Escape

 
I
           
The previous night was a blur of cheap shots and bad whiskey, the burn of brown elixir making it hard for her to rationally recall much of anything. The logic behind her motives last night remained enigmatic. But like liquor becoming medicine, she developed a heightened sense of confidence, enough confidence to allow her to be someone else, if just for one night. A persistent migraine she had had since this morning followed her to class, a mocking twinge of pain and a branding of irresponsibility on her cerebrum. But that was what she wanted, not her specifically, but the person she thought she needed to be. Like a scratched record, this reminder played in her head repeatedly.
 
She looked at him as he bit the end of his pencil. Tension wafted through the air. No longer sexual, just uncomfortable. He seemed pensive, but then again so was she.
 
II
 
If not for this strange, foreign, idealized self, she wouldn’t have come to Germany to study linguistics. She could do that at any respectable institution. That was beside the point. She had once been the master of the keys, the two-drink maximum, the one to never run all the bases. Innocence has a way of trapping you in a dark corner, demeaning you, and stealing all the power left in your pockets. To regain control was to learn through experience. She felt these experiences were present in the loose sexual culture of Germany, a reprieve from the stigma of casual sex in small-town America. This stigma didn’t simply follow her, because to follow suggests an innate physicality, with the act of running away becoming a possible solution. This stigma enveloped her, controlling the way she thought and acted, making it almost impossible for her to do anything irrational. Truly a parent’s dream.
 
 
III
 
The bar was situated along a main road, the kind of place you could pass a thousand times and never realize it was there. Nothing but a broken neon light distinguished it from the adjoining businesses. The sign flashed “die Entkommen”, the radiance escaping briefly then returning just long enough to illuminate portions of the cracked door and reinforced window panes, the shadows of passing cars and approaching humans. She was not here by chance, but by invite. Not by him, but by another student in her class. Female, White, 24 years of age. A slight pang of nerves graced her stomach as she entered the bar, like a child on her first day of school. Her outfit came with pretense. The black dress she wore had an ulterior motive, a mind of it’s own as gripped onto her body when she walked. She saw her friends, or rather, her acquaintances, seated at a long wooden table. It was hard for her to establish close relationships with anyone, even in the comforts of her hometown. Now that she was in Germany, the distance was exacerbated. She felt an overt disconnect between the two cultures and it was difficult for her to ignore the clichés she knew about Europeans. Sorting fact from fiction became a game she played tonight, silently judging her fellow students as they gulped down one beer, two, three. Some were American, but most were German. She wondered how much she could get away with.
 
He looked her way, triggered by a joke she had just said. Something dirty, appropriate for the situation but not for her usual style of conversation, and she was suddenly overcome by the sense of brashness she had always lacked. This wasn’t her, she thought, glancing over her shoulder to see if someone else was there, someone with a louder voice. The same voice as hers, just louder. But there was no one. It gave her a rush of dominance, breathing life back into her power-hungry soul. She noticed his attention, and fed into it, slightly leaning his direction, always catching his gaze.
 
IV
 
 
He came from the type of family that discouraged creativity, elating in the idea of him taking tennis lessons rather than dance classes. They ate in every night, but Saturdays, when his mother would order out. The table was set exactly the same way, by the exact same fleeting figure, placing each fork down with the precision and swiftness of a highly skilled painter. Guests were welcomed with stiff arms and greeted by static rituals. The rigidness lingered in the house, and so his bedroom became his sanctity, the only place in which the atmosphere was not already assigned, the day not already planned. He spoke little English, but he understood what she had just said. Oh, how he would be reprimanded if he spoke those words in his household. His parents shared a prudishness that often subconsciously translated to their three children, including him, although if questioned, he would try everything in his power to deny it. He had several sexual encounters in high school. Once, a he copped a feel in the unisex bathroom of his high school. The girl was a first year, and wasn’t even wearing a proper wire bra. The moment was foreign to him, but not just because it was his first time.
 
V
 
Neither of them knew why they were there, in this overly beige hotel room. Any other color would have suited the occasion perfectly well, but beige’s purity had a way of taunting them. Her body was soft. Her skin had a tenderness that his callous palms lacked, like the smoothness of glass. It brought back the image of his grip on a beer stein. A little too firm of a grip it seemed. The beer had a way of mysteriously refilling itself a little fuller after each sip. Her confidence, not her sexuality, seduced him into bed. And he wasn’t sure if she knew otherwise. The alcohol was allowing him to fall victim to her sudden change in personality, and he felt caught in the trap. This wasn’t the first time they had met. He remembered her shy face from class. Her subtle, indistinctive features blended in so much so that they became noticeable. Drawing conclusions from the one or two brief conversations they had had weeks ago, he wasn’t expecting this kind of flagrance.
 
She knew what she was doing when she poured him that second glass. She was cheating in her own game. Instead of sitting back and watching as the players each took turns spinning the dice, she decided to join. Her pawn moved forward, while his moved backward, farther and farther into oblivion. He was cute, yes. And the accent added to his appeal. He knew more English than she knew German, allowing the instructions to be written in her native speech. She had the advantage.
 
The way he touched her seemed to agree with her motives, as if they were on the same page of an erotic story. Yet something about the way he handled her seemed inexperienced and timid. The language barrier kept both of them from neither protesting nor approving, so they instead used the language of their bodies to speak. He would ask, and she would answer, their lines becoming crossed in a tangle of sheets. She didn’t care who had been in this position before her, if anyone at all. This moment wasn’t about him, it wasn’t even about the sex: it was about her playing into this image she had in mind, the one about the girl who always gets the guy. The one about the girl that can have casual sex completely void of emotion, and get away with it. They took turns taking off different articles of clothing. She gave him this, at least.
 
VI
 
The tension in the classroom slowly dissipated as she reflected on the one night she spent outside of her own body, allowing someone else to take the controller for a change.
 
Happiness is not a goal, she realized, and by turning happiness into a goal, contradiction ensues. People eventually adjust to whoever they want to be, and the new state of elation that comes along with it. With adjustment comes regularity, the regularity you wished out of when you hoped for the key to happiness, when you hoped to be someone else, even just for one night. Not even Germany can change you completely.
 
He looked over and gave her a knowing smile, as if to ask, “Have I met you before?”
 
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Interview Magazine’s editor-in-chief has a chat with Sarah Angileri, the author of the short story Escape.
 
Interview Magazine: Why did you choose to keep the characters anonymous?
 
Sarah Angileri: I think this is my favorite way to write, by removing their names and stripping the characters of identity. This not only allows the reader to connect by placing themselves in the role of the characters, but it also removes any associations the reader might have to those names. I also prefer writing in third person because I think it gives this mysterious narrator a chance to describe certain moments better than the characters could themselves, without seeming unrealistic.
 
IM: You only give brief background information on “He”, mainly about dinnertime. Why?
 
SA: To me, family dinners greatly represent not only the dynamic of the family as a whole, but the culture of that family and the country they are from. German culture is more rigid than American culture. Mealtime is ritualistic and an important time for families to catch up on each other’s days. I wanted to show the type of strict family He came from. In America, many families rarely eat dinner together, loosely respecting this important tradition.
 
IM: Why did you decide to make the native the victim, rather than the tourist?
 
SA:  Travel stories; such as McEwans’ The Comfort of Strangers and Guo’s The Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers portray travelers as these innocents, completely naïve to native culture. I wanted to switch the roles around, and show how the native can, too, become the innocent. When you travel, you have the opportunity to be somebody else for a change. The native gets caught in the trap of sudden change in persona because even if they didn’t know the traveler before, the traveler doesn’t know how to “successfully” be someone else, and so the native falls victim to their awkward, abrupt shift in confidence. Also, I used The Comfort of Strangers as inspiration for the sly way She comes on to He. Unlike Robert/Caroline vs. Colin/Mary, the matriarchal force in my story is dominating the patriarchal.
 
IM: How did you tackle the idea of travel stereotypes?
 
SA: There is definitely a stereotype associated with certain countries, and as tourists, we feel we can get away with anything because we do not live in that country (so we feel we won’t impact it) and also because we feel that the county is more lenient about certain topics, namely sex. But stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason, as demonstrated by He, who, unbeknownst to She, is bashful about sex and drinking. The Americanized acceptance of a one-night stand is also brought to Germany, where it is presumably also accepted, when really the traveler could be/is mistaken.
 
IM: What is the effect the character’s language gap?
 
SA: I took cues from Guo’s The Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by creating a strong language barrier between He and She. Like the story says, lines of communication can easily get crossed when neither party can properly communicate their true intentions. This makes every action you take in a foreign country that much more difficult to assert. I wanted this distance to be apparent.
 
IM: Last question, I swear. Where did you get the idea for She’s identity crisis?
 
SA: Murakami’s tale of love and loss, Sputnik Sweetheart. In the novel, one of the protagonists, Miu, had an incident occur that made her feel as if she lost half of herself. Even her hair turned white to distinguish these two halves. I liked the idea of playing around with change, because many times people travel to try and reinvent themselves.