Seven Years

That’s not a nice story, said Antje. Her voice sounded low and serious. I know, I said, and you’re the first person I’ve told it to. Why me?

Instead of taking the road via Traubing as I usually did, I drove along the lakefront, even though it was night, and there wasn’t much to see. There was a time I was bored by this landscape, but the longer I lived here, the more I saw its beauty. Sometimes, when Sonia was in bed already, I would go for a walk down to the Academy, and sit by the shore and think about my life, and how it could have been different. Then I would have the feeling it had all happened automatically, without any input from me, as though it had to be this way. I admired people like Antje who seemed to have their lives in their hands, and set themselves goals, and made decisions.

I parked outside the house, but Antje made no move. I don’t really feel like going in there with you, she said quietly. It’s almost twenty years ago, I said. You’re sitting here in your house, with your beautiful wife and your sweet little girl. Don’t you feel any shame? I haven’t gotten to the end of the story yet, I said. Well, I’ve heard enough for today, said Antje, and she climbed out.

I showed her to the guest bedroom, which was right beside the front door, and facing the office on the lower ground floor. Sonia had everything ready. There were towels laid out on the freshly made bed and flowers on the table by the window. She had even written a welcome card and propped it against the vase. Antje read it and set it down with a smile. Mathilda, our cat, walked in. Sophie had been pestering us for ages, and finally for her tenth birthday she was allowed to have the kitten her grandparents had promised her long before. But now, half a year later, her interest had let up noticeably, and we continually needed to remind her to look after her pet. Mathilda strolled through my legs and looked up at Antje, who was taking her toiletries from her overnight bag. You have your own bathroom, I said, here on the right. Will you remove the cat, please?, said Antje. I asked her if she didn’t like animals. I like wild animals, not pets.

I said good night and turned to leave. Wait, said Antje, and dropped onto her bed. You didn’t answer my question. Why tell me all this? We hardly know each other. Maybe that’s the reason, I said. Do you remember when you showed me your paintings back then? Antje made a doubtful face. You didn’t like them. Actually, no one liked them, not even me. You said I was too young for them, I said, but that wasn’t true. I recognized myself in your copulating chimeras. I felt trapped, maybe that’s why I didn’t want to see your pictures. Aren’t you making things a teeny bit simple for yourself?, asked Antje. You behave like a swine, and then you blame your inner beast. I’m not buying that. Maybe I thought, because you’re an artist, you’d understand, I said. Antje stopped to think. She had some understanding for craziness, but she couldn’t understand what I’d done. You had to be able to tell the difference between fiction and reality. Imagine someone doing that to your daughter. I said that wasn’t fair, Sophie was still a child. That’s not the point, said Antje.

Finally we said good night, and I went upstairs to Sophie’s room. The only light was from a small blue night-light, in which Sophie’s face looked very calm. While I gazed at her, she quickly furrowed her brow, and I wondered what was going on in her head, what she could have been dreaming about. Sometimes she came into our room, I would wake up for some reason to find her standing by our bed and staring at me with a frightened expression. When I sent her back she would say she’d had a bad dream. Then she would tell exotic stories about wild animals and wicked men, and sometimes great big destructive machines, and I would tell her to try and think of something else, something pretty. I can’t, she would say.

I went into the bathroom and got changed. When I lay down, Sonia woke briefly, gave me a kiss, and went straight back to sleep. I thought of the pictures I’d taken of her asleep, and that she’d seen later. That was the first time we’d kissed, on that little island in front of the port at Marseilles. It all seemed terribly long ago.





When I got to the parking lot, Sonia was already there. She got out, said hello, and opened the trunk. There was hardly any room for my duffle bag next to her huge wheeled suitcase. I asked her what she’d packed, I’d thought we were only going for a couple of days. Things I need, she said, and a few books and my Rolleiflex. Did you bring a camera? I don’t need a camera, I’ve got eyes in my head and a good memory. You’re just lazy, Sonia said.

It was a cool morning, everything felt clean and fresh. It was due to get hot again by noon, but by then we’d be in the mountains, Sonia promised. She’d thought of everything, she had all the necessary maps with her, and water and a thermos of coffee. Some sandwiches were in a picnic basket on the back seat. We’re going to go via the San Bernardino Pass, said Sonia, past Milan and along the Ligurian coast. It’s a pretty route. I said I’d be glad to take turns driving. We’ll see, she said.

It really was a lovely drive. We had never spent so much time together, and we got on like a house on fire. Sonia talked about Le Corbusier, she knew everything about him and his work. She asked me what I had against him. Nothing, I said, I just don’t like him. There’s something conceited about his buildings. I always get the feeling they’re out to turn me into an ideal man. Have you ever been inside any of his buildings? No, I said, but I’ve seen loads of pictures. Sonia said, pictures weren’t enough, the essence of Le Corbusier wasn’t in the facades, but in the rooms. Anyway, what could be bad about a building that improved the people who lived in it? I said, people have a history that you have to respect. Attempts to create a better man were at best misguided and at worst had led to atrocious crimes. What did Le Corbusier do in the war, by the way? Sonia said she wasn’t exactly sure, but he certainly hadn’t been a fascist. In twenty years’ time no one will speak about Deconstructivism anymore, but Le Corbusier will still be around.

Later we talked about our final projects, and when I told Sonia I’d started mine all over again, she looked at me in amazement. I told her about my new ideas. That the structure should emerge from the paths and grow, like a plant, that the halls shouldn’t just be the empty space between walls, but atmospheric bodies, sculptures of light and shade. While I spoke, I got the feeling I hadn’t done so badly over the last week. Of course it’s a waste of time, now that I’ve got my degree in my pocket. Sonia asked me if I’d like to work with her on the day-care design for the contest. That surprised me, because a day or two earlier she’d rejected all my suggestions, and basically we had completely different ideas about architecture. Do you really think we’d make a good team? You make a more interesting class of mistake, said Sonia, and laughed.

At lunchtime we were at the pass. We parked the car and ate our sandwiches. Then we lay in the sun, until Sonia said we’d better get going. I asked if she wanted me to take over, but she shook her head, maybe later, she didn’t feel tired yet. I wasn’t too unhappy about that, because I wasn’t an experienced driver, and I enjoyed sitting idly next to Sonia and staring out the window at the passing scenery.

Somehow we came to speak about Rüdiger. I asked Sonia why she’d broken up with him. He broke up with me. That I don’t understand, I said, how anyone could leave a woman like you. Sonia quickly turned to look at me, and smiled ironically. Tell him that.

They had been together since high school, she said, and had grown up only a mile or two apart. Rüdiger had decided to go into architecture for her sake. He could just as well have done something completely different. You know him, he can do anything and does nothing.

When she started university, Sonia had found a room in a communal apartment, but Rüdiger continued to travel into the city from his parents’ house at Possenhofen every day. We had a good time, but it bugged me that he was still at his parents’. But his mother’s nice, I said. Yes, she is, and so’s his father too, but Rüdiger somehow can’t get free of them. Eventually I gave him an ultimatum. He decided in favor of his parents. Sonia laughed. She could easily imagine Rüdiger never getting married, he wasn’t really interested in women. Do you think he’s gay? No, said Sonia, he’s not interested in men either. What’s left? She shrugged her shoulders. I don’t know. She said she didn’t hold anything against Rüdiger, quite the contrary, at seventeen she’d been quite relieved to have a boyfriend who wasn’t pressuring her into this and that. I didn’t respond. It’s the same with work, said Sonia, perhaps that bothered me more. He’s just got no energy. It’s typical of him to have bailed before his final. Now he can go on being a student for another year. I wouldn’t be surprised if he never receives his degree.

We were out of the mountains and crossing a huge flat plain. The nearer we got to Milan, the denser the traffic. Sonia was silent now, she had to concentrate. Then we were in open country again, and the traffic was lighter. What do you look to a woman for?, she asked. I don’t look for anything in particular. When I’ve fallen in love with her, I just have to take her the way she is. Sonia laughed. I must be a hopeless romantic. That’s why women have to be sensible and choose their men. Is that what you do?, I asked. She didn’t say anything for a moment, and then she replied, sure I do that.

The air was hazy, and the car got very hot. We rolled the windows down and listened to the radio, and then later to cassettes. Every so often I would offer to take over the driving, but each time she shook her head and said, I can do it. Two or three times she stopped, without consulting me, at a service station, and we drank lukewarm coffee from the thermos, and peed, and then we drove on.

It was late afternoon when we got to the coast, and about an hour later we were in France. Not much farther now, said Sonia.


We reached Marseilles at eight in the evening, after driving for twelve hours. Unfortunately it took us another half an hour to find the house where Sonia’s friend lived. It wasn’t far from the old harbor, but the quarter was a tangle of one-way streets, and we drove around in endless circles, sometimes following signs to CENTRE VILLE, and sometimes TOUTES DIRECTIONS. Isn’t that great, I said, wherever you want to get to there’s only one way. Sonia didn’t say anything. She looked tired and stressed out.

Finally we found the house, a five-story Art Nouveau building with a grimy facade, and not too far away from it, an empty parking spot. Sonia switched the engine off and sat still. She said she was a bit tired now. Shall I carry you upstairs? She said Antje lived on the fifth floor.

Sonia went ahead while I lugged her suitcase and my bag up the steps. Above me I could hear the two friends greeting each other. This is Alexander, said Sonia, once I reached the door, and this is Antje. Alex, I said, and shook hands with the painter. She wore capri pants and a sleeveless top. Her hair was as blond as Sonia’s. She had small strong hands and must have been quite a bit older than us, around forty, I guessed.

So did you manage to snaffle him after all?, she said with a naughty grin. Antje!, cried Sonia with a show of horror, and laughed. We’re just buddies, as you know perfectly well. Antje asked us in, she had some food ready. She led the way down a dark hallway. From the outside, the building had looked a bit dilapidated, but the apartment was in a good state, the rooms were bright and had high ceilings and old creaky floorboards. The walls were covered with small old paintings of animals, meerkats and birds, ungulates and rodents. There was something disturbing about them, they were eerie and seemed to be observing us, lying in wait. Antje led the way out onto the balcony, and a table laid with bread and cheese, raw ham, olives, and a large bowl of salad, all in the light of an oil lamp and a few candles.

We ate and drank wine and talked. At eleven, Antje asked us if we felt like going out, but Sonia said she was dog tired. You can choose, said Antje, either you can sleep with your nice buddy in the guest room, or you can share the master bed with me. Sonia was sheepish, I hadn’t seen that in her before, it was quite moving. After her brief hesitation, she said, I’ll sleep with you. That’s what I was afraid of, said Antje. Come on, I’ll show you the room. The two women disappeared together. I stayed on the balcony, looking down onto the street, from where there was noisy shouting. A delivery truck was in the middle of the road and the driver of a car was leaning out of the window cursing the truck driver, who was taking all the time in the world to unload some large boxes and pile them up on the sidewalk.

Sonia says to wish you a good night, said Antje, when she came back. Do you mind if I have a cigarette? I asked if the paintings in the apartment were all by her. There was something disconcerting about them. Come, said Antje, and she took a couple of hurried drags, and put out her cigarette. She took me into the sitting room and switched on the light. Look at them closely. Once again I had the feeling I was being watched, but it took me a while to understand the cause of it. The animals had human eyes. I’ll show you my new ones, said Antje. She led me to a large room at the end of the hallway. The parquet floor was covered by large pieces of cardboard, on the walls were a few dark pictures, but in the half-light it was difficult to make out what they were. Antje walked through the room and bent down. A construction light on a tripod flared up, so bright that for a moment I was dazzled. Then I saw the strange beings in the paintings, a man with a fish head and an enormous cock he was holding in both hands, a bull mounting a cow, both with human heads, two dogs with human privates, licking each other. In the background were sketched in cityscapes, half-decayed high-rise apartments, deserted pedestrian walkways, a gray industrial park. The paintings were done in oil, in dark shades, and they had something old masterly about them. The one of the two dogs was still unfinished, the background was just outlined in charcoal on the primed canvas. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t find the paintings beautiful, they were even more disquieting than the small ones in the other rooms, but they were undeniably powerful and unsettling. They didn’t seem to me to go with my idea of Antje, who in her conversation was pretty conventional, the way she talked to Sonia about clothes and going out and Munich compared to Marseilles. Antje didn’t seem to be interested at all in my opinion. Welcome to the zoo, she said with a mocking expression. She unplugged the light, and it was dark, but a different dark now that I knew what terrifying beings were concealed in it. We went back out to the balcony. Antje filled our glasses and looked at me directly. The silence was difficult, I had the feeling I had to say something. You’re unsettling. Yes, said Antje. It wasn’t a confirmation, more a sort of prompt, as though expecting me to carry on. I felt as if I was being tested. What’s the name of the painter who did The Garden of Earthly Delights? That’s what it reminds me of. Don’t trouble yourself, said Antje. Sonia doesn’t like them either. Perhaps you’re both just too young and cosseted. She asked me what my animal was. I thought about it, but I couldn’t think of one. A bird?, I suggested. That’s what they all say. Antje shook her head. A gazelle. That would fit Sonia better than me, I said. Antje twisted her mouth. No, Sonia is domesticated. She’s a sheep, or maybe a guinea pig, yes, that’s right, a guinea pig. I laughed. You’re not very nice, are you. I’m most like a dog, said Antje, a stray dog, that’s not very flattering either. I wondered what sort of animal Ivona might be. Perhaps a dog as well, I thought, but Ivona wasn’t domesticated, under her quiet, long-suffering manner there was still something wild, a resolve that I’d rarely come across in a human being.

And how do you like your guinea pig?, asked Antje. We’re just classmates, I said. At the most, we might enter a competition together one day. Didn’t you notice that Sonia wants more from you? I shook my head. She’s got no time for a relationship. And you believe her when she says that?, asked Antje with an ambiguous smile. I don’t think she’s in love with me. Nor do I, said Antje. It would be wrong to expect too much of her.

We went on drinking and talking. Antje seemed to get a kick out of unsettling me. Her boyfriend lived in Munich, she said, and that was fine by her. She couldn’t stand having a man around her all the time, it would interfere with her work. I expect you want to get married and start a family? I don’t know, I said. If you want to get married, Sonia’s the perfect wife. She’s beautiful, intelligent, cultivated, and she’s a good sort. That’s not enough, I said. I don’t think you’re cut out for a great love, said Antje. Nor am I, by the way, either.

She had only really fallen in love once, she said, when she was twenty, with a man fifteen years older. Georg was Antje’s teacher at art school. He lived in Hamburg, and only traveled down to Munich every other week, to look at his students’ work. He had a wife and four children, as he’d told Antje right at the start. To begin with, their relationship wasn’t much more than an affair.

But then over time I got to become more and more of a second wife to him, said Antje, he took me along to openings, introduced me to important people, and helped to find me a gallery. She was the only student who had had a gallery before she graduated. She liked being the lover of a prominent painter, and Georg had treated her well, taking her to expensive restaurants and giving her presents.

After graduation, Antje fell into a hole, she couldn’t deal with her newly won freedom, and had no more ideas. She worked like a lunatic and got nowhere. Georg was her last connection to the art scene. When he came to Munich, she perked up for a few days, touring the galleries with him, staying up all night. But he had new students, young talents, who were more of an inspiration to him than she was. I was just the one he f*cked, she said. The more Georg turned away from her, the more she clung to him. She was getting nowhere with her painting, so she devoted all her energies to jealousy.

He had one very talented student, said Antje, I don’t think there was anything between them, but I couldn’t think straight anymore. I trailed him from the Academy once, and followed him when he went out drinking with his class. I sat down at the next table, so he could see me. Then I wrote him interminable letters, embarrassing letters, I hope to God he’s thrown them away. Sometimes I was aggressive, sometimes submissive, sometimes both at the same time. I’d call him at home in Hamburg, until he changed his number. He threatened he would end my career. I was besotted with him, that’s the only way I can describe it. I had physical symptoms, migraine attacks, stomach cramps. Once when I saw him going to an opening with that student I mentioned, I spent the night puking. At four a.m. I called his hotel. Of course the night receptionist didn’t put me through. I was sure Georg was with the new student. It never crossed my mind that he might just be sleeping.

I can laugh about it now, said Antje, but at the time I was on the verge of insanity. When it was over I swore I would never fall in love like that again. And I stuck to it. Whatever the novels say, amour fou is an inferior form of love. If a cultivated person starts acting like a madman, that is humiliating and a sign of immaturity. She filled our glasses. Those are stories that everyone enjoys listening to, but if they happen to you, you just wish it would end. She asked me what I had to find fault with in Sonia. Nothing. She likes you, said Antje. When she called to tell me that you were coming, she raved about you. I asked her if you two were an item. No, she said, not yet.

I emptied my glass and said I was tired and was going to bed. Come on, said Antje, and she took my arm. Her voice wasn’t slurred or anything, but I could tell by her movements that she was drunk. She showed me the guest room and bathroom. Outside her bedroom, she pressed her finger to her lips and took my hand. She opened the door softly and led me up to the bed. I had never seen Sonia asleep before. While I looked at her, something strange happened. Her features seemed to change, it was as though I was seeing the face of the old woman she would one day become. Antje bent down over her, kissed her on the brow, and said, good night, little guinea pig.


The next morning, when I came into the kitchen, Sonia and Antje were already sitting there, drinking coffee. They stopped talking and smiled. I was sure they’d been talking about me. Antje stood up to get me a cup. Sonia called me a sleepyhead.

After breakfast we went to the Cité Radieuse and had a tour of that rather run-down building. Sonia pointed out every detail to me, and tiptoed down the dark corridors, as though we were in a church. She was right—only now that I was actually inside the building did I notice its quality. The rooms and stairwells were surprisingly small, and even though the building was eighteen stories high, because it was supported on concrete pillars it seemed extraordinarily light. It was the first building Le Corbusier had built using the Modulor, his invented system of measurements, Sonia told me. I vaguely remembered it coming up at school. Sonia showed me an illustration from her guidebook, a muscular, asexual being with big hands and small head, and a hole in place of its navel. Does he live here then?, I asked. The ideal inhabitant of the ideal house.

We took the elevator up to the roof terrace. Up there it was hot, and I sat down in the shade of the superstructure and read the guidebook while Sonia scouted everything.

We took the bus back into the city. Sonia’s eyes were shining, and she was enthusing about the “unit for living.” There was no sense that we’d just seen it together. The building had impressed me, but I felt like contradicting Sonia. Be honest, would you want to live there? In a second she said, wouldn’t you? I’m not sure, machine for living, I mean, the very expression. You might as well say battery farm. The individuality comes through the inhabitants, said Sonia, the building is just a container. My critique seemed to annoy her. Her face was a little flushed, which suited her. Shall we go to the sea?, I asked. Maybe later, she said, I’d like to jot down a few notes first.

Antje had gone out. She wasn’t going to be back until tonight, she said at breakfast. We had a bite to eat from the fridge, and then Sonia disappeared into Antje’s room, and I took a seat in the living room and browsed through some coffee-table books about animals that I found on the sofa. In Brehm’s animal encyclopedia I read the article about guinea pigs. According to Brehm, they were easy to keep, harmless, cheerful, and undemanding. If you just gave them something to eat, they’d be happy pretty much anywhere. On the other hand, they weren’t truly affectionate, just friendly to anyone who treated them well.

It was hot in the apartment, but a breeze came in through the open balcony door carrying the sounds of the city, which sounded surprisingly near. I stretched out on the sofa and imagined what it would be like to live with Sonia in the Cité Radieuse. We would have two kids, a girl and a boy. We would eat breakfast as a family, and then take the children downstairs to the day care, and go to our studio, where we both worked on social housing projects. It was an open, brightly lit space in the city center, with large tables with blueprints on them, and white cardboard models of machines for living scattered about. Then we went on site. Sonia looked lovely in beige pants and a white linen shirt and white plastic helmet. Huge red cranes stood around, but no one seemed to be working. The sky was blue, and you could see the sea in the distance and sense the nearness of Africa just across the water. It was a scene from a French movie of the fifties or sixties, our whole life was a film put together from distance shots, wide angles under white light, with little people moving through it, all very aesthetic and intellectual and cool.

I got up and went out into the hallway. I knocked gently on the door of Antje’s room and said quietly, Sonia? No reply. The door was half-open, and I went inside. Sonia was lying on the bed asleep, one arm curled over her head on the pillow. There was a small dark sweat stain in her armpit, the one flaw in an otherwise perfect picture. I stroked it with my finger, I didn’t dare any other touch. The Rolleiflex was on the desk. I picked it up and started to take pictures of Sonia. The image in the frame was reversed, and it took me a while to get used to the fact that every move I made had the reverse effect. Slowly I circled the bed, looking for the perfect setup, moving in and then back again. I took a couple of shots, once, when I was really near, Sonia’s brow creased at the sound of the shutter, and I was afraid she’d wake up, but her face relaxed again, and I went on taking pictures. Then the film was full, and I took it out, sealed it, and laid it with the other rolls that Sonia had shot that morning. As I was about to leave the room, I heard Sonia’s drowsy voice call my name. I turned around and went back to her. I must have gone to sleep, she said. I said I’d dozed off as well.

Sonia said she was going to take the films to be developed, would I like to go with her. We went to the photo shop down the street and then we had a drink in a bistro in the old harbor.


The next day Sonia wanted to take a look at the Château d’If. Antje had told us that boats went from there to a couple of small islands where you could bathe in the sea. We packed our swimming things, bought a few sandwiches, and picked up the prints in the photo shop.

The boat left from the old harbor. Even though it was early in the morning, bathers thronged the jetty. When the ship left port, it crossed various little fishing boats and farther out an enormous ferry that was probably coming from Corsica or from North Africa. The light and the salt smell and the ships reminded me of family holidays, and I felt a bit like I used to then, at once lost and full of expectation.

Not many passengers got off at the Château d’If, most of them were staying on till the bathing islands. The fortress fascinated me right away with its monumentality and its deployment of simple forms. It consisted of a quadratic central structure, with three massive towers at the corners. It had been built five hundred years ago, and had been used, almost from the start, as a prison. The central keep had a small inner courtyard with a well and galleries, from which you gained access to the cells. The cells were dark, with very little light reaching them through the narrow, low-set archery slits. Sonia said the walls were ten or twelve feet thick in places, and she began copying some of the details into her sketchbook. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be imprisoned here. Oddly, I had a sensation of shelter and protection rather than confinement.

On the castle roof, the light was dazzlingly bright and threw sharp black shadows onto the reddish stone. You could see the city in the distance, but the land was already so hazy that you could only make out the outlines of the buildings. After an hour we took the boat out to the islands. It was full of tanned young people in plastic flip-flops and bathing suits and not much more.

The ship docked at Frioul, the first of the islands. At the jetty a little train stood by to transport the visitors to the beach, but Sonia first wanted to look at the ruins of the German fort on a cliff overlooking the harbor. We climbed the rocky path. The heat was stifling, and when we got to the top, I was in a lather of sweat, and took off my T-shirt. Sonia seemed unaffected by the heat, she still looked fresh as a daisy. Paul Virilio compared these bunkers to grave sites, she said, while she walked among the ruins. He said it was as though the men went freely to their graves, to protect themselves from death. We had reached the highest point, and on the horizon there was a collection of concrete crosses. As we approached, we saw that they weren’t part of some military cemetery, but supports that must once have sustained something heavy, like a roof or antiaircraft artillery. Even so, the crosses lent a sort of morbid aspect to the place. Virilio calls the bunkers temples without religion, said Sonia.

On the way downhill, she asked me if I was religious. She wasn’t happy with my reply, my views were too diffuse and frivolous for her liking. You had to have a standpoint. She believed in people and humanity and progress. You’re just a child of the modern age, I said, and Sonia laughed and said, that to her was a compliment. I thought of something Le Corbusier had said, that I’d seen in a vitrine in the Cité Radieuse: Everything is different. Everything is new. Everything is beautiful. And for a moment I thought I could believe in that.

The little beach at the foot of the hill was too crowded for us, but not far off we found a bay with fewer people. The rocks were jagged, and we searched for a while before we found a flat spot where we could spread our towels. It was sheltered, and the air carried a faint smell of mold. Fifty yards offshore a couple of yachts rode at anchor, with no one to be seen on them. I put on my swimming trunks, Sonia sat down without changing. Won’t you come for a swim?, I asked. She shook her head and said she preferred swimming pools, she was afraid of jellyfish and sea urchins and various other sea creatures.

I had to clamber over some rocks to get to the water, which seemed surprisingly cool for the time of year. I swam out a few yards. Looking back, I saw Sonia taking the photograph envelopes out of her bag. I swam as far as the yachts, rounded them, and turned back. Sonia was sitting there just as before, staring out to sea. When I dropped onto the towel next to her, she took the pictures that had been in her lap and handed them to me without a word. I dried my hands and looked through them, photos of the Cité Radieuse, other buildings, and places in the inner city. Then there were the pictures I had taken of Sonia asleep. They weren’t as good as I had hoped they would be, but Sonia still looked very good in them, almost like a statue. I turned to her. She had lain down and shut her eyes, it was almost as though she was imitating the pictures, but her attitude had something stiff about it. She had drawn up her legs and was pressing her knees together, and she seemed very young. I think she was waiting for me to kiss her, at any rate it didn’t seem to surprise her when I did. She put her arms around my neck and pulled me down to her.

We walked hand in hand back to the jetty, not saying a word. Sometimes I stopped and pulled Sonia toward me and kissed her. My mood was a mixture of formal and light-hearted. I had thought a lot about Sonia, and she probably had about me. We hadn’t kissed out of some whim, and it was clear to me from that moment on that the kiss was a decision we had come to together. On the boat back, Sonia asked me what my plans were, and whether I wanted to do a training course abroad, and later start my own architectural firm and family. We spoke lightly, but under everything there was the seriousness with which only young people talk about life. I didn’t feel so much in love as happy and confident and maybe proud.

Outside the apartment Sonia kissed me again, a short, concluding kiss, as if to make it clear to me that our relationship was to be kept secret from Antje. But in the course of the evening, we gave up our discretion. We had dinner on the balcony again, and were sitting there talking about architecture and Marseilles. Sonia said she hadn’t just come here for Le Corbusier. She also wanted to look for an internship. She had a couple of addresses of firms that interested her, and was going to go around and look at them. If you don’t mind, she said, taking my hand. Antje raised her eyebrows and smirked. Well, at least I’ll have my bed to myself tonight, she said. She looked at Sonia. Or won’t I? No one said anything, and I think even Antje was a little embarrassed by the silence. Maybe Sonia and I were too well acquainted to become lovers just like that. When going swimming I had often enough changed in her presence, but now when I thought about sleeping in the same bed with her, I felt a little bashful. With a quiet, uncertain voice, she said if it was okay with Antje, she would like to stay in her room. She got up, kissed me—as if by way of compensation—quickly on the mouth, and disappeared into the apartment. After she had been gone a little while, I followed her inside. I found her in Antje’s room. She was sitting on the bed, crying. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her, and asked her what the matter was. I’m so happy, she said, but I’m embarrassed. Embarrassed with me? No, silly, not you, in front of Antje. I was pretty sure she felt embarrassed in front of me as well, and maybe even with herself too. It doesn’t matter, I said. We’ve got all the time in the world.


In the morning Sonia was the same as always. When I went into the kitchen, she was just fixing coffee. I reached around her waist and she kissed me, as though we’d been going out for years, and then she turned away and fished the milk and butter out of the fridge. Today I’m going to visit architects’ studios, she said cheerfully, do you want some orange juice? I asked her if she didn’t want to call ahead to set up interviews, but she shook her head. The best thing was just to drop by, once people saw you they had more trouble saying no to you. You mean your beauty will win them over? She looked at me furiously. That’s mean, I can’t help the way I look. I said it could be worse, and laid my hands on her shoulders and pulled her against me, and now she hugged me and kissed me properly. She asked if I’d slept well. I said, I dreamed about you. That’s not true, admit it.

Sonia spent the next days traipsing around various architect firms in Marseilles. I went with her and waited nearby in a bistro, drank a cup of coffee, and read until she came out. She shook her head, and before we got out the door she unfolded her list, put a line through the entry, and looked for the next one. So many rejections didn’t seem to affect her self-confidence in the least, she was tough, I’d noticed that at school. Whereas I reacted aggressively to criticism and referred to the professors as idiots, she listened carefully and tried to do better.

We were out all day, I’d already switched from coffee to Pernod, and had stopped reading and instead just watched the people in the cafés, when I saw Sonia emerging from a building she’d gone into a half an hour before. A good-looking man of middle age held the door open for her, and the two of them walked down the street together. I paid at the bar and followed them, but even before I’d caught up, the man opened the door of a white minivan and showed Sonia in. I looked for a taxi. Of course there were none to be seen. I stood there for a while not knowing what to do, before finally setting off back to Antje’s apartment.

Antje was sitting in the living room reading. She asked me what I’d done with Sonia. Nothing, she climbed into a car with a man and drove off. Sounds promising, said Antje, would you like a mint tea, I’ve just made some.

In the kitchen I asked Antje how she met Sonia in the first place. She was friends with Sonia’s parents, Antje said, she’d known Sonia from when she was a little girl. Was she like that then? Antje nodded. A bit precocious and terribly serious. She had a way about her that commanded respect, even when she was just little. Basically everyone did what she said, often without realizing it. She always seemed to be thinking of other people. It never occurred to you that it might be to her advantage too. One of my professors introduced Sonia’s parents to me. They used to go to every opening back then. I had a problem with an unwanted pregnancy, and Sonia’s father helped. Afterward he treated me free of charge for many years. I gave him the occasional picture by way of thanks, but I think he only took it so as not to give me the feeling of owing him. He never put any of them up on his walls, that’s for sure. Maybe his wife didn’t like them. He’s a very cultivated man, said Antje, did you get to meet him ever? Only briefly, at an end-of-semester presentation. Sonia introduced me to both of them. But she was still going out with Rüdiger at the time. Antje laughed. She brought him to visit me once too. I was at the Villa Massimo in Rome at the time. He was classy. How do you mean? Antje shrugged her shoulders. Oh, she said, I don’t know, he was something special, crazy guy. We turned Rome upside down, me and him. Sonia spent the whole day touring cultural sites and went to bed early. I asked her when that was. Last year. Antje looked at me, laughed, and said, there wasn’t anything. You didn’t think that, did you? No, he’s not that type. We just hit it off together. But even then I sensed that their relationship was rocky.

She said she was very fond of Sonia, initially on her parents’ account, but she struck her as being a bit earnest. I recalled that Ferdy had once said Sonia was the most humorless person he’d ever come across, she would ask to be excused when she laughed. At the time I’d contradicted him, just as I contradicted Antje now, but presumably they were right and I wasn’t.

Sonia turned up an hour later. She asked where I’d gone, she’d been looking for me in the café. She was too excited to be upset about my disappearance, but I was angry. I saw you drive off with a man, I said, the least you could do was tell me where you were going. Or are you ashamed of me? I was standing there like a piece of trash. Sonia hugged and kissed me. You poor thing, that was Albert, he says I can do my internship at his firm. And I suppose you had to go and celebrate that together right away, I said, still irritated. He showed me a construction site, he had to go anyway and just took me with him. I didn’t know it would take so long.

Maybe Sonia did have a bad conscience after all. That evening she was especially sweet to me. This time we went out to eat, in a little bar in the old harbor, where Antje claimed they served the best fish in Marseilles. We drank a lot of wine, Sonia drank more than she usually did, and we toasted all kinds of things, Sonia’s internship, the future, architecture, Sonia and me. Afterward we went to a club where it was so loud that most of the time we just sat there and looked at each other helplessly and shook our heads and laughed. Antje ran into someone she knew and motioned to him to join us. She laughed even more than before, and put her hand on the man’s thigh, and kept leaning across to him, and yelled things in his ear that he seemed to find very droll. After about an hour we left. Outside, Antje introduced the man to us and said he was a photographer. The two of them decided to go on to some other place together. Sonia said she was tired, and I didn’t feel like going along either. I wondered if Antje hadn’t hooked up with the photographer so as to leave us alone in the apartment, at any rate it wasn’t until much later that I heard her come home.

I kissed Sonia on the stairs, and then we kissed in the hallway. She was a bit drunk, and kept bursting out laughing while I was kissing her, also her hands were busy, now clasping behind my neck, my shoulders, my back, running through my hair. Probably we were more nervous than stimulated. I couldn’t manage to undo Sonia’s belt. She giggled nervously and said she had to go to the bathroom quickly. She turned the key in the lock, and I heard the toilet flush, and her brushing her teeth, but when she finally came out she was still dressed. I’ve got to go too, I said, and disappeared.

Sonia lay in my bed, with the covers pulled up to her chin. She had hung her clothes over the back of a chair. I started to undress, then she turned out the light, and I had to cross the room in darkness, and banged my foot against the chair with her clothes on it, which fell over with a loud crash. I swore and slipped into bed. Hello, said Sonia in a silly voice, and put out her hands toward me, as though to push me away. I said I wanted to be able to look at her, and leaned across to switch on the bedside lamp, but she clasped me around the neck and began kissing me. I felt for her body. She was in her underwear. When I went to pull off her panties, she grabbed my hands and asked me if I had condoms. Aren’t you on the pill?, I asked. No, she whispered. I’m sure Antje’ll have some, I said, and got up, don’t go away. In the darkness I stumbled over the upset chair. I didn’t find any condoms, neither in the bathroom nor in Antje’s bedroom. I went back to Sonia. This time I switched on the overhead light. She blinked and turned away from the light. No luck, I said, and slipped under the covers, I’ll be careful, promise. Sonia said that was too risky for her, couldn’t I go out to the night pharmacy and buy some. She lay there as stiffly as she had on the beach the first time I’d kissed her. I stroked her hair. Go on, she said, be quick. When I returned half an hour later with the condoms, the light was out and Sonia was asleep.

We woke early in the morning, I don’t know which of us awoke first. Silently we started caressing each other, it was as though our bodies were reaching for each other, while the rest of us was still half asleep. Sonia kissed me, she shoved her tongue in my mouth, it seemed very big to me, and I got the taste of her sleep. She had pulled off her underwear and laid herself on top of me. I still remember my surprise at her weight and warmth. We moved slowly together like two sleepy desirous animals trying to become one.

We stayed in bed all morning making love, almost without a word. Once Antje knocked on the door, put her head around the corner, and asked us what our plans were, and if we meant to have breakfast any time. When we said no, she went out without a word. Later, Sonia asked me to get her a glass of water. I pulled on my shorts. In the hallway I ran into the photographer, and we said hello. It didn’t feel embarrassing at all, on the contrary, I felt a kind of satisfaction. Are you getting up at last?, called Antje from the kitchen. I didn’t reply, and disappeared into the guest bedroom. Sonia had gotten dressed and pulled up the blinds, and was looking out the window. I stood behind her and embraced her. She took the glass from my hand and drank it in slow sips.


Our remaining days in Marseilles were perhaps the happiest in our entire relationship. We strolled hand in hand through the city, looked at old buildings, and stopped in front of construction sites to watch the work. At noon the sun was vertical, and in the sea of light the shadows of the trees were like little islands where we took refuge. When the heat became unbearable, we went back to the apartment. Sonia sketched, and I would read or flick through Antje’s collection of antique illustrated books on all sorts of subjects.

I think Antje was a tad jealous of us, anyway she passed occasional remarks about young love, and said it prevented her from working if we hung around necking all the time. She had a show coming up in the fall, and she wasn’t happy with what she’d done so far this year. At night she stayed out on the balcony with a half-bottle of wine, while Sonia and I disappeared to bed. Sonia used the bathroom first and then waited for me under the sheets, and we would kiss and embrace. Then she would turn out the lights and we would make love. When I woke up in the morning, she had pulled on her pajamas, and when I hugged her, she got up and said she didn’t want to waste the day in bed. I had the feeling of her withdrawing from me, perhaps our nocturnal pleasures were embarrassing. She went to the bathroom, and when she returned, she was freshly showered and dressed. I was still lying in bed, and she sat down on the bedside, and sometimes let me pull her back in, but she fought off my caresses and gave me only brief kisses, and said laughingly I was a lazybones, and would never amount to much.

Wouldn’t it be nice to live here?, she asked once. Yes, I said, either to do her a kindness or because at that moment I really believed it, forgetting that I could hardly speak a word of French, and would never land a proper job in this city. I didn’t think about Munich, or of the future; time seemed to stand still, as though there was only the sea and the city and the heat. When a wind picked up, I thought about Africa. I had been looking at a picture book on the Kalahari Desert, and was sitting there dreamily. I saw great expanses of veldt full of animals, herds of animals moving over the plain, quickly and aimlessly. They trotted, galloped, and grazed. They ran across the expanse, following some invisible routes, always the same routes since the year one. They reached a water hole, a pasture, they disappeared into the distance, the wind blew away their traces.

Once there was a trivial quarrel with Antje. I had left a couple of dirty cups in the sink, and she accused us of using her apartment like a hotel. She wasn’t some chambermaid, with nothing better to do than tidy up after us. Sonia felt bad, though it wasn’t her fault. We quickly patched things up with Antje, but the atmosphere wasn’t the same. Two days later we left.