They left the place. Andreas looked at his watch, it wasn’t ten yet. In silence they walked along a path, away from the parking lot, past a couple of fenced-in estates, and a large meadow. The path was winding back toward the lake, but the water couldn’t be seen for the reeds. After a few hundred yards, the path divided, and one half led into the reed bed. Fabienne went ahead, Andreas followed. The path ended in a wooden observation platform. They climbed up the ladder-like steps. On top was a sign that said the platform had been built by the birdwatchers’ association, “for bird-lovers everywhere, who have not lost the capacity for wonder.”
Fabienne leaned over the handrail, and looked out at the lake. She asked if Andreas was still feeling cold. No, he said, it was better now. He was standing just behind her. He grasped her shoulders with both hands. She lowered her head, and leaned forward a little. He held her hips, and pushed his hands under her waterproof jacket. She stood up a little straighter, otherwise she barely moved. He kissed her neck, stroked her breasts. She turned around. When he tried to kiss her mouth, she turned her face away. He tried to shove his hand in her jeans. She broke away, and undid her belt and top button.
“It’s easier like this,” she said.
They made love on the observation platform. The boards were wet and cold. Fabienne took off her jeans and shoes. She pushed up her sweatshirt and her bra, but left on her jacket. She kept her eyes shut, and lay there motionless. She seemed very naked and vulnerable. Andreas was put in mind of police photographs of crime scenes, pale, lifeless bodies by the side of the road, in forests or rushes.
They said good-bye at the parking lot. Andreas got in his car and watched Fabienne put on her seat belt, get into reverse, and drive off. She seemed perfectly calm, as though nothing had happened. Andreas put on his seat belt, but didn’t drive away. It had begun to drizzle, and the landscape was half-obscured from sight. It was cold in the car, and Andreas’s breath made clouds of steam. He thought about Fabienne. He was surprised by the purposefulness with which she had guided his hands, the calmness of her surrender, and her sudden quick pleasure. The whole thing was over in fifteen minutes. Then Fabienne had got a packet of Kleenex out of her jacket, and carefully wiped herself. She seemed very strange to Andreas. It was as though her face had also changed from being naked. He didn’t recognize her until she was dressed again.
He didn’t know what he expected from her. He didn’t even know what he wanted. That she leave her family for him? That she go with him to France, or wherever? That she become his mistress, meet him every other week somewhere, always with a guilty conscience where she was concerned? They would get used to each other, maybe even quicker than two spouses got used to each other, because they wouldn’t share anything but their love.
He hadn’t returned to the village to start a relationship, but to end one, to have certainty at last. If Fabienne had slapped him when he tried to kiss her, either back then or today, he would have gotten over it, as he had gotten over other unhappy relationships. He was concerned to get an answer from her, to know at last whether she loved him, whether she might have been able to love him. But in fact she hadn’t given him an answer. She told him not to call her at home. He asked her how else was he going to get ahold of her. She said she would call him tomorrow.
He ate in the fish restaurant where he had wanted to take Delphine. Earlier, it had been renowned for its good cooking, but he didn’t enjoy the food. It would be nice if Delphine were here, he thought.
He stayed up in his room all afternoon. He hoped Fabienne would call. Suddenly he wasn’t sure whether he had given her the correct room number. Maybe she had forgotten the number, and she was calling reception, and no one was answering.
Fabienne called the next morning, as she had said she would.
“Can we meet up?”
“Manuel and Dominik are flying their hot-air balloon,” she said. “I’m free till twelve.”
“Do you want to meet at the camper?”
“They’ve taken the car.”
They arranged to meet at the hut in the woods where they had first met.
Andreas walked through the village, and through the business district. The sky was clear, except for some little shreds of cirrus clouds. The forecast was for warm weather in the afternoon, but the morning felt cool. It was the first day of autumn, the sky looked suddenly darker, and the air was so clear that everything seemed very close.
Andreas got to the rendezvous too early. There were wet charred branches on the campfire site, and garbage on the ground. The hut belonged to the community, and on the wall, in a little metal frame, was a list of rules. Andreas perused it: garbage in the containers provided, no loud music, no dogs without a leash.
Fabienne came almost exactly on time. Once again, she was wearing the yellow slicker. She propped her bike against a tree. Andreas hugged her, she kissed him on both cheeks.
“Do you want to go for a walk?”
They walked through the forest. It was probably the same path they had taken that night when they played hide and seek. It led on and on in a straight line. In the distance you could see where the forest ended. For a while they walked in silence side by side. Then Fabienne asked Andreas what was in the letter that he had written but not sent.
“That I love you,” said Andreas. “Not much more than that, I think.”
He asked what she would have done if she’d received the letter.
“I don’t know,” said Fabienne. She seemed to be thinking. She said she was really fond of Manuel. They had a good relationship.
“When did it begin, with the two of you?”
“I suppose it was the day you kissed me. He was very attentive. He took me home. I was a bit confused.”
“Ah, if I’d had the car.”
“But nothing happened,” said Fabienne. “We just talked. You were so dismissive, after you’d kissed me. You behaved as though it was nothing. And then you got really aggressive. I told Manuel about your kissing me. We talked about you a long time. That brought us closer. The next day he brought me flowers. We didn’t kiss until much later.”
Andreas said he didn’t suppose he’d ever loved a woman as much as he’d loved her. Fabienne didn’t say anything. They walked slowly through the forest, side by side. Andreas was a little surprised he didn’t feel angry with Manuel, that he didn’t even feel jealous of him. He wouldn’t have wanted to trade places with him. He stopped and pressed Fabienne to himself. He kissed her on the mouth, but she didn’t reciprocate. She hugged him like a good friend, and laid her head against his chest.
“There’s no point,” she said.
“One night,” he said. “Let’s spend one night together. To give us something to remember. Not just those ten minutes.”
“Love lasts for ten minutes,” said Fabienne. “What difference would it make?”
“What made you sleep with me, anyway?”
“I was curious,” said Fabienne, and then, a while later, she couldn’t just stay away from home for a night, she didn’t know what he was thinking of. In the fifteen years she’d been married to Manuel, she had spent very few nights away from him.
“Do you remember our meetings in Paris?”
“I just remember the fact of them,” said Fabienne, with an apologetic smile.
“In the mosque,” said Andreas. “And one time we went to the cinema. The film tore, and they were unable to show us the ending. Someone came up to the front and told us the ending.”
“I don’t remember.”
It was all so long ago, said Fabienne. So much had happened in the meantime.
“Not in my life,” said Andreas.
They had gotten to the edge of the forest, and stopped. The path led on, past the gravel pit, and through fields and meadows to the next village.
“Are you happy?” asked Andreas.
“I’m not unhappy,” said Fabienne. “Let’s go back.”
Andreas said he had the feeling of having done something incredibly stupid that would never be made up for.
“I can still remember writing the letter. I had something to eat in a pizza place near the Opera. It was evening, I was alone, and I started writing in my notebook, about our first meeting, and driving to the lake, and kissing you. Our story. And that I wanted it to continue. If I’d had an envelope and a stamp, I think I might have mailed it to you right away. But the next morning, I no longer dared.”
They were silent. Andreas wondered if the relationship could have lasted. They had both been so young. Maybe he would have made Fabienne unhappy, maybe they would have split up long ago. Or they would still be together, one of those couples that stick together because they’re each so afraid of being alone. They didn’t really fit. At that time, it hadn’t seemed to matter to him. He wanted to convince himself that the only reason his love had lasted so long was because it had remained unrequited. He asked Fabienne what she was thinking. Nothing, she said.
“What does your girlfriend say about you going to meet me all the time?”
“That’s over. She went back to France. It wasn’t anything serious.”
“Tell me about her.”
Andreas said he didn’t know what to say about Delphine. He didn’t want to think about her or talk about her, least of all with Fabienne.
“What does she look like?”
“Short brown hair, quite a pretty face. About as tall as you, but not such a beautiful figure.”
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Do you love her?”
“I don’t think so. Certainly not as much as I loved you.”
As I love you, he thought, but didn’t say it. He said there had been a time that he could imagine starting a family, having children, settling down somewhere. But that time had passed. He couldn’t even claim to regret it. He wasn’t sure he still wanted to love someone as passionately as when he was twenty.
“What about her? Does she love you?”
“I don’t know. I think she might.”
“And isn’t that enough for you?”
She asked what had made Delphine go back. Andreas wanted to tell her that he wasn’t going back to Paris, that he would stay in the village, but suddenly his plan struck him as absurd. He had come here on her account. If the story with her was over, there was no sense in staying here. He said he had quarreled with Delphine. Something trivial.
“That’s none of my business,” said Fabienne.
They were back at the hut. Fabienne said she was expected at home, her menfolk would be back soon.
“And you’re making lunch for them.”
“Yes,” said Fabienne. “I’m making lunch for them.”
“Will you tell Manuel? About what happened?”
Fabienne shook her head. What for? She gave Andreas her hand and said good-bye. He shook hands, and kissed her on the cheeks. She got on her bike. She had ridden a few yards when she stopped.
“I almost forgot something,” she said. She got down, and pulled the little book Andreas had given her out of her jacket pocket. He came a little nearer, but he didn’t take the book.
“Did you read it?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“There must be hundreds of stories like ours.”
“But all the details. The fact that I called you Butterfly …”
“That wasn’t you. That was Manuel’s name for me.”
“And the cat she buys herself when she returns to Paris?”
“I never had a cat.”
Andreas asked if she was sure. Fabienne laughed at him.
“That must have been a different girl.”
“I suppose it’s the story of you and Manuel, then,” said Andreas.
“No,” said Fabienne, “it is our story. What I have with Manuel isn’t a story. It’s reality.”
They stood and faced each other. Then Fabienne put her arms around Andreas and kissed him on the mouth. It was their first kiss. Her lips were dry and a little rough, it was the kiss of a young girl. They kissed for a long time until they were both out of breath.
“Keep the book,” said Andreas as they finally broke.
Fabienne smiled. Without another word, she got on her bike and rode off. Andreas watched her go. She stood on the pedals, the bicycle swayed from side to side. The road led along the edge of the forest, past a meadow full of old fruit trees and a farmhouse. By the time Fabienne reached the first houses in the village, she was just a yellow dot.
Andreas went back to the hut, and sat down on the wooden bench that ran along the front of it. He felt weak, but his head was clearer than it had been for months. He felt nothing but a kind of jaunty indifference. It was as though he had got rid of a weight, something that had been oppressing him for eighteen years. Presumably his life would have been different if he had mailed the letter then. There was even something mildly consoling about that. If Fabienne had turned him down then, his long wait would have seemed even more pointless.
He tried to remember time spent with her, but he kept coming back to the same scenes. The forest, the lake, the cinema in Paris. He remembered every particular, saw Manuel, Beatrice, the other young men and women they hung around with that summer, he even saw himself. Only Fabienne looked oddly out of focus in those scenes. But with that last kiss — their first kiss — Fabienne had finally come to life. It was only the kiss that counted.
Andreas thought about his childhood, his growing up, the time when happiness or misery, love or panic had been able to fill him completely. When time itself seemed to stand still, and there was no way out. He no longer wanted to love the way he had at twenty, but sometimes he missed the intensity of feeling he had had at that age. And those moments, in which everything suddenly was over, that feeling of total insignificance, and at the same time of complete freedom. A pure perspective on the world that almost took his breath away with its beauty, the patterning on a piece of wood, some peeling paint, a little shred of paper left under a thumbtack, the rust stain on the head of a nail. He ran his hand over the bench he was sitting on, over the wall of blackened, weathered boards he was leaning against. He inhaled deeply, and smelled the damp and moldy smell of the forest, and the sweet accent of some late-flowering bush. He could remember how he had felt, but he couldn’t feel like that anymore.
He probably wouldn’t see Fabienne again. Anyway, it didn’t matter if he did or not. Their story was at an end. One story among a very great many that began and ended at each moment.