ANNA AND STEPHEN RARELY arranged to meet except to have sex, though once they met each other at Friedhof Fluntern, near the zoo. Anna had suggested it. James Joyce was buried there. It was a Zürich landmark. She’d never been.
It was mid-January and a light snow had fallen the night before. Anna had just dropped Charles off at Kinderkrippe when she ran into Ursula on the street (how often this seemed to happen!). She told her mother-in-law that she was on her way to return some books to the downtown library. If Ursula doubted what Anna did during her time in the city, she never challenged her. In any case Anna had several stories on hand: I went to see Edith. Or: Went to buy spices at a specialty shop. Or: There was a film not playing anywhere else. Lies thin as gauze but in a pinch they would have to do.
Stephen was indifferent. “Why not?” he said as if one way or the other, he had no opinion. This was a tendency Anna didn’t realize she didn’t like until the affair was over. Friedhof Fluntern is situated in a grove of trees on the Zürichberg, the mountain that lies exactly between Dietlikon and the city. Could she have climbed the trees, Anna would have been able to see her house.
They walked to the grave without talking. Anna had read Joyce in college, though beyond “famous Irish writer” she couldn’t say much. The grave was easy to find. It was marked by a statue of the author in thought. There was snow in his lap. His wife and his son were buried next to him.
“Hey,” Anna said, her voice fully mischievous. “Let’s do it here.”
Stephen looked up, faced her, and then returned his gaze to Joyce’s grave. “That’s about the most inappropriate thing I’ve ever heard.” A moment passed, then Stephen pulled his coat tighter around his body. “Let’s go. It’s cold.” Anna followed after him, dragging her feet through the snow.
MARY HAD MADE RESERVATIONS for two at 12:15 at the Altes Kl?sterli, a traditional Swiss restaurant close enough to the zoo to hear the elephants. The first trip Anna made into Zürich by herself was to the zoo. It was her third or fourth week in the country. The household was falling into order bit by bit. Anna had found an English-speaking obstetrician. Ursula radiated helpfulness and took Anna marketing and showed her the town and painted the nursery with her. Anna breathed into those early days. Her eyes bounced upon all she saw. Every road led to possibility.
She’d been into the city before, with Bruno. He took her on a single slapdash tour that ended with him giving her a map and a ZVV pass and telling her that she was on her own (a truer prophecy would never be spoken!). “Go explore!” he said. Anna wasn’t usually an explorer. But things were running so smoothly and happiness seemed potential if not plausible. And if ever there’s a time to move beyond one’s boundaries it’s when one has, literally, moved beyond them. Anna took the challenge. Where would she go? What would Anna do? Window-shopping on the Bahnhofstrasse? A visit to the art museum? The knife museum? The clock museum? For her first outing alone, Anna chose the zoo.
The day was beautiful but blistering. Pregnant Anna moved slowly through the gardens, took pictures of the animals, relaxed at the café, and drank one lemonade and then another. She felt a surge of self-satisfaction. She made plans inside herself to stop on the way home and buy peaches for a pie. She thought ahead to the evening and a box she’d not yet opened in which was packed a black silk nightgown that she thought but wasn’t sure she hadn’t grown too big for. But self-satisfaction is a dangerous conceit. Anna was too pleased with herself. When she left the zoo she took the right bus but rode it in the wrong direction half a dozen stops before she realized her mistake. Then she got off at an inconvenient intersection and had to walk for blocks before she found a tram stand. And when the tram came, she took that, too, in a direction she didn’t intend. Eventually she landed at Bahnhof Wiedikon, where, seeing her in tears, a woman (whose limited English vocabulary unfortunately matched Anna’s equally inadequate German) sat with her and together they puzzled out a way for her to get home. The going home was the easy part; the S8 ran through Wiedikon. All Anna needed to do was to ride the (correct) train all the way to Dietlikon. It was almost impressive, how she managed to traipse so far across the city, so accidentally. The cleverness Anna had allowed herself to feel dissipated in an instant.
It was the beginning of the end of Anna’s confidence.