THE NEXT DAY ANNA came home directly after class. She was tired and sore and wilted and she had promised Ursula that she would. Archie didn’t hide his disappointment. “Oh come on, we’ll get together later in the week,” Anna hissed at him by the coffee machine in the Kantine. He frowned and whimpered the way her sons did when they weren’t getting something they wanted. The waggishness grated Anna’s patience. “Jesus, Archie, get past it.” She rubbed her temples as she spoke. Archie turned away without responding, paid for his coffee, grabbed a newspaper someone had left on a counter, and took it to a table in the corner and sat down, his back to the room. Anna felt bad. She hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings. Mary sidled up to her. “What’s wrong, hon? Got a headache? I think I have some aspirin.” She began to rifle through her purse.
Anna stopped her. “I just need some coffee.”
“Well, then let’s get you some!”
On the way home Anna stopped at the Coop on Dietlikon’s Bahnhofstrasse. She’d written a list on the train. Eier. Milch. Brot. Pfirsiche. Müsli. Die Fernsehzeitschrift. Eggs. Milk. Bread. Peaches. Cereal. A TV guide. Anna swallowed a self-deprecating snort. This is an old lady’s shopping list. There was truth in that. Anna felt her age that day, plus fifteen, twenty years more. She shopped as quickly as she could.
Five minutes later and from behind her in the checkout line, Anna heard her name.
“Grüezi Frau Benz.” It was Anna’s neighbor Margrith.
“Grüezi Frau Tsch?pp?t.”
Margrith volunteered an odd but not unfriendly smile. She inquired after Bruno, the children, Ursula. Anna told her everyone was fine and then asked Margrith what sort of things she and Hans had planned for the rest of the season. It was a go-to topic of conversation. Anna never knew what to talk to strangers about. And the Swiss were always strangers. The conversation was polite and cursory, the way conversations in shopping lanes are intended to be.
Margrith continued talking even as Anna turned to pay. “Oh,” Margrith by-the-wayed as Anna inserted her bank card into the reader, “I saw you, I think, was it yesterday?” Margrith paused. “Yes. In Kloten. You were walking toward the trains.” Anna entered her PIN and didn’t look up. “I have a sister in Kloten, you know.”
Ahh, yes, Anna responded, though she didn’t know Margrith had a sister. How is she?
“Oh, she is getting along, thank you for asking. Do you have a friend in Kloten?” “No,” said Anna. And then, “I’m afraid, Margrith, that you are mistaken. That wasn’t me.” Anna said it firmly, calmly. Das war nicht ich. She left her face blank and tried to remember if Karl had walked her out of the hotel. He hadn’t.
“Oh, well,” Margrith said, laughing away the mistake she surely must have made. “It must have been your doppelg?nger!” Anna bagged her groceries and smiled briefly at Margrith before the two of them bade adieu and Anna left the Coop and made the five-minute walk to Rosenweg in three.
10
THE HISTORY OF DOPPELG?NGERS IS PHENOMENOLOGICAL. Doppelg?ngers rarely appear in the same place as their genuine halves. Most commonly, the doppelg?nger will appear when someone is gravely ill, or when she is in tremendous danger. It is said that a person’s spirit can will its own bilocation in times of great distress. The sighting of a doppelg?nger by one’s family or friends bears ill fortune.
It is an omen of death to see one’s own self.
ANNA WOULD TURN THIRTY-EIGHT in less than two weeks.
Anna hated birthdays. They dejected her. Not once had she celebrated a birthday, the joy of which was not also accompanied by a tremendous crash of disappointment, like a sledgehammer heaved onto a glass sculpture.
It wasn’t the thought of getting older that consumed her with dread. Age is the natural consequence of being alive, Anna knew, and the alternative was grim.
But consider: Every year you have a death day as well, only you don’t know which one it is.
Anna made Bruno promise that he wouldn’t make a fuss. This was not a difficult pledge for him to swear: he hadn’t intended to. As for Anna herself, she decided she’d deal with the day when it came and not a minute before.
“GRIEF THAT FINDS NO relief in tears makes other organs weep,” Doktor Messerli said.
Anna wrote it in her journal. How very many ways this is true.