A WEEK EARLIER NANCY invited both Mary and Anna to her apartment after class for lunch. Nancy lived in Oerlikon, a short walk from the Migros Klubschule. Outside of the twenty-minute coffee breaks and a word or two during class, Anna and she had never spoken. But Mary and Nancy were friends. “Come with me, Anna,” Mary said. “Nancy’s great.”
Nancy was a tall, thin woman, Nordic blond, stylish, with a warm and generous demeanor whose apartment, in a way, resembled Nancy herself: modern, clean, sparse, pulled together, open. She was forty-one years old, unmarried, childless, and, currently, unemployed. When Anna asked how that was possible (Zürich is painfully expensive) Nancy said it wasn’t a problem and then, with awkward circumspection, confessed to the women that her family owned tea farms in Africa and while she had worked many years as a print journalist, she really hadn’t needed to. “Don’t mistake me for a trust fund brat,” she was fast to add, “I’ve busted my ass. I’ve always earned my keep.” So it seemed to Anna; Nancy had worked all over the continent reporting on international politics, mostly from the strange, exotic cities that Americans never think to list when they’re asked to name the capitals of Europe: Tallinn, Sofia, Kishinev, Skopje, Vaduz. Nancy wasn’t just a good sport; she was an adventurer. She didn’t take the assignments—she had volunteered for each of them. If it was someplace she’d never been? That’s where she wanted to go.
“So what are you doing here?” Anna hadn’t meant for the question to sound like an accusation.
“I heard it was a top city. A fine place.” Nancy shrugged. “I wanted to check into it. I had nowhere else I needed to be.”
“How long are you staying?”
“I’ve only been here four months. I have no plans to leave. I like it.”
“Really?” Anna hadn’t expected that.
“Sure. Don’t you?”
Anna didn’t answer.
Mary began to fawn in that Mary way of hers. Emptily, repetitively. “You’re so admirable, Nancy. I really admire you, Nancy. How you just pack up and go wherever you want and do what you want to do,” Mary said. “I wish I could do that. I really admire you for that.”
“What’s to admire? I’m just living my life.”
“Still.” Mary sighed. “You’re so fearless. Strange places frighten me. I get anxious just taking the bus from Schwerzenbach to Dübendorf!” Mary sighed again. It was hard for her to stray too far from her own front yard. That’s what had made the move from Canada so awful, she confessed to Anna early on.
Nancy offered Mary a consolation that fell somewhere between empathy and a reprimand. “Mary. To each her own fear. But I don’t want to watch my life unfold. I want to unfold it myself, if you will. If there’s something I want to do? I do it. If there’s something I want? I chase it. And I catch it. If I believe in something, I support it. If none of those things? Then … nothing. Then I let it go.”
“Is that why you never married?” Mary asked.
“Sure,” she said in a throwaway tone as she rose and gathered the women’s empty plates. Anna and Mary were silent. Nancy shook her head. “Really, I want to be clear. My life is no more commendable than either of your lives.” Mary twisted her face into a question mark. Anna looked blankly at Nancy and waited for her to continue. “We’re modern women in a modern world. Our needs are met and many of our wants.” Mary nodded. Nancy continued. “We have rights and the means to exercise them. Each of our lives is our own and as far as I know we get one apiece and no more. We should do something with them. If we can. If we’re able to. It’s a travesty when a woman wastes herself. That’s all.”
A travesty to waste one’s self. It was a truth Anna couldn’t refute.
Nancy took the plates into the kitchen and returned with coffee and biscuits. Dessert was spent gossiping about people in the German class.
“I still think Archie has a crush on you, Anna,” Mary giggled.
“I know he does,” Nancy added. Anna asked them to drop it. Yes, they were pals. But nothing more.
“Oh, god no, Anna!” Mary almost choked on her water. “That’s not what I meant! I’d never suggest such a thing!” Of course you wouldn’t, Anna thought. It was wistful thinking. Mary’s goodness made Anna’s badness worse. Anna’s shameless self felt shame. It was a strange, recursive feeling.
“What’s his story, anyway?” Nancy asked. Both Nancy and Mary turned to Anna for the answer. If anyone knew it would be she.
Anna scanned her thoughts for something to tell them but she couldn’t come up with any details that weren’t sexual. He likes it when I’m on top. He’s into biting, dirty talk. He likes to smell me—should I tell them that? He puts his face between my legs and inhales me like I’m a goddamn bowl of potpourri. But when was his birthday? What did he study in school? Did he go to school? Had he ever been married? Any children? Are his parents alive? Any known allergies? She knew he had no visible scars. Was this all she knew of him? Think, Anna. This can’t be all.
“He’s got a brother.” That was the best she could do.