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  Praise for Seven Years

  “Seven Years is a novel to make you doubt your own dogma. What more can a novel do than that?”

  —Zadie Smith, Harper’s

  “Stamm’s talent is palpable, but what makes him a writer to read, and read often, is the way he renders contemporary life as a series of ruptures. Never entirely sure of their position, his characters engage in a constant effort to establish their equilibrium.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “With a patient and impressive commitment to realism, this Swiss novel follows the course of a complicated, troubled marriage … Though Stamm pulls off a quietly spectacular plot twist halfway through the book, he never loses sight of the quotidian things that erode or transform relationships over time: an oddly personal disagreement about the merits of Rain Man, or the ‘piles of romance novels, Christian manuals, and Polish magazines’ that crowd a lover’s apartment.”

  —The New Yorker

  “Stamm is a master of quietly deliberative stories. In Seven Years, as in the best of his work, he puts often simple-seeming characters through extraordinary paces, all the more remarkable given the Carver-like restraint he exercises in his writing.”

  —Bookforum

  “Seven Years is a powerful, enlightening novel about the eternal search for contentment in life, the often fickle nature of love, and the knowledge that in reality, happiness is rarely how we dreamed it would be.”

  —Daily Beast

  “Stamm never flinches, and the unraveling is delivered with a mesmerizing chill.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Here is Stamm’s strength, in a good English translation, the clean uncluttered sentences that take you—as writers since Hemingway have shown—from one crystalline point to the next, so as to travel great distances in the shortest possible time.”

  —Buffalo News

  “Seven Years is tense and frightening—I couldn’t stop plunging in. Desire is a hunting dog and we never know what it will bring us. This is ruthless truth.”

  —Rosecrans Baldwin, author of You Lost Me There

  “Just the kind of thing I like.”

  —Lorin Stein, Paris Review blog

  “Ego, passion, and deception run wild, but the novel’s strength is found in the characters Stamm has created: powerfully imperfect, sometimes despicable, horribly conflicted, and always believable far beyond the archetypes that too often pop up in novels of marital ennui.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Swiss novelist Stamm (Unformed Landscape) offers a classic love triangle that reads like a contemporary European version of Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road … Readers looking for a highbrow page-turner will relish this quick read.”

  —Library Journal

  “This touching novel is a tour of what makes love work and what tears love apart in the modern world.”

  —Booklist

  “A dynamic and taut novel that examines the conflicted heart in the confines of marriage and the perception of what love is.”

  —ForeWord Reviews

  ALSO BY PETER STAMM

  novels

  On a Day Like This

  Seven Years

  Unformed Landscape

  stories

  In Strange Gardens and Other Stories

  Copyright © 2008, 2011 by Peter Stamm

  The first part of this work was originally published in German as Wir Fliegen by S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2008.

  The second part was originally published in German as Seerücken by S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2011.

  Translation copyright © 2012 by Michael Hofmann

  The translator would like to thank the Canton of Wallis/Valais for the award of residency in Raron, where this translation was completed.

  Several stories in this collection have previously appeared elsewhere: “The Suitcase” in Subtropics 14, Spring/Summer 2012; “Sweet Dreams” in The New Yorker, May 14, 2012; “Expectations” in Guernica, May 15, 2012; and “We’re Flying” in A Public Space 16, June 2012.

  Biblical quotations in “Children of God” and “Holy Sacrament” have been adapted from the Authorized King James Version.

  Production Editor: Yvonne E. Cárdenas

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from Other Press LLC, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. For information write to Other Press LLC, 2 Park Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10016. Or visit our Web site: www.otherpress.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

  Stamm, Peter, 1963–

  [Wir Fliegen. English]

  We’re flying : stories / Peter Stamm; translated from the German by Michael Hofmann.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-1-59051-419-1

  1. Stamm, Peter, 1963—Translations into English.

  I. Hofmann, Michael, 1957 Aug. 25– II. Stamm, Peter, 1963– Seerücken. English. III. Title. IV. Title: We are flying.

  PT2681.T3234W5713 2012

  833′.914—dc23

  2012001180

  Publisher’s Note:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  v3.1

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  WE’RE FLYING

  Expectations

  A Foreign Body

  Three Sisters

  The Hurt

  The Result

  We’re Flying

  Videocity

  Men and Boys

  The Letter

  Years Later

  Children of God

  Go Out into the Fields …

  THE RIDGE

  Summer Folk

  The Natural Way of Things

  Holy Sacrament

  In the Forest

  Ice Moon

  Seven Sleepers

  The Last Romantic

  The Suitcase

  Sweet Dreams

  Coney Island

  About the Author

  Expectations

  I THINK IT’S FUNNY the way I can pick out a sound, even when there’s a lot of noise and it’s not a big sound, just because I’m waiting to hear it. I bet the others haven’t heard it. They don’t recognize the sound, the quiet creak of a floorboard in the apartment upstairs. They carry on talking, as though nothing had happened. They chat and laugh and drink my wine and eat the food I cooked for them, without anyone saying thank you or this is delicious. Presumably they think they’re doing me a favor by visiting. Statistically, most women meet their eventual partners at work. But our work revolves around five- and six-year-old children. And their parents—either couples or single mothers. Karin and Pim hooked up when they were Scouts, Janneke and Stefan met on holiday in Australia. They must have told the story a hundred times. Two Dutch people meeting in Australia—it had to happen. They can’t get over it. And now they’re talking about their New Year’s resolutions. Lift the seat, says Karin to Pim. Do you not do that? asks Janneke, making a face. She says she trained Stefan to pee sitting down. Karin says men have different notions of hygiene. What about women who chuck their used tampons in the wastepaper basket? asks Pim. That’s the way they always talk. Not a pleasant or sensible word all evening.

  Is there coffee? Stefan asks, as if I w
as the waitress. No, I say. At first they didn’t even hear. I have to say it again, loud and clear. I’m tired. I’d like you to go now, please. They just laugh and say, Well, we’ll just have to have our coffee somewhere else. As they file out, Janneke asks me if I’m all right. She makes a sympathetic face, as if I was one of the kids that had fallen down and scraped a knee. You would think she was on the verge of tears herself, but she’s not even listening when I reply, Yes I’m fine, I just want to be alone. I don’t think they will stop off anywhere on the way home. I don’t think they’ll talk about me. There’s nothing to say, and that suits me.

  I go back quietly into the living room and listen. There’s a long silence, and then I hear the creak again. It sounds like someone creeping around on tiptoe, trying not to make a noise. I follow the footsteps from the door to the window and then back to the middle of the room. A chair or some piece of furniture is pushed, and then there’s another sound I can’t identify. It sounds as though something had fallen down, something heavy but soft.

  I’ve never met Mrs. de Groot, I only know her name from the doorbell. Even so, I have a feeling I know her better than anyone else in the world. I’ve heard her radio and her vacuum and the dinnerware, so loud it’s as though someone was washing up in my kitchen. I’ve heard her get up at night and shuffle around, heard her run a bath, flush the toilet, open a window. Sometimes water dripped onto my balcony when she watered her flowers, but when I leaned out and looked up, I couldn’t see anyone there. I don’t think she’s ever left her apartment. I liked the sounds. They gave me the sense of living with a sort of ghost, a benign presence watching over me. Then a couple of weeks ago, everything went quiet. I heard nothing since. And now the creaking again.

  My first thought was: it’s a break-in. While I’m undressing and going to the bathroom, I wonder whether I should call the police or the super. I’m in my nightgown when I decide to go up there myself. I’m surprisingly fearless. But then I’m not really afraid of anything ever. You’ve got to learn that, as a single woman. I pull on my robe and slip into some shoes. It’s eleven o’clock.

  I have to ring twice, and then I can see the light come on through the peephole, and a young man, much younger than me, opens the door and says in a very friendly voice, Good evening. I’m thinking it was a mistake to go upstairs, and why do I always have to get involved in other people’s affairs, instead of looking after my own. But then you keep reading about people dying, and their bodies left to rot in their apartments for weeks without anyone noticing. The boy is wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt with IRON MAIDEN on it, which I think is the name of a rock band. He isn’t wearing any shoes, and his socks are holey.

  I tell him I live downstairs, and that I heard footsteps. And because Mrs. de Groot has clearly moved out, I thought it might be a break-in. The boy laughs and says it’s brave of me to come up and look all by myself. If it was him, he’d have called the police. What made me think a woman lived there? He has a point. All it says on the bell is P. de Groot. For some reason I was convinced that that had to be a woman, an elderly woman living by herself. I tell him I’ve never seen anyone, just heard the noises. He asks if women sound any different than men. First I think he’s making fun of me, but then he seems to mean it as a serious question. I don’t know, I say. He looks at me with this rather boyish look, a mixture of timid and curious. I apologize, and say I’ve just got out of bed. I have no idea why I’m lying. He has this way of making me say things I didn’t want to say, and that from the very first moment. We look at each other in silence, and I think I ought to be going. Then he asks if I’d like a coffee with him. I say yes right away, even though I never drink coffee at night, and I’m in my robe. I follow him inside. When he locks the door, it occurs to me in a flash that he might be a burglar after all, and has asked me in to silence me. He is quite pale and slimly built, but he’s about a head taller than me, and has muscly arms. I imagine him grabbing me and throwing me down on the floor, then he sits on my belly and holds my arms in a painful grip, while he jams something in my mouth to keep me from screaming. But instead he goes to the kitchen, fills a pan with water, turns on the stove. Then he flings open, it seems, every one of the kitchen cupboards. Coffee pot, coffee, filters, he mutters to himself as if it was a spell he’d learned by heart—sugar, sweetener, milk. When he can’t find the coffee, I suggest getting some from my place. No, he says, so firmly that it makes me jump. He thinks for a moment. We could always have tea instead, he says.

  The apartment looks exactly the way I imagined it would as an old woman’s apartment. A TV magazine on the coffee table, knitting on the sofa, crocheted rugs and coasters, various knickknacks and passe-partouts with pictures of ugly-looking people in old-fashioned clothes. We sit down, me on the sofa, him on a great big armchair. On the armrest is a little box with a couple of buttons. He presses one of them, and a footrest slowly comes up from the bottom of the chair. With a switch he tilts back and then forward again. For a while he’s busy pressing the buttons, like a kid showing off a new toy. We haven’t introduced ourselves, he suddenly says, and he jumps up and thrusts out his hand. I’m Daphne, I say, and he laughs again, and says, I see. Oh. Patrick. Funny we’ve never met before. The whole time he’s holding my hand in his. He asks me if I live alone. He asks about my life, my job, my family. He asks me so many questions, I don’t get a chance to ask him anything back. I’m not used to people taking an interest in me. I expect I tell him way too much. I talk about my childhood and my little brother who died four years ago in a motorcycle accident, and my parents and my job in the kindergarten. It’s not exactly thrilling, but he listens carefully. He has shining eyes, like the children when I tell them a story.

  We finish the tea, and Patrick gets up and opens a sideboard. He finds a dusty bottle of Grand Marnier that’s almost full. He sets a couple of small glasses on the table, fills them, and raises one.

  Here’s to unexpected visitors.

  I empty my glass, even though I don’t really like liqueur. He makes a face when he drinks as well, as though he’s not used to it. I had company earlier, I say, a couple of colleagues from work and their husbands. We always get together on the first Friday of the month. I don’t know why I’m telling him this. There’s nothing more to say about it. He says January is his favorite month. His birthday’s in January, in a couple of weeks’ time. He likes the cold.

  Which is your favorite month?

  I’ve never thought about it. I know I hate November.

  He has a favorite month, a favorite season, a favorite flower, a favorite animal, a favorite novel, and so on. That’s all he has to say for himself. I think he has nothing else. He’s just like my kids at kindergarten. When I ask them what they did on their vacation, they say, Played. He really is like a child, cheerful and helpless and sometimes a bit shy. He seems to be perpetually surprised. And he laughs a lot. He asks me if I like children. Sure, I reply, it’s my job.

  That doesn’t have to mean anything. You can be a butcher and still love animals.

  But I do like them. That’s why I work in a kindergarten.

  He looks alarmed and apologizes, as though he’d said something terrible. He pours us another. None for me, I say, but then I drink it anyway.

  I guess I shouldn’t be so nosy.

  No, I guess you shouldn’t.

  I must sound just like an old kindergarten biddy, but the fact is I’m already hooked on his curiosity, his questioning look that gives significance to the most banal things. Sometimes he doesn’t say anything for a long time, and just looks at me and smiles. When he asks me if I have a boyfriend, I get cross. I’ve heard the question too many times. Anyway, it’s none of his business. Just because I don’t live with a man doesn’t mean … He looks at me with big, staring eyes. I don’t know what to say, and my uncertainty makes me even angrier.

  Now you’re angry with me.

  No I’m not.

  And so it goes on. We drink and talk about everything under the
sun and about me, only not about him. I find him provocative, but I don’t think he means to be. He’s staring at my legs until I see that my robe has fallen open, and he can see my thighs. I must get my legs waxed again. But who really cares. I pull the robe together, and Patrick stares at me as if I’d caught him doing something forbidden. I’m quite drunk at this point. I’m thinking he could do anything to me, and then straightaway I’m ashamed of the thought. He’s so young I could be his mother. I’d like to run my hand through his hair, press myself against him, protect him in some way. I want him to hug me the way the kids do, I want him to lay his head in my lap and go to sleep in my arms. He yawns, and I look at my watch. It’s three a.m.

  I really better go.

  It’s Saturday tomorrow.

  Even so.

  Then he sits beside me on the sofa. He asks if he can give me a good night kiss, and before I can say anything, he’s taken my hand and kissed it. I’m so astonished, I pull it away. He jumps up and crosses to the window, as if he was afraid I’m going to punish him.

  I’m sorry.

  You don’t have to be.

  Then he says something peculiar. I respect you, he says. After that neither of us says anything for a long time. Finally he says, Look, it’s raining. Now the snow’s going to melt. I say I don’t like snow, and all at once I’m not sure if I mean that or not. I don’t like snow, because the kids come bundled up in lots of clothes, so it takes you half an hour to get them changed, and they dirty the place with their shoes. But when I was a kid, I used to love snow. There were lots of things I used to love then. It feels to me like I’ve spent the whole evening moaning and griping. He talked about things he liked; I talked about things I didn’t like. He must think I’m a negative person, an embittered old maid. Maybe that is what I am. At least in the city, I say. I don’t like it because they go and grit the streets, and then everything … I picture us going for a sleigh ride. Patrick’s sitting behind me, and his inner thighs are pressing against me, making me warm. He’s snuggled his face into my hair, and I can feel his breath on my neck. He whispers in my ear. Completely out of the blue, he says what a wonderful woman I am, and he was so happy he’d met me. Well, I certainly didn’t see that coming.