The Story of My Wife (22 page)

I was being absurd, I admit it now. But this thing was like a whirlpool, it sucked you in, it had nothing to do with reason. Sure, one may ask: how can a sane man get such ideas? When the woman spent all her time at home, in bed, and I, too, was in the house a lot, and even when not, could show up anytime. But what I did was turn the question around. Why did she lie in bed all the time? A young woman like her, in the best of health? What is more, I wasn't really home that much, that wasn't even true. And she was the one who kept sending me away. Why would she do that? Why would she tell me to spend as much time as I could in the fresh air, with Miss Borton yet—because she obviously knew I was with her when I went out. What did she do all afternoon on those days?

Should I just ask? Well, I did.

"Who was it then who asked you to marry him," I said. "You can't really blame me for wanting to know. And also: how can such a thing happen to a married woman? But what interests me most is what you answered. I do have to know that, If only to figure out
my
next move?"

This made her laugh in my face. And hearing this laugh, I felt as if she had placed her hand on my heart.

"Oh, aren't you being the old fool again?" she said. "You are the one who keeps telling me I daydream all the time, and like a child make up all sorts of silly things."

Was it all a crazy fantasy then?

She did laugh at me, as I say, with a look as bright and healing as sunshine, though with subtle cunning too, which the light of the sun is never without, I don't think. For all its blessings, I do believe it laughs at us.

With a heavy heart, then, I began to do some work. But in the end, I didn't go to Bruges after all, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I did land a few odd jobs, appraising damages, settling accounts, things like that; at long last I was working again. And there was a stillness in me, an old, old stillness—I have no idea where it came from, what brought it on. Fact is I turned serene and somber. My heart was at peace, as if touched by a blessed breath of life. I would close my eyes and listen to the quiet. Then one night, quite unexpectedly, I asked myself:

Why call it a fantasy? I mean she did ask if I would let her go, didn't she? Had she ever said anything like that before? So the next day I confronted her again:

"Listen, what about that Dedin fellow, are you still in love with him? Come, be straight with me. What's the good of these riddles and dumbshows; you've got the gift of gab, why can't we talk about this thing openly for once?"

"We could if I felt like it." And already there was irritation in her voice.

And she was right. Was that how I hoped to find out more? By posing direct questions? No, no, she was perfectly right.

But what about Dedin, how did
I
stand with him just then? This thought forced itself upon me that night, and I couldn't shake the feeling that this time it was he who had followed her here, the way Ridolfi had before. And that he lived close by, maybe even in this very boarding house. As I say, I had this curious feeling . . .

"Watch him carefully now," he must have told her in Paris, "humor him, restrain him, so he doesn't get out of hand, like the last time. And I'll be there."

And hence her little acts of kindness, her lovable antics soon after we arrived. And it's why this old boarding house seemed such a cozy place . . . cozy and scary. Maybe he's here already, has even found himself a job. Which makes our lodging not so cozy, only scary.

But I'll find out, don't you worry, I thought to myself. I'll pin you down yet, my sweet. And there was some ruthless pleasure in all this, and furtive gloating, something of a hunter's thrill.

I began to turn up at odd hours, unexpectedly, like suspicious husbands have always done, since time immemorial. The first time I didn't even want to go into her room; I thought I would just look around in the parlor, and if I found nothing suspicious, I'd leave again. I wasn't going to sneak around the house, though I wound up doing just that. Sure enough, she heard me.

"Who's there?" she shouted from the other room. "It's just me, dear, I forgot something," and proceeded to pick up some small item I put out beforehand just for this purpose. I even looked in on her.

"There you are, my pet," I said through the door.

"Ah, you gave me such a scare," she answered, somewhat angry.

"Why must you smoke so much?"

"Because. I just woke up. Must you nag me already?"

"You just got up and already you smoke."

"That's right. First thing I have to do is make my life bearable."

"What
are
you talking about?" I began, but then said nothing, just closed the door quietly.

But of course I returned like that many more times. I stopped on the staircase; the gramophone was playing inside and that was enough—I left. But there were times when I didn't find her home. "Did you go anywhere today?" "Yes, to the hairdresser." Quickly, then, to the hairdresser. "Did my wife leave her scarf here by any chance?" "Oh, that petite lady," smiled the hairdresser. Everybody who thought about her had to smile. One look from her and she turned their heads. If she wanted to, that is. And she did want to, she wanted everybody, even a bloody hairdresser. She looked at him, even at him, coyly, attentively, and with burning eyes.

So it was true about the hairdresser, true like everything else, although at that time neither I nor anyone else could prove it. I admit that for a whole week I had her watched by people from one of those agencies, in an attempt to find out where she went when she left the house. I am reluctant to talk about this, actually, for it makes me rather ashamed.

She is being careful, I thought, she must sense something. Bur the very next day I seemed to have forgotten all about this. And this was most remarkable, perhaps the greatest puzzle of my life at that time. I could still believe her, even if for a moment.

"Dearest," I said one rainy afternoon, for example. I remember it well. I was
sitting
in the parlor, reading something and musing about it, quite self-absorbed, when I suddenly became aware of her presence. She was right there in the room, keeping herself busy with some chore or other.

"Want something, my dear?" I said to her, but still as if in a dream. Her nearness felt so very nice. And I totally forgot that moment that I mustn't believe anything she says . . . But is that how we all are in the end? Is it any wonder, then, that we are forever deceived. For all I know that's our lot in life. I am inclined to believe it is.

One day, upon returning from the city, I again discovered she wasn't home. I walked into the other room, kept walking in and out, decided in fact to survey the place a little more carefully.

Why did we live in this boarding house? I asked myself. It was a dump—the rooms were terrible, the amenities mediocre. But she was happy enough staying there, couldn't there be something to that? She was the one who wanted to come here; she got the address from someone in Paris.

Couldn't there be a trapdoor or something around here? A secret passageway to another flat maybe?

I began moving the furniture, then opened the window and looked out.

Across the way I could see the rooftop of a smaller building and on it a row of pigeons; to the right of us there was a rather large square. I leaned all the way out, to get a better look.

Why did we always live near large squares? I wondered. And just then I remembered something: our maid in Paris, Äubchen Marie, who would often open and close the curtains in our living room. "What
are
you doing?" I once asked her. "Giving signals to my sweetheart. Letting him know if the coast is clear." And she laughed as she said this. I thought she was fooling, but why couldn't she have meant what she said? If there was somebody standing in the square below . . .

Maybe the square here serves the same purpose. Rubbish, I thought. Still, I almost let out a cry at the discovery. What if they
were
in cahoots . . .

I even thought of that good-for-nothing landlord of ours. Who kept praising my life on the stairs—my own life, to me. Didn't he also laugh in my face?

For days I was trying to figure out a way to catch them. I
had
heard of a method on one of my ships once: something about sprinkling a mixture of flour and soot on the threshold, after which you are supposed to announce you are going away on a trip and early the following morning you show up unexpectedly . . . Why not do it?

For what if somebody
was
keeping a watch on the street, if they
were
passing signals and warning each other that I was on my way up? And by the time I'd walk through the door, everything would be back to normal, with my wife sitting on the couch reading. But with the flour and soot all over the floor and the carpet, it would be much harder to plead innocence.

I might as well give it a try.

Well, I must have presented quite a sight as I walked out of some grocery store the next day, clutching a bag of flour in my hand. I stopped in the middle of the street, utterly bewildered. How did I get here? What is this thing in my hand? What on earth am I doing? I had already told my wife I was going on a trip. In the evening I was supposed to stop in for my suitcase and at the same time perform this operation. But by then I lost interest, I was fed up with the whole business.

The anticipated complications alone got me all riled up. Just consider the number of possibilities a man embarking on such a course must take into account. What happens if, say, she herself goes out at night to get a book, or to make herself a cup of tea? He must then sprinkle the stuff not by the bedroom door but in the entrance way. But what if she should go out in the hall, there is a cabinet full of books there, too. So he must treat the area near the front door, throw the stuff on the doormat maybe. But what if the laundry boy comes for the wash in the morning. I would have to get back real early, before six . . .

Simple complications, all of them, but enough to drive one crazy.

I'd been roaming the city since early afternoon but couldn't decide a thing. And I wasn't home in time to make the necessary preparations. It was close to eleven o'clock, so I went up to see my friend Gregory Sanders. He was already asleep, I had to wake him, which was none too pleasant—the man was ailing and no longer young. I apologized for the intrusion and said I was in big trouble.

I simply had to talk to somebody, that's all there was to it.

And he had to help me, I said, I couldn't go through with it alone; I was afraid I was going mad—things have really gone that far.... I told him about the flour and what it was for—everything, in short.

Sanders wasn't angry, he just didn't know what to do with me.

"What can I tell you?" he asked me sadly. "Going away isn't a bad idea, though." He suggested I go to Scotland for a bit of rest.

"And leave my wife here?"

"Why not?"

"Now? And let her do as she pleases?"

"She does that anyway. Calm yourself, my friend," he said most solicitously. "Sit down. At least catch your breath here."

I had no desire to catch my breath. I was already sorry I'd come. He was no help.

But what does one expect from one's friend at a time like this? The impossible, I dare say. Still, I tried. Told him about the violets, at least. No response. Tried the cigarette business. That casual remark of hers that she must make her life bearable as soon as she wakes up.

"Well, what do you say?" I asked, my voice husky by now. "How can I make the woman's life more bearable than I already have? How can I be what I am not?"

But Sanders was a clever man, he didn't let me press him. And he didn't comfort me either. Or reassure me. Which also showed how smart he was. He just kept nodding his head:

"Yes, I see. But what are we to do?"

Or: "How true, but who said life was easy?" Such pearls of wisdom he fed me. It nearly drove me berserk.

I shouldn't brood, he said. Fine, I won't. There is thinking and there is brooding, he said, and one shouldn't confuse them, for they are two different things, opposites even. It stands to reason. With one you may get somewhere perhaps, but with the other, you're not likely to. It may even distort the true nature of things.

That too should be self-evident. For what does such a man, such a brooder do? He scrutinizes everything, to excess, chances are. Can such a man get a healthy perspective on things? Isn't it like wanting to examine the tiniest particles and atoms with a magnifying glass? "This world is not meant to be scrutinized that closely," concluded Gregory Sanders.

To myself I thought: What has all this got to do with me? And I was ready to leave. My friend meantime was reclining on a couch, surrounded by lemons which he must have used as medicine. Ah, a champion of natural cures, I thought with contempt. It was a priceless moment, I must say. Up until this moment I admired and respected the old man. But not any more. The scales fell from my eyes. The combination of his commonplace wisdom and all those lemons had a thoroughly disillusioning effect on me.

But then I realized he was broaching the subject of jealousy. And how cleverly he did it, to this day I can't figure out just how he ended up on that topic.

He called it a cramp, the soul's cramp, whose origin, too, was to be sought in this tendency to brood. But then, quite abruptly, he came to the point:

"Does faithfulness really exist?"

This finally made me perk up.

"What was that you said?" And at that moment he, too, seemed to warm to his subject.

"And if someone's not faithful, what then?"

"What do you mean what then?"

"That person can no longer be kind or sweet or good? It's not possible to love that person any more?"

"What do you mean 'kind and sweet'? I can't quite follow you. We're talking about opposite qualities. I don't understand the question. Can someone bad be good?"

"You are being ridiculous," Gregory Sanders said.

"And you are getting more interesting by the minute. One can be two things at the same time, you say?"