Lucca (38 page)

He sometimes called her when he was on night duty. They did not talk about anything special, but he lowered his voice nevertheless if the night nurse walked past. He asked what she was doing, and said whatever came into his head. Perhaps that was the biggest change. Someone being in the house when he was not there. The fact that he could call home. He mostly thought about the change during their nocturnal telephone conversations. Things had become quite natural by now, when they were in the house together. When they came to an end of their conversation she always thanked him for phoning. Her politeness made him feel sad. As if he had only called because he knew she was sitting there alone.

Every time after he had driven her to the training session at the Institute for the Blind he would walk around the centre of Copenhagen, browse in music shops or sit in a café. Sometimes he went to see his mother, at others he waited for Lea outside her school. She had given him a teasing look when he fetched her from the station for the first time after the summer holidays and explained in the car that he no longer lived on his own. To start with she wouldn't believe that Lucca wasn't his new girlfriend. She only began to believe it when she found one of Lucca's elastic hair-bands on her bedside table. When Lea came, Lucca slept in an empty room previously used as a store-room. He had tidied away the junk, piled the packing cases at one end and made up a mattress at the other.

Lea felt uncertain about Lucca when they were introduced. She had never before been with a blind person and was shy about her dark glasses and searching manner of turning her
face in the direction of anyone speaking. She made an effort to seem natural and behave nicely, but it did not help that she was handicapped, this strange woman who had moved in with her father, even though they were not lovers. As if that wasn't odd enough anyway. Conversation at the dinner table languished. Lea's replies were only monosyllables, and Lucca withdrew into herself. Robert felt like an unsuccessful clown desperately rushing around the ring trying in vain to elicit a smile from the audience.

It helped when he fetched Lauritz the next day. The boy's joy over the reunion made an impression on Lea and she began to relax with Lucca. Lea and Lauritz played blind man's buff with her in the garden. Standing inside he wondered at her cynical ease as he heard them laugh and saw her reeling around after the children. She was touched, he could see, to sense how Lea treated the boy as if he were her little brother. She succeeded in winning Lea's confidence, he didn't know how, and when he saw them sitting on the lawn together, he did not disturb them.

It was one of the last warm days of August, and after lunch they went to the beach. Lea took Lucca's hand and led her out to the other side of the reef where it was deep enough to swim. He stayed on the edge of the sea with Lauritz. While the boy tumbled around in the waves he watched Lucca, standing with her arms crossed, in water up to her waist. Lea kept encouraging her and finally she gave way and stretched out her arms, lifting her feet off the bottom. They swam slowly side by side towards the posts. Robert admired her courage. She laughed, at once nervous and released. He wasn't sure he would have dared entrust himself to the water without sight.

T
he sky was visible now, but it probably would not get much brighter. An October day with low-lying clouds and sticky withered leaves on the damp asphalt. When Robert had dressed he went into the kitchen and switched on the coffee-maker. Lucca must have fallen asleep again, she liked to sleep late. He put out bread and cheese and went to wake her up. The door of Lea's room was ajar. He opened it cautiously, without a sound. The grey daylight met the wall and shone on the glazed poster above the bed, blurring all but Michael Jackson's small, arrogant face in a milky haze. Lucca's hair was spread out on the pillow-case with its pattern of swallows and cheerful stylised clouds. Her eyelids were closed and her lips lightly parted, she was breathing peacefully.

She had put on a little weight while staying with him, her face was no longer as bony and drawn and still showed a touch of summer colour. It was a long time since he had seen her without her dark glasses. A long, white scar above her left eyebrow seemed to be the only trace left by the accident. Her serious expression reminded him of the photograph Andreas had taken of her at the pavement café in Paris, when she knew their relationship had ended. Her lips were parted in the same way, as if she had been surprised in the middle of a word, not by the photographer but by sleep.

The corners of her mouth curved. I'm not asleep, she said. I woke up when you came in. He protested. He had no shoes on and the door had opened without a sound. It wasn't you, I heard, she said, it was the coffee-maker. Listen . . . Now he too could hear the faint snorting and gurgling sound. He went down the drive to fetch the newspaper from the letterbox. When he came in again he heard water splashing on the tiles in the bathroom.
He had a cup of coffee and read the paper, but when he put it down he had forgotten what was in it.

She came into the kitchen and sat down opposite him. She had buttoned her blouse crookedly, but he did not remark on it. She let her hand roam over the table until she found the bread basket and the butter dish. She asked when they would be in Italy. Her damp towelled hair fell in front of the dark glasses. Tomorrow afternoon, he replied, and noticed how accurately she scraped up butter with her knife and spread it on the bread. Anyway, we should be in Milan by tomorrow afternoon, he went on. She searched with her hand again, found a slice of cheese, put it on the bread and brushed her hair away from one cheek before taking a bite. Milan, she murmured, chewing.

How about Lucca? she asked as he locked the front door. Maybe late the next morning, he said, carrying their luggage to the boot. Maybe late in the evening . . . He had suggested going to Lucca merely because it occurred to him and so as not just to suggest a trip into the blue. Perhaps that was why she had acquiesced to his suggestion without hesitation. When he hit on the idea he had thought she might find it easier to reflect on her future if she got away. At least she would not have to use so much energy on defending herself. But he too felt the urge to go, exhausted as he was with shielding her isolation. He explained to Andreas that she needed to get out of his reach before she could think of him without feeling under pressure. Had she said that? No, said Robert. It was something he had thought out for himself. Andreas agreed he was right.

Neither of them said anything when he started the car. He drove through the industrial district, past the hospital and further on to the viaduct with slip-roads down to the motorway's north- and south-facing lanes. I never saw Lucca, she said finally. She said it in a matter-of-fact way. He replied that they didn't need to go there if she didn't want to. She let down her seat so she could lean back. No, she said, I need to know I have been there.

It began to rain again a few kilometres south. The rainwater whistled under the tyres and the red rear lights of the cars
glistened on the wet asphalt. I'm not nervous, she said. He smiled. Then why did she say that? She pondered for a while. Because I ought to be, she replied. To drive that far, and to drive for so long with someone I hardly know, in a way. He turned into the fast lane. It's strange, she said, to know such a lot about someone I have never seen. He replied that he had only told her so much about himself because she couldn't see him. She nodded. That was why she had dared to talk about herself. Because she couldn't see him. It precluded her from forming an impression of how he looked at her.

It had occurred to her a little while earlier, when he opened the door of Lea's room to wake her up. When he stood looking at her because he thought she was asleep. Had she felt spied on? No, it wasn't that. On the contrary, she had realised that it no longer affected her if she was looked at. Her face had become irrelevant, something separate from herself. That's probably why I am not nervous, she laughed. Because of that and because you are not in love with me. If I thought you were I would never have told you my story, and if you were, you would certainly not have told me yours. She paused. Stories, she went on, stories give out too much light. You can't hide from them. He smiled. She often made him smile, and each time it struck him that he was alone with his smile. You're right, he said, in the end they always catch you up. Yes, she replied after a pause. They have no escape routes . . . even if my own story is about one long flight.

After she fell silent he sat for a long time thinking over what she had said. They had grown used to keeping silent in each other's company, when one of them paused in the narrative. It no longer worried them, but there was something significant in the silence between them now, in the car. They were outside everything, sitting here among the other cars on the motorway, where the towns they passed were no more than white names on blue signboards. It was the right place to be, he thought, in a car on a motorway, for they had met the same way, as unknown to each other as the cars on the road, beyond all relationship. Perhaps she was right, perhaps they had no need to feel nervous. Gradually they had immersed themselves more deeply into each
other's life than one normally does, but at the same time he had felt as if they were conversing by satellite, across an enormous distance. They were close to each other and yet apart, and maybe they could only become so close because they were restricted to words alone.

Each knew more about the other than many other people did, but her blindness protected both of them. Particularly when the details grew so intimate that they would never have believed they would tell them to anyone. She was spared seeing how he reacted to her story, and he could speak freely about himself without the surveillance of a searching, sympathetic or reproachful glance. They felt free because they could speak without worrying or having any hopes about the impacts of their narratives. And yet they went on behaving like two people who have just got to know each other, considerate and cautious. She behaved modestly like the guest she was, modestly because she felt he didn't want her to express her gratitude too fervently. And he restrained his way of helping her, afraid of exaggerating and making her feel indebted.

Their restraint was not lessened by knowing so much about each other. So far they had barely commented on their own story or the other's, nor had they talked of how unusual it was, revealing so much to a stranger. They were content to listen and ask about specific matters. It was almost as if they had made a rule for it, albeit unspoken. He felt sure she thought about this too, sitting beside him, leaning back against the head-rest. That she had just broken the rule which in the past months had made it possible to speak without fear of being exposed to judgement or pity.

Their evenings had passed with one or the other telling more of their story. She lay on the sofa, he sat in an easy-chair. Sometimes he had not even looked at her. He had gazed out into the summer evening or the first evenings of autumn, listening to her voice or hearing himself speaking. They had been like two strangers who meet in the dimness of a quiet hotel vestibule and fall into conversation. Two strangers who take into account that they have no previous knowledge and therefore need an
explanation for everything. Two homesick tourists who have stayed in the hotel instead of going on the excursion to Luxor or the Cheops pyramid, because they prefer to sit listening and noting the congruencies and divergences between their otherwise quite ordinary stories.

Her story had emerged in a gliding progression of events and ideas, people she had known and places where she had been. To begin with he could feel she was embarrassed when she touched on things she had never confided to anyone, and feelings she had never before expressed in words. She could blush in mid-sentence or hesitate before continuing, but at the same time he sensed the pressure of the untold things waking at the sound of her voice and impatiently insisting to be expressed and given a place in her narrative. As it gradually unfolded she quite forgot to distinguish between what was acceptable and what was revealing or directly unattractive. One event or emotion drew another with it, her tone gradually grew calmer and more confidential, and he discovered that he too was no longer too startled or embarrassed to listen to her intimate revelations. Only in the pauses when silence fell between them could he see how she suddenly directed her mind's eye towards her story, amazed, sad or ironic, as if she were a stranger meditating for a while on its tortuous course, its blind alleys and delusions, the agitation and restless craving of emotions.

Something similar took place in him when he heard his own voice narrating. He did not see himself in his story but another, and he saw that other from behind, unable to fathom his deeper impulses. His secret, intimate feelings became secretive even to himself. And it was as if she read his thoughts. You don't know why things happen, why they come to be as they are, she said one evening, after he had made a long pause. No, he replied. You can never really know.

An escape . . . could her story be concentrated into that one word? Was it an attempted flight that had been halted by the Dutch truck that evening in April? As he followed the peaceful rhythm of the traffic he felt it sounded like an answer to something he had said the previous day when they walked out
to the headland. They had gone as far as they could get, right out to the end of the reed beds. She asked him to tell her what it looked like, and he described the tall reeds and the tussocks of grass and the rowing boat moored to a post in the inlet, reflected in the quiet water. They had passed the rotten post where he used to sit. She balanced on it, supporting herself with a hand on his shoulder. The faded pack of Gitanes had vanished. He told her about it and said Andreas must have been out there one day.

Apart from the humble and practical messages he passed on he seldom mentioned Andreas, but now and then he asked if it wasn't time for them to talk. Each time she gave him the same answer. Not yet . . . he asked again out on the headland. She stopped. Was he tired of having her as a guest? No, he said, but I feel you are running away . . . It had started to rain in earnest and he suggested turning back. They took shelter from the rain in the shed made of tall, tarred planks, the only break in the flat landscape. The grey light penetrated the gloom through the spaces between the planks, where the inlet and the sand bank stretched horizontally, broken by the dark into vertical bands. He saw a big seagull flying across the strip of sand, disappearing and appearing again in the cracks. Not any more, she said. I am not running away any more. But to go home . . . that would be a flight.

He glanced at her briefly. What about their trip then? She turned her dark glasses towards him. He switched on the windscreen wipers and concentrated on the road again. The rain was like fog around the wheels of the lorry ahead of him. Wasn't that an escape too? Her being here with him in the car driving south? She waited a few moments before replying. No, she said. What should they call it then? Going back, she said. All the way back. To the beginning . . . He overtook the lorry and pulled in again. Yes, he replied. That's probably the only way to go.

It rained through most of Germany. The countryside was unvarying, woods, fields, factories and woods again, blurred and blue-grey in the misty rain. The names of towns told them how far they had come. He read them aloud to her when they
passed yet another signboard. She took a cigarette from the pack under the window and put it between her lips. They had just passed Hanover. On the satellite picture of the weather forecast the night before, a gigantic spiral of cloud was moving in over northern Europe in a slowly ticking movement. So tonight the astronauts couldn't see the lights of the cities. She smiled with her lips clamped round the cigarette and ignited her lighter. She was always nervous when she lit a cigarette. During the first weeks she had scorched the tips of her hair several times or set light to the filter, but he had accustomed himself not to interfere.

She lit the cigarette, inhaled and slowly blew out smoke. The astronauts? Yes, he said, describing a picture he had once seen in the newspaper. It had been taken on a clear night, from space, and you could clearly distinguish the contours of Europe surrounded by dark blue, with shining spots for each big city on the continent. The picture had illustrated an article on light pollution. He hadn't understood that word. How could light pollute? She agreed. She had seen that picture too. It was one of the most beautiful pictures she had ever seen. Like a reflection of the firmament, she said. As if each city was a star. Yes, he replied, taking his hand off the gear lever and pulling out the ashtray. And imagine, if one day the lights of cities should reach some distant, inhabited planet, long after the cities and their inhabitants had disappeared. She nodded. Poor things, she said, if they found out the lights were not stars, but cities. Then they would believe they were not alone in the universe.

Robert disagreed. Would we feel sad if we thought the stars were cities? On the contrary, life would feel better for them, he said, with the thought that light years away, fools like themselves had existed who would surely have been just as confused. She smiled. How could he be sure they would be just as confused? He shrugged. He couldn't imagine life without confusion. Unless you spend your life without knowing it, she replied. But then nothing would matter much, of course. Yes, he said. But it's worse if you believe you are alive, even though your thoughts are merely the delayed light of a dead star. But, my dear doctor! she exclaimed and tapped out her ash outside the ashtray so the
flakes drifted down over her left knee. She didn't know he could be so philosophical. He didn't know that either.