I'm Not Stiller (27 page)

Rolf drove back to town in the same taxi, and didn't even dare to ring up that evening. There is always a certain sensation to be derived from sleeping in a hotel in one's own town, and Rolf enjoyed it through all his gloom; but the sensation was bound up with uncertainty and agitation—and his dreams were a turmoil.

The following day, a Sunday, the rain had stopped and Rolf went first on a pilgrimage to the building site, shaved, but still without an overcoat. The building site was situated on an eminence outside the town; hitherto Rolf had always gone there by car. On foot it was quite a trek. The brickwork was not yet roofed over. At Rolf's last visit they had just concreted the upper floors, and his wife had not been to the site once. Now he understood her lack of interest in the house. With his hands in his pockets, taken aback when people out for a Sunday morning stroll wandered across the building plot, and not looking at all like the owner of the building that was going up, Rolf stood in the future rooms that were already recognizable in the rough—the garden room with big french windows and the five steps to the loggia, his study looking out over the lake, the bedroom on the same level, everything as planned, and the terrace had now also been paved with concrete. Building material lay everywhere—rolls of tar-board, firebricks, sacks of Portland cement, a tank for the oil heating, bricks for the small dividing walls,
lengths of cast-iron piping, and all sorts of objects whose purpose could not be guessed at—there were signs of activity on every hand. Nevertheless Rolf felt as though he were standing in a ruin.

Then, to his embarrassment, Sturzenegger, the architect, arrived carrying a folding rule open in his hand. Sturzenegger was so full of enthusiasm for his building that he couldn't stay away from it even on Sunday morning, and, as always happens, his enthusiasm made him look more handsome and charming than ever. Rolf eyed him from the side. No doubt about it, this Sturzenegger was very different from Rolf—and younger. They trudged along over boards and pipes, ducked under the dripping plank linings of the concreted terrace and jumped over brown puddles. Rolf had to feel various kinds of sandstone to decide which one he wanted, and young Sturzenegger explained and explained relentlessly. Rolf examined especially his ear, his hair, his nose, his lips (this he couldn't bear), and his hands. Why not? he thought, and in spite of everything, decided in favour of the cheaper type of sandstone. Didn't this young man see that the house was already for sale? He didn't see it, but spoke enthusiastically of spatial effects and even expected enthusiasm from Rolf, who now suddenly remembered his last evening with Sibyllc: Sibylle had met him at the airport, the hypocrite, and the only thing she talked about to her homecoming husband during supper was the good fortune of this young Sturzenegger, some long story about a marvellous contract somewhere in Canada. Wasn't that a clue? Of course Rolf said nothing, but let the architect explain the serpentine piping of the ceiling-heating to him and enjoyed (he now had an exceptional need for inner enjoyments) the thought of leaving Sibylle in the dark long after he himself was perfectly clear about everything. He wasn't clear about anything yet, but this young architect was under suspicion, however serenely he now walked around with his yellow folding rule. Sturzenegger was not to be dissuaded from driving his client home. When he himself chatted about his fantastic good fortune in getting the chance to build a large factory over in California, Rolf interrupted:

'My wife told me Canada.'

'No,'said Sturzenegger, 'California.'

There was something wrong here; but Rolf had resolved to wear a mask and no one should see him as he had seen himself at Genoa. Whether for fear of meeting Sibylle alone, or to keep himself in countenance, he insisted on Sturzenegger coming in for an apéritif that Sunday morning. Sibylle was there—and so were Cinzano, gin, and even salted almonds. His wife, this hussy, who immediately put on the quiet-Sunday-morning-at-home act, and his architect, this young fellow with a fantastic commission in Canada, where Sibylle would no doubt accompany him, seemed to Rolf an entirely possible couple, indeed a convincing couple, a well-matched couple. The formal manner in which they spoke to one another did not fool him for a moment. And anyway, what difference did it make whether it was this Sturzenegger or another man who embraced his wife? All that mattered to Rolf was to see his wife with some gay and lively young man and not to go mad on the spot at the thought of Sibylle embracing this young man or another like him...

***

As I've already said, my public prosecutor told this story much more graphically. When I asked him what finally happened to the pink cloth in Genoa, his reply was reluctant and vague. If I understood correctly, he eventually threw the tattered parcel down a station lavatory.

'Believe me,' laughed my public prosecutor, 'it was years before I stopped dreaming about that parcel.'

(I wonder why he speaks so frankly to me?)

'It's not right,' I said, 'for me to interrogate my public prosecutor—but if you will permit me to ask one more question: Didn't your good wife tell you who her friend was?'

'Not till later. Very much later.'

'When?'

'When it was all over,' he said. 'When he had disappeared.'

'Bit odd, wasn't it?'

'Oh well,' he smiled, 'we were both of us extremely odd just then, both my wife and I.'

***

Throughout a whole harrowing summer Rolf tried to prove that, true to his theory, he granted Sibylle complete independence. The resulting risk of an equally complete estrangement was something that Sibylle herself had to face up to. It went with her proud assertion: 'You don't have to give me my freedom, I can take my freedom for myself if I need it.' His theme song was 'All right, darling, have it your own way'. At the same time, they spent delightful evenings with mutual friends, who didn't show they had noticed anything and perhaps really didn't notice anything. Then again there were nervous outbursts over trifles. Nevertheless, they went to the International Musical Weeks at Lucerne together, just as they always had done, walking arm in arm through the foyer; and it wasn't hypocrisy, either towards the outside world or themselves—suddenly they were on such good terms with each other. Rolf was the husband, and even if he didn't make any mean use of the fact, he still had certain advantages, for example that he could show himself arm in arm with Sibylle at any time. Sibylle even attached great value to the fact that Rolf, now a public prosecutor, strolled through the foyer arm in arm with her. The fancy-dress pierrot, on the other hand, had to contend with the handicap that accompanies all illicit activity, and for the first time in Rolf's life this handicap rested upon his opponent. When he was in a particularly good mood he may occasionally have let fall an ironic allusion that flickered like a distant beacon, warning them both, in case they should forget it as they went arm in arm, where the dangerous reef lay.

It seems they never had any arguments. And yet it must have been a summer that neither of the partners would care to repeat. Sibylle continued to live in the house with Rolf: anything else would have upset their relatives, a catastrophe which Sibylle, although free from any pangs of conscience, could not contemplate. This was her express wish after his return from Genoa, an outright demand in fact—that for the time being everything, as she put it, should remain outwardly the same. Consequently there were only a few hours every day during which she escaped from his supervision, and a horrible incompleteness was unavoidable. The fact that she blamed this incompleteness, this stifling incompleteness, which may in time have become more unbearable than the bitterest quarrel, upon no one but Rolf was too stupid to be put into words. But her feminine mind did blame it on him: there were times (so he says) when she looked at him as though she could no longer stand the sight of him. Then she would go into her room and cry behind a locked door, whereupon Rolf would go down into the cellar and fetch himself a beer. Why didn't she really take her freedom, if she wanted more of it? Rolf was not being sarcastic at all. Why didn't the two of them simply go away together, his poor wife and the fancy-dress pierrot? Why didn't they dare? He couldn't understand it. It couldn't be such a grand passion after all, he thought, and towards autumn, Rolf actually felt that for his part he had got over the affair.

In September he took up his duties as public prosecutor.

In October the house was finished, and the young architect by and large very satisfied. One or two things, said the young architect, he would do differently today—the very things, incidentally, which his clients, Sibylle as well as Rolf, liked best, whereas other things displeased them; but it was the very things which they did not like that were particularly emphasized in the photograph with was to appear shortly in an architectural journal. As Sturzenegger had promised in that first discussion over black coffee, it was a house of consistent modernity. Not that Rolf really disliked it, but you couldn't say he liked it either. Rolf felt constrained in his attitude towards this young Sturzenegger, and almost grudged him all the praise bestowed on his house, Rolf's house. Once, in a café someone came up to Rolf, introduced himself as the editor of the architectural journal and congratulated Rolf on the courage he had shown as the architect's client, congratulated him in the name of modern architecture as a whole; and not enough that young Sturzenegger was praised as an architect, Rolf also heard the praises of this young man's human qualities, his charm, his audacity, his forcefulness, his ruthlessness, his verve, his vitality, his sensibility, his intensity in the sensual sphere, as well, and all the other things that may distinguish both an architect and a lover. At such moments Rolf had the feeling that everybody was laughing at him, felt as though he were a character in a Molière comedy. Sibylle was sitting with him in the café. Vitality, sensibility,
intensity in the sensual sphere as well—yes, she thought so too, and asked Rolf whether he didn't think so too, and Rolf, a man of wide personal and professional experience, didn't know how much perfidy to attribute to his wife. At certain moments he felt her to be capable of anything precisely when she seemed so innocent, as women in love always consider themselves innocent and one with everlasting nature, which in their simplicity of spirit they then regard as God Himself...

It was more or less with this feeling of being the town idiot that Rolf drove out one autumn morning for the final check-up on the building. With a few exceptions, trifles which the young architect pointed out himself, everything was in order. A sun-blind did not go down, due to faulty installation, nothing more; a large pane of glass had cracked; the last workmen on the premises, decorators, had stupidly blocked one of the toilets with rubbish; in addition, all the cellar keys were missing; a power-point beside the client's bed, clearly shown in the plans, had been forgotten; the bathroom mirror had for some inexplicable reason been placed four inches too high; a few slabs of the wrong stone—granite instead of quartzite—had been laid outside in the garden at the last moment, likewise a trifle that could be rectified; and of course the decorators had not quite finished. But that was really all; anyhow Rolf couldn't see any other faults. Whether the great catalpa would flourish or die, only time could tell. A word of cordial gratitude on the part of the client was now due. As it was not forthcoming and as Rolf, the client, simply left the locked house and looked round the neighbourhood as though saying good-bye, or as though he were standing on his plot of land for the first time, the young architect—doubtless for the sake of saying something—mentioned the fact that the work was guaranteed, as though Rolf knew nothing about this. Then they sat side by side in the public prosecutor's car, while the latter, his thoughts still far away, inserted the ignition key but did not drive off.

'I didn't want to talk to you,' began Rolf, putting on his gloves, 'until I was quite calm. But now I have got over this whole business[[[mdash.gif]]]' Sturzenegger probably had no idea what he was talking about. 'No,' said Rolf, 'of course you're quite right, at bottom it's all simply prejudice. I thought a lot about the little story of the Eskimo, which you told my wife and me when you first came to see us. Do you remember? The Eskimo offers his wife and kicks up a fuss when the guest doesn't take her, and we imagine we can't bear it when the guest does take her. At bottom it's all prejudice...'

Rolf had not propounded his theory for a long time. Also it met with less opposition among men. The architect, this young man with vitality, sensibility, intensity, and so forth, was full of understanding, though he had no idea what this conversation was in aid of. Meanwhile they had driven off, but they had to stop and wait again at a level crossing. 'I can quite understand your embarrassment,' said Rolf. 'In cases like this I too always avoid discussions. What's the use of them? Only it seems to me that since we're sitting here in the car together—you know, it's just that I don't want you to think I'm a fool.' At last the train rumbled past. 'You're in love with my wife,' said Rolf, unshakable in his delusion and at the same time with admirable detachment, 'I can understand that. And my wife is in love with you. That's a fact, and it won't make any essential difference if you fly to Canada next week or the week after.'—"To California,' corrected Sturzenegger. 'My wife told me Canada.'—'I'm sorry,' laughed Sturzenegger, 'but nevertheless I'm going to California. To Redwood City. I'll send you a card as soon as I get there, Herr Doktor, so that you will at last believe me.'—'That's not necessary,' said Rolf. Someone behind was hooting. '- That's not necessary,' said Rolf again. 'Canada or California, you know, that makes no difference to me, if my wife intends to go with you, and I suppose she does.' The barrier had gone up again long ago, but Rolf, deaf to the hooting behind him, did not start up. The young architect had doubtless cottoned on at last and tried to say something, for instance: 'Your good wife and I[[[mdash.gif]]]' Rolf interrupted: 'You might as well call her Sibylle.'—'Certainly,' said Sturzenegger, 'from the very first there was a kind of sympathy, on your good wife's part too, I can well believe...'—'You can well believe!' It angered Rolf that his wife's lover was so cowardly, it offended him; on the other hand it also made him arrogant. 'I'm a man of forty-five,' said Rolf, looking at the little architect. 'You're not yet thirty.' To which Sturzenegger quite rightly replied: 'What about it?' The discussion, which had started on a dignified note, seemed to be going off the rails. Rolf realized this and also noticed that the barrier had been raised. The cars which he had held up drove past on the left, and, since it was a narrow country road, half on the grass verge; naturally the drivers looked at Rolf full of reproach and contempt, and one of them bored with his finger into his temple to show Rolf what he thought of him...