You Should Have Left, Page 2

  —

  I have to remember the role for Brent Kent. Schmidt is beside himself with joy that he accepted. So there has to be an American in it. I just hope that they don’t dub Kent. A dubbed character whose lips don’t match the words, when none of the other people are dubbed, that won’t work. Schmidt has to promise me that. Kent could be an IRS employee, a colleague of Martin’s, from Illinois.

  Why Illinois?

  Why not.

  —

  I could hardly believe, back then, that I of all people should be chosen by this beautiful, famous, mysterious actress. Of course, I wasn’t unknown either. Everyone was expecting that I would soon take the step from writing to my directorial debut. That’s where the career path of a successful screenwriter usually leads.

  Well, that’s not how it worked out for me.

  But last night, when we sat at the large living-room table until two o’clock with the screen of the baby monitor next to us—though we don’t actually need it, because the little one is not a baby anymore and can come to us if she’s afraid—we talked and talked, and sometimes your phone buzzed softly, as if talking to itself, and in the valley the lights glowed until they went out one after another, and then we went to bed as in our best days.

  —

  Ella and Martin early in the morning. She’s asleep, he’s looking at her, suddenly she moves. She awakens, he quickly closes his eyes, she opens hers. She looks at him, then she looks around the room. Her clothes are lying untidily on the floor, his neatly folded on the chair, his tie, also folded, on top. Some time passes. Finally, he moves, acts as if he were waking up. But she has closed her eyes again. Taken aback, he looks at her, then he uneasily closes his eyes again. So they lie next to each other and pretend to be asleep. Slow fade-out.

  —

  I don’t understand why I had a dream like that after such a blissful evening.

  An empty room. A naked lightbulb on the ceiling, in the corner a chair with only three legs, one of them broken off. The door was locked; what was I afraid of?

  The woman. Her narrow eyes were very close together, on either side of the root of her nose, which had a deep wrinkle down the middle. Her forehead too was wrinkled, and her lips were slightly open, so that I could see her teeth, yellowish like those of heavy smokers. But it was her eyes that were awful.

  She stood there while my fear grew unbearable. I was trembling, I had difficulty breathing, my eyes were watering, my legs went weak—this didn’t actually happen to my real body, of course, so is it possible that I wasn’t afraid at all, that it was only my dream self, just as only my dream hands were trembling? No, the fear was as real as fear can be, and burned in me, and when it was no longer tolerable, the woman took a step back, as if she were releasing me, and only then was I back in our bedroom, where I heard Susanna’s steady breathing and saw the moonlight falling softly through the window, and the baby monitor showed our daughter in a deep sleep.

  —

  Breakfast: Bright grass and even brighter sun, no clouds, the air full of birds whose names I don’t know; I’ve always regretted that I can’t identify birds by name. The way they let the wind carry them, as effortlessly as if flying were the norm, as if it took hard work to stay on the ground.

  At the moment Susanna is reading to Esther for the thousandth time from the book about the mouse and the cheese moon, the little one is laughing and clapping, and I’m quickly finishing my writing before I head out. We’re running low on provisions, someone has to go down to the village, and I volunteered. Get away. Susanna said thank you and held my hand, and I looked into her eyes. They’re not actually blue, more turquoise, with a sprinkling of black.

  Will you read me your new scenes?

  You don’t really want me to.

  Don’t be so sensitive, of course I do.

  I don’t have much yet.

  —

  It just dawned on me where I know the terrifying woman from. I saw her in the photo on the wall in the laundry room—just to the right of the Miele washing machine and the dryer, I noticed it on the first day. But to get nightmares from that is really too much.

  —

  Most people think of themselves as good drivers. Not me. I’m clumsy and absentminded and have slow reflexes. Whenever I drive, even under the best conditions, I have the feeling of letting myself in for something reckless. So it’s not surprising when I’m overcome with panic on a narrow road of hairpin bends.

  This is how it is: You have to be completely unimaginative to sit down without fear in a fuel-filled capsule. One second you’re firmly ensconced in everyday life and thinking about dinner and your tax return, the next you’re wedged in deformed metal while the flames devour you, and all that lies between the one state and the other is a clumsy turn of the steering wheel, half a second of inattention. But I didn’t want to be someone who can’t cope with everyday life. People have simply agreed that driving a car is something harmless.

  I saw Esther and Susanna shrinking in the rearview mirror, the parking area next to the house receded, then the first hairpin bend carried me away. The sun was blinding, and the valley sprang from my right side to my left and, at the next hairpin bend, back again. I broke out in a sweat.

  At the next turn the car slid too far out, I stepped on the brake, it came to a stop just in time. Was I too close to the edge of the road? There was no barrier. I put the car in reverse, rolled backward, slowly started driving again. Fortunately, no one was watching me. The next turn was as tight as the previous one, the valley swung from my right side to my left, again I braked, stopped, and started driving once more, tried to stay to the right of the median strip but failed on the first attempt—drive slowly, I thought, there’s no rush, you just have to survive. The sun was blinding. Sweat was running down my face. The next turn wasn’t too bad, and I noticed an old barn on the roadside, the roof caved-in, the windows empty holes, but I had already been distracted for too long, and the abyss came so close that I cried out. I stepped on the brake with all my strength, then I started driving again.

  Thirty minutes later I arrived in the village. There was only one street and only one shop, Gruntner’s General Store, across from the church. I stayed in the car for a while with trembling hands and listened to my heartbeat gradually slowing back down.

  It’s not a pretty village. The houses are low and appear to be cowering. The roofs are pointed, the windows tiny, gray walls, flaking plaster, a bus stop under a gloomy rain shelter, tracks but no train station, because the train doesn’t stop here.

  A bell announced me when I entered the store: A small room with a counter and a cash register. After a few seconds a door opened and a fat man with bags under his eyes shuffled in. His face seemed to be kneaded out of red dough. He leaned on the counter and eyed me.

  I took out the shopping list. Butter, I said, bread and—

  With a wave of his hand he cut me short and went out. I heard him rummaging and coughing. After an eternity he came back and put a slab of butter in tinfoil on the counter.

  And bread, I said. And eggs and—

  He went out. I listened. He rummaged. Something fell on the floor. He cursed softly, then he coughed. Finally, he returned with a misshapen loaf of bread.

  I closed my eyes and said: Eggs. Again I heard the door, then his coughing from the next room. I looked at the time on my phone. I had been there for fifteen minutes already.

  Bit by bit we worked through the list. He fetched one item at a time, and even though they were the most common foods, he searched for some of them for so long that you might have thought no one had ever asked for them before. He brought plastic-wrapped sausage and a few gnarled apples and two very spotted bananas and ground coffee and coffee filters and milk, and finally I said: Thank you, that’s everything.

  He nodded, pointed to a spot above my head, and asked: You’re staying up there?

  It took me a moment to realize that the gesture was directed at our vacation house. Determined to matc
h him in taciturnity, I nodded.

  Ah, he said.

  Yes, I said.

  Well, he said.

  Right, I said.

  Anything happen yet?

  Excuse me?

  He was silent.

  What should have happened?

  You rented?

  I nodded.

  From Steller?

  Is that the owner?

  Steller, he said.

  Is that the owner’s name?

  Well, Steller, he said in a tone as if it were impossible that there were people in the world to whom the name meant nothing.

  Never heard the name, I said. We rented through Airbnb. I saw his look and added: Internet.

  The door to the street opened, and a woman came in who was so small that she hardly came up to my chest. She had short white hair and was wearing huge sunglasses.

  He greeted her—or at least I assume he did, I didn’t understand what he said, because he had immediately lapsed into dialect. Fehringer has to play him, I thought. I can use all this, and Fehringer would be perfect!

  She returned his greeting, or at least I assume she did. Then she spoke for a while in dialect.

  When she was finished, he nodded, said: Yes, that’s true, or something like that, and shuffled out.

  We heard him rummaging.

  The woman said something without looking at me. Since no one else was in the room, I had to assume that she had spoken to me.

  Excuse me?

  She said something again.

  Excuse me?

  She was silent.

  The door opened, and he came back. His face was even redder, and he was breathing heavily. In his hand he was holding a packet of butter wrapped in tinfoil. The woman took it. He said something, she replied, both of them laughed. She left the store without paying.

  So you haven’t seen him, he said.

  I didn’t understand at first. No, I then said. Internet. Never saw Steller.

  Never?

  Never, I said.

  He wrote a number on a stamped slip of paper, handed it to me, and said: Forty-seven thirty.

  I put the bill in my pocket, took out my wallet, and gave him a fifty, which he shoved in his pants pocket with a sigh. He didn’t touch the cash register. It didn’t look as though he planned to give me change.

  So what’s Steller like? I asked.

  He almost never comes here anymore. That’s why I asked if you knew him.

  Where does he live?

  He shrugged. He almost never comes here anymore.

  The house is new, isn’t it?

  He laughed, then he began to put my groceries in a plastic bag.

  Well, it can’t be more than ten years old, I said.

  A gift, he said, and put something down in front of me. It was a small triangle ruler made of transparent plastic, like the ones I had used in school.

  Thank you, I said, but our daughter is still too little for—

  Try the right angle, he said. Four years!

  You mean the house was built four years ago? I was starting to get used to his manner of speaking.

  There was a different one there before.

  In the same spot?

  He nodded. Steller bought it and tore it down and built a new one. You’re paying a lot?

  Well, yes, I said.

  What are you paying?

  A lot, I said, took the bag, and turned toward the door.

  And the road? he asked.

  It’s too steep, I said. It’s really dangerous. I wonder why they didn’t build any barriers.

  Good thing no one was coming from the other direction.

  How do you know that?

  He smiled.

  Then I understood. The road leads only there, right? Only to our house!

  He smiled.

  What was there before? Before the old house that was there before the new one, what was there?

  He was silent, and it wasn’t clear whether he wasn’t saying anything because he didn’t know the answer or because he for some reason didn’t want to answer.

  Goodbye, I said, and after a moment’s hesitation, I walked out.

  Next to my car stood the woman who had been in the store a short while ago. Because of her dark glasses I couldn’t tell where she was looking.

  Do you think we’ll get snow? I asked.

  She didn’t reply.

  It’s definitely unseasonably warm, I said. In December there should be snow on the ground up here, right?

  Get away quickly, she said.

  What?

  Quickly, she said. Quickly get away.

  A moment later I was no longer sure whether she hadn’t said something completely different or merely cleared her throat, how could anyone tell with that dialect! I waited, but she didn’t say anything else. In her glasses I saw my reflection. Then I nodded to her, got in the car, and started the engine.

  The drive up wasn’t as bad as the drive down. The sun was now halfway behind the rocky ridge between the glaciers, the short winter day nearing its end, the valley lying in shadow, but farther up the green slopes were still shining. I noticed things that I hadn’t seen earlier: a pile of stones next to the ruined barn, a rusted-out tractor, the long shadow that the car cast along the road in front of me. A flock of little birds fluttered up out of a bush like an explosion, their bodies rose, were caught by the wind, whirled away. A cloud glowed deep orange. Soon I arrived at the house, put the groceries in the fridge, and sat down at the table to write.

  —

  Jana enters the store. Fehringer is standing behind the counter. She takes out the shopping list.

  J: Butter, eggs, bread…

  F: You’re not from here, are you, ma’am?

  No, he doesn’t call her ma’am, obviously. And it has to be terser.

  F: You’re not from here.

  Just a weary observation. Not a reproach, not a question. Get away. He says it like a regrettable cosmic fact, about which there’s nothing to be done. Then he grunts and goes out.

  Jana’s face in close-up.

  —

  It’s happening again.

  It must be an optical

  But it’s not stopping. I see it. And still see it. Write it down. Have to take a picture of it, but I don’t know where my phone

  So: I’m sitting at the long table, it’s getting dark outside, the reflection of the room can be seen very clearly: fridge, stove, kitchen table, the door to the hall, the flat-screen TV, the low gray-green sofa, the lamp over the table, the table itself, the chair in front of it. I also see the plastic bag from which I just unpacked the groceries, it’s lying crumpled on the kitchen table. I see an empty glass next to the crumpled bag—here in the room, there in the reflection.

  Only I don’t see myself. In the room in the reflection there’s no one.

  Slowly, look closely. If you look closely and write everything down you will

  I shouldn’t be able to see the handle of the living-room door, I’m sitting between it and the windowpane, I should be blocking it from view, but there it is! And the back of my chair can be seen, and the tabletop on which I’m leaning. And the open notebook. I cover it with my hand. It should no longer be visible. And yet I see the whole thing. The room that is reflected in the windowpane is unoccupied. Like the day before yesterday. Except that the day before yesterday it was only a moment, this time it’s not stopping.

  —

  It’s still happening.

  —

  Still.

  —

  It stopped. I stood up to look for the phone and take a picture of it, looking away briefly in the process, and when I turned back to the windowpane, I was in the room. I sat down, my reflection did the same. I wrote It stopped. I’m sitting here and writing, I’m sitting there and writing too. There must be an explanation. If I were a physicist, I’d probably know what it is, and all this wouldn’t surprise me. But I feel dizzy. Even though it just happened, it seems to me as if it were a long time
ago, and I know that in a moment I’ll no longer be sure whether it really happened. Write it down so that you remember, so that you can never claim it was only your imagination.

  But even as I’m writing this, I’m thinking that it must have been my imagination.

  —

  Ella in the car, cheerful and relaxed, she’s whistling to herself. Music from the car radio. The phone rings, she presses a button, we hear the voice of the caller, Martin.

  M: When are you coming?

  E: Be there soon.

  M: When will you be here?

  E: Soon.

  M: Yes, but when is that? What does soon mean?

  (Her face darkens. She turns off the music.)

  E: Soon means soon!

  M: Where exactly are you?

  E: In the car.

  M: And where is the car?

  E: On the road.

  M: Obviously it’s on the road, but which road and where exactly?

  E: (very annoyed) That’s hard to answer, the car is moving and therefore technically always somewhere else.

  M: Oh really, it’s technically always somewhere else?

  E: Is this how you speak to the people you audit?

  M: What?

  E: Is this how you speak to—

  M: If you want to know whether I speak this way to people when I’m conducting a tax audit of their accounts, the answer is no, if only because I don’t conduct audits myself. As you might have known by now, I run the appeals department.

  E: The appeals department.

  M: That’s right, people can lodge appeals with us. If we were to audit you, for example—

  E: Is that a threat?

  M: Ella!

  E: You’re threatening me with a tax audit?

  M: Don’t give me any ideas, but

  —

  It can’t be true. Simply can’t be.

  Because the dream was preying on my mind, I remembered the picture of the woman with the close-set eyes in the laundry room, and I wanted to see it again and went there, and it’s not there!