The Story of My Wife (2 page)

Let us assume that I am a Dutch sea captain: bigger, stronger, more courageous and overpowering by far than the author who, unlike the captain, is not in the habit of knocking dead, just like that,
a miserable little cabdriver when the latter, with pistol in hand,
wants to empty his pockets. The captain is out of work just now, so
aside from one quite wonderful chapter, we have no time to waste on
sea stories, no need to provide social commentary and local color—
after all, the captain is a perennial transient, a temporary resident in
the great cities of Europe; besides his wife he barely gets to know
anyone. Unrelentingly, the novelist focuses on the crucial question:
is Lizzy faithful or not? And leaves the reader in doubt until the very
end. Our initial hunch that she is indeed faithful may become
stronger, we may even shed a tear
à la
Füst for poor, misunderstood
Lizzy, yet, ultimately, we can't help sharing Captain Störr's misgivings—maybe Lizzy
is
a flighty and fast woman after all.

It's possible to go on, of course, without ever finding out. What
then can we expect from this lengthy book? For one thing, it will
make us become Captain Störr; we will partake of his brooding, his
naive wonderment, his not always spectacular adventures. His
creator truly had no other ambition than to experience first love and
its attendant emotions with the heart and mind of a jealous husband.

The novels of old concentrated on the early phases of love affairs,
on events that occurred before the lovers went to bed, and they
usually ended without proceeding any further. The basic question
was always: Will they or won't they be wed?
The Story of My Wife
begins right after this phase. At this point, after the marriage, what
other disquieting questions can arise: Should I cheat on her? Does
she cheat on me? The trails leading to the conjugal bed may now be
pointing to other beds. What latter-day novelists do is follow in the
tracks of these wayfarers of love.

In all probability there has never been a man or a woman who did
not experience profound uncertainty, who didn't feel that their beloved is not theirs. I could be holding her in my arms and she
could still be far, far away. Just look at her: she is daydreaming,
about someone else, no doubt. Now she looks sad—she probably
doesn't love me any more.

Since I have not yet met anyone who was not susceptible to
jealousy, I recommend this novel as a guide not to Paris or London
but to one's own marriage, for the true subject of the novel is tense,
vibrant uncertainty.

Of course not many husbands have the leisure to play private detective; most have better things to do than snoop after their wives. Captain Störr, however, has been relieved by the author of all other
obligations. There is no ship under his command now, his money (whatever's left of it) is still in his pocket. Husband and wife are
together the whole day, and yet they are not. The captain can never
be entirely sure—and this is both his strength and his weakness. With this burly man as his guide, Milan Füst leads us to raptures
and humiliations, to murderous desires and displays of uncommon gentleness.

It's gratifying to follow him, for he describes the conditions of his
life so very convincingly, and comments on them painstakingly.
Whatever is on his mind he rarely blurts out in front of the other
characters—he saves it for us.

Füst also keeps shifting our perspective. He makes the long in
terior monologue more dynamic by switching skillfully to animated dialogue. Our narrator is the kind of person who is forever reminded of other things, he is full of digressions and droll observations—yet,
whether the topic at hand is a wild nighttime romp, a murder, or
dreamy walks in cemeteries and parks, Füst does what he must.

He develops each sequence masterfully and embellishes them with
the most ingenious of devices. The master novelist adheres to his
own aesthetic precepts, alternating cleverly and refreshingly bet
ween narrative summaries and "evocative delineations," that is,
brief surveys of great blocks of time, and focused exposes of shorter
stretches.

His somewhat mannered prose has a unique rhythm, a captivating ebb and flow; moreover, the regular alternation of voices and viewpoints suggests the wild contradictions at work in the author himself
—he knows the language of compassion as well as the language of
despair; he can be unusually kind and unusually cruel.

Captain Jacob Störr is a man without illusions, but his one pas
sion: his undying wish to know what makes his wife tick makes him
so alert, so eager, so tormented, we can't help liking him. I wouldn't
mind joining the captain for a good stiff drink in a bar. Even if I
didn't see him again, I'd remember him. If you, too, want to remember this decent seaman, who, though not at all stupid, is still a big fool for bungling life's greatest gift simply because he's too wor
ried about it not being really his—if you want to listen to a common
place story as told by an irresistible narrator, then do read Captain
Störr's reminiscences about his wife.

THE STORY OF MY WIFE

Te vocamus, quod sic plasmavisti hominem et

hominem itidem vocamus, qui tamen debet

praestare seipsum . . .  percipe hanc

altercationem in corde nostro diabolicam,

Domine! Et oculos sanctos Tuos in inopiam

 nostram conjicere non gravator, sed conspice

portentum clam nobis abditum, in extis . . .

 accedit, quod allectationes nutriunt ipsum

velut alece. Et ne nos inducas in

tentationem, supplicamus ad versprum,

peccatum tamen ostium pulsat intratque

domum et intrat prorsus ad mensam. Amove

ergo sartaginem igneam, qua caro siccatur,

nam animal in me debile crebro.

(From a medieval devotions)

One

MY WIFE'S BEEN UNFAITHFUL, THIS MUCH I HAVE LONG suspected. But that she should take up with a man like that... I stand over six feet tall, weigh 210 pounds, am a veritable giant, in short, the sort of person who—as they say— only has to spit on someone and the man is finished.

That's what I first thought I would do to Monsieur Dedin . . . Ah, but this is not where I should begin . . . It's no use; I still get worked up when I think of him.

The truth of the matter is that getting married was a mistake— all the more since up until then I had very little to do with women, I was cold by nature. I look back on my early youth and find that the only story of an erotic nature worth recollecting is the following: I could not have been more than thirteen. The place was a park in the Dutch city of Sneek, in Friesland, where we then lived. A governess sat in the park with a small child, whom she kept admonishing:

"Veux-tu obéir, veux-tu obéir?"

I loved the sound of the words. She also said to the child:

"Vite, vite, depêche-toi donc."

And I liked that too. It's quite possible I decided right then and there that I would marry a French woman. At any rate, I enjoyed listening to that sweet melody. Then, as though by divine inspiration, I walked to the edge of the park, tore out a page from my exercise-book, and wrote two words on it, in Dutch (for I could not
yet
then write in French, nor did I speak the language, though I did understand it when others spoke it).

"Greppel, greppel,"
I wrote, that is, let's lie in the ditch a little. There was indeed a rather deep, grassy ditch nearby. With the piece of paper I walked back to the governess and stood meekly before her, looking at her sweetly, the way I did when as a little boy I was sent with a list to the corner grocer. Then I held up the little piece of paper in front of her.

Naturally, the governess thought I was crazy.

She understood the word but not the thing I was getting at. True, I was a good-sized lad and could have been taken for a boy of eighteen, but I did wear short pants and knee socks; what is more I had on a nice blue sailor suit top, with a bow my mother herself tied that morning. I still had rosy cheeks then, though I admit my ears were also red, and large-sized ears they were, too. But my teeth were white and my eyes fearless—I was a boy with earnest eyes. And I was not yet corrupted, honestly I wasn't. Just how I got the courage to put those words down I still can't say.

The governess simply stared at me, she nearly swallowed me with her eyes.

"Que c'est que tu veux?"
she asked finally.

But I was not embarrassed even then. I stood there graciously, then ran away. I did the same the following day and the day after.

The governess, as soon as she saw me coming, would start laughing—she laughed so hard she nearly fell over. Arms akimbo, she continued laughing, and the child with her laughed too. But I stood my ground, my gaze remained steadfast; I did not budge.

"Mon pauvre garçon,"
she intoned sympathetically, laughing still, though also blushing hotly.
"Eh bien, tu ne sais pas ce qu'il te faut."
A woman of the world, I thought. "My poor boy," she repeated; "you have no idea what's bothering you, do you?" And she stared into my eyes, wonderstruck, like the hot sun, and even pinched my face. Whereupon I ran away.

Finally, though, she caught on. Why not? she must have asked herself. At least this sort of thing can't lead to scandal or other problems. The thought of the ditch appealed to her too. There was also a little bridge there with overgrown bushes underneath. After discovering that the park-keeper passed by only twice a day (because of the summer heat, the place was deserted most of the time), she met me by that bridge early in the morning, bringing with her a basket of food or a jug of milk. She was uncombed, sleepy—oh, I was crazy about her. For it should be understood: I was a young lad and I could still feel the warmth of her bed on her.

At home I accounted for my early departure with some lie or other; I tried to avoid my mother anyway and walked about all day in the sunshine as if in a dream. . . . This lasted the entire summer. Then I lost all interest in women.

A year later, one of my uncles, my favorite, my thoroughly depraved uncle, whom I happened to be visiting then, set out a hooked ladder for me so I could climb up to the upper floor of a neighboring house; each night I observed a beautiful lady taking a bath. It was summertime then, too, and in the sweltering heat she kept the windows of her apartment open. One day, while hovering between the ground and the sky, I decided to land on her window sill. So as not to scare her, I whispered to her:

"A little boy is here."

Rather than getting scared, she turned very somber in her bath. Actually, she knew me already by sight. Then, without saying a word, she motioned me to come closer. I stepped down from the ledge, and she with a hazy look in her eyes embraced me.

These were the only two amorous adventures of my early youth, which, though awkward, both of them, are worth mentioning. The others are negligible. I had to laugh at men who were panting after them. ... I was full of unattractive thoughts about women. How haughtily they sat in restaurants, holding their heads oh so high. But I knew things about them that would have made them less haughty, surely. I conceived of man's business with them as being fairly straightforward. In this I was not unlike many a young man. One must deal with them quite simply, I thought.

Instead, I became more and more interested in good eating, especially after being exposed to new worlds during the course of my travels. An acquaintance of mine, General Piet Mens, once made the observation in my presence that man is worse than the filthiest hog because he tastes everything. Well, I disagree. It's by leaving nothing untouched that we discover the tastes, the uses, of this world. And besides, I am convinced that anyone who wants to delve into the souls of nations must eat their foods.

That is what I have done. I can't think of a single dish, not even overspiced dried mutton that burns like the sand of the Sahara, that I wouldn't eat. I walked through Eastern bazaars where meats sizzle on open, communal fireplaces. I watched dough rise on a pastry chefs stand in Persia. The Mohammedans do make wonderful pastries, and prepare them tastefully and cleanly too, in spotless aprons, and serve them in hot bronze dishes. You get sated with the fragrance, it stays with you for months. When I had no pressing business, I would sit for days on end in those bazaars and
souks
—it was my way of relaxing. I couldn't imagine anything more fascinating than the ceaseless bustle, the stream of alien color, the strange tongues, the laughter. If after a time all this did get to be a little too much, I ordered one of their dishes and continued daydreaming.

My friends thought I was a savage, mainly because I ate everything, though for other reasons as well. No job was too hard for me; I tackled everything. I would think nothing of sweating and slaving for three months straight. Needless to say, the shipowners knew this about me, too.

"You buffalo, you," said one of my mates, a kid named Eberstma-Leiningen. I had to laugh at his squeamishness—I always found work, whereas he didn't. I am a buffalo, eh? So be it. The buffalo's a very useful beast. And anyway, I can do something a buffalo can't, which is going without eating or sleeping. To repeat, nothing was too much for me when it came to enduring hardship. But then, nothing was good enough when I felt like letting go. If there were limits to pass, I passed them, and not only in attacking a job but also in seeking out pleasure . . . But gone are those heroic days. I listen to myself tell my tale and it's as though I am talking about somebody else. I listen with some sadness, I do admit.