changed her mind. It didn’t escape her that all this amused me, because before she ordered she said, “I sometimes like not being sure, I like to be able to choose.” We ordered plaice wrapped in bacon and fried, with potato salad on the side.
She admired my skill in cutting the fish, particularly the long incision with which I separated the back fillet from the underside, and tried to copy me, but she failed, and I pulled her plate toward me and did it for her. Stella watched, interested, as I then picked up the skeleton of the fish, carefully licked it clean, with relish, and held it up in front of my face. Stella laughed out loud, turned away, looked back at me, smiling, and said, “Wonderful, Christian, stay just like that, we have to put this on record.” Asking me to open my mouth and put the bones against my lips, she took a photo, and then took another shot. When I suggested that we could take a picture of both of us together she hesitated for a moment, as I had expected. Finally she agreed, and after lunch we went down to the beach and found a place among abandoned sand castles. There we photographed ourselves with the timer. Neither Stella nor I thought that what the photo showed, orrather would show, was anything to worry about. We were sitting on the beach in summer clothes, close together, we were taking care to look happy, or at least pleased with ourselves. I didn’t say so, but I was thinking: I love Stella. And I was also thinking: I’d like to know more about her. You can never know enough when you realize you love someone.
When you took Faulkner’s Light in August out of your beach bag, stretched out, and told me, as if by way of apology, that you really had to read this, I asked, “Why? Why do you have to read it? It’s not going to be one of our class books, is it?”
“He’s my favorite author,” you said. “Well, one of my favorite authors this summer.”
“What do you see in him that’s so special?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“I want to know everything about you,” I said.
Without stopping to think much about it you initiated me into the world of Faulkner, his celebration of the Mississippi wilderness where bear and stag reigned supreme, the opossum and the water moccasin were at home, before the land was transformed by the saw and the coming of cotton mills. But you also told me about his characters: the masters and the scoundrels whoimposed their own law on the wilderness, contributing to the fate of the South.
I liked listening to her. She didn’t speak as she did in class, she was more hesitant, not playing the teacher. Her way of talking flattered me. I could almost have been her colleague. Naturally I made up my mind to read her favorite author at the first chance I got, or at least try to read him. We lay there side by side in silence for some time; I turned toward her and looked at her face. Her eyes were closed. Stella’s face was even more beautiful than it had been on the pillow, and now and then I detected the hint of a smile. Although I’d have liked to know what she was thinking about, I asked no questions. Just once, I did ask her who that man Colin was, and she said briefly a fellow student from her teacher training college who was now teaching at a school in Bremen. But once I thought I did know what she was thinking of, when an expectant expression appeared on her face. I suspected she was thinking of me, and she confirmed that by putting her hand on my stomach. You can think of someone even if he’s there beside you.
Who spotted us I’m not sure. Maybe it was Heiner Thomsen or one of his gang coming down to the beachto play volleyball. Their voices announced their arrival. But suddenly the voices died away, and the next moment I saw several figures searching for cover behind the sand castles, ducking low as they crept up to us. They wanted to see anything there was to see, anything they could talk about at school. I didn’t need to point out
She admired my skill in cutting the fish, particularly the long incision with which I separated the back fillet from the underside, and tried to copy me, but she failed, and I pulled her plate toward me and did it for her. Stella watched, interested, as I then picked up the skeleton of the fish, carefully licked it clean, with relish, and held it up in front of my face. Stella laughed out loud, turned away, looked back at me, smiling, and said, “Wonderful, Christian, stay just like that, we have to put this on record.” Asking me to open my mouth and put the bones against my lips, she took a photo, and then took another shot. When I suggested that we could take a picture of both of us together she hesitated for a moment, as I had expected. Finally she agreed, and after lunch we went down to the beach and found a place among abandoned sand castles. There we photographed ourselves with the timer. Neither Stella nor I thought that what the photo showed, orrather would show, was anything to worry about. We were sitting on the beach in summer clothes, close together, we were taking care to look happy, or at least pleased with ourselves. I didn’t say so, but I was thinking: I love Stella. And I was also thinking: I’d like to know more about her. You can never know enough when you realize you love someone.
When you took Faulkner’s Light in August out of your beach bag, stretched out, and told me, as if by way of apology, that you really had to read this, I asked, “Why? Why do you have to read it? It’s not going to be one of our class books, is it?”
“He’s my favorite author,” you said. “Well, one of my favorite authors this summer.”
“What do you see in him that’s so special?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“I want to know everything about you,” I said.
Without stopping to think much about it you initiated me into the world of Faulkner, his celebration of the Mississippi wilderness where bear and stag reigned supreme, the opossum and the water moccasin were at home, before the land was transformed by the saw and the coming of cotton mills. But you also told me about his characters: the masters and the scoundrels whoimposed their own law on the wilderness, contributing to the fate of the South.
I liked listening to her. She didn’t speak as she did in class, she was more hesitant, not playing the teacher. Her way of talking flattered me. I could almost have been her colleague. Naturally I made up my mind to read her favorite author at the first chance I got, or at least try to read him. We lay there side by side in silence for some time; I turned toward her and looked at her face. Her eyes were closed. Stella’s face was even more beautiful than it had been on the pillow, and now and then I detected the hint of a smile. Although I’d have liked to know what she was thinking about, I asked no questions. Just once, I did ask her who that man Colin was, and she said briefly a fellow student from her teacher training college who was now teaching at a school in Bremen. But once I thought I did know what she was thinking of, when an expectant expression appeared on her face. I suspected she was thinking of me, and she confirmed that by putting her hand on my stomach. You can think of someone even if he’s there beside you.
Who spotted us I’m not sure. Maybe it was Heiner Thomsen or one of his gang coming down to the beachto play volleyball. Their voices announced their arrival. But suddenly the voices died away, and the next moment I saw several figures searching for cover behind the sand castles, ducking low as they crept up to us. They wanted to see anything there was to see, anything they could talk about at school. I didn’t need to point out
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