Read Online Where Love Begins by Judith Hermann - Free Book Online

hopeless chaos. Clara is drinking tea. But not eating an apple with it, smoking instead; she puffs audibly, and she is sketching; Stella can hear the sound of the pencil drawing on paper.
    She says, Mister Pfister is a retribution. He is a punishment.
    Punishment for what, Clara says.
    I don’t know, Stella says darkly. I haven’t found out yet, but I think I will soon, I’ll know soon, I’ll figure it out. Do you remember the man on the tram?
    The memory of the man on the tram has come back to her at just that moment. How long ago was it, fifteen years? A stranger, and she had got off the tram with him, walked quite matter-of-factly along the entire street all the way to hers and Clara’s house, wordlessly climbed up the stairs, and finally arrived in the luckily empty apartment and gone to bed without any further ado. In the bright middle of the day. In Clara’s bed.
    Not her own, but Clara’s bed. As if the encounter weren’t real, hadn’t taken place or had happened to someone else; Stella as Stella wouldn’t have dared to do anything. Only as Clara had she been up to it – hold out your hand, close your eyes – and this way, but just one single time.
    She says, the man with whom I went to bed, without knowing him. Who I never saw again after that. I don’t remember his name, could also be that he never even told me his name, nor I mine, probably. My name is Stella? I never said that. But I remember everything else in detail. I dropped all scruples.
    Actually I’m reserved, shy, Stella thinks, surprised. Was I always like that? Does Jason want me to be reserved? But in any case it makes no difference as far as Mister Pfister’s interest in her is concerned. Mister Pfister’s interest is a completely different type, and maybe it’s precisely this that makes it so humiliating.
    She says, I don’t know any more whether I locked the apartment door in case you’d come home. You didn’t come home. I didn’t have to tell you about it, but I did tell you. I asked you whether I should put fresh sheets on the bed; the man wasn’t clean, in a way you wouldn’t have liked. In contrast to me.
    What did I say, Clara says; she sounds interested now.
    You said, No need to.
    Stella has to laugh about it; Clara laughs too. Knowingly, probably wistfully; it’s so pointless.
    So you do remember now, Stella says.
    Yes, Clara says, I remember. And why are you telling me?
    Because Mister Pfister is the exact opposite, Stella says; she straightens up and takes a deep breath. I’m probably telling you because he is the exact opposite. Well, in any case he comes by here every day. Every day. When Jason is here, he doesn’t; since Jason left, he’s coming again. Rings the bell, puts something in the letter box, doesn’t even wait any more; he knows that I’m here, that I won’t come out; he knows it very well.
    Stella gets up, goes to the sunroom, opens the screen door and stands in the doorway. May sunshine on the lawn; the trees cast hard, precise shadows. The lilac is withered, the flower-clusters are brown. A biting wind blows around the corner of the house, and the clouds near the horizon move swiftly.
    Mid-thirties? Maybe he’s in his mid-thirties. Stella thinks it would be better not to talk any more about Mister Pfister, it’s not doing her any good, but she can’t back off. She says, Actually he looks pretty good. Youthful, open, you know what I mean, but it’s as if … damaged, you know. He looks quite normal, just like the rest of us, but something else comes through from underneath, exhaustion, neglect. Misery. Are you listening?
    Yes, Clara says, surprised. I’m listening to you.
    Stella listens for sounds. Then she says, He’s absolutely alone. He acts as if he had all the time in the world. Endless amounts of time. By now I’ve seen him scores of times walking away from our house down