The Diplomat's Wife (20 page)

“I’m proud of you, Marta,” Delia remarked once. “For having moved on so bravely with your life after, well, the American boy…”

“Mmm,” I had replied vaguely. Of course, I had not really moved on. Simon’s company was pleasant enough. He talked passionately about international politics, told fabulous stories of his travels in Eastern Europe as a student that reminded me of my childhood home. Our dates were a welcome distraction, an escape from the long evenings at Delia’s, haunted by my memories of Paul. And I was grateful to Simon, of course, for my job. But sometimes as he squired me to dinners and parties, I felt guilty. Was I misleading him? Simon knew about my engagement to Paul and my recent loss, though, and still seemed eager to court me. I had not thought of it as more, though, and so I was quite stunned when, just four weeks after he first asked me out, Simon proposed marriage.

It was on a day trip to Brighton as we strolled along the promenade by the sea that Simon turned to me and pulled a small velvet box from his pocket. “I know we’ve only been seeing each other for a short time. But I’m very fond of you, Marta, and I think we can have a fine life together.”

I did not answer right away but gazed out across the Channel. Considering his tepid proposal, I could not help but think of Paul, dropping to one knee on the rain-soaked Paris street, eyes burning, as he asked me to marry him. I had not considered marrying anyone else. Simon was not Paul. I could never love him in that way. But Paul was gone. I looked back at Simon, who had taken the ring from the box and was holding it out toward me. He was not unattractive, and I knew from the other secretaries that, as one of the only single men in the department, he was considered quite a good prospect, if something of an enigma. He liked me, and he would not be unkind. “Fine,” I said, realizing too late that mine was not the most gracious of responses. “I mean, I would love to marry you.”

We were married in a small ceremony in Delia’s parlor the following week by a rabbi Simon knew. Neither of us seemed to want a long engagement, or a big wedding. Simon was an only child and his parents had both died, his mother at a young age of cancer and his father of a heart attack shortly after Simon had left for college. I, of course, had no family. So the wedding consisted of Delia and Charles on my side, a few colleagues on his. Simon was unable to get away from work for a honeymoon just then, but he promised me a trip somewhere grand over the winter holiday.

But the honeymoon never took place. A few weeks after we were married, the nausea I felt in the park that day worsened, often making it difficult for me to get to work in the mornings. The doctor Simon insisted I see confirmed my unspoken suspicion: I was pregnant. Seven months later, I gave birth to a baby girl, Rachel.

Voices at the conference room table pull me from my thoughts. The D.M. has indicated that we will conclude for the day, and now the men at the table are standing, shuffling papers as they speak to one another. Inwardly, I groan. I had hoped that the meeting would have finished in one sitting, even if it meant working a bit late. But now the meeting will resume tomorrow morning. I do not relish the prospect of staying awake through a second day of the D.M.’s droning.

As I stand, I try to catch Simon’s eyes again. Perhaps I can find an excuse to skip the morning session tomorrow, plead an excess of correspondence to type. But he is engaged in conversation with one of the men across the table and does not meet my gaze. I will ask him tonight, if he does not get home too late. I take my notebook and walk from the conference room toward the elevator, press the down button. Simon and a few of the men enter the corridor behind me, still debating a point about Hungary. The elevator door opens and I step inside, but the men do not follow. As the doors close, I look in Simon’s direction one more time. He does not notice, but remains engrossed in conversation.

What happened to that man who courted me so attentively? I muse as the elevator descends to the third floor. At the end of the hall, I push open the door of the office, entering the small reception area where my desk sits. To the left, another closed door leads to Simon’s office. He seemed so pleased the day I accepted his proposal. But things changed quickly after we married. I set down my notepad and pick up my bag from behind the desk. Putting on my coat, I make my way to the elevator once more.

I cross the lobby and step out onto the street, joining the stream of government workers headed to the buses at Trafalgar Square. It is nearly dark and the damp air has a biting chill, more winter than autumn now. A few minutes later, I board the bus, still thinking about Simon. It is not that he is unkind. He is unfailingly pleasant, and on the rare occasions when I ask him to do something around the house or go somewhere with Rachel and me, he readily obliges. But the rest of the time, he lives in his own world, spending long hours at the office, holing up in his study at night.

Sometimes, I reflect, as the bus makes its way slowly through the traffic-clogged city streets, I almost wish for the occasional temper or spat, some reaction to my presence. But that would take more energy than he cares to give. Outwardly he appears an attentive husband, holding my arm and listening. Once at a department social function, I overheard him refer to me as his “dear wife” with a tilt of his head that suggested affection. But the moment we walk through the front door of the house, all signs of interest disappear. It is as if he likes the idea of having a wife, as if I was simply something to be acquired, like a fine car or painting.

Fifty minutes later, I step off the bus at Hampstead High Street, drawing the neck of my coat closed against the wind. Making my way past the closing shops, I turn onto a residential street lined with tall row houses. Ours is second from the end on the right. From a distance it looks like the others, wide windows, a tidy front lawn. Only as one draws closer are the differences apparent: the way the left porch column seems to slump in defeat, the cracks that run up the steps. Simon, who inherited the house from his parents and lived here on his own for more than fifteen years, does not seem to notice the decay. In the early months of our marriage, I tried to improve upon the appearance of the house, tending to the garden and planting flowers, painting the peeling front door a fresh white. But as I grew larger with my pregnancy, I was not able to do as much, and after Rachel was born, I was too busy to care.

Perhaps I would have done more if Simon had seemed to notice. I walk up the porch steps and pick up a toy ball that lies near the front door, carry it inside. A savory aroma fills the air. “Hello?”

Delia walks into the foyer, wiping her hands on an apron. “Hello,” she whispers, kissing me on the cheek, then gesturing upward to indicate that Rachel is sleeping. “I only just put her down.”

“Are you cooking?”

She laughs quietly. “Me? No, Charles sent over shepherd’s pie. I was just heating that up for you.”

“Thank you,” I reply, meaning it. When I announced I was going back to work at the Foreign Office a few months after the baby was born, Delia immediately offered to watch her. I worried that caring for Rachel might be too much, but Delia persisted and we agreed to try the arrangement. It works beautifully—Delia loves being with Rachel and can hardly bring herself to leave at the end of each day. And the baby adores Delia, as well. Sometimes watching the two of them together, I am overwhelmed by sadness that Rachel would never know my parents, who died so many miles away. “You don’t have to warm all of the food, though,” I add, taking off my coat. “I expect Simon to be late this evening.”

Delia’s lips purse and a furrow creases her brow. Though too polite to say anything, she is well aware of Simon’s late hours working, how little time he spends at home. “I’ll leave him a plate in the icebox, then. Shall I stay with you while you eat?”

I shake my head. “That’s not necessary.” I enjoy Delia’s company, but I know that she is eager to get home to Charles.

When she has gone, I walk into the kitchen. It is spacious, constructed with marble countertops and oak cabinets that had been the finest on offer in their day. But the appliances are old now, the faucets and handles worn. I fix myself a plate, then carry it to the parlor. The house, I think, not for the first time, had once been grand: a large parlor and dining room for entertaining, high ceilings, elegant, detailed molding. But the furniture is faded and worn, the wood floors creak with age.

As I sit down on the sofa, a framed photograph on the mantel over the fireplace catches my eye. It is a picture of Rachel, playing by the pond on the heath last spring. Rachel, I think, my insides warming. Rachel Hannah Gold. Before the baby was born, I hesitated. I wanted to name her after Rose. But the Jewish tradition was to name after someone who had a long, healthy life, and Rose had not. So we named her Rachel and honored the memory of my mother, Hadassah, with Rachel’s middle name.

It was Simon who had suggested using the same first letter in English and making her Hebrew name, Rivka, the same as Rose’s. Simon is Jewish, too, at least in name. Twice yearly, we dress up and make our way to the synagogue, nodding at the faces we recognize only from the previous year. The grand, formal synagogue could not be more different from our own tiny shul back in the village. I miss the weekly ritual of going to synagogue, the warmth of being surrounded by people whom I had known my whole life. But for Simon, the obligatory semiannual pilgrimage is enough. Once I tried to bring some warmth into the house by preparing Shabbat dinner. Simon watched with an unfamiliar eye as I lit the candles, cut the challah that I had baked from scratch. He politely ate dinner, then excused himself to his study.

I swallow a mouthful of potatoes, still looking at Rachel’s photograph. I had hoped that, once Rachel was born, Simon might become more present at home. He makes small outward gestures, placing her picture on his desk and dutifully joining us on a family outing each Sunday to the park or the zoo. But beyond that he is as indifferent to her as he is to me. When he does hold her, it is gingerly and at arm’s length, as if childhood is contagious, a disease not to be caught.

Indeed, he did not even seem to notice how quickly Rachel arrived after our marriage. “Premature!” Delia exclaimed when she came to visit us at the hospital, sounding as though she meant it. I studied Simon’s face as he held up the tiny baby for Delia to see. Did he suspect anything? But Simon seemed to accept Rachel’s early arrival without question. The respectability that family brought was good for his career.

I finish eating, bring my plate to the kitchen sink. As I wash, I look at the clock. It is not yet eight, which means Simon won’t be home for at least an hour. Loneliness rises in me. My days are busy, but it is always this quiet evening hour that is the hardest. I put the kettle on for tea. What did I expect? I ask myself a few minutes later as I carry a cup and saucer back into the parlor, walking slowly so as not to spill. I should be grateful to have a nice home, a husband who comes home each night. I had imagined marriage as something more, though. Intimate looks across a crowded room, shared jokes whispered in the darkness at night. Would marriage to Paul have been any different? I push the thought quickly away. It is not fair, I know, to compare everyday life with Simon to a fantasy frozen in time. And there is no point in thinking about what I cannot have, in making my marriage seem even more pallid by comparison. But it is too late. A dull ache rises in my stomach as I imagine driving across America in a convertible beside Paul, seeing the world and laughing. Marriage to Paul would not have been like this.

Sitting down on the sofa once more, I force my thoughts back to Simon. I know that I should not take his behavior personally. Simon is distant from everyone. He has no family, other than some cousins he’s mentioned scattered throughout the north. And he speaks little of his parents. Their wedding photograph, a grainy sepia image that sits on the mantelpiece, is the only reminder of them. There is a trunk, Simon once said, of their belongings in the attic. When I pressed him, he promised to show it to me one day. I want to go through the trunk, to see if there are any family mementos I can pass on to Rachel, since I have none of my own to give her.

I also quickly discovered once we were married that Simon has no friends. The whirlwind of dates and social occasions I experienced during our courtship quickly disappeared after the wedding. Except for the occasional obligatory departmental function, we seldom go out. In the beginning, I considered trying to make friends of my own. But how? Our neighbors, used to Simon’s long-standing reclusiveness, keep their distance. The other secretaries, unmarried women without husbands or children, eye me warily, resentful, I suspect, of my audacity in daring to have a husband
and
a job. And Delia lives on the other side of London, too far away for short visits. So I spend my evenings rattling around the creaky old house, until I am unable to read or listen to the radio any longer.

Is it really so much better when Simon is here? The weekend nights, when we have dinner together, are not unpleasant. Simon will update me on some of the meetings I have not attended at work and I will share stories about Rachel. Last weekend, when I told him how she played in the bath, we actually laughed. But those moments are fleeting, pale imitations of what I had thought a marriage to be. And afterward, he retreats quickly to his study. Simon and I are like young children I have seen in the park sitting beside each other in the sandbox but playing alone, not interacting. Two people living separate lives in the same space.

When the clock above the mantelpiece reads nine, I carry my empty teacup back into the kitchen. Upstairs, I tiptoe past Simon’s study, pausing in the door of Rachel’s room. I fight the urge to go to her and pick her up, settling instead for listening to her quiet, even breathing for several minutes. I walk to our bedroom, then into the toilet to wash and change. I study my reflection in the mirror over the sink. Have I changed so from the woman Simon wanted to court and marry? My jawline has softened a bit and I see a couple of hairs that have turned prematurely gray, a trait I inherited from my mother. I know, too, that my figure is a bit fuller than it once was, owing to a few pounds that lingered after my pregnancy. Perhaps if I lost those…but even as I think it, I know that it will not make a difference in gaining Simon’s attention.