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

down next to him. The tension was gone.
    “Well?” she asked.
    “He really is a moron. My best friend, the moron.”
    Andreas laughed, and then he started coughing. Delphine said it didn’t sound good. He thanked her. Delphine said he was a strange person, and that got Andreas laughing and coughing again.
    “Don’t worry,” he said, once he had recovered himself a little. “I won’t say anything to him.”
    “Say what?” asked Delphine. She said Jean-Marc had been a mistake. It had been one of those evenings where you would go along with anyone at all, purely not to be alone. Did he have those, ever? She couldn’t know that Jean-Marc was going to fall in love with her.
    “He didn’t fall in love with you,” said Andreas. “It’s just his vanity. If you’d followed him, called him on the phone, pestered him, he would have dropped you soon enough.”
    “Thanks for the compliment.”
    “I don’t mean it like that. I know Jean-Marc. I bet he showed you photographs of his children.”
    “I could have murdered him,” said Delphine, laughing.
    They lay side by side on the mattress, and looked silently up at the ceiling. It had begun to get dark outside. Andreas felt very calm. At last, Delphine sat up. She turned and looked at Andreas.
    “The launderette shuts in two hours.”
    “Is this one of those evenings you would go to bed with absolutely anyone?” he asked.
    “No,” said Delphine, and she started to undo Andreas’s shirt. Her face looked quite impassive. She took off his shirt and pants, and then his shorts. Then she disappeared into the bathroom, and came back with a condom, which she carefully opened and put on him. With a few movements, she stripped off her clothes and left them bundled up on the floor. For a moment, she stood naked beside the bed, with her hands hanging down. Andreas was amazed by her pallor. He took her hand, and pulled her down on top of him.
    He had meant to go to Brittany to visit Jean-Marc, who came from there, and went back every summer with his wife and kids for a few weeks. He telephoned him, and said he had to put off his visit by a few days. He gave no reason. Nor did he say anything about the biopsy to Sylvia or Nadia. He could imagine their reactions. Nadia would feel sorry for herself, first and foremost. She would be furious with him, the way people are furious with a glass when they break the glass. And Sylvie would straightaway set herself to solving the problem. She was bound to have a friend who was a lung specialist,and who would agree to examine Andreas, and treat him. He left them both thinking he was off on holiday. The only person whom Andreas told was Delphine. He was surprised himself that he talked to her, but maybe it was because she had no great role in his life, that he didn’t know her better than someone you meet on a trip abroad, and then soon lose track of. Even the fact that they had slept together didn’t seem to have brought them together. She asked him what he liked, and told him what she liked, and told him when he was too fast or too rough. When it was over, he really did go to the launderette with her, and while they sat in front of the machines waiting, he told Delphine about the biopsy. Once again, she was cool and objective. She didn’t try to comfort him, or to play down the whole thing. She listened to him carefully, and asked him what time he was due at the hospital and how long it would take. Then she said she would drive him there. He said he could perfectly well walk, it was only fifteen minutes, but Delphine insisted on driving him.
    Five days later, she rang the bell punctually. She had left her car in the middle of the road, and when Andreas came out of the house, she was arguing with a truck driver who couldn’t get past. In the middle of a sentence, she broke off, got in the car, leaned over tothe passenger seat to let Andreas in. She gestured at the truck driver, and drove off.
    The hospital was right behind the Gare du