Alice by Judith Hermann

traffic jam on the motorway. Alice took off her shoes, put her feet up on the dashboard as she used to do fifteen years ago, fiddled with the radio and rolled down the window. At the side of the road a strip of shoulder, cornfields, windmills. At the far end of the twinkling chain of cars, the silhouette of the TV tower. Both of them looked at it. Raymond turned off the radio, then the engine. He looked at his watch and made an involuntary irritable sound. They had left in good time; he wouldn’t be late, yet in spite of that he was on edge. Alice wondered whether she ought to tell him about her dream. But she was afraid of its interpretation, not what it would say about Raymond, but about herself. She unbuckled her seat belt, took her feet off the dashboard. She said, You got sunburned. Raymond said, I know.
    On the other side of the motorway, an occasional car drove by, heading north. We should have taken the secondary road. Probably wouldn’t have been any better. The windmills turned slowly, casting strange rotating shadows in the dry fields. Raymond started the engine again. They were both tired. Then the traffic jam dissolved.
    The apartment was as quiet as if they’d been away a long time. The kitchen window facing the courtyard was wide open; Alice watered the flowers on the windowsill. Flowers with blue leaves whose name she didn’t know. Raymond didn’t either. Thirteen blue leaves and a little flower head on each one. Alice had counted them. Tiny spiders had woven their webs between the stems. The mercury in the thermometer on the house wall above the flower box stood at 27 °C. A pale half moon was already visible in the sky. Signs of a thunderstorm above the rooftops, absolutely no wind now.
    And what else are you doing today. Tonight.
    Raymond was standing in the doorway to the kitchen; he’d taken a shower and put on another T-shirt; his skin was slightly reddened, and there were faint rings under his eyes. The T-shirt covered the tattoo on his left arm: ‘The last shall be the first.’ Alice was as afraid of the meaning of this tattoo as of the meaning of her dreams. Years ago she had asked Raymond not to tell her why he had had this sentence tattooed in calligraphy on his arm, and Raymond had promised not to. He had kept his promise.
    I’m not doing anything, she said.
    She was standing by the kitchen window holding the bottle of water for the flowers; she looked at Raymond; there would be nothing he could say, but for one moment she did look at him the way she felt – helpless and close to tears.
    What should I do? I’ll wait for Margaret’s phone call. I keep thinking about it. I’m thinking about it now. At the lake I didn’t think so much about it. It’s not bad; don’t worry about me. I’ll just stay home.
    She shook her head. Set the water bottle down on the windowsill. There seemed to be something about her that kept Raymond from touching her, from putting his arms around her – how do you say it – she couldn’t think of the word embrace; she wished he would go now.
    Till tomorrow morning, Raymond said. He gave her a searching look.
    Yes, till tomorrow morning.
    Call me if Margaret phones.
    I will, Alice said.
    Promise.
    Sure. She walked him to the door. Then went across the hall to the bedroom. Pulled up the blinds, opened the window, and leaned out. It took a while. Sometimes it took so long that Alice thought he would never come out. And what then?
    Raymond stepped out of the house. His jacket slung over his shoulder. He disappeared from sight under the awning, emerged again at the corner of the street, crossed at the intersection. He went over to the other side of the street andwalked along the edge of the park. Just as Alice had yesterday on her way to Margaret and Richard’s. Had Raymond watched her yesterday?
    She hadn’t turned round. Now, she could see Raymond walking – among all those people on the