ADAM WANTED to lie down and close his eyes, at least for a few minutes. But the realization that at some point he would have to get up again kept him on his feet.
He climbed to his workshop. He carefully smoothed out Lilli’s skirt and pinned it on the dummy, draping the suit top over it. He slipped the record back in its jacket, turned the record player off, closed the window, left the skylight open just a crack. When he picked up the tray with the empty glasses and sugar bowl and turned to leave, he spotted something dazzlingly white in the space between the wall and the open door—Lilli’s bra. On one cup was a dark semicircle, his shoeprint.
Balancing the tray in one hand, Adam picked up the bra between his fingers as if testing the quality of the fabric, but then pressed it to his face like a mask—it had no smell—and hung it back on the door handle.
As he passed Evelyn’s room he cast a glance inside. It had been tidied up, the white blouse, the black skirt, the waitress’s apron had all been neatly folded and laid on the sofa, beneath them stood her work shoes.
He almost stepped on a fig in the kitchen. It must have fallen out of the bag.
While he washed dishes he was still picturing Evelyn, the way she had stared first at him and then at Lilli. He kept rubbing away at the rim of the glass, although any traces of Lilli’s lipstick had long since disappeared. Doesn’t matter much now anyway, he thought, and heard himself let out a sound, a groan or a battle cry, and would gladly have repeated it, even more fiercely, with his face to the ceiling. He thrust a fist into the dishwater, Lilli’s glass banged against the bottom of the sink.
Adam didn’t bother to dry his hands. He slammed the door behind him and walked to the garage. He backed his old Wartburg out.
He used the first rag he found in the garage to wipe dust and cobwebs from the two twenty-liter jerricans and loaded them in the trunk.
Adam drove as far as Puschkin Strasse and turned left to skirt the old city. As he passed the museum he saw a group of people coming out, the tour had evidently just ended. Sometimes even from this point, he could see the last car in the long traffic backup. But Adam was in luck—stinking good luck, Evelyn would have said. There were only seven cars ahead of him. No sooner had he turned off the engine and pulled the brake than traffic was moving again.
Adam’s red-and-white Wartburg 311 was one of the favorite cars of the garageman, a short guy with black hair and big glasses. Last fall, without even being asked, he had been able to come up with a replacement for a missing hubcap, and the bill that Adam had folded twice over disappeared into the bib pocket of his blue overalls without so much as a glance.
“Well, things still lookin’ up?”
Adam nodded. He was in a hurry to get the cans out of the trunk before the next car pulled in. He opened them and set them down beside the pump.
“Where you headed?”
“The coast. Warnemünde,” Adam said. He himself didn’t know why he lied.
“Lucky dog. Booked at the Neptun?”
“Private lodgings,” Adam replied and walked back to the trunk, where he pretended to search for something. Under the old blanket he found his father’s guides to birds and wildflowers. He smiled as he folded the blanket, stood up straight, the books tucked under his arm.
“Anything happening with the castle?” Adam inquired. From here you could see the gap left by the fire more than two years ago.
“They’ll have the Junkers’ Dormitory restored in forty years or so,” the garageman said, never taking his eyes off the cans.
“Along Teich Strasse,” Adam said, “there were still twenty pubs after the war. My father kept trying to chug a beer in each one, but never could do it. And now? Now there’s one left.” Adam suddenly had a hunch that it was the garageman who had told him this story.
“And that one’ll be closing soon too,” the garageman said, pressing the heel of his hand down on the cap of the second can. He pulled a ballpoint from behind his ear and jotted down the charge. Then he cranked the pump back to zero and started gassing up the car.
“And otherwise?” Adam asked.
The garageman stared straight ahead as if he had to give the question some serious thought. “I was supposed to have taken my vacation by now,” he finally said. “But there’s my coworker, and if she doesn’t show …”
Adam gave him a two-mark tip.
“Just a sec,” the garageman said. He came back out of the office with a hand on his leg pocket.
“You know this stuff?” He turned around, his back to the Škoda behind them now, pulled out a spray can, shook it, squatted down at the radiator, squirted a blob of foam on the chrome bumper, and rubbed it. “Now ain’t that somethin’?” The spot did in fact look shinier. Adam was hoping the garageman would do the rest of the bumper, but he stood up instead.
“You have another can of it?”
“Na-a-a-h!” the garageman bleated. “Got it from some Czechs. Wanted to ask, just in case you ever head that way, if you might bring me one back.”
“We’re off to Warnemünde,” Adam said.
“Thought you might keep it in mind, if you ever do happen to—”
“Sure,” Adam said and nodded. “I’ll keep it in mind. Have you got a funnel, by the way?”
“For you I’ve got it all.”
Tucking the spray can back in his leg pocket, the garageman vanished again. Adam was generous in rounding up the price. The money disappeared into the garageman’s bib pocket. They shook hands good-bye. Adam could see in the rearview mirror that the garageman was tugging a red-and-white chain across the station entrance, all the while watching him pull away, as if taking note of the license number.
Just after Saint Bartholomew’s Adam took a right at Ebert Strasse, crossed Dr. Kulz Strasse, then made a left, bringing him at last to Martin Luther Strasse. Evelyn’s bike was beside the front door of number 15, and directly across the street was a red Passat hatchback with West German plates and HH as the first two letters. He couldn’t think of any major city that had two Hs in it.
Adam was hungry. Once back home he forced himself to take his time, garnishing his plate of cold cuts with pickles, setting mustard, horseradish, and the bowl of stewed quince on the tray, plus two plates, each with a cloth napkin in its own silver ring.
After he had wiped off the oilcloth on the garden table, he fetched the turtle from its little enclosure and put it on the table, just as Evelyn had always done. The turtle crept closer to his plate. Adam made a point of eating slowly and drinking slowly. There was a pleasant evening breeze, a blackbird was sitting on the ridge of the roof. To finish off his meal he tried peeling the figs, but finally sliced them in half and ate them with a spoon. He laid the leftovers in front of the turtle, which immediately began nibbling away. It felt good having an animal close by, as if he had already been alone too long.
Evening was falling by the time Adam turned the garden hose on the flower beds and shrubs. He always had his best ideas when gardening, which was why he kept a drawing pad in the shed, for a quick design sketch with a carpenter’s pencil.
He took time out to set the turtle in the grass, to speak with the neighbors and clean the little pond. Along its rim were four sandstone frogs that spat jets of water. He was as delighted as always with the flat stone he had laid in the middle of the pond last spring—perfect for birds. When he had finished with the garden and the turtle was back to crawling around in its pen, he treated himself to a second beer and a cigar. If Evelyn came by, she would see that not only was she expected, but also he was sticking to his agreement to smoke only in his workshop or outside.
Every thought that entered his head ended up as a kind of self-justification, as if he were being interrogated, as if his mind would allow no uncertainties, no contradictions. It seemed to him as if his just sitting here and smoking had been entered on the police report, with date and time. He still had to take out the garbage, check the windows, including those in the cellar, and make sure that all the doors inside were left open—to unplug everything, wipe up any water in the fridge, pack, and find a box for the turtle. His reward would be a shower and a shave.
Adam was just setting the alarm clock when the doorbell rang. What flashed through his mind was: the garageman. But why him? Evelyn! He turned on the outside light and opened the door.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said. The telegram delivery boy greeted him and handed him an envelope. Searching for his wallet, Adam frisked his jacket, hung on a clothes hanger dangling from the entryway wardrobe. He pressed a mark into the delivery boy’s hand and waited until he had remounted his chug-chugging moped and ridden off.
“Sunday a problem. Monday afternoon? Monika.”
Adam grimaced and sat down on the stairs. He had thought of everything, just not of his women.
There was a piece of cardboard tucked between his garden shoes, which he stored in the niche beside the door. He slipped it out and fanned himself. Years ago he had written “In the garden” on it in red pencil, so that if he didn’t hear the doorbell his clients wouldn’t think he had left them in the lurch. Some came from as far away as Leipzig, Gera, or Karl-Marx-Stadt.
He would have to write about twenty postcards: “Quick vacation till early September. Greetings, Adam.” He had time, he was all packed. He had canceled the newspaper clear back at the start of the year. The mailbox was big enough for all the rest. He pushed the sign back into its slot between the heavy shoes.
No lies, no need to hide, he told himself suddenly, stood up, and locked the door from inside. For a moment he thought of leaving the key in the lock—but then pulled it out as always. He was used to Evelyn coming home late. Out of the wardrobe Adam grabbed her straw hat, which he wore sometimes himself for work in the garden, and laid it atop his packed suitcase. He padded the turtle’s box with a few fabric remnants and added a water dish.
There were lights in several windows until a little after midnight, Adam included in his imaginary police report while he brushed his teeth. Quickly rinsed and gargled, and went to bed.