my classmates to Stella; she had noticed them already, and she just winked at me, stood, and strolled toward the sand castles. One of them jumped up, then two more of them, and three, they stood there looking awkward, as if caught in the act of doing something wrong. One of them managed to say hello. Stella inspected them cheerfully, and said, as if she didn’t take offense at the way they had crept up in secret, “Sometimes it’s nice to spend an hour on the beach. Anyone who wants to join in is welcome.” No one wanted to join in.
I admired you so much at that moment, Stella, and I could have hugged you when you accepted their invitation to play volleyball with them. They clapped, delighted, and both teams wanted to have you on their side. Only you, all I could do was watch you, and I instinctively thought about sharing a pillow with you again, or feeling your breasts on my back as we embraced. Althoughyou were the mainstay of your team—no one served as well as you did, no one smashed the ball so precisely—it was defeated.
They tried to persuade Stella to play in the next round too, but she declined in a friendly way, saying she had to go home.
My classmates stood around the car, watching as Stella put her seat belt on and giving me ironic advice, and one or two of them whistled after us as we drove off. We went straight to her house. The old radio operator wasn’t sitting on the garden seat; two windows were open. I switched off the engine, expecting her to ask me in. As she said nothing, I suggested taking our inflatable out to the stone fields. Stella drew me to her and kissed me. She said, “My friends have arrived; they’re going to pick me up and take me sailing.”
“When?”
“It could be tomorrow. I hope so, anyway. I need a few days to myself.”
“Later, then?”
“Yes, Christian, later.”
Before she got out of the car, she kissed me again, and waved to me from the front door, not fleetingly, not casually, but slowly and as if she were telling meto resign myself to our parting. Maybe she wanted to console me too. That was when I first thought of living with Stella. It was a sudden bold idea, and today I know that in many ways it was inappropriate, an idea born only from the fear that my time with her might come to an end. How naturally such a longing for something to last arises.
Hirtshafen seemed to me a dreary place from the day your friends took you on board their two-master. Sonja had been watching, and I learned from her that they sent a dinghy out to the beach to pick you up and take you over to the Pole Star . Apparently the owner hadn’t been able to think of a more original name for his yacht. You left. I wandered around and sat on the rusting navigation marks for some time, I sat by the three pines and on the wooden bridge, and I went into the Seaview Hotel without knowing what I would do there. One afternoon I thought of going to see Stella’s father, but I couldn’t think of a reason for any such visit. I just wanted to be around him because I hoped to feel near Stella. Then her letter came.
I had been cleaning our Katarina , I’d come home tired from working on her, when my father said, “There’s a letter for you, Christian. From Denmark.”I went straight up to my room; I wanted to be alone with it. The sender’s address was written with a flourish and as if to conceal something; it read only: Stella P., Ærø Island. I realized from this vague phrasing that no answer was expected. I didn’t read her letter from the start; first I had to know how she signed it, and I was happy when I read, in English: “Hope to see you soon, best wishes, Stella.” I was so happy that the first thing I did was to think where I would keep her letter.
You wrote about calm seas, about a good time swimming in a quiet bay, and your party’s visit to a museum of oceanography on another island. There had been so much to see: the skeleton of a stingray, the skeleton of a whale—a huge
I admired you so much at that moment, Stella, and I could have hugged you when you accepted their invitation to play volleyball with them. They clapped, delighted, and both teams wanted to have you on their side. Only you, all I could do was watch you, and I instinctively thought about sharing a pillow with you again, or feeling your breasts on my back as we embraced. Althoughyou were the mainstay of your team—no one served as well as you did, no one smashed the ball so precisely—it was defeated.
They tried to persuade Stella to play in the next round too, but she declined in a friendly way, saying she had to go home.
My classmates stood around the car, watching as Stella put her seat belt on and giving me ironic advice, and one or two of them whistled after us as we drove off. We went straight to her house. The old radio operator wasn’t sitting on the garden seat; two windows were open. I switched off the engine, expecting her to ask me in. As she said nothing, I suggested taking our inflatable out to the stone fields. Stella drew me to her and kissed me. She said, “My friends have arrived; they’re going to pick me up and take me sailing.”
“When?”
“It could be tomorrow. I hope so, anyway. I need a few days to myself.”
“Later, then?”
“Yes, Christian, later.”
Before she got out of the car, she kissed me again, and waved to me from the front door, not fleetingly, not casually, but slowly and as if she were telling meto resign myself to our parting. Maybe she wanted to console me too. That was when I first thought of living with Stella. It was a sudden bold idea, and today I know that in many ways it was inappropriate, an idea born only from the fear that my time with her might come to an end. How naturally such a longing for something to last arises.
Hirtshafen seemed to me a dreary place from the day your friends took you on board their two-master. Sonja had been watching, and I learned from her that they sent a dinghy out to the beach to pick you up and take you over to the Pole Star . Apparently the owner hadn’t been able to think of a more original name for his yacht. You left. I wandered around and sat on the rusting navigation marks for some time, I sat by the three pines and on the wooden bridge, and I went into the Seaview Hotel without knowing what I would do there. One afternoon I thought of going to see Stella’s father, but I couldn’t think of a reason for any such visit. I just wanted to be around him because I hoped to feel near Stella. Then her letter came.
I had been cleaning our Katarina , I’d come home tired from working on her, when my father said, “There’s a letter for you, Christian. From Denmark.”I went straight up to my room; I wanted to be alone with it. The sender’s address was written with a flourish and as if to conceal something; it read only: Stella P., Ærø Island. I realized from this vague phrasing that no answer was expected. I didn’t read her letter from the start; first I had to know how she signed it, and I was happy when I read, in English: “Hope to see you soon, best wishes, Stella.” I was so happy that the first thing I did was to think where I would keep her letter.
You wrote about calm seas, about a good time swimming in a quiet bay, and your party’s visit to a museum of oceanography on another island. There had been so much to see: the skeleton of a stingray, the skeleton of a whale—a huge
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