“HELLO, GOOD MORNING.” Katja was holding two tent pegs, banged them together, and scraped off the rest of the dirt clinging to them. She was wearing the Brazilian T-shirt over her bikini. “We need to get out of here.”
Adam sat up. Several families had already spread towels and blankets in the general area, there was an odor of suntan lotion in the air.
“The Young Pioneer loves and protects nature,” Adam said. “Did I ever dream a lot of crap.” He rubbed his face with both hands, as if washing it.
“How late is it?”
“You’re the one with the watch.”
“Let’s at least take a swim,” Adam said after they had loaded everything into the car.
“You’re a gutsy guy.” Katja pulled off her T-shirt. Some kids were playing on the shore.
“Ugh, slimy!” Katja yelled and backpedaled.
“Elephant poop, genuine Hungarian elephant poop. You have to wade through it, if you want to get to the West, all the way to the far shore,” he said in a low voice.
“That’s not the West over there!”
“I’ll carry you through the elephant poop and collect the bounty money.”
“Well, what you’ve cost the state so far, which is what they’ve saved on you over there.”
“How much does it come to?”
“Twenty thousand, maybe?”
“That’s all?”
“Or fifty. I’ll buy fabric with it. Nothing but the finest. Come on, let’s go.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Once you’re in—”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean can’t? You having your period?”
“Lower your voice.”
“Well then, what is it?”
“I’ve told you already. I just can’t.”
Adam waded back to the shore. “Come on,” he said, holding a hand out to her. “Once you start in with that kind of hocus-pocus, you can never shake it off. Come on, hold tight.”
Taking reluctant, tiny steps, Katja entered the water, pulled her hand away and ran back.
“I’ll carry you.”
“No, I’m way too heavy for you.”
“Come on, one arm around my neck, and now alley-oop!” Adam staggered briefly, but then walked sturdily into the water. Katja held tight with both arms.
“Don’t be afraid,” he panted, getting a better grip. “I won’t drop you.”
“Go back, Adam, please, take me back.”
“Nyet,” he said and waded ahead as quickly as he could.
“Please, I’m scared!”
“No need to be. Everything’s fine, everything’s fi-hine.” Adam was almost running when the water reached his trunks. “Think of Fuji or of Elfi—it’ll be a little cold at first.”
Katja screamed but at the same moment flipped onto her stomach and went into a crawl. Adam slipped into the water. Katja swam in a curve around him.
“It’s not so bad, is it?” he shouted and did a few quick strokes. “Everything okay?”
Instead of answering she took off. Adam swam back and forth a little, then stood up, in water to his belly button, and watched her swim away.
Hands on his hips, he sunned himself. Once in a while he opened his eyes, but Katja had disappeared beyond the sailboats.
When he finally saw her swimming back toward him, he set out to meet her.
“It’s not so icky this far out.”
“Not all that pleasant either,” she said, turning briefly to one side and adjusting her top.
“Can I ask you something?”
“What is it?” She ran a hand over her short hair.
“Was there something wrong yesterday? Something I said?”
“No, not exactly.”
“So there was?”
“Think about it. You’ll come up with it.”
“What am I supposed to come up with?”
“Do I have to tell you?”
“No, you don’t have to. Except all sorts of stuff is running through my head now.”
“I thought, Your wife is around here somewhere, and suddenly you want to camp out with a girl who promised you a favor.”
“Promised?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”
“You thought I wanted to cash in my reward.”
“That’s about it. What’s so strange about that? It is pretty weird after all, keeping your wife waiting.”
“What does that have to do with my wife?”
“I thought she was here already?”
Katja slowly swam toward the shore. Adam waded beside her.
“It’s more complicated than that,” he said. “It’s not an easy story to tell all at once.”
“I can see how it might look stupid for you to show up with me attached.”
“Evelyn isn’t alone. She’s here with her girlfriend.”
“I see, a woman-woman thing?”
“Oh no, nothing like that.”
“Can happen.”
“She’s bad company for her, she really is.”
“That’s what my father used to say sometimes—‘bad company.’ ”
“A woman she used to work with, always the big mouth, blowing nothing but hot air. It was her fault that Evi dropped out of university.”
“So what’s she doing now?”
“Training as a waitress. When she really wanted to be a teacher.”
“Education science?”
“German and geography, but mainly German.”
“They wanted me to be a teacher, too. But I didn’t go along with it.”
“And so what did you do?”
“Carpentry, even completed my apprenticeship.”
“Evi reads a lot. Whenever she’s got the time, she’s reading.”
“A teacher has to work at softening up the boys, so they’ll become professional military or officers or at least put in three years with the army. You don’t have time left to do any reading.”
“She could at least have finished her studies.”
“And what does any of that have to do with you two now?”
“She doesn’t even know I’m here.”
“A surprise?”
“You might call it that too.”
“Are you spying on her?”
“We had a fight. She took something the wrong way, and now I’m afraid she’s about to screw things up.”
“Cut and run for good?”
“No, not that, I don’t think. But at twenty-one—”
“I’m twenty-one myself! And you’re?”
“I’ll be thirty-three in December.”
“Well preserved.”
“Would I have been way out of line?”
“Out of line how?”
“Well, last night?”
“That’s not the issue.”
“What is?”
“Maybe that I just wasn’t in the mood.”
“Hm.” Although the water was now barely to his knees, he still couldn’t see his feet.
“If you have to know. My pills are gone, they were in my neck pouch, and I have no real interest right now in getting pregnant, not even by you,” she said. But now stood up straight. “What’s she up to there? Do you know her?”
A young woman was leaning against the driver’s side of the Wartburg, her arms stretched out along the roofline, her face to the sun.
“Holy shit,” Adam whispered.
“Your wife?”
“Nope.”
“The truth, Adam, nothing but the truth.”