Stella (3 page)

This was not a steady, regular, gliding progress, not a race in calm seas; the wind seemed to favor some of the dinghies more than others. For some competitors the race ended at the first buoy. One of these was Georg Bisanz, Stella’s favorite pupil, who turned too close to the buoy and scraped it. His sail began flapping, his mast keeled over, and the trough-shaped dinghy capsized—not dramatically but calmly, in a matter-of-fact way.

Georg emerged from under his sail, which was now lying flat on the water; he grabbed the mast and tried to hoist the sail back up by bracing himself against the hull of the dinghy, but he couldn’t manage it. It was beyond him. I took the
Katarina
over to the scene of the accident; Stella placed her hand on mine as it held the wheel, as if she must help me. “Closer, Christian, we need to get closer to him,” she said, leaning toward me. Georg had given up trying to hoist his sail; he sank for a moment, resurfaced, and threw both arms in the air. One of the umpires took a red-and-white
life preserver out of its holder and flung it to him. The inflatable ring fell on top of the sail and lay there floating. In his attempt to reach it, Georg went under the sail again. Our
Katarina
was merely bobbing on the water with her engine turned off, while the umpires made various suggestions. In the end Stella decided to deal with matters in her own way. I remember how you took off your beach dress, Stella, hauled out the line from the cable drum in the stern, and handed me the end of it. “Here, Christian, tie me fast.” She stood before me with her arms spread wide, a commanding look in her eyes. I slung the rope around her waist and pulled her body close; Stella placed both hands on my shoulders, and I was tempted to embrace her. I thought I could tell from her glance that she was expecting it, but one of the umpires shouted, “Come on, lower the ladder, we’re off!” So I led you, hand in hand, to the rope ladder. You climbed straight down into the water, dove under, and then, as I let out the line, swam over to Georg with a strong crawl. The boy came up again, clutching at her with both arms, and Stella had to free herself firmly. He seemed to be trying to pull her down with him under the sail, but she struck him once on the throat and once on the back of his neck, and that was
enough to make him loosen his grip. He let go of her. Stella grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and signaled to me. I hauled the line in, pulling strongly and steadily, and got them close enough to the ladder for us to heave Georg aboard. Stella swam back to his dinghy and fastened the line to a thwart, secure enough for us to be able to tow the little craft.

The spokesman for the umpires—the bearded owner of the biggest marine equipment store on the coast, everyone in Hirtshafen knew him—expressed his appreciation to Stella, praising the way she had brought Georg to safety.

Over where the smaller kids were standing beside the windows, there was a slight disturbance. Mr. Pienappel, our music teacher, moved out in front of the school choir and then, at a signal from Principal Block, stepped back again. Principal Block tilted his head to one side, closed his eyes for a moment, then let his glance move over the assembled students. In a quiet voice he asked us all to observe a minute’s silence in memory of our dear Ms. Petersen, who would never be forgotten. Bowing my head, I stared at your photograph, Stella. Most of the others lowered their heads too. There had never before been such a silence in our
school hall as the one that now descended over us all. And in that silence I seemed to hear the sound of oars.

Since the outboard motor of our inflatable dinghy was out of order, we took our rowboat to the underwater stone field. Stella insisted on taking the oars. How regularly she pulled them through the water; she was barefoot, bracing herself against a plank on the bottom of the boat, her smooth thighs slightly tanned. I steered her past Bird Island, amazed by her stamina, and admired her as she tipped far back and raised the oar blades from the water. Just as we passed Bird Island a strong gust of wind caught us. She parried it skillfully, but didn’t manage to keep the boat from being flung back toward the beach, where it ran aground, jammed against the stump of a root.

We couldn’t free ourselves; even when I tried to pole the boat away with one of the oars, we were still stuck. We had to climb out. The water was knee-high as we waded to the beach, Stella holding her beach bag above the waves. She was laughing; she seemed to find our misadventure funny. You were always ready to laugh. Even during lessons, certain mistakes amused her. She would discuss them, pointing out the comic
or sometimes disastrous consequences that could result from mistakes in translation. The wind was getting stronger, and it was beginning to rain.

“Now what, Christian?” she asked.

“Let’s …”

“Another time,” she said. “We’ll go out to the stone field some other time.”

I knew the hut with its corrugated iron roof hidden among the reeds; it was used by the old bird warden who had spent many summers here. The door was hanging off its hinges, a pan and an aluminum mug rested on the iron stove, and the bed frame, roughly cobbled together from bits of wood, had a seagrass mattress on it. Stella sat down on the mattress, lit herself a cigarette, and examined the interior of the hut: the cupboard, the wooden table with its many notches, the mended gumboots hanging on the wall. What she saw seemed to amuse her. “Do you think we’ll ever be found here?” she said.

“Oh yes, that’s for sure,” I said. “They’ll come looking for us, they’ll see the rowboat and take us home in the
Katarina.”

It was raining harder now, drops drumming down on the tin roof, and I collected some bits and pieces of
wood left lying around and lit a fire in the stove. Stella was humming quietly, a tune I didn’t know; she was humming it to herself as if absentmindedly, or at least not for me to hear her. Lightning, still far away, flashed above the sea. I kept peering out, hoping to see the lights of the
Katarina
, but there was no sign of anything in the murky gloom. I scooped rainwater out of a barrel standing outside the hut, put the old kettle on the stove, and made camomile tea; I’d found a packet in the cupboard. Before handing Stella the aluminum mug, I drank a little myself. You took the mug, smiling. How beautiful you were as you raised your face, so close to me. As I couldn’t think of anything else, I said in English, “Tea for two,” and you replied, in the kindly tone I knew so well, “Oh, Christian.”

She offered me a cigarette, and patted the mattress, inviting me to sit down. I sat beside her. I put a hand on her shoulder and longed to say something to her, yet at the same time all I wanted was for that moment to last, the moment when I was touching her, and that wish kept me from telling her what I was feeling. But then I remembered the book she had recommended for the summer vacation, and I found it easy enough to mention
Animal Farm
and ask her why she had picked
that particular book. “Oh, Christian,” she said again, with her understanding smile. “It would be a good idea if you found that out for yourself.”

I was on the verge of apologizing for my question, because I realized that by asking it I had made her my teacher again; I recognized her authority in the classroom at school, but here my question carried a different weight, and my hand on her shoulder also held a meaning it wouldn’t have had elsewhere. Here, Stella could understand my touch as merely a wish to reassure and calm her, and she did not object when my hand moved gently down her back. But suddenly she tilted her head and looked at me in surprise, as if she had unexpectedly felt, or discovered, something that she hadn’t been reckoning with.

You leaned your head against my shoulder. I dared not move. I let you take my hand and lift it to your cheek, and you left it there for a moment. How different Stella’s voice sounded when she suddenly stood and went out to the beach. Once there, she made an attempt to right our rowboat, which was lying on its side, but she couldn’t shift it. Then, after a moment’s thought, she picked up the tin can that always lay ready and began baling out water. She scooped water so
busily that she didn’t notice the light approaching the beach: the bow light of our
Katarina
. It was Frederik and not my father at the wheel. He brought the
Katarina
in close enough to the shore for us to wade out, and he helped us on board. He didn’t say much, just remarked, when I put my windbreaker around Stella’s shoulders, “Good idea, that’ll help.”

No blame, no expression of relief at finding us. He nodded in silence when Stella asked to be taken to the bridge outside the Seaview Hotel, and he didn’t even ask whether I wanted to go home or be dropped off at the bridge as well.

Stella didn’t ask me to accompany her, she simply assumed that I would, and she did the same in the hotel, where there was no one at the reception desk. Unhesitatingly, she took her key from the almost empty keyboard, nodded to me, and walked ahead to the stairs and then down the hallway to her room, which was on the side facing the sea.

I sat down by the window and looked out into the twilight while she changed in the bathroom, switching on the radio as she did so and humming along with Ray Charles. When she came out again she was wearing a pale blue turtleneck sweater. She came over to
me, passed her hand through my hair, and then leaned down and tried to meet my eyes. Our
Katarina
was out of sight now. You said, “The boat will be on her way home, won’t she?”

“It’s not so very far to our place,” I said.

“But won’t they wonder where you are?” she asked.

“Frederik will tell them what they want to know,” I said. “He works for my father.”

She smiled, probably feeling that her concern was out of place, or even insulting because it reminded me of my age. She dropped a kiss on my cheek and offered me a cigarette. I said what a nice room it was, and she agreed, adding only that the blanket seemed too heavy, she had difficulty breathing easily at night. She picked up part of the bedspread for a moment, and as she did a little glowing ash fell on the sheet. She let out a cry and covered the burnt spot with the palm of her hand. “My God,” she whispered, “oh, my God.” She pointed to the little black-rimmed mark, and as she repeated her cry, I put my arms around her and drew her close.

She wasn’t surprised, she didn’t stiffen, there was a dreamy expression in her bright eyes, perhaps it was partly exhaustion, but you brought your face close to mine, Stella, and I kissed you.

I felt her breath coming a little faster, I felt the touch of her breasts, I kissed her again, and now she released herself from my arms and, without a word, moved toward the bed. She didn’t want to lay her head in the middle of the pillow, a long one with a flowered-pattern pillowcase and room enough for two. Deliberately she moved her head over to leave half the pillow free, with plenty of space for me. Without a sign, without a word from her, that pillow showed me clearly what she was expecting.

You could tell from the faces in our school hall that some of the students were better than others at observing the obligatory minute’s silence. Most of them tried to make eye contact with their neighbors, some shifted from foot to foot, one boy was examining his face in a pocket mirror, and I saw another who had apparently succeeded in dropping off to sleep on his feet. Another was looking at his watch now and then. The longer the silence lasted, the more obvious it was that several students were finding it difficult to get through the time without drawing attention to themselves. I looked at your photograph, Stella, and I imagined how you would react, if you could, to the minute’s silence in your memory.

We didn’t leave a double imprint on the pillow; once our faces turned to each other, they came so close that only a single large imprint was left. When I awoke, Stella was asleep, or at least I thought so. I carefully took her arm, which was lying relaxed on my chest, and moved it to the blanket. She sighed, she just raised her head a little and looked at me, smiling, questioning.

I said, “I must go.”

“How late is it?” she asked.

I didn’t know. I just said, “It’s getting light. They’re probably expecting me home.” At the door, I stopped. I thought something ought to be said, a good-bye, or some reference to what lay ahead of us at school, in our separate everyday lives. I kept quiet because I wanted to avoid saying something that sounded final, or that Stella might understand as final. I didn’t want what had begun so unexpectedly to come to an end. As if of its own nature, it demanded to go on longer.

When I opened the door she got out of bed, came over to me barefoot, put her arms around me and held me close.

“We’ll see each other again,” I said. “Soon.” She did not reply, and I repeated it. “We have to see each other again, Stella.”

I had never called her by her first name before, but she didn’t seem surprised; she accepted it naturally, and as if to let me know she was happy with that she said, “I don’t know, Christian. You and I must both think about what’s best for us.”

“But surely we can see each other again.”

“We will,” she said. “We’re bound to, but it can’t be the same as before.”

I wanted to say: I love you, Stella! But I didn’t, because at that moment I couldn’t help thinking of a film starring Richard Burton, and he used exactly those hackneyed words saying good-bye to Liz Taylor. I caressed her cheek, and I could tell from the expression on her face that she wasn’t prepared to agree to my suggestion, or didn’t feel she was in any position to do so. I buttoned my shirt, put on my windbreaker, which Stella had hung over the back of a chair, and said—even out in the hallway I realized what a poor sort of good-bye it was—“Well, I can always ring your bell at home, can’t I?”

I didn’t walk down the stairs, I leaped down them, full of a sensation I had never known before. There was someone at the reception desk now. When the man looked at me in surprise, I wished him “Good
morning,” perhaps rather too cheerfully, for he did not respond and just stared after me as I went down to the beach. A fishing cutter was on her way out to sea, accompanied by the loud chugging of its diesel engine and surrounded by herring gulls. The water was calm. I went to the place where the navigation marks had been brought in and were waiting to be cleaned and painted, sat down, and looked back at the hotel. I immediately saw Stella at the window of her room. She waved. It seemed to be a weary wave; once she reached her arms out as if to catch me in them, and then she disappeared. Probably someone at the hotel entrance was asking for her.