“Mine,” she repeats as if she were informing viewers of the fall of shares on the exchange. “I can afford it, in all respects.”
A few hours later, lying on the bed he shared with Megi, the children cuddled up to his sides, Jonathan tried in vain to understand what Antosia was reading. The words of the story hummed soothingly, Tomaszek’s eyes were closing and from the whirlpool of Jonathan’s thoughts leapt Andrea’s yelling. Or maybe it was he who’d taken it as yelling because in reality she hadn’t raised her voice again when he left her that afternoon, only drily informed him that if she left Simon, it didn’t obligate him, Jonathan, in any way. She wouldn’t break up his family, wouldn’t take that responsibility on her shoulders. Jonathan didn’t have to be afraid either for himself or, more to the point, for her. Andrea would manage.
“Daddy, Tomaszek’s fallen asleep. And you’re not listening,” complained Antosia.
Jonathan raised himself, carefully took his son in his arms and carried him to bed.
“You read beautifully.” He kissed Antosia on the hair.
She nodded but there was scepticism on her face. His daughter’s reactions were more and more mature, she didn’t have tantrums like a child, only concealed her feelings like an adult. He hugged her closely so she wouldn’t see his expression. He would have preferred her to remain a child a little longer, be happier a little longer.
He turned off the light in the children’s room and went back to his bedroom. Megi was working long hours again; she’d phoned not long ago, explaining that she’d be late. He opened the window and exposed his face to the breeze of the evening air. Andrea hadn’t explained anything, had decided for herself that she wouldn’t get in the way of his family.
She hadn’t asked for his opinion; she had simply resolved it should be this way.
He looked at the oblique roofs of the apartments, at the arc of his street, at the tops of the leafless trees. Everything here was mild; the November gusts were melancholic rather than sharp, the houses leaned against each other affably, windows smiled in the façades, each apartment building was different, each a little old, a little new, unpretentious, familiar.
“Don’t worry.” Andrea’s words came back to him. “I’m not going to break up your family.” Jonathan closed the window; the room turned silent. She’d made the decision herself. But then he, too, had never started to think seriously about leaving Megi and the children. It was his private taboo. And Andrea had understood that his passion for her belonged to the present – Jonathan felt her here and now – while his feelings for Megi were retained in his memories, in their watching the children together, in their plans and daily routines. And although the fireworks of being with his lover outshone daily routine, the basis of his life endured, the main current flowed persistently, linked the past to the future, waited for the moment until it could overflow and embrace the present again.
The slamming of a door reached him from below. Megi’s footsteps were slow, like his grandmother’s in the past when she’d walked to his father’s apartment. His grandmother had tended to be tired; shopping pulled on her shoulders. Something clattered downstairs – a hanger had slipped from Megi’s hands.
Jonathan quickly stripped and slid beneath the duvet. Suddenly a thought occurred to him that he hadn’t taken into account before: if Andrea left Simon and he stayed here, then … his lover would be free. A free Andrea, Andrea openly taking advantage of her freedom!
He switched off the bedside lamp, curled up on his side, and Megi, seeing him asleep, stepped back from the bedroom door and quietly closed it behind her.
J
ONATHAN SAT
in the sauna on the scorching planks and breathed the humid air. Stefan had settled himself next to him on the wooden steps. Jonathan passed him a can of beer and opened one himself.
“How did you know Simon was blocking Megi?” he asked.
“One knows these things.”
“Megi only told me today.”
“And how did she know?”
“You know so why shouldn’t she? She’s the one concerned.”
Stefan rolled his eyes; the steam was making his face turn red.
“If she’s the one concerned, then everyone should know except for her,” he bristled.
“What’s this, ‘teach yourself Cardinal Richelieu’?”
“Did Przemek tell her?” Stefan answered with a question.
Jonathan nodded.
“And did he tell her it was Simon?”
“No, not that.”
Froth spurted from Stefan’s can as he opened it.
“Then you’ve got more luck than brains.” He shook the froth from his hand; the smell of beer filled the sauna. “And I’m in deep shit. I’m not sure Monika hasn’t caught on I fucked Martyna because she’s not talking to me. “Where’s my shirt?” I ask and she says nothing. I bring her flowers, still nothing. What an atmosphere! I tell her that the children are suffering because of it but it’s like banging my head against a brick wall.”
“Has she done it before?”
“She used to soften with flowers.”
“So what are you going to do this time?”
“I thought you’d tell me.” Reproach flitted in Stefan’s eyes. “I’ve run out of ideas. But getting back to you, what’s the situation? She’s pregnant, he’s getting his revenge, Megi’s blocked because of it …”
“Blocked but we don’t know whether that’s why,” retorted Jonathan through clenched teeth. He had a superstitious approach to words; he didn’t like the idea that when uttered they created facts. “That’s your theory.”
“And Przemek’s.”
Stefan raised his arms; a couple of drops squirted from his can onto the wooden planks, and the smell of beer grew stronger.
“And now they’ll kick us out of here if you go on stinking the place out with that,” muttered Jonathan.
“But what did you tell Megi when she mentioned the blocking?”
“That it’s a conspiracy theory. And that since she’s passed the exam and has the necessary experience, she’ll get another job before we know it.”
Stefan nodded in approval.
“She won’t buy that, she’s too intelligent, but you showed you were trying. And Andrea? Do you see each other?”
Jonathan nodded.
“And fuck?”
“None of your business.”
“Meaning you do. So nothing’s changed.”
“Only that Andrea wants to leave Simon.”
Stefan choked; beer spurted on to the bench again. Jonathan raised his eyes without a word.
“And you haven’t told me? But she’s not gone running to Megi yet, has she? Shit, it’s like that Ilona of mine.”
“Quite the opposite!” Jonathan riposted. “Yours wanted to live happily ever after with you. Andrea is different.”
“In what way? So why’s she leaving Simon?”
“Says she can’t go on like this. But that it doesn’t oblige me in any way because she doesn’t want to break up my family.”
“And what, she’s going to be alone, with the baby?”
“That’s exactly what’s doing my head in! Andrea alone … And all those guys, understand?”
It took Stefan a while to grasp what Jonathan meant.
“You must be mad,” he said in the end. “You’re scared she’ll make the most of her freedom? A pregnant woman, then a single mother with a small child, is going to make the most of the single life? Give me a break!”
“So what am I supposed to be scared of?” Jonathan was at a loss.
“Just that when she cracks up from being alone she’ll go to Megi and create a stink!”
“That’s not Andrea.” Jonathan shook his head. “She’s got a job, good money, she’ll hire a nanny. What does she need somebody like me for?”
“And you, what do you need her for?”
Jonathan started squeezing his can; the sound rang out in the quiet sauna like an explosion.
“She keeps running away from me,” he said barely audibly. “I can’t leave her because she runs away and … keeps wanting me.”
Stefan looked at him strangely, then asked, “And aren’t you afraid she’s going to land you with the baby?”
“All I’m afraid of,” said Jonathan after a long while, “is what I’m going to tell my children. That’s all I’m afraid of in this whole business of, as you call it, ‘landing me with the baby.’ ”
Stefan gasped in anger, spread his hand out in front of him, and folded his fingers one by one.
“Alimony, looking for a nanny, choosing a school …”
Jonathan began to wriggle around on the bench.
“More generally,” he interrupted Stefan’s counting, “I’m scared of asking her whether it’s mine.”
“Want to know what I think? Don’t!”
“But what if it is mine? Surely I’ve a right to know. On the other hand, what about my kids? What about Megi?”
Stefan reached for another can of beer, pretending not to see his friend’s contorted face.
“Don’t think in terms of ‘what if,’ ” he said earnestly. “Do what I do in such cases: check you haven’t got HIV and don’t phone her any more. Then she won’t leave Simon and it’ll all blow over.”
Megi walks briskly past the Hotel Renaissance façade. Jonathan wanted her to buy Tomaszek a pair of trainers for his gym classes on her way back from work because the boy had grown out of his old pair. They couldn’t go together because the children had swimming lessons that afternoon
.
“Can’t you do it tomorrow?” She was sitting in front of a pile of papers, finding it hard to turn her mind to domestic matters
.
“If he’s grown out of them, he’s grown out of them.” Jonathan cut her short
.
Megi enters the black district; ahead of her, Chaussée d’Ixelles tempts with its lights. A pair of shoes gleam in a display she passes: red, with a huge bow at the toes, patent leather. What if she had a pair like that? And a hairpiece to go with them like the one hanging in the hair salon nearby – black, curly hair, not Afro but thick waves. Megi turns the corner. She’s struck by the ad in the
pharmacy window for an anticellulite cream: someone is handing a woman a brand new body, a shape on a hanger, smooth and shiny. Megi shudders. But every wrinkle is a notch made by time, a mark denoting “I’ve been there.” What was there to be ashamed of?
Returning with a package in her hand, she watches men in coats and suits sneak along the walls. Of course, the time for “international relations” is coming to an end; the little hotels and brothels were under siege between five and seven when office workers squeezed in pleasure between work and family dinner. Wasn’t it Przemek who’d told her that?
That day he’d proposed they go to lunch and she’d insisted they meet at the Exki; the speed and transitory nature of the place precluded intimacy
.
“I’ve been offered a job back in Poland on excellent conditions,” he began ceremoniously. “I can’t tell you exactly what it involves but if I were to take it I’d have a whole team under me, and also,” he smiled, a strand of rocket lodged between his teeth, “lots of power.”
“Congratulations,” she replied
.
“As I mentioned before, I’d like to offer you a position in my future team. A lot of responsibilities, decent money, and no small influence over matters. What do you say?”
Megi picked up a plastic spoon. She had to weigh her words. Przemek was, above all, a player and only after that an admirer
.
“When would you be starting?”
He smiled with approval. She hadn’t asked when she would be starting because that would have meant she’d agreed; but neither had she said no
.
“Early next year.”
Getting into the metro, Megi decides not to tell Jonathan for the time being; she’ll sleep on it first. When she reaches the apartment, she sees that the windows are dark – Jonathan and the children aren’t here yet. He must have treated them to a hot chocolate after their swimming. Megi climbs the stairs and stands in the silence of her own home. Just like six years ago when, after having seen her lover, she returned late on the pretext of having so much work. She’d stood on the threshold then just as she did now – the threshold of happiness and scruples, sexual fulfilment and moral trembling. Or perhaps simply fulfilment and trembling?
And yet she’d broken up with the other man. She extends her fingers and folds them one by one, silently repeating, “One: decision to leave him; two: sticking with the decision; three: getting stuck because of panic that am killing love; four: physical low, body’s mourning; five: first, tiny signs of picking up.”
Megi walks up to the huge window and gazes out at Brussels’s roofs from the dark shell of her apartment. She had coped, picked herself up. Nobody had told her how to do so, she’d got there herself. Now she is stronger, there is more of her. More of her and more about her
.
J
ONATHAN SENT
A
NDREA
fewer messages but didn’t stop completely. He’d worked out this strategy when he’d decided to put Stefan’s advice into practice – and although he had a strong feeling that he’d been given a prescription for a different disease, he couldn’t afford to turn up his nose. He needed a remedy immediately.
He reassured Andrea, hinted that at this stage of pregnancy she ought to look after herself, that he was and always would be there, but that they ought to limit seeing each other. He himself started to obsessively invest in family life. First of all, he had a blood test done.
Sitting in the waiting room, he browsed the leaflets about HIV. Dry sentences began to erase Andrea’s kisses from his memory, changed the meaning of tender gestures, of his tongue’s exploits in the depth of her groin. Now he scrutinized those moments with the possibility of being infected, delved into the details without his former excitement, rewound the scenes of their intertwined bodies from a medical point of view. He left millilitres of blood lighter, a venomous feeling of guilt heavier – if he’d caught the virus, he was endangering not only himself as a father but also the innocent Megi!
He decided to avoid physical intimacy with his wife while waiting for the results. But he deceived himself because, although more and more sexually frustrated, he knew that his desire was not directed at Megi. He still wanted only Andrea, even though he put himself off her in his thoughts as much as possible. He even suspected that she wouldn’t notice his remoteness and if she did she would, as was her wont, allow him to
distance himself more. But whether the pregnancy had changed her or whether he was not sufficiently tactful, it was enough to make her start sniffing around. So he met her in order to reassure her – in a church once more, because Simon wasn’t going away so often during the last trimester of her pregnancy.