caution.
Daniela and David had lived together since Daniela was nineteen. David was in his mid-forties then, old enough to have been Daniela’s father and still married to the mother of his children at the time their relationship began. But the common-lawmarriage of David and Daniela had endured now for two decades. They seemed to be doing something right.
David was a crumpled, beige man with thick gray hair who was rarely seen without a calabash pipe between his lips. Anna liked David. Like Ursula he had been an educator; for more than thirty years he taught middle school social studies. David was gentle, agreeable, and possessed a pliable carriage not typically found in the Swiss. This made sense: he wasn’t. David was French.
In less than five minutes, the car arrived at David and Daniela’s house.
T HE MAN WAS LOOKING for the Lindenhof. The Lindenhof is Zürich’s oldest quarter, the site of what was once an ancient Roman customs post. Now a park, most days (even bad-weather ones such as the very day in question) find the Lindenhof crowded with old men playing garden chess with toddler-sized
Schachfiguren
upon chessboards painted on the ground, and tourists enjoying the view. Zürich’s entire Altstadt is visible from the lookout on the square.
When Anna answered in English an unmitigated relief drained the tension from his face.
“Oh Jesus, you speak English. Thank God. My German’s no good.”
Anna’s smile was sweet and amused. “That’s obvious.”
He smiled back at her. “I’ve been working up courage to ask for directions.”
Anna returned his returned smile.
So began the affair between Anna Benz and Stephen Nicodemus.
“First off,” Anna said, taking the map from his hands and turning it around, “you’ve got it upside down. The Lindenhof’s on the other side of the river.” A mild, embarrassed expression spread across Stephen’s face. Anna examined him closely. He was and wasn’t attractive at the same time. But it wasn’t his looks Anna fell immediately in love with (if one could have called it love and two years after the fact, Anna was no longer sure it ever was). It was his voice. It was a steady, low, solid voice with a gentle immediacy to it. He spoke with an intimate and confidential baritone. There was a fleshy texture to his words. Anna gave directions to the Lindenhof as slowly as she could. She wanted to draw the encounter out as long as possible before the thread of it snapped. So she leaned into the space of him, and breathed the air of him, tapped her hand and arched her back under the gaze of him, gestures she would find herself repeating sooner than either of them knew, and while dressed in fewer clothes. Anna fished a pen and a receipt from her purse, and wrote down the tram stops he wanted, the transfers he’d need to make. Anna handed him the paper and for a few awkward seconds the two of them stood cold and shivering and, though fully dressed, strangely naked before each other, not knowing what next—if anything—to say. They spoke in tandem:
“I guess I should get home.”
“Would you like to grab a coffee?”
They shared an uncomfortable laugh and the inept silence returned once more. But not all will is free. Anna broke the self-conscious lull.
Oh yes,
she said.
Let’s.
D AVID LED THEM THROUGH the house and then to the back patio where the other guests had gathered. Ursula put Daniela’s gift on the dining room table, and Anna draped her purse and Polly’s diaper bag over the back of a chair and followed David and Bruno outside. Ursula paused in the kitchen, not immediately joining the group.
Daniela and her friends sat upon benches flanking a large mahogany picnic table, itself shaded by an equally enormous umbrella. Everyone drank European beer—Feldschlösschen, Hürlimann, Eichhof—and almost everyone smoked European cigarettes—Parisienne, Davidoff, Gitanes. A radio was tuned to a Basel rock station. Daniela sat near the center of the
Daniela and David had lived together since Daniela was nineteen. David was in his mid-forties then, old enough to have been Daniela’s father and still married to the mother of his children at the time their relationship began. But the common-lawmarriage of David and Daniela had endured now for two decades. They seemed to be doing something right.
David was a crumpled, beige man with thick gray hair who was rarely seen without a calabash pipe between his lips. Anna liked David. Like Ursula he had been an educator; for more than thirty years he taught middle school social studies. David was gentle, agreeable, and possessed a pliable carriage not typically found in the Swiss. This made sense: he wasn’t. David was French.
In less than five minutes, the car arrived at David and Daniela’s house.
T HE MAN WAS LOOKING for the Lindenhof. The Lindenhof is Zürich’s oldest quarter, the site of what was once an ancient Roman customs post. Now a park, most days (even bad-weather ones such as the very day in question) find the Lindenhof crowded with old men playing garden chess with toddler-sized
Schachfiguren
upon chessboards painted on the ground, and tourists enjoying the view. Zürich’s entire Altstadt is visible from the lookout on the square.
When Anna answered in English an unmitigated relief drained the tension from his face.
“Oh Jesus, you speak English. Thank God. My German’s no good.”
Anna’s smile was sweet and amused. “That’s obvious.”
He smiled back at her. “I’ve been working up courage to ask for directions.”
Anna returned his returned smile.
So began the affair between Anna Benz and Stephen Nicodemus.
“First off,” Anna said, taking the map from his hands and turning it around, “you’ve got it upside down. The Lindenhof’s on the other side of the river.” A mild, embarrassed expression spread across Stephen’s face. Anna examined him closely. He was and wasn’t attractive at the same time. But it wasn’t his looks Anna fell immediately in love with (if one could have called it love and two years after the fact, Anna was no longer sure it ever was). It was his voice. It was a steady, low, solid voice with a gentle immediacy to it. He spoke with an intimate and confidential baritone. There was a fleshy texture to his words. Anna gave directions to the Lindenhof as slowly as she could. She wanted to draw the encounter out as long as possible before the thread of it snapped. So she leaned into the space of him, and breathed the air of him, tapped her hand and arched her back under the gaze of him, gestures she would find herself repeating sooner than either of them knew, and while dressed in fewer clothes. Anna fished a pen and a receipt from her purse, and wrote down the tram stops he wanted, the transfers he’d need to make. Anna handed him the paper and for a few awkward seconds the two of them stood cold and shivering and, though fully dressed, strangely naked before each other, not knowing what next—if anything—to say. They spoke in tandem:
“I guess I should get home.”
“Would you like to grab a coffee?”
They shared an uncomfortable laugh and the inept silence returned once more. But not all will is free. Anna broke the self-conscious lull.
Oh yes,
she said.
Let’s.
D AVID LED THEM THROUGH the house and then to the back patio where the other guests had gathered. Ursula put Daniela’s gift on the dining room table, and Anna draped her purse and Polly’s diaper bag over the back of a chair and followed David and Bruno outside. Ursula paused in the kitchen, not immediately joining the group.
Daniela and her friends sat upon benches flanking a large mahogany picnic table, itself shaded by an equally enormous umbrella. Everyone drank European beer—Feldschlösschen, Hürlimann, Eichhof—and almost everyone smoked European cigarettes—Parisienne, Davidoff, Gitanes. A radio was tuned to a Basel rock station. Daniela sat near the center of the
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