”

The waiter arrived with the bill—Evelyn handed Adam her wallet.

“Didn’t you order something besides?”

“I’ll get some water elsewhere,” Adam said and paid.

She pushed her half-full glass his way. Adam drank it down. The black-haired man paid too. They stood up from the table and left the restaurant.

“It’s pretty discouraging,” Adam said, glancing down over Evelyn, “but I could never come up with a pair of pants that would look any better on you than those jeans.”

“I’ve gotten really fat here. Maybe that’s what you like?”

As she walked, Evelyn put on her straw hat. She didn’t look around but she had the feeling the black-haired man was following them.

As they approached the wharf, which projected out into the lake like a jetty, an elderly man spoke to them in German. In his basket were figs, resting amid dark green leaves.

“Try them, try them,” he said. “Take some, as many as you like.”

Evelyn stroked a fig carefully with her fingers and took a bite. Adam took some money from his wallet.

“Very fresh, from my garden,” the man said. Evelyn nodded and stared at the old man’s gnarled hands circling to select the best figs in the basket. “Take them, please, take them all.”

Adam paid, they walked on. The black-haired guy was in fact following them. He was a short, almost wispy man.

“Did you notice his hands, like roots,” Evelyn said and laid an arm around Adam’s shoulder. “And the thumb, notched like a cutting board.”

“I never realized before that this is what they mean by Plattensee, the flat lake,” Adam said.

“Don’t look around right away,” Evelyn said, “but some weird guy is slinking along behind us. Do you know him?”

A couple of people who had been watching a ship pull out were now
coming toward them. There were fishermen sitting along the edge of the wharf.

“Well, good day to you,” the black-haired man said, blocking their path and extending a hand to Adam. “Warnemünde didn’t work out, it appears, or are we on the Baltic here?”

He’s crazy, Evelyn thought when she heard his bleating laugh. Adam, with a fig in each hand, held out his forearm, which the other guy squeezed. “I didn’t recognize you. Are you here on vacation too?”

“Well now, I wouldn’t exactly call it vacation, more a business trip.” He let out more bleats. “Just a joke. I thought, since I have a visa, I ought to make the trip too.”

“Sorry, but I don’t know your name,” Adam said and turned toward Evelyn, “but this is the garageman, from the station down by the Polyclinic. I got that hubcap from him.”

“Well, it’s a small world, especially for us—ain’t nothing can be done about that,” the garageman said and laughed again. “Just wanted to put in an appearance. Be seeing you, be seeing you.”

“Yes,” Adam said. “Good luck to you. Good-bye.”

Evelyn gave him a nod as well.

“Whoa,” she said after they moved on a bit. “He’s creepy.”

“I think so too,” Adam said. “Although I’d swear he’s harmless.”

“Were you at all afraid crossing the border?”

“Funny thing—no, I wasn’t.”

“Really?”

“I was thinking of you the whole time.”

“Even with Katja in the trunk?”

“Yes. It was all about you. I can’t give you any reasons, but that’s how it was.”

Evelyn laid her arm around Adam again. “I need to tell my mother—she doesn’t know a thing about this.”

“Luckily it’s a little late to write postcards,” Adam said.

“Don’t give me that, we still have some time here.”

“Do you want to take the ferry tomorrow? From Tihany? There’s a marvelous pastry shop there. Do you know it?”

“No, I don’t,” Evelyn said. “Will you read to me this evening? Pepi has a book by Gustav Schwab in her room, printed in that old-fashioned Gothic.”

They had reached the end of the jetty and were standing now between two fishermen. The water was dead still, except for low waves that the aft of the ship was sending out into the lake to its right and left. They ate their last two figs in silence. Then Evelyn leaned her head against Adam. Her straw hat slipped a bit to one side. For a moment it looked as if they were both wearing it.

“BUT IT MUST
have dawned on you at some point, since Prague at the latest.”

“Why since Prague?”

“Or even earlier, you had my gym bag after all.”

“So what?” Adam laid the open book on his stomach.

“Everything was in there—my grades, birth certificate, vaccination card, even my proof of baptism.”

“And how was I supposed to know that?”

“Didn’t you open the gym bag?”

“No.”

“And the jewelry? Why’d you bring the jewelry along?”

“I told you, it seemed too risky too leave it at home.”

“But you were smiling that funny way. For me that was a clear signal.”

“Because I finally had you sitting next to me again.”

“And today—I said that I finally had to tell my mother.”

“You wanted to call your mother because she doesn’t know where you are. I thought if you’re staying on here, then it was for my sake, so that we could drive back together. Do you really want to go to the West?”

“I hoped you did too.” Evelyn plumped up her pillow, hugged it with both arms, and lay down atop it.

“Do you think I can just turn my back on everything—on the house, the garden, the graves, everything? How do you picture that?”

“There’s not one person waiting there for you, it’s really a lot easier for you.”

Evelyn got up and closed the window.

“I’ve told you over and over that I’ll be driving home. What’s in the West for me?”

“But you’ve been acting completely different. Why did you drag all that stuff along, my documents, the jewelry, Elfriede. You can find work anywhere. And be paid a hundred times better. Why were you questioning Michael about that? I thought you were seriously considering it.” Evelyn leaned against the windowsill in her nightie and crossed her arms.

“And I thought, if you’re staying, then you’re staying. Why didn’t you go with him?”

“What a stupid question—really, that question’s enough to make me want to … oh, just leave me alone.”

Adam had got up now too and walked over to face her.

“Do you think I would have gone through all this if I didn’t love you?”

“Then don’t ask such dumb questions. I’ve gone through some things myself, you know.”

“Okay fine, then we’re even now.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“That I don’t blame you for anything, and you shouldn’t blame me.”

“Sounds like a divorce agreement.” Evelyn fell back onto the bed.

“And since when have you known that you want to leave?”

“I’ve only been really sure since this morning.” She was staring at the ceiling.

“You can’t be serious? Since he left?”

“All I know is, I’m not going back.”

“And why?”

“Why didn’t I know it before this morning?”

“Why do you want to head across?”

“Because I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to keep on playing waitress, keep on applying for university, keep on being refused, keep on looking into all those fat-ass faces that ask why you’re not for peace—all that shit.”

“That will change, third time’s a charm, they’ll accept you.”

“No. There’s too much freedom here already. I’ve got used to it.”

“Used to what?” Adam sat down on the edge of the bed.

“To the idea of moving on. I want to move on.”

“What sort of sense does that make?”

“I don’t know myself if I’ll really like it over there, but I want to give it a try.”

“Give it a try—great, and when it doesn’t work out? We have only one life.”

“Right, you said it.”

“You never talked about this before.”

“Of course we’ve talked about it. You were always coming up with ideas about how to meet somebody in a waiting lounge and exchange boarding passes. That was your idea.”

“That was just a game. We never talked about trying anything like that.”

“But I was constantly thinking about it, constantly.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“How can you say that? Mona and I talked about nothing else—Mona was already on her way!”

“And went back.”

“So what? What does that prove?”

“That she loved him.”

“That’s not true, simply not true at all. Why do you think she stopped giving a hoot? She just laughed whenever Frau Gabriel said something, laughed in her face. For her Mike was a ticket to the West, that was the whole point.”