The Story of My Wife (10 page)

"Now look at the moon, it's moving with you." Such fanciful things I said to her. (Actually, there was an antique clock in the living room with a large round face—that's what glimmered over us in the growing darkness.) At last she gave me a tired, wistful smile: "Is that the moon?" To which I said: "Didn't you know?" And even embraced her a little. She looked at me, kind of surprised, and began to cry.

It seems I did love her, after all.

Four years of servitude, maybe five, I thought, and then we'll quiet down. Peace, at last. It will come, it must . . .

I sat down and wrote a long letter to Kodor, again to him, this time not even trying to make excuses for the accident. I realized I had to share my pain with someone. I didn't call myself a hero, but I did try to fake a litte self-esteem. I put down that saving the ship was an achievement, that I was proud of it—a few empty phrases, in other words. But the upshot was the same. I was again without a job.

(Kodor didn't care for humanity as such, hated family ties, despised procreation and didn't take kindly to marriage, either. "The very idea of being shut in with another person . . ." he used to say. "I'd rather have all my teeth pulled out.")

This is what I wrote to him, then: "Alexander, I didn't take your advice at the time and got married. Now I see you were right. To take such a step was to tempt the gods. (This much sincerity I allowed myself; I had to, I felt a great need to open up.) I am in a difficult situation right now, for as you know, a single man can live on practically nothing, is free to take up anything he likes, but I am tied down." In short, I asked him to do all he could to get me a position with one of those previously mentioned firms. And if he thought it was a good idea and would help matters along, I would travel to London myself. I then wrote another letter to Marseille, to a certain M. Saviro, who was also a patron of mine, and a well-to-do gent himself.

I wrote these letters in our living room one Sunday afternoon, sitting at my wife's small writing desk. When I was all through writing and thinking, I picked up a book lying on her desk and leafed through it. I confess I cannot much read anymore. I'd skim a few passages in the middle, restlessly, absently, skip to another sentence, and if I liked that, maybe I'd go back to the beginning.

This is just what happened now. I still remember the title of the book:
The Story of A Quiet Man
—a promising title indeed. It happened to be about a wonderful old bird-catcher, a shy meticulous old codger, and I got pretty interested. (As a schoolboy I used to catch birds, too.) It seemed like a funny book and also cruel; before I knew it I was immersed in it.

All of a sudden, I heard someone moaning behind my back. My wife was standing at the door, coughing, wheezing, her face flaming red, and her bathrobe unbuttoned, as though she'd just stepped out of the bathtub.

"For God's sake, what's the matter with you?" She was in tears, disheveled, dazed.

"I am dying, I am dying," she muttered, and threw herself in my arm. Her body felt so hot, I decided she must be delirious. So after that I didn't press her, didn't ask any more questions, for I knew well what tricks the mind can play on you. One question kept occurring to me throughout all this: Is having to live with me really causing her so much anguish?

I should point out, by the way, that my wife was on the short side, she was a petite woman, and I kind of liked this about her. At times I caught myself thinking about how small she was, even while on duty, and having a chuckle over it. I could have her do a dance on my palm.

I often think of a scene in this connection, not a scene really, just a remark passed by an Andalusian clod.

It happened in Spain, at the beginning of our marriage; we were traveling south, by coach (I had put in at a Spanish port and she came down to meet me). We were detained because there was a religious procession in the city, complete with flags, flowers, incense. This chap in a black hat and embroidered vest stood near the coach and kept ogling us; he wouldn't take his eyes off my wife and me.

"What does a big hulk like that do with such a tiny woman? he asked his friends. "Break her into little pieces?" The rascal asked just that, and then laughed, too, in the midst of the holy procession.

The comment sure made my wife come alive, though.

"Did you hear what that fellow just said? What nerve . . ." She got all fired up, and her eyes, even her eyes spoke of a knowledge that only she possessed.

"What nerve, really." And she pressed her flushed face against my hand. Then, still blushing, she said: "Nobody but nobody knows what you're really like. Except me."

And this is just what I am getting at—that she wasn't at all indifferent then. And it is precisely that scene, that sudden flare-up, that I kept going back to when I felt she might not have
any
feelings left for me.

Once again I thought of it. And it is the reason why—miserable as she was when she came after me in her robe—I didn't say anything. I didn't ask, didn't look into her eyes, didn't try to puzzle out her secret. I wouldn't have, under any circumstances. I never did like showdowns and final pronouncements.

"If you like, I can even be more frank," a hot-blooded classmate of mine once told me at the academy. And my response even then was: "Don't bother. Let's not be that frank with each other." And I hold to this even today. For where does all that frankness get us? One never really knows what to make of another's version of the truth; each one of us sticks to his own story, and we proceed alongside of each other, toward a dead end.

Which wouldn't be half so bad. But certain words may be uttered, fatal words, which may not even be true, or not completely. As soon as she blurts out things like: I don't love you, I can no longer live with you, the damage is done—she can't really take it back the next day, can she? It's those damn conventions again. I hate you, she says. There can be some truth in that. But if those nights we spent in Granada were any indication, the matter was not so simple. And for that reason, it was still better to be cautious.

In any case, where
are
the people who are perfectly suited for each other? Who will show me these blessed ones? Life, alas, is one long test of endurance.

So I chose to keep quiet, and made sure she wouldn't have to say anything, either. After all, I was trying to calm her down, not unsettle her more. The seat of unhappiness is in the neck, the old sailors used to say; and if one of them went crackers, they'd start working on his neck muscles. And that's exactly what I did now. Sometimes it's those clever tricks and concoctions that bring relief to an aching soul, by relaxing and then toning up the muscles. And the neck muscles are crucial, those old seamen knew what they were talking about.

Sure enough, she began to cry. And smile, too. We all know how lovely a young woman can be when she smiles through her tears. Sunlight piercing through the rain clouds, and all that. I myself was almost happy. Life does have a way of fooling us.

Pretend she ran to you in her hour of need, I told myself.

This happened on a Sunday, when the maid was out. I was happy about that too, happy to while away hours, outside of time. I made a nice fire and got some food in the larder. Because she was hungry by now. And we simply stretched out on the carpet and nibbled, as if on a picnic. I didn't even turn on the light, I just let the darkness close in on us.

And then I began to talk, too. Told her about. . . well, what? My travel experiences, mostly. About the urge that's in every young man to find out if there is happiness anywhere in this world. For what else is a young man interested in but to learn what goes on in those dimly-lit huts after the hypnotic din of a sun-drenched day subsides? When light fades from the walls and he stands alone in the cold tropical night. Who are those shriekers and clamorers, he wonders, who during the day simply gobble up the sun. What goes through their minds when night comes and the moon shines into their shabby little rooms?

"This was when I wound up in Selangor," I said to my wife, "on my way to even remoter parts of Malaya. I can't tell you what fascination life there had for me. I had seen indolence before but never such voluptuous idleness . . . The way these people could stretch out and lounge about and chew tobacco in the shade, their eyes forever bright, as though they were always drunk, always burning. They kept sipping life as if it were some delicate wine. I, harried and overworked as always, thought I had finally reached the happy isles.

"Until, of course, I found out a thing or two about the place. 'You can't measure happiness,' a member of one of their ruling families told me once. (He, of course, studied in Paris and London and naturally spoke Dutch, too.) 'Take a look at them when they are raving mad,' said this pale-faced descendant of a long line of sultans, 'when they seethe and whip out their knives.'

'"Life is a but a struggle," this oriental aristocrat informed me. And laughed rather coldly. And to illustrate, he told me little stories about these people, to help me understand what this serene-seeming island paradise was really like. He mentioned unusual goings-on under the surface, disappearances, strange pilgrimages—God knows what else. But mainly he told me about the grandmothers and their sorceries. He asked me to consider just that: a world ruled by women who were tiny, by the way, the older ones smaller still, and all shriveled, though tough and immovable, like a mountain. It's easy to imagine, how all this can lead to ruin, how it can devastate the young especially, who become generally apathetic, oblivious, interested in only one thing; the Dutch guilder. And when the scramble for those guilders gets to be too hectic, the women just chuck everything, very proudly put on their chadoors and journey to Mecca to kiss a stone.

"And I say the same to you now," I continued, turning to matters closer at hand. "Life is indeed a struggle, as you can see, that's what it is all about. It's no use looking for happy people."

I tried hard to make her see my point. There are people, I know, who think only they are unhappy. The whole world writhes in ecstasy, only their skies are overcast.

"Take my life, for instance," I said to her and smiled. "After all, I am human, too, and believed with all the rest of them that I was entitled to a little happiness."

And strangely enough, I began to talk about my own life, something I hardly ever did.

I talked about my struggles, my work, about the odd and baffling world I sprang from—my family, in short, whose members in a way also put on a chadoor and disappeared when they felt too stifled, or simply fed up with those around them. They were also forever preoccupied, oblivious, never paying the slightest attention. Our mother only liked to cook and play the piano, these were her two passions. Father, on the other hand, had not much use for fancy feelings and moods—one night he took a pitcher of water and dumped it into the piano. All he wanted to do was think, to figure things out. What was it he kept turning over in his head?

Not much, I suspect—a new type of camera maybe, an old hunt he'd gone on once, or whether the czars of Russia were right about anything. And if we add to this an extraordinary brother who cared about nothing in the world except his own little pleasures, whose pocket always jangled with money of mysterious origin, and whose head too was full of mysterious schemes—well, if she were to imagine all that, then she would surely see why I left that world behind, and why I didn't care to waste another thought on them.

I brought all this up because I figured: Why shouldn't she know? It might just make her realize that she
could
do things if she wanted to. But when I got this far I suddenly stopped and said to her:

"Now why don't you tell me something?"

"Me? I don't really have anything to tell."

"You don't? All right, then. But then what are we to do. . .? What
is
it with you, anyway?" I suddenly asked, and already felt my blood pressure rise. Here I was talking to her, putting my soul on display, and she won't even respond.

She did make a move finally; she got out of bed and groped about for something in the darkened room.

"I was going to swallow this," she said casually, with a laugh.

"What is it?"

"A drink," she said, lighthearted still. And lay down again.

I tasted it: a bitter, vile potion, I disposed of it quickly. So she wanted to poison herself. While in the bath, she wanted to poison herself but couldn't go through with it.

"Why did you want to poison yourself?" Dead silence.

"Strange, this silence of yours. But it's all right. Don't speak if you don't want, I will not make you. But I will get to the bottom of this vast silence, I assure you." And put this critical question to her: "Why can't you live with me?"

I swallowed hard. For this was the touchy area about which I spoke earlier: the area that had been out of bounds for me for so long. But no more rational arguments. I must get through to her somehow.

"I will not dissuade you from doing anything," I began. "At the same time, there are limits, you can't expect me to condone everything. To live here and at the same time to be thinking of someone else, that's something I can't put up with."

There, I said it; no more roundabout phrases, no more gentle hints. Why not talk plainly for a change, the way God intended for us to talk?

"But if you are after the impossible I will give you the impossible. I'll support both of you—you and your lover, how is that? And you won't even have to live in this house. Well, are you willing to go that far?"

Utter silence.

"I know, I know, we can entertain wonderful thoughts about the subject. Why shouldn't a woman feel or think as she pleases, right? Especially if she is no ordinary woman? What business is it of another man, of her husband even? Just because I work for you and support you? A contemptible argument, I am sure you will agree.

"But we can even go further, if you wish. You can't love on demand, that's quite clear. Even I can appreciate that. Either it's there or it isn't—no philosophy can change that. However, if you don't find it in your heart to show some interest, then say so. Because in that case, I will let you go. (I even said that, come what may. I had to know where I stood, once and for all.)