“THAT’S FOR YOU to decide,” Evelyn said.
“You know very well what I want. But what if he suddenly shows up here again?”
“You don’t need to trouble your head about that.”
“But I do.”
“He’s not coming back. This has nothing to do with him.”
“Aha.”
“Do you move back in with me or are you staying with Pepi?”
“What do you mean, ‘with Pepi’?”
“Adam, please! I have eyes in my head.”
“I was with her just one time, for a fitting—”
“I don’t want to hear about it. Spare me.”
“Spare you is good. As if you’ve spared me.”
“So it’s time to start blaming each other? The skirt you did for Pepi turned out beautiful, I’d love to have one like that.”
“It’s yours. There’s still fabric left.” Adam reached for the bottle of water. It was empty. He held it up and waited for the waitress to look his way.
“Were you two here often?” he asked.
“Once, to dance—the time they robbed us.”
“Not a pleasant memory.”
“All depends. The place was jammed.” Evelyn avoided looking at the man with big glasses and black hair who was sitting three tables behind Adam and constantly staring at her.
“Could you ever have imagined our guys would pull it off?” Adam asked.
“What?”
“We’re going to get a real opposition.”
“Forget it. Day after tomorrow it’s history. You’ll see just how quick they all end up in the West.”
“All the same. Hungary is like a trip to the West now. And the Poles aren’t playing ball anymore either.”
“The less they’re given to eat, the wider they’re allowed to open their mouths. And pretty soon they won’t be letting us into Hungary anymore.” She stubbed her cigarette out.
“Have you got any money left?”
“Almost all of it. Somewhere around twenty-five hundred.”
“I’ve exchanged the koruny, the tank is full.” Adam pointed to their empty coffee cups and the bottle of water.
“Enough for this, anyway.”
“Didn’t you make some good money here?”
“I’ve got unlimited room and board, at least till Christmas.”
“You wouldn’t have gone home?”
“Not without you. I could have more work here than you can shake a fist at.”
“Pepi asked me if I wanted to give German lessons. She knows two Russian teachers who were told they’re going to have to teach German now—from one day to the next.”
“How long do you want to stay?”
“A couple of days yet, as long as the weather holds. What’s up with Heinrich?”
“The starter, the fact is I need a new starter. I just hope he makes it.”
“Our Herr Angyal has quite a knack. Have you seen the box he built for Elfriede?”
“First-class turtle luxury is what it is. Elfi’s definitely going to want to stay on here.”
The waiter arrived with the bill—Evelyn handed Adam her wallet.
“Didn’t you order something besides?”
“I’ll get some water elsewhere,” Adam said and paid.
She pushed her half-full glass his way. Adam drank it down. The black-haired man paid too. They stood up from the table and left the restaurant.
“It’s pretty discouraging,” Adam said, glancing down over Evelyn, “but I could never come up with a pair of pants that would look any better on you than those jeans.”
“I’ve gotten really fat here. Maybe that’s what you like?”
As she walked, Evelyn put on her straw hat. She didn’t look around but she had the feeling the black-haired man was following them.
As they approached the wharf, which projected out into the lake like a jetty, an elderly man spoke to them in German. In his basket were figs, resting amid dark green leaves.
“Try them, try them,” he said. “Take some, as many as you like.”
Evelyn stroked a fig carefully with her fingers and took a bite. Adam took some money from his wallet.
“Very fresh, from my garden,” the man said. Evelyn nodded and stared at the old man’s gnarled hands circling to select the best figs in the basket. “Take them, please, take them all.”
Adam paid, they walked on. The black-haired guy was in fact following them. He was a short, almost wispy man.
“Did you notice his hands, like roots,” Evelyn said and laid an arm around Adam’s shoulder. “And the thumb, notched like a cutting board.”
“I never realized before that this is what they mean by Plattensee, the flat lake,” Adam said.
“Don’t look around right away,” Evelyn said, “but some weird guy is slinking along behind us. Do you know him?”
A couple of people who had been watching a ship pull out were now coming toward them. There were fishermen sitting along the edge of the wharf.
“Well, good day to you,” the black-haired man said, blocking their path and extending a hand to Adam. “Warnemünde didn’t work out, it appears, or are we on the Baltic here?”
He’s crazy, Evelyn thought when she heard his bleating laugh. Adam, with a fig in each hand, held out his forearm, which the other guy squeezed. “I didn’t recognize you. Are you here on vacation too?”
“Well now, I wouldn’t exactly call it vacation, more a business trip.” He let out more bleats. “Just a joke. I thought, since I have a visa, I ought to make the trip too.”
“Sorry, but I don’t know your name,” Adam said and turned toward Evelyn, “but this is the garageman, from the station down by the Polyclinic. I got that hubcap from him.”
“Well, it’s a small world, especially for us—ain’t nothing can be done about that,” the garageman said and laughed again. “Just wanted to put in an appearance. Be seeing you, be seeing you.”
“Yes,” Adam said. “Good luck to you. Good-bye.”
Evelyn gave him a nod as well.
“Whoa,” she said after they moved on a bit. “He’s creepy.”
“I think so too,” Adam said. “Although I’d swear he’s harmless.”
“Were you at all afraid crossing the border?”
“Funny thing—no, I wasn’t.”
“Really?”
“I was thinking of you the whole time.”
“Even with Katja in the trunk?”
“Yes. It was all about you. I can’t give you any reasons, but that’s how it was.”
Evelyn laid her arm around Adam again. “I need to tell my mother—she doesn’t know a thing about this.”
“Luckily it’s a little late to write postcards,” Adam said.
“Don’t give me that, we still have some time here.”
“Do you want to take the ferry tomorrow? From Tihany? There’s a marvelous pastry shop there. Do you know it?”
“No, I don’t,” Evelyn said. “Will you read to me this evening? Pepi has a book by Gustav Schwab in her room, printed in that old-fashioned Gothic.”
They had reached the end of the jetty and were standing now between two fishermen. The water was dead still, except for low waves that the aft of the ship was sending out into the lake to its right and left. They ate their last two figs in silence. Then Evelyn leaned her head against Adam. Her straw hat slipped a bit to one side. For a moment it looked as if they were both wearing it.