Unformed Landscape by Peter Stamm

couple of errands in town. He gave Kathrine a key, and asked her if she’d be in for supper.
    When Harald had gone out, Kathrine looked around the house. There was a picture of the family hanging in the hallway. The mother looked nice, the boy looked like her. The nursery no longer contained any traces of his having been there, no children’s books, no toys, nothing. It was a bright, clean room, and there were pictures on the walls that were like the pictures in hotel rooms, prints of watercolors, scenes from life in the South somewhere. Kathrine took some pictures of the empty room, she didn’t know why, and she thought, I shouldn’t be doing this.
    Then she went into the kitchen to make coffee. She waited for the water to trickle through the filter. A door led from the kitchen to the garage, where there were a couple of bicycles, an ancient Volvo, and a Deepfreeze. Up on one wall were some dusty ropes and climbing harness, and a couple of battered-looking synthetic helmets. When Harald came back from town, Kathrine asked him if he did any climbing himself.
    “Not anymore,” he said.
    “Have you gone on climbing expeditions?”
    “Sometimes.” Harald shrugged his shoulders. “We got along well. But he was a daredevil. I didn’t have any time that day. He went off by himself.”
    “Did you not want to keep anything of his? Nothing?”
    “What are we supposed to keep? His clothes? His books? It’s him I miss, not his things.”
    Harald cooked for Kathrine. He opened a bottle of wine. It was a good evening. Harald talked about his voyages along the coastline, about the spring storms, and the tourists. In his younger days, he’d worked on container ships all over the world. He talked about exotic countries. When he asked Kathrine if she wouldn’t like to see Hong Kong or Singapore for herself, she wasn’t sure. “All those people,” she said. “And I bet there are bugs.”
    “What about your mosquitoes?” said Harald, and laughed. “At least cockroaches don’t sting.”
    “And did you have a girl in every port?”
    “Well, it wasn’t like the Norwegian coastal line, that’s for sure,” said Harald. “Or would you go for a sailor?”
    “We have a seamen’s mission. Do you know Svanhild?”
    Kathrine laughed. She couldn’t imagine Svanhild as a sailor’s girl.
    “I know one or two who’d have been happy with her,” said Harald, laughing as well. “She’s not the world’s greatest cook, but she can run a household when the man’s not there. She’s competent. And she has a kind heart.”
    “You’re talking like an old fisherman. Like my first husband. Is your wife competent?”
    “Very. Our marriage works best when I’m away. Then she can do whatever she wants.”
    “And when you’re there, then she does whatever you want, is that it?”
    “Then I do what she wants. She keeps an eye on me. Makes sure I don’t drink and smoke too much, or chase the girls.”
    “So that’s what you like to do.”
    Harald laughed, and then he stopped laughing.
    “It works,” he said, and he finished his glass. “It’s all I can ask for. I know she’s got someone else.”
    When Kathrine didn’t say anything, Harald went on: “She’s got a man she talks to. An analyst, a shrink, if you like. She sees him in the evenings too, how do I know what goes on there, I’m away all the time.”
    Still, Kathrine didn’t say anything. Harald got a bottle of akvavit from the fridge, and a couple of glasses. He poured.
    “I never asked her,” he said. “When Harald died… But why am I telling you all this?”
    “Why are you telling me?” asked Kathrine. She said she was tired, and was going to bed.
    When she was in the bathroom, Harald knocked on the door. She was in the shower, she shouted back. Then through the frosted glass of the shower cabinet, she sawthat he’d come in. He moved about slowly and carefully. Finally he stopped. Kathrine saw him the way he must see her. She turned round, and turned