We're Flying by Peter Stamm & Michael Hofmann

Author:Peter Stamm & Michael Hofmann
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 159051324X
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2012-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

Summer Folk

WILL YOU BE coming alone? the woman on the telephone asked me again. I hadn’t managed to catch her name, and couldn’t place the accent. Yes, I said. I’m looking for somewhere quiet where I can work. She laughed a little too heartily, then asked me what my work was. I’m a writer, I said. What are you writing? An article about Maxim Gorki. I’m a Slavist. Her curiosity bugged me. Is that right? she said. She seemed to hesitate for a second, as though not sure whether to pursue the subject or not. All right, she said, come. Do you know how to get here?

In January I had taken part in a symposium on female characters in Gorki. My presentation on Summer Folk was to appear in a Festschrift, but I hadn’t managed to find time in my crowded university schedule to take it out and polish it. I had kept my calendar free for the week before Ascension and was looking for a place where I could hope to remain completely undisturbed. A colleague recommended the Kurhaus. As a child he had spent many summer vacations there. The then-owner had gone out of business, but he heard the hotel reopened a few years ago. If you’re looking for somewhere really quiet, that will be perfect. I used to hate it when I was a kid.

Buses only went up to the Kurhaus in summertime. She wouldn’t be able to meet me, the woman said on the phone, without giving me a reason, but I could walk up from the nearest village, it wasn’t far, no more than an hour or so.

THE BUS WOUND UP through steeply terraced farmland. There weren’t many passengers, and when we reached the end of the line, I was the only one remaining, apart from a couple of schoolboys who quickly disappeared into various houses. I had packed just a couple of changes of clothes, but with a stack of books and the laptop, my backpack still probably weighed forty pounds. What have you got in there? asked the bus driver, dragging it out of the luggage bay. Paper’s heavy, I said, and he looked at me doubtfully.

In front of the post office were a couple of signposts pointing in various directions. I followed one little lane, which turned into a path crossing a steeply inclined meadow, and then down into a narrow wooded gully. At the edge of the wood were larches and oaks, the interior was all spruce. All over lay felled trees, dried-up skeleton pines, with a few last traces of snow under them. The ground was boggy, and my feet sank deeply into the black mulch. I repeatedly felt spiders’ webs catching on my face and hands. I saw no signs of other hikers, presumably I was the first this year.

After a while, I realized it was quite some time since I’d last seen a signpost, and sure enough, the path soon lost itself among the trees. I didn’t feel like turning around, so I headed down the slope, which grew steeper and steeper.

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