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Authors: Andrés Neuman

BOOK: Traveler of the Century
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Hans went to fetch Lisa the cocktail she had asked for, and instructed the waiter to add only a drop of alcohol to the glass. When Lisa tasted the drink and said it tasted nice but strong, Hans smiled and felt vaguely relieved. Lisa spoke in a very loud voice, moved her shoulders about a lot and was beside herself with joy. Every now and then Hans looked for Álvaro but couldn't see him. Their hesitant conversation slowed to a halt until they fell silent. Lisa glanced over at the orchestra as though she had only just noticed it and said: Wouldn't it be terribly polite of you to ask me for a dance? To be honest, Hans croaked, it would be more polite if I didn't. Lisa's face turned pale, she thought she might faint and nearly dropped her drink. She felt a sharp pain in her stomach, as if she had eaten glass, and she pressed her rosy lips together, stifling her tears. Hans saw her gesture and thought how beautiful she looked. I'm really sorry, he muttered. It's all right, she replied in a faint whisper, and anyway it doesn't matter, I've just seen a friend. Have fun, he said. Don't worry, I will, she said wheeling round. Lisa, Hans stopped her, you do understand, don't you? Perfectly, she said, walking away, you're free to dance with who ever you like, goodbye, see you sometime.
As soon as she was lost in the crowd, Lisa ran from the park, clutching her dress in one hand like a jilted princess.
 
During their initial sessions, Hans and Sophie couldn't decide whether to do the translations first and then make love, or to begin their lovemaking and move on, less excited, to the books. To begin with, Sophie was in favour of putting off jumping into bed, not out of any lack of desire, but because she enjoyed Hans's agitation, and because they both had the impression that
being in a state of sexual anticipation made them more sensitive to the allusions and ideas in the poems. Hans had at first favoured sex as a preamble to reading, not only because of the urgency that assailed him when he was alone with Sophie, but also because he was convinced the blissful, floating state they found themselves in after their lovemaking was conducive to understanding the nuances of a poem.
As the afternoons went on, however, they began improvising the order in which they conducted matters. They never made any explicit decision—simply when they greeted and their tongues intertwined, each gauged the other's preference and opted for whatever felt most urgent. The fact of not establishing any other routine within their work routine kept them on their toes, habituated but not quite knowing. This alternating was also sexual—sometimes Sophie was dominant, and Hans felt scared and in awe of her almost brutal impulses; on other occasions she enjoyed slipping beneath his body, letting herself be rocked, out then in, slow then fast, in a kind of deep repose, which also satisfied her.
Now, for instance, they were leaning against the rickety headboard shoulder to shoulder, leafing through a novel. It was uncomfortable, the blazing light shone through the window casting a shadow over the page, forcing them to twist and turn in order to be able to read. They didn't care—their muscles retained the suppleness of recently satisfied desire. Sophie and Hans were fulfilling a promise they had made to each other a while ago, of rereading Schlegel's
Lucinde
together. Occasionally they would stop to have discussions that grew out of the novel itself.
Do you know something? he said. I have the feeling right now that we two are as one. As one? she asked, turning her head and resting it on his shoulder. I don't mean when two people are or believe they are one person, Hans explained. (What a dreadful thought, gasped Sophie, like being only half
a person.) Quite! And that's not the same as being two people at the same time, is it? Two as one. Here, now, you and I seem completely harmonious, and yet at the same time I feel each of us is both more strongly ourselves, does that make sense? If I tell you that I feel the same, Sophie laughed, will I always have to agree with you?
But, said Sophie, caressing his knee, aren't you afraid that we fell in love because it was forbidden? I don't know, Hans said, I don't think about it, it would complicate things too much, how can we know what we would feel if we were able to see each other normally? And what the devil would seeing each other
normally
be? No, I only think about how much I like being with you. And what do you like best about it? she asked. I don't know, the fact that we can be ourselves, we don't have to pretend. Mmm, Sophie hesitated, isn't that rather a lot of
being
? What I like best is that we can be the other if we want—you can be a sweet young girl who opens herself to me, or I a vigorous man who forces you to embrace me. You've been reading too much of the younger Schlegel! he laughed. Never enough to forget his older brother, my dear, she retorted.
“At first nothing attracted him or made such a powerful impression on him”, Sophie read aloud “as the realisation that Lucinde was similar or identical to him in character and spirit; with each day he began to discover new differences. Yet even these differences were founded upon a deeper similarity, and the more each of their personalities developed, the more versatile and exhilarating their love became”. You see? For me this is one of the most important passages in the novel. And yet we are still so far away from this, can you imagine legions of narrators reflecting about the changes in themselves because the women they love have changed? And what have you to say of this? Hans remarked, look, this part here where he compares himself to lovers who feel they don't belong in
the world, who feel detached from everything because of their love, and he says: “We are not thus. All that we loved before, we love more. The meaning of the world has become clear to us”, to me this vision is admirable, love not as a way of fleeing but of discovering the world. This means a new society would begin by reinventing love. Quite right, said Sophie, although Schlegel also has his contradictions, remember the chapter we read just now, let me see? I think it was in this one, there was something, wait, which I found rather shocking, and I don't mean that nonsense about women being the purest of all creatures, I won't even mention that, ah, here it is: “The loftier a man becomes, the more he resembles a plant, the most moral and beautiful of all the forms that nature takes”. Surely it's the other way round, surely we must question the roots of things, challenge what is considered natural, there are times, for instance, when in order to blossom a woman must defy nature. And besides, plants also evolve, like people they adapt to their environment, their needs change. And why shouldn't novels evolve, too;
Lucinde
has a hybrid rather than a pure nature. Prologue! Hans cheered, we want a prologue from you for the new edition. Don't flatter me, please! she protested. Well, flatter me, but without me realising it.
Did you know that Schlegel wanted to write a sequel to his story? Sophie said, poking at Hans's sex with her finger. Apparently he planned to continue the story from Lucinde's point of view rather than that of Julius. It is odd that she scarcely has a voice in the novel. Sometimes I think that if Schlegel had written the second part of
Lucinde
, his life, and perhaps ours, would have been different. But didn't his wife, Dorothea, publish a novel at the same time? Hans asked, pinching her stomach. Yes, replied Sophie, and despite writing about a young girl who wishes to defy her family and see the world, the book was finally entitled
Florentin
, after its peripatetic young hero. They
say Dorothea also planned to write a sequel called
Camilla
, a woman's story narrated by a woman. She never finished it. Silence. That's the story of literature.
The thing is, said Hans, trying to lead her on,
Lucinde
is about marriage isn't it? Absolutely not, Sophie hastened to reply, it's about the union of two people in love. Yes, he insisted, but the characters who love one another are husband and wife. My sweet, she said, disappointed, your brain becomes a little confused when it comes to men and women. This novel is about love, a different kind of love, and the fact that it happens within a marriage is simply to make the passion more natural, to give it an everyday feel. Some of us women readers, you know, are fed up with tragic love affairs and impossible desires, that's why I think Schlegel was right to place his story in the ordinary setting of a marriage. Call me curious, Hans ventured, but can the same be said of your marriage?
Sophie stood up without saying a word. She crouched over the chamber pot and, for a few moments, all that could be heard was the wistful trickle of urine. She went back and perched on the edge of the bed, her back to Hans. He feared she was more offended than he'd expected, but just when he was about to offer an apology, she murmured: I've postponed the wedding. What? Hans gave a start. She repeated the words in an identical voice. Hans felt bewildered, ecstatic, terrified. How long for? he probed. Until December, she replied, until Christmas. He knew he mustn't speak. Sophie sat for a long time, naked on the edge of the bed, listening to the sound of her own breathing. At last she turned around and lay down again, her head resting on Hans's belly, and, having casually discovered the cobwebs in the rafters, she began to talk.
After listening to her, Hans thought the time had come to pose the obvious but awkward question he had been carefully avoiding. He did not want any ties, nor was he asking for any. But
that fact was since he had met Sophie he felt strangely rooted, and he looked on with astonishment as his stay in Wandernburg lengthened. And given that he was still there, perhaps carrying on behaving as if he had just arrived was a mark of weakness, not of freedom. Sophie, he said gently, how could you have become engaged to Rudi? Why are you still with him?
Sophie was aware that Hans was not in the habit of asking this type of question, and she decided to be relatively frank with him. Look, she said, I'm not in love with Rudi, and I won't try to pretend I am either to you or to myself because that would be pointless. But I never resisted the marriage. Rudi adores me and I am increasingly fond of him. This is less than I had hoped for, but a lot more than many women can boast. And, well, fantasy aside, such a marriage secures any woman's future; it will make my father happy and solve our financial worries. Not that I sought Rudi out, to begin with I had no interest in him. But my father began inviting him to the house more frequently, and then he joined our salon. One day he confessed he was in love with me and told me that was the only reason for his coming to the house (I can't blame him for that, thought Hans), I didn't take it very seriously, but he swore he would keep coming until I began to love him or refused him entry, which of course I would never have done. And time continued to go by, sometimes it can be as simple as that, can't it? I never said yes or no to him, I accepted his flattery, my father begged me to consider his proposal, and I thought about the needs of my family, and the fact that in any event I had never fallen in love with anyone. I was attracted to a lot of men, certainly, and would meet with them in secret, but I admired none of them. They didn't seem sufficiently sensitive or intelligent, I suppose that was my youthful vanity. Finally I decided that if I weren't going to love a man I'd do better to marry one who was rich and kind. You may think this conformist, but I prefer to call it pragmatism. Rudi has promised that,
providing I bear him children and am a good wife, he will never try to prevent me from studying or pursuing my music or traveling. (But couldn't you aspire to a different sort of marriage? said Hans.) I'm not chasing dreams, I want reality, we women too often confuse love and expectation. At any rate, Rudi is young and handsome. (Is he, really?) Of course he is, are you blind? And although he might seem dull to you, he respects my tastes, he is tolerant with me, and he couldn't have been more persistent. (Tell me, how did Master Wilderhaus woo you?) Well, you can imagine, he showered me with gifts, took me out to dinner, that sort of thing, but above all he wrote to me. His letters were so passionate I almost envied him, I wanted to be in love the way he was, to be in love with his love. He told me how he saw me, and it was strange, because the more qualities he found in me the less I recognised myself in his descriptions. I swear, I even began to refer to his letters in order to know how I should behave, don't look at me like that, Hans! It didn't bother me, I knew perfectly well that when a man portrays his beloved he is portraying his desires. Now please let's drop the subject and enjoy the news. I'm not getting married until December and that's what matters.
What matters, Elsa said standing beside the carriage, is what happens later, you understand, she has a future and she shouldn't throw everything away. But don't you think they get along very well? Álvaro said, restraining her. I don't think anything, Elsa replied, gesturing to the driver to wait, he's your friend so of course you'd say that. One fine day he'll go back where he came from, and my mistress will have to pick up the pieces. I doubt it, said Álvaro, besides, like I said, it's nobody's concern but theirs. You're wrong, said Elsa, this concerns a whole family, not to mention those of us working for them. How funny, said Álvaro, suddenly you sound as if you cared about their family.
Elsa leant forward, gave him a swift kiss and said: I must go,
I'll arrive late at the fountain.
 
Steps, we're off, position yourself, together, turn, faster, more lively, cross over, step back, together again, waist, hand, very good, legs closer together, one-two, one-two-three, much better, don't forget the arms, wait, not like that, too late now, more lively, shoulders, clumsy you! I love it, heels and stop, cross over and we change, not too fast, your foot with mine, I'm waiting, are you following? Up, lean forward, turn, wait, what are you doing? … Hey, where are you going?

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