The Deutschkurs Intensiv met mornings, five days a week. That first day, Anna arrived six minutes late and knocked into a woman with her book bag as she tried to wedge past and take the last seat at the table. It was a modest-sized class, fifteen students whose ages varied and whose nationalities and reasons for expatriation diverged. Their teacher was Roland, a tall Swiss man whose first command was that they go around the room and introduce themselves using whatever German they already knew. He pointed to a blond woman with heavy-lidded eyes and a darting gaze. Her name was Jeanne and she was French. The woman next to her, Martina, was also blond but ten years younger than Jeanne. She told the room she came from Moscow, that she loved music but hated dogs. Then a woman Anna’s age introduced herself as Mary Gilbert and said she was from Canada and that she’d come here with her children and her husband, who played left wing for Zürich’s hockey team. She’d only been in Switzerland two months. Mary apologized for her ham-fisted German but she’d finished the basic class and there was no place for her but here. It didn’t really matter. Everyone’s German was unmistakably foreign, slow and littered with mistakes.
Then the man sitting next to Mary leaned forward. His accent, even over broken German, was irrefutably Scottish. Glaswegian, Anna would come to learn. His name was Archie Sutherland. As he talked, his eyes scanned the perimeter of the table. By the time his introduction was over, he’d locked his gaze on Anna, who sat across the room at an angle from him. He ended with a small, slight wink, intended for her alone. She blushed beneath her clothes.
Something in Anna started to burn.
There was Dennis from the Philippines. Andrew and Gillian, both from Australia. Tran from Vietnam. Yuka from Japan. Ed from England. Nancy from South Africa. Alejandro from Peru, and two other women whose names Anna didn’t catch. They made all together a little UN.
When Anna introduced herself, she flashed a sincere-seeming smile (a trick she’d taught herself) and spoke the words she’d practiced in her head. Ich bin Anna. Ich bin in die Schweiz für nine years. Mein Mann ist a banker. Ich habe three children. Ich bin from America. Ich bin, ich bin, ich bin. When she couldn’t lay her tongue to the German word, she substituted an English one. Anna hated introducing herself. It was like opening a door.
Anna looked to Archie. She was compelled by how strong his hands seemed, even from across the table. A man’s hands always did her in. A cock wants a hole. There are only so many. But a man can put his hands anywhere he wants, anyplace I ask him to.
While standing in line in the cafeteria during their first coffee break, Archie leaned toward Anna and spoke in a low, purling voice rarely heard outside of chapels or alcoves in museums.
“Anna, is it?”
“It is.”
“I’m Archie.”
“So I heard.” Anna was tentative, but kittenish. Volley and lob. He wants a game of ping-pong. Sure, she thought, I’ll play.
Archie took a chocolate croissant from a line of plated pastries and put it on his tray. “You want one?”
Anna shook her head. “Not a big pastry fan.” The line moved forward at an even clip. The Kantine was crowded, but the Swiss cashier was efficient.
“So what do you nosh on when you fancy a bite?”
Oh, this man’s good, Anna thought. “A bite? Or a bite to eat?”
Archie put on an act of impatience. It was husky and hot. “What do you eat, woman?” Anna responded with a blushing, sidelong glance and a half-cocked smirk. They moved forward again. Archie grinned. “Banker husband, you say?”
“I say indeed.” The reply was all cheek. Am I flirting? I’m totally flirting. It had been a while. I’m going to play this out.
“And what about Anna? What does Anna do when she isn’t learning German?”
Anna held for a beat before answering. “Anna does what Anna desires.” Say anything with confidence, Anna thought, and the world will believe it’s true.
Archie’s laugh was sportive, vulpine. “Good to know.” They’d reached the head of the line. Anna paid for her coffee then turned briefly back to Archie and presented a terminal smile before walking away.
Back in the classroom, Roland reviewed a list of German prepositions: under, against, on top of, from behind.
Later, at the end of their second break, Archie cornered Anna by the trash cans. “What are you doing this afternoon?”
A dozen chaste answers came to mind. Anna ignored every one. She put her hand on Archie’s arm and brought her mouth very close to his ear. “You,” she whispered. And that was all.
Well how about that? Anna thought as she walked away. A woozy, tinny thrill shot through her. Yes, how about it. The inquiry was irrelevant. The answer to every question that day was yes.
But they were not arduous assents. She’d said yes before.
After class, Anna telephoned Ursula and told her there were errands she needed to run in the city and she wouldn’t be back until three. Then Anna and Archie took the number 10 tram from Sternen Oerlikon, where the streets ray out from an interior middle like a five-point star, to Central, a stop at the north end of Zürich’s Niederdorf district. From there it was a five-minute walk to Archie’s flat. What followed was an hour and a half of uninhibited sex.
On Tuesday and again on Wednesday Anna followed Archie home after class. On Thursday and Friday, they skipped school altogether.
ANNA TWIRLED HERSELF IN the swing, winching the chains so that they lifted her higher off the ground than she was to begin with. Then she pulled up her feet and let herself spin quickly down. She accomplished this multiple times unto dizziness.
Eventually the church bells rang their midnight toll. A low, wormish feeling of a reckoning approached her. Only in the present tense is the subject married to its verb. The action—all action, past and future—comes at the end. At the very end, when there is nothing left to do but act.
Even so, Anna was back inside the house before the chime of the twelfth bell.
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