But had Kate given him the manuscript because she trusted him? The couple whose lives are open to something new—was that meant to be Kate and him? Did she want to warn him? Did she want to say to him that their old life no longer worked and challenge him to embark on a new one? He shook his head and sighed. Please, not that. But perhaps it was all quite different. Perhaps she was using the end of the book to celebrate the two of them having started their own new life together. They weren’t the couple with their life smashed to pieces. They were the couple whose life had been in pieces and had already embarked on their new one.
He heard the first birds. Then it got light; the dark mass of the forest behind the meadow transformed itself into individual trees. The sky wasn’t yet revealing whether it would be a sunny or a cloudy day. Should he talk to Kate? Ask her if the manuscript contained a message for him? She would frown and look at him with irritation. He would have to make his own sense of the end of the young couple’s search. Was a conflict smoldering beneath the life he and Kate were leading together? Kate was under stress. But how could she not be! She had wanted to stick to the deadline she had set herself for the first draft, and in the last weeks had been writing far into the night.
No, there was no conflict smoldering under their life. Since the stupid fight over the Paris Book Fair, which Kate had agreed to attend without talking to him first, but had finally canceled, they hadn’t quarreled. He wasn’t jealous of her success. They loved their daughter. When the three of them were together, they laughed a lot and often sang. They wanted to get a black Labrador and had registered with a breeder for one from the next litter.
He stood up and stretched. He could still sleep for an hour. He undressed and climbed the creaking stairs cautiously. Entering the bedroom on tiptoe, he paused until Kate, who’d been disturbed by the opening and closing of the door, sank back into peaceful sleep. Then he slid under the covers beside her and cuddled up close. No, no conflict.
5
On his next trip to the little town he did shopping for the winter. It really wasn’t necessary; last winter it had never taken more than a day for the road to be plowed out. But the potatoes in their sack, the onions in the crate, the cabbages in the barrel, and the apples on the racks would make the cellar a cozy place for Rita. She would love climbing down there to count potatoes and bring them up.
At the farm along his route, he ordered potatoes, and onions, and cabbages. The farmer asked, “Can you take my daughter to town with you and drop her off again on the way back? When you collect your order?” So he took the sixteen-year-old daughter along who wanted to pick up some books at the library and peppered this new neighbor with curious questions. Had he and his wife had enough of the city? Were they looking for peace in the country? What had they been doing in the city? She didn’t let up until she found out that he and his wife were writers, and she thought that was exciting. “What’s your wife’s name? Can I read something she’s written?” He evaded the question.
Then he got angry. Why hadn’t he said his wife was a translator or a Web designer? They hadn’t fled New York in order to land up in the country in the middle of the next fuss about Kate. Then in the New York Times he learned that the American Book Prize was due to be awarded in the next few days. Each of Kate’s books had been under consideration. This year she didn’t have a new one out. But it was only this year that the critics had recognized and hailed the three novels as the portrait of an era. He couldn’t imagine Kate not being in the running. If she won, the whole thing would start up again.
He drove to the library and honked. The daughter was standing in front of the entrance with some other girls; she waved, and the others looked. On the way back she told him how exciting her friends thought it was that his wife and he were writers and lived close by. Would he or his wife come to their school sometime and talk to them about writing? They’d already had a doctor and an architect and an actress come visit. “No,” he said, more brusquely than was called for, “we don’t do that kind of thing.”
When he’d delivered her and loaded up his stuff and was alone in the car again, he drove to the scenic outlook that he’d always driven past before and stopped in the empty parking lot. In front of him the forest in all its flaming colors dipped down to a broad valley, climbed again on the far side, and glowed all the way to the first range of mountains. On the second range the colors were already faded and far in the distance from the forest, and the mountains blurred into the pale blue sky. A hawk was circling above the valley.
The farmer, who had an interest in local history, had once told him about the surprise onset of winter in 1876 and the snow that fell in the midst of Indian summer, light at first and the delight of the children, then thicker and thicker until it blanketed everything and the roads were impassable and the houses cut off. Travelers caught by the snow had no chance, but even some of those trapped inside their houses froze to death. There were some houses far from the roads from which the inhabitants didn’t make it back to the villages until spring.
He looked up at the sky. Oh, if only it would snow now! Lightly at first so that whoever was out in it would get home, then so heavily that driving would be impossible for days. So that a branch would break under it and tear down the new phone line. So that no one could tell Kate she’d won and invite her to the awards ceremony, and no one could pull her into the city to burden her with interviews, talk shows, and receptions. When the thaw came, the prize would find its way to Kate, and she would be no less delighted than she would be now. But the hubbub would have come and gone, and her world would remain unchanged.
When the sun had gone down he drove on, from the main road to the local road and then the dirt road up the long valley, until he stopped and got out. New, pale, unseasoned poles ran along the roadside carrying the phone line ten feet in the air. Some trees had been felled to make room and some branches cut back. But others stood close to the line.
He found a pine with bare branches, tall, leaning, dead. He threw the work rope around the tree and hitched it to the tow bar, put the car into four-wheel drive, and then into gear. The engine howled and died. He put it into gear again, and again the engine howled and died. On the third try the wheels lost traction. He got out, took the folding spade from the emergency kit, and dug into the cracks in a rock in which the roots had taken hold. He tried to loosen them, grubbed at them, shook them, and pulled. His shirt, his sweater, his pants—everything was soaked with sweat. If only he could see better! It was getting dark.
He got back in the car, put it in gear, and eased forward until the rope was taut, let the car roll back, then accelerated again. Forward, backward, forward, backward—sweat poured down into his eyes to join the tears of rage at the tree that wouldn’t fall and the world that refused to leave him and Kate in peace. He drove forward, back, forward, back. He hoped Kate and Rita couldn’t hear him. He hoped Kate didn’t call the farmer or the general store. He had never come home this late. He hoped she didn’t call anyone else.
Without the tree giving any signal by beginning to tip, it fell. It struck the line right next to one of the poles, and both tree and pole bowed forward until the lines tore loose. Then they crashed to the ground.
He switched off the engine. Everything was silent. He was exhausted, drained, empty. But then he began to be filled with a sense of triumph. He’d done it. He would do the rest of it too. What strength he had! What strength!
He got out of the car, untied the rope, loaded it and the spade, and drove home. From far off he could see the lighted windows—his house. His wife and daughter were standing out in front as they always did, and as always Rita flew into his arms. Everything was good.
6
It was the following evening before Kate asked him why the phone and the Internet weren’t working. In the mornings and early afternoons she allowed nothing to interfere with her writing, and didn’t pay attention to her e-mails until late afternoon.
“I’ll take a look.” He stood up, wen
t to check the boxes and wires for the phone and computer, and found nothing. “I can drive into town tomorrow and arrange for the technician to come.”
“Then I’ll lose another half a day—why don’t you wait? Sometimes the technical stuff straightens out by itself.”
After the technical stuff still hadn’t straightened itself out several days later, Kate pressed him: “And if you go tomorrow, ask if there’s a cell phone network we can access here. We can’t cope without a cell phone.”
They had both been delighted to find that there was no cell phone reception either in the house or on the property. That they weren’t reachable and available at all times. That from time to time they didn’t pick up the landline either, and had no answering machine. That they didn’t have the mail delivered, but went to collect it. And now Kate wanted a cell phone?
They lay in bed together and Kate switched off the light. He switched it on. “Do you really want it to be like it was in New York again?” When she said nothing, he didn’t know whether she hadn’t understood his question or didn’t want to answer it. “I mean …”
“Sex was better in New York than here. We were hungrier for each other. Here … we’re like an old couple, we’re tender but not passionate. As if we’d lost what passion was.”
He got angry. Yes, sex was more peaceful now, more peaceful and more profound. In New York they’d often fallen onto each other in their haste and their appetite, which had had its own charm, just as life in the city was full of haste and appetite. Their sex resembled their lives, both here and back there, and if Kate was longing for haste and appetite, then it wasn’t just about sex. Had she needed peace only to get her book written? Now that the book was done, was she done with life in the country too? He was no longer angry, he was afraid. “I would love to sleep with you more often. I would love to burst into your room and take you in my arms, and you’d put your arms round my neck and I’d carry you to bed. I …”
“I know. I didn’t mean what I said. When the book’s finished, it’ll get better again. Don’t worry.”
Kate came into his arms and they made love. When he woke up next morning she was already awake and she was looking at him. She said nothing, and he turned on his side too and looked at her silently. He couldn’t tell from her eyes what she was feeling or thinking, and tried not to let his look betray his anxiety. He hadn’t believed her yesterday when she’d said she didn’t mean it, and he didn’t believe it today either. His anxiety was filled with longing and need. Her face with its high forehead, the proud arch of its eyebrows over the dark eyes, long nose, generous mouth and chin, that, smooth, or clenched, or furrowed, declared the mood Kate was in—it was the landscape inhabited by his love. That love was happily at home when her face was open and turned toward him, worried when it was closed and turned away. A face, he thought, nothing more, yet it encompasses the entire range of what I need and what I can bear. He smiled. She kept looking at him silently and seriously, but then put her arm around his back and pulled him to her.
7
On the trip to town he stopped by the fallen tree and pole and the ripped wires. As they spun, his tires had left marks on the road. He wiped them away.
It all looked as if something had simply happened. He could drive to town and alert the phone company. There was nothing yet to reproach him for. But even if he didn’t report it to the phone company, there was nothing to reproach him for. He hadn’t seen the fallen tree and pole and the torn wires. Why should he have seen them? It was up to the technician who had laid the wires in their house and installed the computer, and whom he had promised to notify, to notice what had happened on his way to them. Or not.
The technician wasn’t in his workshop. On the door was a piece of paper saying he was visiting a customer and would be back soon. But the paper was yellowed and the filthy windows made it impossible to see whether the workshop was in use, or closed for a vacation or for the winter. Phones and computers stood on the tables, along with cables, plugs, and screwdrivers.
In the general store he was the only customer. The owner started talking to him and told him about the town fair on the upcoming Saturday. Would he like to come? And bring his wife and daughter? He had never been in the general store with Kate and Rita, nor in any shop or restaurant. They had sometimes driven through town, that was all. What else did the owner know about them?
Then he saw Kate’s photo in the New York Times. She had won the Book Prize. She hadn’t appeared for the ceremony, her agent had accepted it on her behalf, and Kate hadn’t been reachable for a quote.
Didn’t the owner read the paper? Had he not recognized Kate in the photo? Hadn’t he seen her properly as they drove through town? Had other people seen Kate more clearly as they drove through town and recognized her in the photo? Would they call the New York Times and tell them where Kate could be reached? Or would they tell the Weekly Herald, which carried little news items alongside the ads, on crimes and accidents, openings and baptisms, jubilees, weddings, births and deaths?
Three copies of the New York Times were still lying next to the counter. He would have liked to buy all three, so that nobody else could buy them and read them. But that would have attracted the attention of the owner. So he bought only one. Along with it he bought a small bottle of whiskey, which the owner put in a brown paper bag for him. On the way to the car he went past stacks of blue sawhorses and police barricades that would be used to block off the main street for the fair. He drove back to the technician’s workshop and again found no one there. He could say he’d tried.
He didn’t even look at the mail when he took it out of the mailbox. He stuck it in the torn cover of the sun visor. He drove to the scenic viewpoint again, parked, and drank. The whiskey burned in his mouth and throat, he swallowed the wrong way and belched. He looked at the brown paper bag with the bottle in his hand and thought of the tramps sitting on the benches in Central Park with their brown paper bags, drinking. Because they hadn’t been able to hold their worlds together.
The last time he had sat here, the forest had still been a blaze of color. Today the colors had dulled, consumed by the fall and dampened by the haze. He rolled down the window and inhaled the cool fresh air. He had been so looking forward to winter, the first winter in the new house, to evenings by the fire, doing handcrafts and baking together, making Advent wreaths, the Christmas tree, roasting apples, mulling wine. To Kate, who would have more time for Rita and him.
And also to their New York friends, whom they finally wanted to invite once winter came. Their real friends, Peter and Liz and Steve and Susan, not the rabble of agents and publishing and media people. Peter and Liz wrote, Steve was a teacher, and Susan made jewelry—they were the only ones he and Kate had talked to seriously about the reasons for their moving to the country. They were also the only ones to whom they had given their new address.
Yes, they had their new address. What if they came? Because they’d read the New York Times and concluded that the good news hadn’t yet reached Kate and because they wanted to be the bearers of it?
He took another swallow. He mustn’t get drunk. He must keep a clear head and think about what he should do. Call their friends? Tell them that Kate knew about the award but hadn’t wanted to get involved in all the fuss? Their friends knew Kate, knew how much she loved being celebrated, wouldn’t believe him, and would really come.
Panic rose in him. If their friends were outside their door tomorrow, Kate would be in New York the day after, and it would all begin again. If he didn’t want that, he had to think of something. What lies did he need to keep their friends at bay?
He got out of the car, drank the last of the bottle, and threw it in a high arc into the forest. This was the way his life had always been: when he had to choose, it was always between two bad alternatives. Between life with his mother or his father when they finally separated. Between attending university, which cost him more money than he had and all his free time, or taking a job he hated, which would
, however, give him time to write. Between Germany, where he had always felt a stranger, and America, where he remained just as much so. He wanted once and for all to have things be good, the way they were for other people. He wanted to be able to choose between good alternatives.
He didn’t call their friends. He drove home, recounted his fruitless visit to the technician, said he wanted to try again tomorrow, if necessary with another technician in the next town over and with the phone company. Kate was irritated, not at him, but at life in the country, where the infrastructure couldn’t hold a candle to New York. When she noticed this was upsetting him, she yielded. “Let’s invest in our own infrastructure and put up a mast on the hill behind the house. We can afford it. Then we’ll really be less dependent on technicians and phone companies.”
8
He woke up in the middle of the night. It was a little before two a.m. He got up quietly and looked out the window through the curtains. The sky was clear and even without the moon, meadow, forest, and road were perfectly visible. In a single movement he picked up his clothes from the chair and tiptoed out of the room and down the creaking staircase. He got dressed in the kitchen, pulling a padded jacket over jeans and sweatshirt, a woolen cap over his head, and boots on his feet. It was cold outside; he’d seen the hoarfrost on the meadow.
The front door opened and closed quietly. He took the few steps to the car on tiptoe again. He put the key in the ignition and unlocked the steering wheel, then propped himself in the open door and pushed and steered the car from the meadow out onto the road. It was hard work, and he sighed and sweated. The car was soundless as it rolled across the grass. On the road the gravel crunched under the wheels and it seemed to him that the noise was deafening. But soon the road curved downward and the car began to move. He jumped in; after a few more curves he was out of earshot and turned on the engine.