Lore and Fred had done work for Boris. Lore had built the black shelving for his CDs, five rows high and running the full length of the room. Fred had done the calculations for the extra steel beams needed to bear the weight of his library — Boris collected lexica of every sort, most of them foreign-language editions. In fact he read almost nothing but lexica and allegedly even took a few volumes with him on vacation.
Fred said he had never met such an interesting and multifaceted person as Boris. And Lore found his collection of CDs overwhelming — she hoped to borrow the whole lot over time. It made her very happy to think how at some point she could have much the same collection at her disposal — even though the CDs she burned wouldn’t look as fancy as Boris’s originals.
Shortly before dinner an ex-colleague of Boris’s named Charlotte — we’d met her at the birthday party in June — appeared. She was now teaching courses at Jopp, a women’s fitness studio. She was wearing the same lilac dress as before, and she’d also done her hair the same way — a ponytail that emphasized the high vault of her forehead.
Pavel, to whom Susanne took a liking — she later said his face was so striking it was as if he had pondered every note he ever played — busied himself inspecting CDs, but finished the task fairly quickly. He asked us how we knew Boris and Elvira. Instead of answering his question Susanne divulged that a few weeks earlier Boris had introduced us to a different woman — a remark to which no one had a follow-up. Although Charlotte, who was standing at the window smoking, did set her bracelets clinking softly and gave a telling nod. A moment later Boris entered and pretended not to notice our silence. Balancing a large tray at his belly, he followed Elvira, who filled plates with food and deposited one at each setting. Once they had circled the table, she started to head back with him to the kitchen. “Stay put,” Boris said somewhat angrily. “I can manage.”
I had sensed something wasn’t right between the two of them. But it wasn’t easy to watch Elvira wince before turning around with head held high and crying, “Dinner is served!” Most of the time I’m far too busy imagining what Susanne is thinking and how she will react. This time, however, I likewise found the situation beyond the pale. What was this child doing here with us? What was she doing at his side?
Oddly enough there were place cards — he got the idea, Boris claimed, after discovering Elvira’s calligraphic skills. Even Boris could barely conceal his own discomfort. For him, the perfect host, it was a major glitch to have opened only one bottle of red wine. As he set to work on the second, the cork broke, and he cursed much too loudly. Pavel took over the job, and Lore remarked that two months ago no one would have believed we’d ever be sitting here together like this so soon. In early July, Fred added, they had still been balancing their way on his beams. Pavel inserted a CD — tango music, but barely audible.
I sat directly across from Elvira, the perfect spot for observation, so to speak. She was wearing lipstick plus a little eye shadow. A narrow stripe of untanned skin was noticeable at the top of each arm.
In Boris’s presence you quickly get the sense that you’re witty and articulate, because he takes almost every remark as his cue for a story or at least replies with a burst of laughter that encourages you to continue.
That evening he evidently needed some encouragement himself, otherwise he would not have thanked Pavel so profusely for the music and uncorking the bottle of wine. Several times he asked, “Well, enjoying your food?” although everyone had already praised his cooking.
It was mainly Pavel’s questions that gradually helped Boris hit his stride. “There’s a story,” he suggested, “behind every square meter here.” By which, to be brief, he meant the hassles he’d had with drywallers, electricians, tile layers, painters. I had already been informed about a good half of these squabbles.
During the main course of fish — the supermarket kitty-corner had a fantastic fish counter — Boris described how over the last three weeks, because he had to be out of his old apartment, he had tried spurring the workers on with fifty-euro bills, but nothing helped. They hadn’t been paid by the general contractor, and so they simply stopped showing up for work. Boris, as I knew him, was a born storyteller — according to Susanne, a windbag. When he got to the part about the stolen window handles he’d had to replace, he gave a wide-sweeping gesture with one arm that signaled he was winding down again. He paid no more attention to Elvira than to Susanne and me, since we were not providing him any cues to pick up on.
Unlike Susanne I’m not uncomfortable in such surroundings. Susanne always claims I’m a harmony freak, and that what I see as arguments are really quite normal discussions. And I admit it — lately I like it better if people don’t argue. We, by which I mean our circle of friends, of acquaintances, used to strike a different tone with one another. Not that we were always of the same mind. Of course we each found various things to be good or important, but there was never anything fundamental, let alone personal, about it — even if someone believed in God or in the party and someone else didn’t. But that’s in the past, at the very latest since the Kosovo war or since Afghanistan. I thought there might be some improvement once everybody could see where the Iraq war has gotten us. Except for Susanne no one knows how I vote. And she just thinks I’ve got a screw loose. I don’t mean to say that friendships have been ruined over it, but they’re not like they once were. You first stop and think about what you will or won’t say.
Until we got up from the table and distributed ourselves over the four-seaters, nothing much happened worth telling about. I might say that over the course of the meal I got used to Elvira, yes, even found her pretty in some way, and that my eyes returned again and again to those narrow pale stripes at the top of her arms. Thus far I hadn’t heard her say a word, except for “Thanks a lot” and “More fish?”—phrases that betrayed her uncertainty as to whether to use formal or informal pronouns. Elvira had helped Boris serve and clear the table, something forbidden his guests. We were to amuse ourselves, which we managed only with difficulty without him.
Once we had transplanted ourselves to new seating arrangements, our general self-consciousness returned. It was as if we had taken seats to hear a lecture or see a movie. Pavel had selected the music — early Pink Floyd stuff that everybody knows, but that can leave you drowsy and down.
Susanne, however, had made a beeline to secure herself a spot near the window in the middle of the four-seater, but then slid over a little to let Pavel and Ines join her, and had sent me away again, so that when Elvira finally appeared with pretzel sticks, hazelnuts, and raisins, she had to end up beside her — unless Elvira went to the trouble of pushing another chair closer. And like a trap snapping shut, Susanne began to draw Elvira into conversation. I admire the way Susanne handles such situations, especially because she can make it all look quite coincidental.
At first Elvira sat up ramrod straight, holding a bundle of pretzel sticks in one hand and fixing her eyes on Susanne like a deaf-mute. Her face slowly took on life, and when she smiled she would close her light brown eyes as if reveling in a lovely dream. Soon they were facing each other, their knees almost touching.
It seemed to me that the rest of us were talking just so these two women could converse without interruption. Boris obliged us with another tile-laying story. He had come home about ten in the evening, only to discover what a mess had been made of the job, climbed into his car, and roused the tile layer from his bed, “to save what could be saved, while you could still pry the tiles loose!” And he flung his arm wide again. “It sounds crazy, but you’re better off doing it yourself.”