Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Mary knew that Anna’s birthday was approaching. During a class break, she volunteered to have a party at her house and to bake Anna a cake and what was her favorite kind, anyway?
“No, Mary. You’ll do nothing. Please. I beg you.” Mary seemed baffled, but she capitulated. She let the matter drop.
They spent the rest of the German class in pairs, pretending to telephone each other.
“DO YOU KNOW WHAT it’s like?” Anna spoke quickly, breathlessly. “It’s like having so much feeling in your body that you become the feeling. And when you become the feeling, it’s not in you anymore. It is you. And the feeling is despair. I almost can’t remember a time I didn’t live here. But even my walk gives me away as an American. I’ve forgotten how to think in dollars and yet I barely understand how to count in francs—my husband’s a goddamn banker!” Every thought Anna had, she had at once. “Am I in Hell? I must be in Hell. I don’t know what else you want me to say. I can cook and shop and read and do simple math and I can cry and I can fuck. And I can fuck up. Can I love? What does that mean? What does that matter? What do I matter? All I ever do is make mistakes.”
Doktor Messerli inched herself to the edge of her chair and urgently motioned her to keep talking. They were close to a breakthrough, she was sure.
YES, ANNA HAD ASKED that nothing be done for her birthday, but Mary, sweet Mary, wouldn’t hear of it so she suggested an outing in lieu of a party. Both families. A day of minimal but undeniable celebration.
“Besides,” Mary offered, “it’s something we might have done anyway.” So Anna conceded as Anna often did.
The Benzes had arranged to meet the Gilberts at a quarter past eleven at Stadelhofen. From there, it would be a half-hour train ride to Rapperswil, where the families would walk around for a while, then board a boat that would carry them back to Zürich. The trip would last the afternoon, the boat stopping many times to let people on, to let others off. Mary had packed a basket of sandwiches, beer, sodas, and snacks to enjoy on the ride. A day would be made of this travel and when they returned to Zürich, the Gilberts would come back to the Benzes’ for drinks, a simple dinner, and cake. Ursula stayed home with Polly Jean.
Rapperswil is a picturesque city on the eastern end of the lake about thirty kilometers from Zürich. Built on a Bronze Age settlement, its sinewy alleyways date to medieval times. There’s a castle there and Rapperswil is the home of Circus Knie, the largest circus in Switzerland. Anna had never visited.
The families made easy conversation on the train. Mary talked of volunteering at Max and Alexis’s school, Bruno and Tim spoke of skiing. Anna split her attention between the competing conversations. Max and Charles amused their parents by telling silly jokes: Why did the train choke on its food? Because it didn’t choo-choo it! Anna smiled at her middle child. “What a clever boy you are,” she said, and Charles broke into a proud, pleased grin. Victor sat alone and played with a handheld video game. Alexis had brought a book. Anna tried to engage her in conversation with little success. She asked her about school, about Canada, whether she liked Switzerland or not, if she was enjoying her book. Alexis’s responses were polite but terse. Anna let her be. The child didn’t want to talk. A familiarity flashed before her once again and Anna’s heart reached out invisibly to Alexis’s. Anna said nothing more.
ANNA SOMETIMES WONDERED IF Stephen ever thought of her. Has he forgotten me entirely? Do I ever invade his thoughts? Like a song he can’t shake from his head? This line of questioning never did her any good. She avoided it most of the time.
But when she couldn’t, she settled on believing that months ago he realized he’d made a terrible mistake but was too timid, too embarrassed, or too frightened to come back to her. It’s possible, Anna reasoned. She understood that insurmountable feeling of being penned in, captured and unable to act. Anna had lived in the house of her own inevitability for years. Maybe Stephen had as well. Anna made a choice to believe that this was the reason he’d never called or written.
She knew better, of course. But there were times when she forgot that she knew better and she forgot that she was pretending.