Short Story Sunday: In the Shadows

"That man over there is not quite well."

Karl-Hans throws his eyes in the direction of the voice. It was not directed at him, but at Felipe from Spain, who grumbles profanities at the empty space opposite him. And in the shadow of the church of all places.

"I don't want to sit in the sun," she says. 

"All right. What about over there? Just yonder."

He cannot place their accents; they are not from here. He pulls his rucksack a little closer to his thigh and checks that the window to his apartment, three floors up, is still closed. He likes the feeling of the sun on his pate: it makes him feel supine on his usual seat. Friedrich ought to be here soon. He will tell Friedrich about the foreigners. The clink of glass jerks his head in their direction.

"Cheers," she says, "to being alive."

"Oh yes," he says, swigging at least a third of the bottle. "Watch my bag."

The boy sprints away and Karl-Hans watches her. She is wearing sunglasses and he is almost sure that she sees him, but his courage falters. She takes photographs with her camera phone. What does she see in this ordinary street that has escaped him for the last ten years? There is the same florist with the wilted plants; the church that nobody goes to except the guilty and the criminal; the loud man with his Afro shop that sells anything but mobile telephones; the teenage couple who copulate with their mouths and eyes on the bench behind him every weekend. Maybe she is taking pictures of the light behind the steeple and the flowers in the windowsills, or the mural of the bronzed crusader slaying the Dragon of the East. He cannot tell. She is staring around the street, sipping from her bottle. Her shoulders dip.

"What are you drinking?" 

Her face is soft in the afternoon sun. "Wine," she says. "Weiss wein." The accent is not too bad.

"And are you also drinking water?" Karl-Hans does not know why he asked her that. It was as though all the English he learnt in high school flooded his brain at once in response to his nerves.

"Yes." She looks up and away. Something on the side of the building has caught her eye.

"I learnt English in high school," he says. "It was my best... my best subject."

She smiles and tilts her head into a nod.

"Where are you from?"

Her answer is curt, but he cannot tell if this is considered polite in her culture.

"And your friend?"

She leans away from him as she replies, and turns her head down the street, as if looking for the boy. He waits. The cars careen past and one rotund man from Italy manoeuvres his van into a space designed for a hatchback. She is halfway through her wine.

"Are you a tourist?" The light is cascading through the trees and eating at the shadows around her. He can see that her face is flushed from heat and wine.

"No. Do you live here?"

"I live over there," he replies without thinking. He imagines taking her to his flat.

"No luck, no luck." Her friend is back. He fumbles with his satchel and she mutters to him so fast that he cannot catch what she is saying.

Her friend laughs and sits beside her in the shade. They trade more murmurs and giggles, and all he can hear is Felipe cursing the beer-induced mirage that debates with him about nothing. The lascivious couple stroll past, their movements like a single hip. There is a lull in the traffic. The foreigners, from what he can make out, are discussing life in the First World. Then, her friend sprints off again, leaving them alone.

He wishes she would take off her sunglasses so that he can see her eyes. The rest of her is already appealing, and the way the breeze catches the top of her shirt to reveal the slightest creases of skin means he has to bring his rucksack onto his lap. He needs a distraction, so he feels for the cigarettes in his pocket. He usually waits to smoke with Friedrich, but he will break his rule this once. 

Just like every other Saturday, the short man with his pug walks past, followed by the family with the two small children. The boy is crying less now, he notices, and is walking ahead of his mother rather than holding her hand as before. Mrs Verdi from across the road quicksteps along the pavement, carrying plastic packets with an array of flowers for her windowsill. She used to be a soprano at the Volksoper, but now she mostly performs in her living room for her cat, with a crackling record on the turntable as her accompanist.

She looks content sitting there. He wishes he could think of something more interesting to say, to make her stay. He clears his throat to form a question when her friend arrives.

"Success at last," he says.
"Oh, my god. Gauloises Blondes. My grandfather always smoked those."
"Really?" he says. "This is the only thing I smoke. Give me Gauloises or nothing."
She laughs. "You are so French when you want to be."

He feels a depression on the bench next to him. It's Friedrich, with his gummy speech and creased flannel shirt.
"Nice day for a smoke," says Friedrich.
Karl-Hans nods. "Nice day for many things." He looks at her again; she's laughing at something her friend said. Friedrich is prattling on about his mother. They fall into their old habit of smoke and complain; it's something to help pass the time. In fact, seeing her today helped the hours slip away; he pinches his cigarette out of the box and thinks that he will miss her.

"They must be foreign," says Friedrich. "Look at the pair of them, drinking in public and braying all over the place."
"Hmm," he says. He watches her through narrowed eyes. The shadows around them grow longer. He hears her friend say 'coffee' and she replies with appreciative tones before gathering her things. They get up to leave.

The dream is over. "Goodbye," he says, looking at her.
"Auf wiedersehen," she says, looking at them.