The Apartment: A Novel (3 page)

I eat while we walk. Saskia suggests we stop so I don’t get a stomach ache, but I know she’s only being nice. It’s too cold to stand still. I eat the whole thing in four bites, so that I can put my hands back in my pockets. The first three bites are small, but I take the whole last half of the sandwich with the fourth, and have to cover my face with my hands. You eat like an animal, she says. I chew and chew and hold my finger up, indicating that I’m chewing. I always used to eat quickly, but lately I have been sitting at dinner tables in restaurants and cafés, and after I swallow a bite I put my fork and knife or spoon down and allow a thought to rise to the surface – one that is purely philosophical, that is in no way actionable, and that relaxes the mind.

The fish sandwich makes me feel better immediately. I throw the packaging into a bin, wipe my mouth and hands with a napkin and throw that into the bin. Then I take a drink of water. Okay, I say. Okay, says Saskia. She leads us to the left, onto a short, narrow street with a lot of closed-down old shops. The foot or two of sidewalk separating the buildings from the road is not wide enough for both of us, or either of us, in fact, so we walk on the road, which is white and soft and thick with snow. I used to live near here, and take this street to the café, says Saskia; we’re very near the university. At that moment a car appears behind us and honks. It’s a polite honk, a short honk, just to let us know it’s there. And that’s when I first realize that the wind is howling. You cannot even hear cars that are a few feet behind you. Saskia steps out of the way and I file behind her. The car goes by, an old silver Mercedes driven by a man with huge silver hair. My face is wet and feels hard because it’s so numb. I move alongside Saskia again. She has her arms crossed and walks with her head pointed down. The road is ascending. The Mercedes, ahead of us, is sliding all over the place.

I was thinking about taking some language courses, I say. Saskia contemplates this by looking up, lifting her chin. This is what she does when she contemplates something. That’s a good idea, she says. Would you like me to help you find one? I say, Hmm, and I nod my head, because I cannot say no without feeling rude and I cannot say yes without embarrassment. I’m embarrassed that she’s doing all the favours and I offer nothing in return. I sense this doesn’t bother her, and she knows I have nothing to offer. Nothing in the way of assistance, anyway. Nothing in the way of information, or a practicality. I alleviate a kind of loneliness in her, perhaps. I give her somebody else to fret about. Or she is simply being hospitable. Or all of these things.

She stops to examine a building. For a moment she says nothing. Her arms stay crossed. She blinks a lot, because snowflakes are getting into her eyes. This place, she says, used to be famous. Yes? I say. I examine it with her. Its windows are boarded up. The stone façade is rain-stained, but that makes it like every other building on the street. Maybe it’s another one, says Saskia. She scans up and down the street, looking slightly bewildered. There used to be a famous little book press on this street, she says. They published lots of anarchist novels. The publisher was jailed. But that was a hundred years ago. Then it became a famous bookshop. Sort of famous. It was where people went when they wanted to pretend to be anarchists. When did it close? I ask. When I was very young, she says. Not enough people wanted to pretend to be anarchists. We stand for ten seconds longer, and then she says, But I can’t remember which building it was.

We continue up the hill, walking side-by-side. The road leads to a stairway that zigzags up a ridge, then opens onto a wide platform with a sculpture on it, something abstract and large, two curved shapes, one stacked on top of the other. What’s it supposed to be? I ask. It is a memorial for massacred Jews, she says. That is a mother embracing the corpse of a child. After about thirty seconds, during which we kneel to get a look at the child, we continue onward. There’s another short stairway at the other end of the platform. It’s not far now, she says. At the top of the stairway we find ourselves on another small grey street. The street is empty of vehicles or people. There’s a light in a window not far from us. A door opens, and suddenly there is a lot of noise, and an orange light. A couple steps out, the door closes behind them and the sound dissolves and the light disappears. And now I can hear the couple speaking, but I don’t understand what they’re saying. The woman is catching the snow in her mittens. That’s the café, says Saskia. She looks both ways and starts to cross the street. The surface is slippery, and Saskia throws her arms out for balance when she nearly slips. I take her arm and we help each other cross. The street is so narrow that the surface probably never sees direct sunlight in winter. I don’t recognize the street. It seems strange that I have walked so many hours in this city and still don’t recognize places. I tend to begin my walks in places I know – I never fling myself completely into unfamiliarity – and move outward slowly, turning this way and that, and try to find my way back. I almost always do. Then I find a new point of origin and do it all over again. I also like shortcuts, so I test tiny alleyways that wind away from bigger streets. I open gates. I crawl under small archways that appear to lead nowhere, but often take you to interesting spots. I walk through sleepy private gardens and grounds. The stairs and the memorial and now the café – I get a lot of pleasure out of the secrecy of this city. This is something Saskia and I have in common.

She opens the door for me. We are met by the sound of voices and the smell of coffee. The café is warm and stretches back a long way, through an archway into a second room. The walls are covered with posters – scenes of city life and reproductions of old masterpieces. There is one of a nude man, covering his genitals with his hands, wearing a donkey mask. The booths are red velvet. The tables and chairs are dark brown wood. There are immense chandeliers, and the waiters are dressed in tuxedos. There aren’t any free tables in the front room. Saskia tells me to wait while she checks the back. She takes off her hat and gloves and unbuttons her coat. She stuffs her gloves and hat into her coat pocket and, on the way to the back room, hangs the coat on a rack. I unzip my coat and take off my hat. I wait where Saskia told me to wait. She disappears into the second room. Through the archway I see that the second room, the back room, is much larger than the front, but not as nice. The tables are fold-out tables, covered in oilcloth, and the chairs are cheap. It looks just as packed as the front room. A minute passes, maybe more. A waiter begs my pardon, not apologetically but as a warning that I could be trampled, as he goes to a table with drinks and again on the way back, with an armful of plates. I am in his way.

I put my hat in my coat pocket and take my coat off and hang it on the coat rack, then I walk through the archway. Saskia is standing by a table, talking to a guy. He looks about her age around the eyes, but he has a huge scruffy beard that makes him seem older. He sees me looking at Saskia, and she turns and waves me over. I don’t really like the idea of having to meet somebody, especially a young man with an old beard, but she seems happy to see him. I walk over, she introduces me to him – his name is Janos – and we shake hands. American? he says. That’s right, I say. Where in America? he asks. Delaware, I say. That’s what I say to everybody. He nods. Saskia asks if I mind joining him while we phone around for apartments. Not at all, I say. Janos gets the attention of the waiter. Saskia orders a tea and a bun. I order a coffee and a piece of cake. You learn to say some things quickly in a foreign language. You learn what to call your favourite types of food. You learn to say please and thank you. You learn to place orders – that is, you learn to say,
I would like
instead of
I want
. Janos is small, with round, drooping shoulders, but handsome eyes and nose. He is having a small beer and some soup. He takes a drink and froth gets stuck in his moustache. There’s some soup in the bottom of his beard. Saskia speaks to Janos in English, but he doesn’t answer her in English. She’s telling him about the apartment. Then he says something, something obviously about her relationship to me. I can see immediately this is a kind of jealousy that is based on national propriety rather than love. I say, So, Janos, what’s happening? He looks at Saskia. I say, What are you doing today? Shopping for Christmas presents, he says. That’s nice, I say. Then he says something to Saskia. She answers sharply, and then there is silence.

I’d prefer, if such a thing were possible, or perhaps I mean if I were patient enough, to teach myself the language: get some books, go read them in dark, quiet libraries, listen to some CDs, eavesdrop on streetcars, in cafés, and so on. I’d prefer to stay out of classrooms, avoid learning by exercises, chapters, and tests. But I need to make haste. I create an alarming foreignness wherever I go. In a year I’d like to be invisible. I’d like to sit down at tables with strangers and not be an interruption, or a curiosity. I want to walk into a barbershop and get a haircut and speak two or three sentences about the weather and pay and leave, and be so inconspicuous that the barber immediately forgets I was there. For this I will need not only language but accent, so I am studying the sounds of people, even if I don’t understand what they’re saying, and on my walks I repeat them to myself. If I know I am completely alone, I say them out loud. You are looking for a place to live? asks Janos. That’s right, I say. For how long? he asks. I don’t know, I say. Probably for a while. Saskia puts the newspaper in front of Janos so he can read the ads she has circled. He looks them over. He shakes his head at some, but is impressed by the look of others. You must be rich, he says. I’ve saved, I say. What did you do? he asks. I was in the Navy, I say, partly because I figure Saskia may already have told him, and I don’t want to be caught in a lie, and partly because I want to obliterate the possibility that Janos and I will become friends. He smiles because he thinks I am joking. Then he stops smiling. It’s too early for cake, he says. I say nothing. I never had a taste for sweet things before, but now I do. Now I really like to eat rich, sweet, fruity, creamy cakes, and it doesn’t matter what time of day it is. Janos finishes his soup and takes another drink of his beer. He wants to say something. I can see it in his eyes. He leans forward. He almost speaks. Then he leans back.

Saskia makes her first phone call. She holds her thumb, which is, here, the same as crossing one’s fingers. She waits, and waits, and waits, and frowns, then leaves a message. Then she draws a star by the ad. Our food comes. Saskia dials another number. She waits. And waits. She frowns again, and shakes her head at me when she gets to voicemail. She leaves a short message. She draws a star by the ad and says, It’s December, it’s the worst time to look. She dials the next number on the list and someone answers. Excitedly, she grabs my arm. She speaks. She is, perhaps, trying to explain the situation, who I am, that I am an American – I hear the word American. Her telephone voice is not like her regular voice. It is severe, professional, and lacks empathy, and I find it totally incongruous with the fact that her hand is on my arm, that she is excited. Then she’s cut off in the middle of a sentence, or what seems like the middle of a sentence. She frowns and says goodbye. It’s gone already, she says. She draws a line through the ad. Pity, she says. It had a balcony. Maybe you should not tell landlords I’m American, I say. Saskia dismisses this.

She pauses to eat and drink. This is exciting, she says. I’m excited, too, I say. And we all eat and drink for a bit. It is true that I’m excited, but I also feel relief that we may not find an apartment, that I can go on living in a hotel for a month or two, that I can continue to eat all my meals in restaurants and cafés, and sleep on a tiny bed in a small room with nothing at all by way of decoration, except the one painting. I’m ashamed of this feeling that I might be quite content in the shallow, purgatorial waters of hotel life. My cake is full of warm raspberries and warm blackberries and is covered in cream. Janos eyes it suspiciously, as do other diners around us. I’m wearing my boots, jeans, a black belt, a blue T-shirt, and a dark brown, button-down shirt with long sleeves. I bought the brown shirt here, and a few others just like it, because all my shirts made me feel conspicuously American. I’m also letting my hair grow. My US passport photo shows me with neat, clean and well-groomed hair, tapered above the ears and around the neck from the lower natural hairline upward at least three-fourths of an inch and outward not greater than three-fourths of an inch to blend with hairstyle, etcetera. The photo was taken just after I left the Navy. I look at it sometimes, while lying in bed, and it’s like I am staring at a picture of a dead brother. I didn’t really know him, but I know he had hopes. I know he was a well-behaved young boy once, and that he was smart, a straight-A student who never had to study, but studied constantly, and dreamed of being a leader. But he is dead now. He died unexpectedly.

When Saskia has finished half her bun, she wipes her hands, pours herself another cup of tea from the pot, and picks up the phone again. How many are left? I ask. There are plenty, but not too many in the centre. That doesn’t matter much to me, I say. It does, she says, you want to live in the centre. Janos says, Saskia wants a friend who lives in the centre. Saskia says, Everybody wants a friend who lives in the centre. Okay, I say, I don’t mind. She makes another call. There’s no answer. She leaves a message and draws a star by the ad. Well, I say, what now? She tells me she’s tried all the best places. Maybe they’ll call back, I say. I doubt it, says Janos, that’s the Thursday paper. Is there a paper from today we can check? I ask. There is, Saskia says, but the list of apartments will be very small – the Thursday paper is the one to buy. But only if you go looking on Thursday, says Janos. I got my flat on a Saturday, says Saskia. Janos nods, because she has proved his point: Your flat is small and full of mice, he says. It’s not full of mice! says Saskia. Well, the stairwell is full of mice, says Janos. Saskia gets up. Where are you going? I ask. To get today’s paper, she says. I’ll go with you, I say. She doesn’t want me to. She puts her hand out as though she is a policewoman and I am traffic, and she apologizes for having an old paper. She’s upset about it. I don’t mind, I say. What’s the difference between getting an apartment now and getting an apartment in January? It’s my fault for waiting so late in the first place. She sits down. It’s ridiculous that they print the ads on a Thursday, when everyone has to work, she says. We could telephone some of the places that are outside the centre? No, I say, let’s just wait. Maybe they’ll call back.