The Story of My Wife (15 page)

Dear God, I thought; I'll be lost if I stay on land too long. Let's just go home. Inside a cab, I closed my eyes to escape the darkness within. For I began to sense a strange and profound weariness, which no amount of exertion could produce. But we all know: sweetness devours the soul. Where do I go now? Why home, home, I realized with sudden alarm. And what's waiting for me there? More of the same . . . Puzzles and mysteries, which I will never ever get to solve.

But let me relate anyway what I found at home. A warm room decorated with flowers, which, however, was quite empty. So I knocked on the door of our other room. "Come in," I heard, as always, for entry there was never denied. Once inside, I felt myself surrounded by quiet serenity, the kind you feel in Moorish bathhouses where all you hear is the quiet purl of the spouts. (Here that gurgling was my wife's laughter greeting me.) But that quiet ... it is so basic to life, so much in the world depends on it. A Dutch poet once wrote:

Flowers are for loving

Men for forgetting.

In raiment of white

An island I sight.

I fly there with books . . . etc., etc.

That's how my wife was then. She read even more than before, reclining as a rule on the sofabed. It was as if she really did live on an island, far away from people, in a state of complete repose. And she always had lots of flowers and potted plants about, which made the air somewhat misty; the smell of soil also lingered in the room. If I close my eyes I can still recall this smell, which usually mingled with other, delicately feminine scents and light, fragrant cigarette smoke. All together it used to make me quite heady. It was also dim in that room most of the time—we got little sun, and only in the morning.

"What did you bring me, Papa Bear?" she would ask whenever I got back from town. "A little present maybe? A little something?" And I made believe I didn't bring her anything.

"I have no money," I said despondently. "What could I buy you? We are poor."

"Oh no, what a shame," she replied, "I am sadder than I can say." But her lament sounded so frivolous, a stranger would surely have thought it odd. There was no content to it—almost like the mock cry of a hysteric.

But we kept it up:

"It is a shame, isn't it," I sighed.

"Ah, life is not worth living," she moaned.

We both gave way to grief, and were quite, quite miserable. I sat on the trunk and grieved there, while my wife, bent on hiding her tears, turned to the wall and covered her eyes. But only one of them, with the other she peeked and laughed. . . . My pockets of course were filled with presents, and she knew this, and was dying to find out what they were. For that's what that woman lived for in those days, those little pleasures and surprises. But right now she restrained herself.

"Your pocket is torn, let me see it," she said at last, but by now she trembled with curiosity, with desire.

"You'll mend it some other time, leave it, my sweet."

Thus we tormented each other thus, with all manner of sweetness, until we could stand it no longer. I should also mention that we didn't even use intelligible language, as would be expected of grownup people. We gave words our own meaning. My wife would say, "Give me a kiwi fruit," and I was supposed to know that she wanted to be kissed. She called her slippers dunderheads, and me she called Captain Liverpool for some reason. I remember we had an argument over this. "I know perfectly well what you're hinting at," I said to her, cool and collected, though I knew perfectly well she wasn't hinting at anything. This went on for a while: I was reasonable, she was uppity; I was earnest, she was sarcastic. At one point, though, I lost my composure.

"I will not stand for such insinuations," I said furiously, and brought down my fist on the table, which promptly cracked.

God Almighty, if Alexander Kodor would have seen me now. Me, a seasoned, tempest-tossed veteran. These are your great feats, he would have said most certainly. A sea captain reduced to breaking table tops.

One day I was making coffee. Enveloped by the silence of late afternoon, I felt pleasant vibrations all around, and then the even richer emanations of the aromatic espresso. Such moments almost put you in a poetic frame of mind. But then she came through the door in her rain coat.

"There is a storm out there," she said, quite indignant.

"You don't say. My goodness."

"And my heart, my heart is aching, too."

"Come then, we'll take care of it."

"You will, really? But my hair hurts, too," she said gently.

"Oh no, that too. My poor darling, my sad little pet." And I embraced her.

"Tell me more, what else is the matter?"

"You know what?" she whispered. "Growl a little."

"Again?"

"Yes, I want you to growl." Just to please her, I set about growling and since I was an old hand at it, I growled ever more raucously, like a wild beast gargling. Then she said:

"Oh Mr. Lion, how do you do?" and she curtsied sweetly. But she turned pale too; I think I scared her a little.

"This is such a dreadful city," she said all of a sudden.

"Why is that?"

"I am just afraid I will die here."

Why should she be afraid of dying in London? It wouldn't hurt to look into that. . .

One day I came home and found her sleeping. She woke up with these words: "I slept under a cloud." That told me a lot. She was feeling low from time to time, apparently. But why, over what? I didn't ask; I didn't pry.

Why should I have? Why brood and worry when the games we were playing were so intriguing, so delicious?

For instance I would wrap a scarf around my head like a turban—I was sent to the corner just then as a Persian soldier. And I had to sit there with my legs crossed, and not budge, for I was the guard. Imagine now the total silence. "Where is my mirror? Where is my apron?" she'd ask, but there would be no answer. Then, wearing nothing but black silken knickers, she would start preening and strutting, displaying herself like some oriental courtesan. I once saw two women who, not knowing they were being watched, bared themselves to each other. That's how she was now, putting a hood over her head, shrouding herself, then stripping before her mirror, as if she had the room all to herself. Then she called out: "Mazud, oh Mazud," and clapped her hands. That was me. But I was supposed to sit absolutely still and ask: "Is your husband at home?" And ogle her shamelessly.

"No, he is not," she crooned.

"We are all alone then?"

Whereupon she lit into me: "You stay where you are. What got into you anyway? Listen, you disgusting creature, I will not cheat on my husband ... on such a fine, decent man . . . You pudgy servant, you . . ." And she was quite outraged.

Pudgy eh? I'd had enough. Leaping to my feet I yelled "Mutiny!" And then, darkly: "Enough of this comedy."

Ah, but what all this led to . . . What voluptuous pleasures, what renewals; and more than once, what unsurpassable raptures. By the time darkness descended, we didn't dare look at each other; huddling in our corners, we wrapped ourselves in blankets and fell asleep, distant, forlorn, like two black heaps on a field of ice.

At other times the first light of dawn found her by the foot of my bed, with her hand on her side, shaking with laughter.

"Please don't make me laugh," she begged. I had been telling her risque little anecdotes about men who were hopelessly clumsy in lovemaking.

"Somebody ought to write a Casanova story in reverse," I said.

Not that that was what I was doing. I was talking about myself, of course, twisting things a little, to make me look even more ridiculous. Let the precious woman have some fun. Let her remember what an oaf her husband used to be . . . How many times it happend that women kept caressing my foot under the table, and I still thought it was an accident . . . Now I was telling her about the peasant woman who asked me to pull out my rabbit.

"What did she want to see?"

"My rabbit. Of course I didn't know what she meant. Where was I going to get her a rabbit?"

"Don't go on, please," purred my wife. But I couldn't be stopped. I told her now about the time, long long ago, when I gave violin lessons. (Yes, yes, I even did that.) I wasn't very good at the violin, but where we lived in the provinces it didn't much matter. My student's mother happened to be a splendid woman, grand in spirit, and in body too. Whereas I was young and unusually skinny. I was too scared to even look at her, though she did tickle my fancy, as can be imagined. One day she sent word that she wished to discuss her son's progress with me.

Well, I was open to discussion. It was early spring, I remember; the apartment was flooded with light. I pulled on my necktie several times before opening her door. Once inside, however, I was shocked beyond words. For my student's high-minded mother received me in bed, submerged in downy softness.

"What are you doing to me?" squealed my wife once again, in vain, for I went on, undetered.

"I sat down in a chair, though just barely (you always leave a little space behind you at such times, just in case). I was going to regale her with everything I knew, and even what I didn't, about education and childrearing and such, and thought of including my thoughts on metempsychosis, too, when I noticed that this beautiful lady pulled her leg, nice and easy, from under the fluffy featherbed. What could this mean? I wondered. And even thought of the French Revolution—maybe she was a freethinker or something. She stuck out her leg
all
the way, you see, not just halfway, and her leg was stunningly white . . ."

"Oh, look, for heaven's sake, it's getting light," my wife said in a plaintive voice, and pointed toward the silent windows. The sun was indeed coming up, emerging gold and bright from the mist . . . And a beautiful sight it was . . .

But let's stop here for a moment. I was so overwhelmed by what happened that night, I thought I was ready to face the music. We had raged all night long like jungle beasts, ravished each other with our teeth . . . And then that bewitching laugh, and the dawn that followed . . . Can one take more? You have quite a lover, I said to myself; won't she do? And this night, wasn't it enough? But what I really would have liked to do was whisper in her ear:

I have another lover, you know. Yes, for once I have one too, and even more beautiful than you. And do you know who my other lover is. . . ?

Ah, what a thrill it would have been to tell her.

* * *

She wasn't even my lover.

It's true, we kissed now and then, in cemeteries, on country roads . . . just like in Paris that first night, in the famous Montmartre cemetery.

"No, you mustn't, Micislav, you mustn't, for pity's sake," she said every time, with an imploring look in her eyes. But I didn't care; all I ever wanted to do now is kiss. Another time she said:

"Oh, what am I doing here, Micislav? I must be mad." To which I replied:

"It's an irresistible force, my dear." (She herself told me one time: "Love, Micislav, is an irresistible force.")

"But is that what it is to you?" she now asked. "Tell me. Look into my eyes. Do you love me at all. . . ? No, you don't," she said abruptly and walked away. I ran after her and gave her a song and dance about how much I adored her . . .

I didn't, of course. I loved no one. No one. And I reached this conclusion with a light heart, I was proud of myself, in fact.

Actually, I discovered a wonderful way out: it's what people call sensuality. . . . Why take these women seriously? For, instance: does she love me, does my little sweetheart really love me? Then why does she call me Micislav? Whenever I thought about it, I had to laugh. It was all a game. The young lady was having fun at my expense. In the meantime, though, kissing her was very nice.

One day I decided I was going to divorce my wife and marry the other one. It all came about so fast, I was quite surprised myself. Here's how it happened:

I had a date with her and was late (not the first time, either). When I arrived she came running toward me.

"Are you all right, are you all right?" she sobbed, and in front of all the passers-by threw herself into my arms. Actually, though there was quite a crowd (we were in a suburban railroad station), the people didn't really notice us. They seemed preoccupied with their own concerns and appeared quite sullen. There was one old lady, however, who seemed to approve. She kept staring at us, and while her demeanor was grave, too, she twice nodded her head, apparently thinking we were husband and wife and very much in love. . . . Not knowing what to make of the whole thing, I was somewhat embarrassed.

But not ashamed. If anything, I was proud of this "wife," this slender young thing with airy footsteps . . . Who would have believed that such a girl would reward me with her love—
me,
who was way past his prime. Up until that moment I couldn't imagine such a thing. But when I heard her say, "Are you all right?" and felt her quickening heartbeat, something stirred in my heart, too.

But back to the incident. She had all kinds of premonitions that day, she told me. The night before she had a dream in which she was leaning out of a window and crying. That was the extent of it, but she was terrified all the same, because it was me she was crying over. In the morning she was in a great hurry to see me, fearing all the while that she might be too late. Just as she got to the railroad station, she saw a crowd of people; they were taking a man away. Something had fallen on him from a scaffolding and he died. They had shouted after him not to go that way, but apparently he didn't hear, he was absorbed in his thoughts . . .

"And you are the same way," she scolded me. "You never listen, you're never careful. And trouble can strike so fast ... It doesn't take much."

Of course she tried to find out right away who the victim was. Somebody from Copenhagen, they told her: a Dane. In other words, her suspicions were confirmed. For in her confusion she thought I was from Copenhagen. She may have acted very silly, but she
was
terrified. And no wonder: She even asked if the victim was a large man, and they said he was. She just stood there on the sidewalk, weeping. At worst, I'll die, too, she decided.