She got out the mistress’s letters and read them again, trying to read the words without thinking of Manfred, as the product of a passion that could surmount any obstacle and any distance. She read them all from beginning to end, then she crumpled them up and threw them away. For the first time in a long time, she thought about Manfred without thinking of his infidelity. She thought of his joie de vivre, his patient, helpful manner, and his self-irony. She thought of the intimacy between them, his tenderness to her, and how much she missed him. And suddenly she felt perfectly sure that he hadn’t lacked anything in their relationship, and that he hadn’t committed adultery for want of anything, but from that excess of love and curiosity and wonder with which he encountered everything in life, children, animals, nature, his work, the whole world. She ripped the letter she had begun off the legal pad, and started writing to Manfred, quickly and without thinking, sentences the likes of which she had never written before.
Years Later
WECHSLER HAD DRIVEN for two hours when he saw the looming shape of the mountain on whose slopes the village nestled and from which it took its name. From the distance its mass had always suggested to him the body of an enormous animal that had come down ages before to lie down in the plain, and had gradually been overgrown with grass and forest.
It was more than twenty years since he had left the place where he had grown up, the village where he had married and worked on his first jobs as an architect. After his marriage with Margrit broke up, Wechsler had moved into the city and begun a new life. He had met with success and his memories of living in the village faded.
February had been unseasonably mild, but a few days ago there was another snowfall. There was still a little snow in the vineyards that covered a large part of the slope. The regular rows of vines might have been cross-hatching from one of Wechsler’s sketches. The landscape instantly looked familiar to him. Only as he drew closer to the village did he see how much had changed in the time he was away. There where corn and sugar beets had been planted now stood monstrous industrial buildings, painted in all kinds of colors and sprawled self-importantly over the plain. Wechsler remembered his first little restoration jobs in the village. At that time he had argued for months with the authorities about the color of some shutters. Now it seemed people were free to build just exactly as they pleased out here.
Wechsler parked his car in the marketplace he had once crossed to go to school. Sometimes he had sneaked off to the butcher’s after class and watched him at his work. He could still remember the apprehensive eyes of the calves, tethered in the open, waiting for it to be their turn. The butcher’s shop no longer existed, now it was lingerie. Round the square, ugly new buildings had been put up, office blocks, a shopping center, even a hotel.
It was almost noon. Wechsler went into a restaurant he remembered from long ago. The inside hadn’t changed. It was paneled in dark wood, and the tables were set, but Wechsler was the only person there. The waitress asked him if he wanted lunch and sullenly took his order for coffee. She was just bringing it to him when the cook came out. He was wearing a stained apron, and for a moment Wechsler thought it was the landlord of the old Linde, who had let them drink beer in his pub even though they weren’t yet sixteen. It must be his son, who wasn’t much older than Wechsler. Twenty years ago he had been a good-looking ladies’ man. Now he was pale and fat, and had the puffy face of a drinker.
The cook stepped up to Wechsler’s table and shook hands with him, as seemed still to be the custom in these parts. Wechsler asked after his father. The cook looked at him suspiciously and said his father had been dead for many years. Wechsler explained he used to live here once, and he asked after some of his old friends. The cook gave him what information he could. Some of Wechsler’s friends had moved away, others were dead. A few of the names the cook had never heard before.
But you do remember Wechsler, the architect? And his wife, Margrit?
The cook nodded and made a vague gesture, as if to say it was all a long time ago. His face looked suddenly tired.
The divorce was a bit of a scandal, said Wechsler. To begin with, the wife contested it. Hodel was the lawyer in the case. I’m sure you remember.
Hodel had since become a notary, said the cook, he ate lunch here every day. Then he excused himself. He was needed in the kitchen. Wechsler called the waitress and said he had had a change of heart, he would have lunch here after all.
At twelve o’clock the bells in the nearby church began to toll, and the restaurant started filling up. Most of the customers came in small groups, and greeted the waitress by name. Wechsler had the feeling that these people, whom he didn’t know, had taken possession of his past. He had moved away and others had replaced him. The old village existed only in his memory.
Hodel entered the restaurant. He stopped in the doorway and looked around, as though the place belonged to him. Wechsler recognized the lawyer right away, even though he had grown old and bald and seemed shrunken. Their eyes met, and when Wechsler half got to his feet and smiled and nodded to Hodel, the latter came over to his table.
I’m so sorry, he said, with a questioning look in his eyes. I meet so many people …
Wechsler identified himself. Hodel’s face brightened, and he said, Well, well. A revenant. How are you?
The men shook hands and sat down. After a glance at the menu, Hodel ordered casually, as befits a regular. The waitress smiled when he asked her to bring a bottle of wine, the barrique, not the house wine.
Even the wine’s improved, Hodel observed.
He had kept seeing Wechsler’s name in the paper, he said, people in the village were proud of him. The indoor pool he had built … The outdoor pool, you mean, Wechsler corrected him. What was it that brought him back to the village, Hodel asked, and nodded when Wechsler said the cemetery chapel was being renovated. He had come to have a look at it. He wasn’t yet sure whether to bid for the contract or not. Hodel grinned and said the business with his wife had long since been forgotten and forgiven. Today, divorces were almost part of the bon ton. Suddenly Wechsler wished he had gone to a different restaurant. He didn’t want to be reminded of his early years. Time had passed, he had remarried, had become a father, and was expecting the birth of his first grandchild. He was happy with his life.
I’ll walk you to the cemetery, if you’ve no objection, Hodel said over coffee. The exercise will do me good.