The Story of My Wife (8 page)

Mind you, I was still sound as a bell, nothing was wrong with me, as of yet. All the same, I was like a watch that kept perfect time but with a funny, hollow tick, as if something had already snapped inside.

But it so happened that Monsieur Dedin, his mere existence, gave me strength to go on, if only because I began to take him seriously now, and noted other things as well, which I will relate presently.

One day we were sitting in the Café de Saint Luc, which was owned by an old friend of mine, a sea captain from Normandy. And of course Dedin was with us, too, which was now the case almost all the time. Don't ask me how I could stand it. Or how
he
could do it.

When does this writer write? I often wondered. I was inclined to believe he did absolutely nothing, let alone write. Maybe he carried his rich uncle's chamber pot around. And then put on his little hunter's hat and headed for a wild night on the town. The man, as you can see, irritated me to no end.

Nevertheless, I told my wife one day:

"That Dedin seems like a decent fellow."

Well, she lit up like a lightbulb.

"You see, you see; I told you." And she beamed.

That's how far this thing has gone, that's how open she was about it, damn it.

Why, then, did I make that appreciative remark? For two reasons: First of all, I was pleasantly surprised. He didn't steal, though he had the opportunity. He returned my wallet which I left on a table in a bistro; he didn't pocket it but brought it back. A promising beginning, surely.

The other reason was that I could no longer put up with my wife's suffering demeanor. Ever since that time when I was a little rough on her, she'd been giving me dirty looks. As though I'd killed her papa. But now that we made up, she showed no mercy. We had to be together all the time. I called him a decent fellow, didn't I? She tried so hard to bring us closer, to match us up. This is how a typical conversation was conducted:

She'd be walking in the middle, between Dedin and me, and turn from side to side as she talked.

"Dedin says you can get finer cigars than these." "My husband says it's time we went to a different cinema." Like that. Dedin would sometimes send me messages, too, but I never sent him any.

All I kept thinking about was how to get rid of this guy. For no matter how I looked at it, this arrangement was not very good. Even under the best of circumstances, he'd remain the ideal friend who brought her books and things, and kept feeding her stories about how she could make a pretty good movie actress. (With this sort of claptrap, I noticed, every woman can be swept off her feet, even the very best.) He'd still be the cultivator of her soul, and I, the uncouth husband, the breadwinner, the workhorse.

The truth is I was dimwitted enough to fill the role.

At my friend's place, on the other hand, I felt more comfortable. He was a man after my own heart. To him I didn't have to explain what it was like to have things like "What kind of captain are you? Where is your sense of duty?" thrown at your face.

"Tell me the truth," my friend now said to me, "do you really like the blasted sea all that much? (And the question, needless to say, could not have come at a better time.)

"I myself love it," he went on with a grin, "always have, especially from afar. Come on, man, be honest: aren't you glad when you leave those rotten tubs, those floating prisons, when your foot hits dry land? Especially after that accident of yours?"

"God only knows," I sighed.

But he persisted: "Can you eat anything this good on a boat?" (He was serving us some chewy meat cooked with a kind of polenta, a regional specialty, apparently, prepared in my honor, expected to be praised.)

"But let's chat about something good ... It just occurred to me: Why don't you and me open a nice little inn. . . ? What do you say? It's no life being away at sea all the time?"

"You know, you are on to something," I said. "But that inn . . . it better be classy. My wife likes only the very best...." I glanced at my wife. My friend laughed. But she calmly continued her needlework, as though she didn't hear a word I said. The little woman was embroidering a pair of slippers, with very fine, brightly colored threads.

"Well?" I inquired, pressing the point, "what would you two say if I decided to stay home?" But Monsieur Dedin didn't budge either; he kept smoking his cigarette furiously, immersing himself in a magazine.

"Good meat," I said. And it was, its texture anyway—nice and firm. And I always liked to chew my food properly, I had damn good teeth.

"And the sauce?"

"That's good, too."

"We'll have to make this in our new hotel," he said.

"Oh yes, definitely." And to myself I thought: Damn that woman. What's with the embroidering all of a sudden? She never used to embroider. And the silence between us, this incredible silence. As if she were saying: Go on, talk to your friend, talk all you like.

I don't know if others are familiar with the feeling: the intimacy of those long silences between lovers. Picture it, if you will: she peacefully stitching away, he turning the pages of his magazine, but with an air of confidence that said: I know you love me and you know that I love you, and that's all the two of us need to know. Just to illustrate how this silence affected me: Years and years later, in South America I believe it was, I thought about that evening once and promptly flew into a rage. Even then I did, I saw red even then. My wife appeared before my mind's eye just as she stopped sewing for a minute. Like someone emerging from a dream, she lifted her pretty head, to cast a glance at her friend, not even at his face, only at his checkered jacket, his hand, even that was enough. And as if drawing strength from that mere glance, she bit off the end of the thread and continued working.

This scene, as I say, had such a powerful hold over me, I was ready to explode even years later. But that's the way I often am. Implacable. And then not even rivers of spilled blood can appease me. But let's go on; maybe this book will vindicate me.

"Who are you making those charming slippers for?" I asked her finally, when I thought I could no longer contain myself. Ah, but these two would not admit a stranger into their own little world. "For Monsieur Lagrange," my wife said. "A surprise." Just like that. Case dismissed. (Madame Lagrange, by the way, was a friend of hers.)

"You know something," I turned to my friend from Normandy, "we will buy ourselves a little hotel and fill it with little mamselles." I just had to say something. Actually, I wanted to use another word, but they all knew what I meant. In fact, my wife was already gathering up her slippers—she got offended.

"Let's go home," she said abruptly. "I don't feel well."

Let's go then. By all means.

She did look rather pale. We left the café and Dedin of course came with us, he sat in the cab and said he'll see us home. Ah, the faithful friend ... I was trembling already. And at the door, as though I didn't even exist, he took his time saying good-bye, making it sound like a confession. He clasped her hand, gazed intently at her. And all that before my very eyes. But then I had a fiendish thought.

"You will go to bed, won't you?" he asked very solicitously. Asked
her.
Asked
my
wife. "Promise me you'll go to bed right away." This was altogether too much, this tender loving care was too much, when I happened to be right there. I thought I'd give the young man a little scare.

"Why don't you come up, too, for a drink?" For a moment I had this mad idea that as soon as we got upstairs, I'd seize him, drag him to the window and push him out. We lived on the sixth floor and had a nice view of the park, and the apartment itself was roomy and almost completely empty.

What the hell makes these two so dreamy? I wondered. They must be over it by now; they had this whole place to themselves, they could do whatever they wished. That this was no casual friendship I could no longer doubt. That interlude in the café convinced me, though there were other signs as well. For example, my wife said to him: "Give me a match, will you?"

Just like that. Real intimate. But how does one preserve such evidence? How does one prove after the fact that it was no mistake, this is precisely what happened? Sooner or later you forget yourself. Night comes and you forget. For the words, ah, the words, disappear.

Once we were upstairs, I put my wife to bed. Her teeth did chatter and she did shiver a little, and though I thought I knew why (obviously because I was still there), I said to myself: Never mind. I'll stay no matter what. As long as I must. As a matter of fact, I felt like making love to her right then and there.

But she started crying, the woman actually started crying. And when I see that, I simply melt and am no longer responsible for my acts.

"What's the matter, my precious?" But she just went on crying, inconsolably, like a child. And me, I was trying to pull down her stockings.

"Don't cry, my sweet," I said, my voice hoarse with desire. (Man
is
a strange beast, I tell you.) Why not have a beautiful moment, I thought, while our young friend is waiting in the other room? I was giddy with lust by now.

But she resisted me, which was only natural, turning blood-red as she did. "Let me be, let me be," she hissed. But that aroused me even further. The more she fought, the more I wanted her. Each touch was like a burn, I felt her tears on my face. She tried with all her strength to push me away but of course couldn't.

"Now, now, you know I won't let you go if I don't want to." And I grabbed her and lifted her, blanket and all. But then she struck me. I stopped.

I could have broken every bone in her body, of course. And then take a shoetree maybe or a clothes hanger and beat the young man's head until there wasn't a breath of life in him. But flareups like these have a strange effect on me. If a woman goes as far as she did just now, I let her go, I lose all interest. I put her down and started walking toward the door.

But she began to cry even more desperately, it made no sense to leave; I would have heard her sobs even in the other room.

So I stayed and began pacing the floor.

What's making her cry so much, I wondered. What's got into her? Or is that what it is? I happened to glance in the mirror. My eye was bloodshot, she scratched it, the little bitch.

And there was her blouse, too, a beautiful Chinese silk blouse I brought back from one of my trips, in shreds, completely torn.

Maybe this is why she is crying, I thought, and smiled. Or was it the hotel business that got her so scared? That they'd be stuck with me for good in this empty, silent apartment?

"What a horrid man you are," she sobbed. "You take me to that boorish friend of yours and all you do is insult me. And now I am to become an innkeeper's wife."

I had to laugh.

"Is that what's eating you?"

"Oh no."

"What then?" But she didn't answer.

It was just as well. What else
could
have bothered her but the thing I'd already mentioned—the fear that she'd be stuck with me. I knew as much. Saying it would not have made any difference.

So I continued walking up and down, with a wet handkerchief over my eye, mulling over decisions that seemed pretty final.

"Tell Dedin I am feeling better and send him home," I heard her say after a while.

"Yes,
ma'm,"
I replied and bowing slightly, left the room.

This won't work, I decided. When you are patient and understanding, people take advantage of you. It was a mistake to allow things to go this far. I should have thrown the bum out long ago. I walked into the other room, handkerchief still in place, which he didn't seem to notice. He was reading again.

"You must be a well-read man. How old are you, anyway?"

"Thirty."

"I am forty-two but I bet I could still knock you down with one finger. . . what do you say to that?" He laughed. And he was right. What sort of talk was this? Like that kid at the academy.

"It's quite possible," he replied with a broad smile.

"And if I did, I don't think you could get up again. What is it you do for a living?"

"I was a sublieutenant attached to the medical corps," he answered and straightened out a little.

"I am not interest in what you
were,
my good man; what are you now, What is your livelihood? I can also say that I am a master violinist just because I once owned a violin. What I am asking you is what you are right now." Monsieur Dedin cast curious glances all around.

"I am not much of anything," he said with an enigmatic smile.

"Now that's more like it. . . you are nothing, that I can understand. What do you live on, then?"

"That
is
rather a mystery," he replied and cracked a sugar cube in his mouth. Our gallant was invulnerable, I realized, he was totally impervious. The sugar was left on the table after tea, and he was sucking on them now quite peacefully. He really didn't feel like answering my questions and would have liked nothing better than to walk away. But he couldn't—not just yet.

"A mystery, eh?" I said. "Might you have a rich uncle supporting you?"

"An uncle?"

"A rich uncle. No need to get embarrassed, young man. Someone generous enough to help you." He turned a deep red. I thought this is it: something is going to happen, at last. (Ah, how I wished it, with all my heart.) But no: the young man kept smiling.

"What uncle?" he repeated, still quite cheerful. "I have no uncle."

I almost fell over. It so happened I believed my wife when she told me the business about the rich uncle. Usually I don't believe a word she says. But this I believed. Maybe because it confirmed my suspicion that the guy was a parasite.

That was the first shock. The other came when he appealed to me heartrendingly not to be overhasty in my business affairs. I was in a bad frame of mind right now, he said, and it was important not to act rashly.

Amazing. What's my frame of mind got to do with him?

I should avoid getting involved in a business venture right now, he said, especially something I knew very little about. And certainly not with that fellow from Normandy.