Adam and Evelyn (2 page)

“Who?”

“Sure you do. Andrea Albrecht, from the Polyclinic, the gynecologist.”

“With the Algerian boyfriend?”

“There’s no Algerian boyfriend. You’ve met, shook hands once. I made this outfit for her”—he pointed at a photo on the line—“back in June.”

“Wait a sec—” Evelyn stepped up close to the shot. “Is she wearing my shoes? Those are my shoes!”

“What?”

“Those are mine, there, on the toe, that scratch. Are you crazy?”

“They never know anything about shoes, they show up here wearing clunkers that ruin everything. It’s just for thirty seconds—”

“But I don’t want your women wearing my shoes. I don’t want you taking shots of them out in the garden, and certainly not in the living room either.”

“It was hot upstairs.”

“I won’t have it!” Evelyn was now giving other shots a closer look. “So are we leaving tomorrow?”

“As soon as our new chariot arrives, we’re on our way.”

“I’ve been hearing that for three weeks.”

“I’ve called. What am I supposed to do?”

“We’re not ever going to go on this trip, I’ll bet you.”

“You’ll lose.” Adam pulled photo after photo from the water and hung them up. “I guarantee you’ll lose.”

“We’ll never get another visa. They wouldn’t give us one now. They’ve moved the age limit up to fifty, Frau Gabriel says.”

“Frau Gabriel, Frau Gabriel. She’s always got lots and lots to say.”

“This one’s beautiful. Is it red?”

“Blue, silk.”

“Why don’t you ever do color shots?”

“She had someone bring the silk back with them, and this material here”—Adam held up a photo showing a young woman in a short skirt and loose blouse—“expensive shit, even in the West. You can’t feel it against your skin, it’s that fine spun.”

Adam folded up a wet photo and threw it in the wastebasket.

“Why’d you do that?”

“Wasn’t any good.”

“Why not?”

“Too dark.”

Evelyn reached into the wastebasket.

“The background is all black dots,” Adam said.

“Is this Lilli?”

“Sure is.”

Evelyn tossed the photo back in the basket and returned to the entryway, where the shelves of preserves were.

“It’s like they multiply. You want pears or apples?”

“Is there any stewed quince left? And close the door.”

Adam turned off the light and waited till the door clicked shut.

“Some from eighty-five, if this is a five,” Evelyn called from the other side of the door.

“Doesn’t matter.” Adam chose a new negative, focused, pulled the half page from the package, laid it under the enlarger, and pushed the timer button. He hummed along with it.

“You want a bowl now too?”

“Later.”

“Are you going to the museum today?”

“Have the tours started up already?”

“Yes, and I’m going to have to miss it again.”

“I can’t go either, I’ve got a fitting,” Adam called out.

For a moment everything was quiet. He let the page slide into the liquid, pressed it down. There was the snap of the light switch in the entryway.

“Evi?”

He heard the clink of the empty bottles again.

“Evi!” he shouted and was on the verge of following her, but then in the next moment he bent down deeper over the tray, as if trying to make sure that the woman emerging there with her laugh and outspread arms was really looking at him.

A FEW HOURS
later that same Saturday—August 19, 1989—Adam was kneeling, with a half dozen pins in his mouth and a tape measure around his neck, at the feet of a woman in her midforties. She had taken off her blouse and was fanning herself with an issue of
Magazin
. The heat had nestled into the finished attic, despite open dormers and skylights. The cover had been pulled over the sewing machine, the cutting table tidied up, with shears arranged by size and lined up with spools of thread and ribbons, triangles, rulers, stencils, tailor’s chalk, a cigar box full of razor blades, and another small box for buttons, a photo propped against it. Even the tray with two half-full glasses of tea and a sugar bowl had been squared with the tabletop. Rolls of fabric were stacked under the table. From the record player’s speakers came music, along with a few scratches.

“Is that Vivaldi?” Lilli asked.

“Haydn,” Adam managed to say through tight-pressed lips. “Don’t suck your tummy in.”

“What?”

“Don’t suck your tummy in!” Adam repinned the skirt’s waistband.

“I don’t understand why you won’t take on Daniela as a client. She’s beautiful, she’s young, and she can pay your prices. She just wants to wear something chic for once. Besides, her father has a repair shop, for
Škodas I admit, but they’d lend a hand when you need one. There’s no rush. Daniela will go to the end of the line.” She tossed the
Magazin
on the table. “When are you two taking off? Have you got your new Lada yet?”

Adam shook his head. Lilli looked in the mirror, at her left bicep, already half raised, and began to tweak her hairdo. Adam’s finger traced along the inside of the waistband.

“You don’t have to grumble,” she said. “I’m not sucking my tummy in, I’m no beginner.”

Their eyes met in the mirror.

“Shorter, I think,” Lilli said.

Adam turned up the hem, checked the mirror, and shook his head.

“You don’t agree? People won’t see any leg at all,” Lilli said.

Adam pinned the hem length and smiled, which made him look curiously sad.

“What’s with you?” she exclaimed. “What about the belt loops? Those could be bigger.”

Adam grabbed Lilli by her hips, turned her around, and removed the pins from his mouth. “There’ll be a slit right here—a slit, do you understand? You want them to stare at it, put a crick in their necks. And make sure you find a narrow belt, something elegant. Here are your eight inches, about eight from here down.” He fastened another pin and finally got to his feet. “So now the shoes, take a couple of turns.”

Lilli slipped into her brown pumps, walked to the window, where she spun once around on her tiptoes, then strode to the dormer opposite, and started back again.

Adam took his cigar from a copper ashtray and puffed away till the tip began to glow.

Lilli stopped in front of him, her hands on her hips. “I can’t believe that’s me there. Even I look photogenic here with you.”

“Keep moving, keep moving,” he said.

When Lilli passed him again, she waggled a hand, and in reply Adam took the cigar from his mouth and blew smoke on the back of her neck. “That’s enough, come here,” he called. “And you did suck your tummy in.” Adam tried to tap a finger on the little bulge just above the top of her skirt. Lilli backed away. She pretended not to have heard him, and brushed her hair back. She was sweating, too.

Adam pulled the second mirror over. “Here, I need to take a little out of the box pleat. Otherwise it falls very nicely.”

She tensed her butt under Adam’s hands. “Actually I’m glad you don’t want to take Daniela on. You’re liable to take a shine to a spring chicken like her. The lining is marvelous, feels so good to the touch. Where’d you get it? If it weren’t so stifling up here I’d purr. Can’t you put that smelly stogie out? You’ll get lung cancer.”

“This flaw here in the fabric, I’ll tuck it under, it’ll as good as vanish,” he said, and inserted a couple of pins beside the box pleat.

“When I get home they can always smell that I’ve been here with you. Although I always wash my hair.”

Adam gave the skirt a gentle tug. “Sits and fits like a glove. Once around.” And when she threw him a questioning look, he repeated: “Once around. And take this thing off!”

Lilli undid the clasp of her bra, brushed the straps aside, and let it dangle between her thumb and index finger.

“Satisfied?” she asked as she let the bra fall to the floor. Adam removed the suit jacket from the big tailor’s dummy. Lilli stretched her arms behind her, slipped into the jacket, pulled it up over her shoulders, and spun around. She looked straight at him as he pinned the jacket closed. “I found a couple of buttons for it in an antique shop, scarce as hen’s teeth, my old man would’ve said, real mother-of-pearl, prewar stuff.” Adam took a step back.

“Well, what do you say? Stretch your arms out in front of you, both of them, and to the sides … I fitted the waist. Is it too snug?”

“Not a bit,” Lilli said, looking at herself in the second mirror.

“Either find yourself a decent bra or wear nothing under it—nothing would be best. The middle button a tad higher, and a little less here, give some, take some, see, that gives it its shape all by itself.” He stepped to one side and watched Lilli turn back and forth between the two mirrors, hands pressed flat at her waist, stroking the fabric.

“Oh, Adam,” Lilli said, just as the final duet began. “I ought to bring you a bouquet of roses every time I come.”

Adam blew little clouds in the direction of the skylight. For a while music hung in the air, as if they were both listening closely to the voices.

“You deserve a whole rose garden.”

Adam laid the cigar on the windowsill, the tip jutting over the edge. “I’ll make sure,” he said, “that everybody has a great view, from in front and from behind and in profile.” He picked up a half-full tea glass, gave it one last stir, licked off the spoon, drank it down, and moved in close behind Lilli. For a moment he eyed the countless copies of her in the mirrors. Then he thrust the spoon handle between her breasts, it stuck there.

“You see, what did I say, you don’t need anything else.”

The spoon even stayed there once Lilli was lying on her back atop the table and Adam, after carefully working her skirt up, was moving inside her.

“Slow down,” Lilli said. “And be careful, you’re dripping on my suit!”

Adam wiped his brow with his sleeve and shoved the button box and her photo farther back.

During the final bars of the last chorus Lilli grabbed the tape measure still hanging around Adam’s neck and pulled him down to her, until his eyes were looking right into hers. “Adam,” she whispered, “Adam, you’re not going to cut and run, are you?” She fought for air. “You’re coming back, Adam, you’re staying here, right?”

“What a lot of baloney!” Adam said. He saw the sweat on Lilli’s upper lip, felt her breath against his face, under his right hand her
heart was pounding wildly. “Promise me, Adam, promise me!” Lilli suddenly cried so loudly that he covered her mouth out of pure reflex. That’s when the spoon slipped from her décolleté. Adam removed it from her shoulder and put it back in his glass, which responded with a low, clear, almost bell-like ring.

WHEN ADAM HEARD
her voice and then her steps on the wooden stairs, it came to pass that he squeezed behind the cupboard to the right of the door. Squatting in the bathtub, frozen with fear, Lilli stared at him. There was a knock, Lilli turned the sprayer off. Evelyn entered.

“I just quit,” she announced—and then almost toneless—“my job.”

Foam clinging to her arms and shoulders, Lilli got out of the tub.

“I’m sorry,” Evelyn said and turned around.

“Adam?” she called as she left. “Adam, where are you?”

She climbed to his workshop. He knew what it looked like up there. Lilli tried to pull up her panties, which had got rolled up and twisted at her knees. Adam looked over her glistening back and out to the garden. Hopping about on the freshly mowed grass were blackbirds, sparrows, and a magpie. Over the last few days he had weeded the bordering flower beds, the fence had been freshly painted in May. The garden hose lay neatly coiled up between the driveway and the spot where he burned trash. The turtle in its little pen had crept out of sight. Evelyn came slowly down the stairs. She stopped at the bathroom door.

“Adam, are you in here?” She opened the door. “Adam?”

“I’m sorry,” Lilli whispered. She had yanked her panties up to where they hugged her hips like a cord, and was now clamping a towel under her arms to cover her breasts. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

“Have you seen Adam?”

Lilli glanced toward the window as if she might find him there in the garden. Why didn’t she say something? I’m far, far away, Adam thought. There was Evelyn standing right in front of him now. He couldn’t help smiling—she still had on her white blouse, black skirt, and waitress’s apron.

“Who’s she?” Evelyn asked, jerking her head back toward Lilli. She picked up a towel draped across the washbasin and threw it at Adam’s chest. It fell to the floor.

“Who is this woman?”

He picked up the towel and held it to him like a loincloth.

“I’m sorry,” Lilli whispered.

“Is this your fitting?”

Lilli looked up briefly, then back at the floor.

“It was so hot,” Adam said.

“Tell her to finish her shower, that won’t make any difference now either.”

Evelyn hesitated briefly at the door and gazed at Lilli, who with upper arms pressed to her body was standing there bent slightly forward, trying to unroll her white panties and tug them up over her butt.

Adam counted Evelyn’s steps. They seemed to linger at the threshold to her room. He was afraid she might turn around and return to the bathroom. Then the door slammed. Her old sofa groaned audibly in the silence of the house.

Adam was sitting at the kitchen table, brushing at breadcrumbs with his fingers. It felt good to prop his head in his hands. In front of him, beside the opened jar of stewed quince, was a paper bag of fruit that looked like little purple onions but felt soft through the paper. He didn’t want to risk taking any out. Maybe he had gone too far just carrying the bag up the steps into the kitchen.

Adam, barefoot, a towel around his hips, had gathered up his and
Lilli’s things in the workshop, but she had to send him upstairs again because he had returned without her bra, and without the photograph too. He had to pass Evelyn’s room again, move up and down the creaking stairs again—but only with the photo. Evelyn had probably stashed her new bra somewhere, Lilli had hissed, and then broken into tears.