Stella Read online

  “Are you going to dance, Christian?” she asked.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “With me too?”

  “Who else?” I said.

  She confided that her father was going to come to the party with his eel rake, the five-pronged one, so that people would think he was a sea god with a trident.

  When Stella appeared in the hotel doorway, and very slowly came down the few steps to the beach cafe, conversation died down at some of the tables, the men in sailors’ jackets turned their heads—someone might have been pulling a string to work them—and as if Stella’s appearance had given them their cue, the band struck up “La Paloma.” I didn’t need to wave to her; she came straight over to us, I fetched a chair and left it to her to chat with Sonja.

  Sonja was sipping her fruit juice. When a bonfire was lit down on the beach and some of her friends went to feed it with driftwood—the wood wasn’t quite dry, so it crackled and sputtered and sometimes sent out a shower of sparks—she didn’t stay with us; she wanted to go and look at the fire and find twigs and bits of plywood.

  “Your neighbor?” asked Stella.

  “My little neighbor,” I confirmed. “Our fathers work together, they’re both stone fishers.” Stella said she’d like to see the underwater stone fields, and I asked when we could go out to look at them together.

  “Anytime,” she said, and we made a date for next Sunday.

  The electric lightbulbs went out, but came on again the next minute, went out once more, and after a moment stayed on, casting plenty of light on the space cleared for dancing. This lighting effect was a sign that it was time to try out the dance floor, where the sand had been rolled to make a flat, firm surface. And no sooner had the first two couples taken the floor than two thin little arms were flung around me, and Sonja whispered, close to my face, “Come on, Christian, you promised.” She was light on her feet, very agile, eager to keep pace with me, catching up with little hops and skips now and then. Her small face was serious. When we danced past our own table she waved to Stella, and Stella watched us appreciatively. After that Sonja didn’t want to leave the dance floor with me, but stayed there alone, dancing by herself, and looking so relaxed and involved as she danced that she won applause from some of the lads in sailors’ jackets, who had come over from the merchant navy training center on the neighboring island. But it seemed she wasn’t satisfied with her own performance; either that or she thought she needed to learn more, because when I danced with Stella she crouched down and watched us very attentively. She seemed to be counting our steps, taking note of the way we turned and twirled on the dance floor; sometimes she jumped up and imitated a movement, or the way we separated and then came together again. Now she couldn’t wait for my dance with Stella to be over; once or twice she showed her impatience by patting the ground with the flat of her hand or tracing a line in the air, telling us it was time to stop. But we, Stella and I, didn’t break apart just yet, not until we realized that Sonja was in tears, and then we took her hands and led her back to our table, where Stella picked her up, sat her on her lap, and comforted her by promising to dance with her.

  The band took a break, and at a word of command the men in sailors’ jackets stood and formed a line on the dance floor, to the accompaniment of a bosun’s whistle. One of them uncoiled a rope so that everyone in the line could hold it. They stood still for a moment, then bent down, bowed to each other, and braced their legs apart to make it look as if they were putting all their strength into lifting a huge weight. Only when they sang could everyone see it was just a pretense. The song was deep and rhythmic, with something forceful about it, it seemed to guide them, and instinctively you assumed that they were miming the hoisting of a sail, a heavy mainsail. After this interlude they mimed exhaustion, formed a circle, and sang two well-known shanties, with our own Hirtshafen locals joining in. Waiters brought them beer donated by an anonymous patron.

  As was the tradition at every Hirtshafen beach party, the local sea god known as the Kraken Man put in an appearance. Sonja’s father came up from the water carrying his eel rake, his shirt and pants clinging to his body, a garland of seaweed around his neck. He was welcomed with applause and a show of great deference. He had been carrying his five-pronged rake like a scepter. Now, when he jammed it into the ground, children ran to their parents. He stared grimly at the company around him, growling, and I knew he was looking for the girl he would choose as mermaid. Then he walked slowly from table to table, smiling, stroking and patting, assessing the girls, bowing apologetically when he decided against one of them. He passed our table at first, but only steps away he suddenly turned, seemed to freeze, struck his forehead, strode quickly back, and bowed to Stella. Offering her his arm, he led her to the dance floor as if to display her or show what a good choice he had made. And you happily played along, Stella: when he took you around the waist and twirled you, when he removed some of the seaweed from his neck and adorned you with it, when he drew your head down and kissed your forehead, you showed amusement and understanding for it all. Only when he was about to lead you down the beach and into the water did you resist, turning cheerfully back to Sonja, who ran over and clung to you.

  Sonja made Stella return to our table, and after I’d ordered rum and cola and straight cola, Sonja asked something that seemed to be weighing on her mind: Did Stella have a husband, and if so why wasn’t he here? Was she really a teacher? Christian had said so when he was dancing with her, Sonja added. Was Stella a very strict teacher? Stella answered all her questions patiently, even when Sonja asked whether I would have to repeat a year at school for not working hard enough. She said, “Christian can do it—if he takes the trouble to try, he can do anything he likes.” In reply to that, Sonja announced, “Christian is my boyfriend,” and Stella stroked her hair with a gentle gesture that moved me.

  When the band played “Spanish Eyes,” some of the young men in sailors’ jackets ventured onto the dance floor themselves, and a big fair-haired lad who had been turned down by the local girls came over to our table, walking unsteadily, sketched a bow, and asked Stella to dance. He was swaying, he had to hold on to the table top. Stella shook her head and said quietly, “Not today, thank you.” At that the young man straightened up and inspected her with narrowed eyes, his lips quivering. An expression of hostility swiftly formed on his face. Then he said, “We’re not good enough for you, is that right?” I was going to stand, but he pushed me back, his heavy hand pressing on my shoulder. I looked at his bare toes, and was about to raise my foot when Stella jumped up and pointed to his friends, her arm outstretched. “Please go away now—look, they’re waiting for you.” That stopped the young man in his tracks. He puffed out his cheeks, but then moved away with a dismissive gesture. Stella sat down and sipped her drink, the glass trembling slightly in her hand. She smiled, she seemed surprised by the effect of her reproof, and perhaps amused by her successful performance. But suddenly she stood, gave Sonja a swift good-bye, and walked to the hotel entrance, knowing I was following her. At the reception desk she asked for her room key. She did not explain anything.

  All you said was, “I’m looking forward to Sunday, Christian.”

  ———

  The two boys who came into the hall late must have been among those who had to travel to school by public transportation; maybe they had missed their bus, maybe the bus had been delayed. Anyway, there they suddenly were, at the doors of the hall: two ash-blond boys in clean shirts, both carrying bunches of short-stemmed flowers. They made their way forward very carefully. If they noticed a glance of disapproval, they put a finger to their lips or gestured apologetically. One of them was Ole Niehus, who had won the Optimist-class dinghy regatta at the beach party. Ole was a friendly dumpling of a boy; no one would ever have expected him to win. They put their flowers down in front of Stella’s photo, made a little bow, and then walked backward away from it to stand with the members of the school choir, Ole looking as pleased with himself as if he had
won another victory.

  The way he climbed into his dinghy on the day of the regatta, it had looked as if he wouldn’t even reach the starting line of the race. His plywood boat rocked and heeled over so far that it was almost shipping water. By comparison with the other young sailors, Ole had difficulty getting away from the wooden bridge to which they had all tied up. The wind had risen. Our Katarina, the old excursion boat my father had said I could take out that day, was lying ready; the race umpires, three men in white, each with a pair of binoculars dangling in front of his chest, came on board, and before we cast off Stella appeared on the bridge, Stella in her beach dress and wearing her green swimsuit under it. She asked me with a great show of formality whether she could watch the regatta from the Katarina, and I helped her up to the high seat behind the wheel. The armada of lightweight dinghies, yellow and brown and piratical black, sailed up to the starting line; the wind caught and rocked them, giving the young sailors some work to do. One of the umpires fired a flare, which went off before falling into the water; flocks of seabirds rose in the air, screaming, flew around, and then, still screaming, settled again. Sudden gusts of wind caught the sails. It wasn’t easy for the sailors to keep on course toward the buoy where they had to turn, and sometimes the sails flapped so vigorously that a sound like the crack of a whip echoed over the water.

  This was not a steady, regular, gliding progress, not a race in calm seas; the wind seemed to favor some of the dinghies more than others. For some competitors the race ended at the first buoy. One of these was Georg Bisanz, Stella’s favorite pupil, who turned too close to the buoy and scraped it. His sail began flapping, his mast keeled over, and the trough-shaped dinghy capsized—not dramatically but calmly, in a matter-of-fact way.

  Georg emerged from under his sail, which was now lying flat on the water; he grabbed the mast and tried to hoist the sail back up by bracing himself against the hull of the dinghy, but he couldn’t manage it. It was beyond him. I took the Katarina over to the scene of the accident; Stella placed her hand on mine as it held the wheel, as if she must help me. “Closer, Christian, we need to get closer to him,” she said, leaning toward me. Georg had given up trying to hoist his sail; he sank for a moment, resurfaced, and threw both arms in the air. One of the umpires took a red-and-white life preserver out of its holder and flung it to him. The inflatable ring fell on top of the sail and lay there floating. In his attempt to reach it, Georg went under the sail again. Our Katarina was merely bobbing on the water with her engine turned off, while the umpires made various suggestions. In the end Stella decided to deal with matters in her own way. I remember how you took off your beach dress, Stella, hauled out the line from the cable drum in the stern, and handed me the end of it. “Here, Christian, tie me fast.” She stood before me with her arms spread wide, a commanding look in her eyes. I slung the rope around her waist and pulled her body close; Stella placed both hands on my shoulders, and I was tempted to embrace her. I thought I could tell from her glance that she was expecting it, but one of the umpires shouted, “Come on, lower the ladder, we’re off!” So I led you, hand in hand, to the rope ladder. You climbed straight down into the water, dove under, and then, as I let out the line, swam over to Georg with a strong crawl. The boy came up again, clutching at her with both arms, and Stella had to free herself firmly. He seemed to be trying to pull her down with him under the sail, but she struck him once on the throat and once on the back of his neck, and that was enough to make him loosen his grip. He let go of her. Stella grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and signaled to me. I hauled the line in, pulling strongly and steadily, and got them close enough to the ladder for us to heave Georg aboard. Stella swam back to his dinghy and fastened the line to a thwart, secure enough for us to be able to tow the little craft.

  The spokesman for the umpires—the bearded owner of the biggest marine equipment store on the coast, everyone in Hirtshafen knew him—expressed his appreciation to Stella, praising the way she had brought Georg to safety.

  Over where the smaller kids were standing beside the windows, there was a slight disturbance. Mr. Pienappel, our music teacher, moved out in front of the school choir and then, at a signal from Principal Block, stepped back again. Principal Block tilted his head to one side, closed his eyes for a moment, then let his glance move over the assembled students. In a quiet voice he asked us all to observe a minute’s silence in memory of our dear Ms. Petersen, who would never be forgotten. Bowing my head, I stared at your photograph, Stella. Most of the others lowered their heads too. There had never before been such a silence in our school hall as the one that now descended over us all. And in that silence I seemed to hear the sound of oars.

  Since the outboard motor of our inflatable dinghy was out of order, we took our rowboat to the underwater stone field. Stella insisted on taking the oars. How regularly she pulled them through the water; she was barefoot, bracing herself against a plank on the bottom of the boat, her smooth thighs slightly tanned. I steered her past Bird Island, amazed by her stamina, and admired her as she tipped far back and raised the oar blades from the water. Just as we passed Bird Island a strong gust of wind caught us. She parried it skillfully, but didn’t manage to keep the boat from being flung back toward the beach, where it ran aground, jammed against the stump of a root.

  We couldn’t free ourselves; even when I tried to pole the boat away with one of the oars, we were still stuck. We had to climb out. The water was knee-high as we waded to the beach, Stella holding her beach bag above the waves. She was laughing; she seemed to find our misadventure funny. You were always ready to laugh. Even during lessons, certain mistakes amused her. She would discuss them, pointing out the comic or sometimes disastrous consequences that could result from mistakes in translation. The wind was getting stronger, and it was beginning to rain.

  “Now what, Christian?” she asked.

  “Let’s …”

  “Another time,” she said. “We’ll go out to the stone field some other time.”

  I knew the hut with its corrugated iron roof hidden among the reeds; it was used by the old bird warden who had spent many summers here. The door was hanging off its hinges, a pan and an aluminum mug rested on the iron stove, and the bed frame, roughly cobbled together from bits of wood, had a seagrass mattress on it. Stella sat down on the mattress, lit herself a cigarette, and examined the interior of the hut: the cupboard, the wooden table with its many notches, the mended gumboots hanging on the wall. What she saw seemed to amuse her. “Do you think we’ll ever be found here?” she said.

  “Oh yes, that’s for sure,” I said. “They’ll come looking for us, they’ll see the rowboat and take us home in the Katarina.”

  It was raining harder now, drops drumming down on the tin roof, and I collected some bits and pieces of wood left lying around and lit a fire in the stove. Stella was humming quietly, a tune I didn’t know; she was humming it to herself as if absentmindedly, or at least not for me to hear her. Lightning, still far away, flashed above the sea. I kept peering out, hoping to see the lights of the Katarina, but there was no sign of anything in the murky gloom. I scooped rainwater out of a barrel standing outside the hut, put the old kettle on the stove, and made camomile tea; I’d found a packet in the cupboard. Before handing Stella the aluminum mug, I drank a little myself. You took the mug, smiling. How beautiful you were as you raised your face, so close to me. As I couldn’t think of anything else, I said in English, “Tea for two,” and you replied, in the kindly tone I knew so well, “Oh, Christian.”

  She offered me a cigarette, and patted the mattress, inviting me to sit down. I sat beside her. I put a hand on her shoulder and longed to say something to her, yet at the same time all I wanted was for that moment to last, the moment when I was touching her, and that wish kept me from telling her what I was feeling. But then I remembered the book she had recommended for the summer vacation, and I found it easy enough to mention Animal Farm and ask her why she had picked that particular book. “Oh, Chri
stian,” she said again, with her understanding smile. “It would be a good idea if you found that out for yourself.”

  I was on the verge of apologizing for my question, because I realized that by asking it I had made her my teacher again; I recognized her authority in the classroom at school, but here my question carried a different weight, and my hand on her shoulder also held a meaning it wouldn’t have had elsewhere. Here, Stella could understand my touch as merely a wish to reassure and calm her, and she did not object when my hand moved gently down her back. But suddenly she tilted her head and looked at me in surprise, as if she had unexpectedly felt, or discovered, something that she hadn’t been reckoning with.

  You leaned your head against my shoulder. I dared not move. I let you take my hand and lift it to your cheek, and you left it there for a moment. How different Stella’s voice sounded when she suddenly stood and went out to the beach. Once there, she made an attempt to right our rowboat, which was lying on its side, but she couldn’t shift it. Then, after a moment’s thought, she picked up the tin can that always lay ready and began baling out water. She scooped water so busily that she didn’t notice the light approaching the beach: the bow light of our Katarina. It was Frederik and not my father at the wheel. He brought the Katarina in close enough to the shore for us to wade out, and he helped us on board. He didn’t say much, just remarked, when I put my windbreaker around Stella’s shoulders, “Good idea, that’ll help.”

  No blame, no expression of relief at finding us. He nodded in silence when Stella asked to be taken to the bridge outside the Seaview Hotel, and he didn’t even ask whether I wanted to go home or be dropped off at the bridge as well.