On A Day Like This by Peter Stamm Read Free Book Online

Tables and chairs were piled into one corner. Behind that was a photo screen that Andreas suddenly remembered one day. It was a yellowed mountain landscape, a small lake surrounded by trees, against a backdrop of snow-topped mountains. The picture must date from some previous owner. The host and most of the clientele were Algerians. Andreas wondered where Paco had got to, and his lovely wife, who had bossed her husband about like a kid.
    “The hotel was wretched,” said Andreas, “but I was still young. There was one shower and one toilet for twenty guests. In summer, if it was hot, you had to queue up for a shower. You had to buy coupons forwarm water. If we had no money, we made do with cold showers.”
    “I couldn’t stand that,” said Delphine. “I need my own bath.”
    She said she would stay here until she had found a place in Versailles. But she did want to leave before the vacation.
    They paid and left the bistro. Delphine went on, without either of them having said anything. Andreas loved such moments, when basically everything had been decided, but nothing had been said or done. He followed Delphine. Before, they had walked side by side, now she was in the lead, and he so close behind her that he almost touched her. She was wearing cheap clothes, jeans, a white T-shirt, and a jacket with rhinestones. Andreas had a sense that she was walking differently from before, more confidently, as though she knew what he had in mind. They didn’t speak, not even when Delphine stopped in front of a building and entered a code on an electronic pad beside the door. She held it open for him, and he followed her through a courtyard and up a flight of stairs. On the fourth floor he came to a stop. He was out of breath, and coughing.
    “You smoke too much,” said Delphine, who was already on the next landing.
    When he got to the top floor, she had disappeared. A door stood open.
    The room was furnished rather basically; you could tell it had been assembled by someone who wasn’t planning to use it himself. There were hardly any books on the shelf, and apart from an almost bald basil plant on the table, there were no plants. On the bed there was a sleeping bag on a bare mattress. Next to it on the floor was a huge blue IKEA plastic bag full of dirty laundry. Delphine said she would have to do her laundry tonight. Andreas went up to the little window and looked out.
    “A pretty view.”
    “I only come here to sleep.”
    He turned around toward her. She had sat down on the bed and was looking at him inquiringly. He knew what she expected of him. They would kiss, make love on the stained mattress, then he would accompany her to the launderette before taking her out to dinner. Afterward they might make love a second time, while he kept an eye on his watch to be sure he didn’t miss the last train. He would get dressed, and she would see him to the door, and he would turn to look at her once more on the stairs, to leave a good impression. And that would be the last either of them would ever hear of the other.
    Delphine had got up and joined him in front of the window. Their shoulders brushed, and he smelled her perfume, a fresh, lemony scent. Summer, sun, and flowering meadows, he thought—it made him laugh.
    “What’s so funny?” asked Delphine irritably.
    “I just remembered something,” said Andreas, “a story I was reading. A love story.”
    He asked her what scent she used. She asked him whether he liked it. Yes, he said, he did. He started to laugh again. The whole situation seemed so hackneyed.
    “What’s the big joke?”
    “You certainly confused Jean-Marc.”
    Delphine didn’t say anything for a moment, then she asked what Jean-Marc had said.
    “That you had slept with him. And that you didn’t want anything to do with him.”
    “What a moron.”
    Andreas laid his hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off.
    “Don’t worry,” he said.
    “I’m not worried.”
    Andreas sat down on the bed. Delphine sat