Shorter Days by Anna Katharina Hahn

proximity to the little red-light district, with its African immigrants buying shriveled yams in tiny, crammed shops and trying to call home as cheaply as possible, and to the wild South—Simon’s old home of Heslach with its housing projects, döner stalls and 99-cent stores—is a subtle reminder that other, harsher worlds exist. For this reason Leonie is sure that Lehenviertel won’t be their last stop. Simon will never rest until he lives in his dream apartment: one with the right size and style, and also the most prestigious location—Killesberg, maybe, or the area around Uhlandshöhe.
    She too had gasped when Simon first showed her the apartment and named the rent, with satisfaction, rather than horror, in his voice. It was more than her total monthly income. Nonetheless, she abstained from counterproposals, didn’t suggest that one could rent or buy a bigger house in Rohr, Vaihingen, or Red Stuttgart for less money. It was clear to her that Simon wanted to move here. When he slid open the door that divided the living and dining rooms, Leonie saw the twin of this apartment reflected in the polished oak floor that shone like spilled honey. It must have been at least fifteen years ago. They had been at a party together, at the house of a school friend whose parents were away for the weekend. It took place on the first floor of a villa that was elegantly situated on the side of a hill. Simon had roamed briskly through the rooms, throwing open doors even when something was clearly going on behind them, like in the dim, pot-suffused parental bedroom. That evening, Leonie, who loved to test Simon’s distractibility with her body, had no power over him. “Crazy! It never ends.”
    The apartment building where the nineteen-year-old Simon had lived with his mother lay on one of the main roads that ran from Marienplatz to Heslach. A wholesale meat distributor, whose bright orange sign beckoned garishly from afar, was on the ground floor. In the immediate vicinity there was a laundromat, a Portuguese restaurant with greenish bullseye-glass windows, and a newspaper stand that was permanently barricaded behind a folding grate. The stairwell, with its artificial stone steps, smelled putrid. The elevator door closed behind Leonie with a metallic creak, like the dented lid of a cookie tin. She saw her face in the mirror under the brownish-yellow light—too heavily made-up for her first visit to Simon’s parent-free digs. She was freezing in her calf-length denim coat. Every button was done up, since underneath she was naked, apart from a garnish of red-and-black polyester underwear. Ingrid, Simon’s mother, was in the perfume store on Königstraße, selling soap and body lotion. Leonie was glad not to have to meet her. She was greeted in the hallway by a pleased and excited Simon, as well as by a folding laundry rack where Simon’s boxer shorts hung next to Ingrid’s size-fourteen leopard-print slips. A vase with dusty silk flowers stood near the telephone. In the living room two threadbare faux leather armchairs were arranged around a mosaic table, upon which a clean ashtray stood at the ready. A single narrow bookshelf towered next to the television. The middlebrow paperbacks and magazines were propped up by a depressed-looking porcelain Pierrot. A mirrored closet reflected the worn sleeper sofa; an alarm clock and a half-full bottle of mineral water stood on the floor next to it. In the kitchen, a meat grinder was clamped to the cracked countertop. Simon’s room was an oasis of normalcy, with an impressive Hi-Fi system and a huge poster of Luc Besson’s
Le Grand Bleu
.
    Later, dressed in one of Simon’s sweatshirts, Leonie wandered curiously through the apartment. The sweatshirt was stiffly ironed and smelled like fabric softener. A single framed black-and-white photograph hung over Ingrid’s sleeper sofa: an aerial view of a landscape. Hills, woods, a