To the Back of Beyond(34)
On weekends Priska took off into the lowlands, and even though Thomas only ever saw her at mealtimes during the week, he would miss her. When he heard her returning late on Sunday night, going up to her room and then the bathroom that the three of them shared, he had a sensation of safety and warmth.
In the mornings, Thomas was always the first to use the bathroom. He hadn’t shaved since his departure, and by now his beard was so long that his face looked strange to him in the mirror, and older than he thought it ought to be.
He had taken the half-full bottle of tr?sch with him out of the hut. It was in his closet, but he didn’t touch it. He no longer drank alcohol, not from any resolution, he simply had no desire to intoxicate himself. He had given up reading too, even the paper. He didn’t switch on the portable radio that was in his room, even music struck him as basically a distraction. Work at the carpenter’s he enjoyed, repetitive though it was. He liked the monotony of the days, the set procedures, the morning rides out to the building site in Urserental, lunch with his colleagues, always at the same table in the same restaurant, and the evening rides down the Sch?llenen Gorge into the sunless valley.
At the end of November Priska had her birthday. She announced it quite casually over dinner: By the way, it’s my birthday today. Everyone offered congratulations, and after dinner the widow fetched a carton of vanilla ice cream out of the freezer, full of ice crystals and tasting of cardboard. That seemed to be the end of it. But after they had all taken their plates into the kitchen and stacked them in the dishwasher, and the widow and the retiree had installed themselves in the living room in front of the TV, Priska asked if Thomas felt like going out for a beer with her. Her treat. They crept out of the house, as though they were doing something illegal.
Thomas was no longer used to making conversation. Apart from the carpenter and his colleagues, who gave him instructions and passed comments on his work, he didn’t tend to speak much. At mealtimes too he preferred to listen. At first Priska seemed not to notice his silence, she had so much to say herself, but after ordering the second round of beers, there was a moment of silence. Then she asked, Are you always this quiet? I don’t know, said Thomas. I don’t have much to say for myself. You’re from the east of the country, aren’t you? Yes, from Thurgau. Have you got family? He hesitated, as though he had to think about it. Yes, he said then, with a little crack in his voice, as though he was surprised by his answer. He saw in Priska’s eyes that she wanted to ask him more. What about you, he asked her, have you got a boyfriend? Sort of, she said reluctantly. Guess how old I am? It was her thirtieth birthday, so they had to drink three beers each, one for each decade. Or shall we make it one for each year? asked Priska laughing. The alcohol was getting to Thomas. It wasn’t even ten o’clock when he said he had to go, he had to get up early.
On the way home, Priska was telling him her hobby was kitesurfing, and since Thomas hadn’t heard of that, she had to explain to him what it was. All the lights were out in the pension. They spoke in whispers and crept through the dark house to their rooms. Last year I went kitesurfing in Ireland, Priska whispered quickly. On Achill Island, off the west coast, do you want to see pictures?
They sat together on the bed, Priska had her laptop on her knees and showed him photographs of a bleak-looking landscape. A lake with surfers on it, hanging on to dirigible kites, being towed over the surface, most of them so far away you could barely make them out. Other than that, there were no people in the pictures, just scruffy-looking sheep with black faces and splotches of color on their fleece, whole herds of them or else single mothers with their lambs. Little white cottages dotted the outsize landscape, ruined barns, cobbled-together fences, high cliffs, and at the foot of them the sea, an endless plain that lost itself on the horizon against the brightness of the sky. The landscape attracted Thomas, it seemed to be a place of farewells and arrivals, both.
Although it wasn’t warm in the room, Priska had taken off her sweater. Underneath she was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt. The lace trim of her bra showed through the thin cotton. Thomas could feel the pressure of her upper arm against his and her hand, holding the laptop, on his thigh. He could smell Priska’s hair, her body, a hint of soap. He turned to face her. She didn’t take her eyes off the screen, but in her poise there was tension, as though she was expecting a powerful movement. He kissed her throat and felt a shiver go through her.
Thomas lay in bed. It was past midnight, but he couldn’t sleep. He thought about Astrid, about how they had met and then lost each other from sight. The time he first walked into the bookstore, he had fallen instantly in love with her, and from then on he had regularly gone to the shop to see her. He had never been a great reader, but the pleasure of their conversations was recompense for the labor of reading. To begin with, she recommended thrillers for him, but over time she trusted him with harder books as well, classics, or new novels and stories that he read conscientiously to be able to talk about them with her the following week. He had been pretty shy at the time, and never dared ask her to go out with him, or even to go for a coffee. Perhaps he was satisfied with their meetings in the usually empty bookstore, and they were in a sense more intimate than encounters in any public space could have been. When the owner saw Thomas walk in, she would call Astrid, who was usually working in the back room. It’s your customer, she would call out with a smile, before disappearing into the back room to leave them alone. Sometimes Thomas had the impression the bookstore only existed for him and Astrid, a cryptic meeting place in a world that otherwise was far too bright and loud.