When I came back from the war, I was nothing to look at, nothing to consider, nothing to be. Magda thought she recognized me at first-I looked the same and spoke the same-but soon she knew better. All I would do was sit on the sofa and ask for water. She always brought it, but there wasn’t anything else I wanted. There had been a week in the trenches when we did not have fresh water, and in the middle of a dry field, pinned in by mortar fire and explosions puncturing the sky, we thought we’d die the way sailors once died-scurvy, salt water on the brain. What was she to think? She offered what she thought I wanted. Hot meals, a warm woman. But all I wanted was fresh water. Finally, she talked me into sex. It was a revelation. Beyond water there really was something. There was flesh and warmth and that tremor of the glands that I hadn’t thought of since I’d seen glands and flesh exploded by German mines, and the glands and flesh of my parents when I imagined their small house obliterated by that German bomb. My emotions were suddenly in reach after so long; I felt human again.
We had dinner with brief moments of conversation. Agnes wanted a bicycle, which I at first said we could not afford; then, as she pressed, I told her I’d see what I could find. Magda was melancholic, but not the way I’d expect from someone who had just seen her lover buried in the earth. How well did I know her? Perhaps I had lost track of her in the provinces, just before we moved to the Capital, when she cared for me like a nurse. Perhaps she began hiding hard facts from me then, beginning with her night with Stefan, and had steadily built her own, secret world.
The idea of Magda’s leaving had come to me on and off over the years. Married people do this. In a small part of their minds hides a secret world of independence, and in that parallel world there are other companions. Some beautiful, some less so, and for a while it seems these others are more or less the same as the one that you have, in the real world, devoted your life to. How different are the breakfasts and dinners, the weekends in the country, the lovemaking, the conversations? Not so different, in the end.
But when troubles begin, this secret world grows. It is visible on the horizon. It takes roots in reality. I thought about the other women I knew. Vera, sure. Seductive and strong. There was something there. Roberta, a stenographer who visited the office now and then, had been single for the last five years-I imagined how her famished and ample body would be in bed. She would have the virtue of gratefulness. I even wondered about the bodiless voice from the Militia radio: Regina Haliniak. There were others whose names I didn’t know, women on the street who held my gaze for a few seconds longer than polite-and within the brackets of these flirtations a new future presented itself.
This is the first stage, the hopeful stage. Promiscuous fantasies without the burden of responsibility. When I thought of Agnes, I ignored the unavoidable custody worries. Although she seldom appeared in my fantasy life, it was granted that Agnes was with me, waiting at home.
In this first stage, divorce seemed survivable, maybe even a little invigorating-the building of a new life always is. But then it approached from the horizon, moved close enough that I could make out its barren details. The second stage is knowledge. While sleeping with other women had its virtues, I couldn’t imagine what would follow.
What had we to say to each other? I couldn’t eat breakfast with these women, and the thought of taking a weekend trip with any of them was unbearable.
I realized then what I’d always known: Magda was in every action I took and shadowed every thought. A life without her was no life at all.
When Agnes asked me to pass the salt, I had been staring blindly at her for a while. “You all right, Daddy?”
“Fine, honey.”
“You don’t look so good.”
“It’s been a hard day.”
Magda looked questioningly at me, and I smiled and shook my head. “I’m going to have to take off after dinner. I’ve got something to do.”
“Will we see you again tonight?”
“Yes,” I said, then repeated it. “Yes.”
54
I parked on the dark, empty street outside her block and went over the words in my head. I took a breath, wiped my face, and got out.
She wore slacks and a white blouse that hung loose and transparent over her breast. She wore a smile as well. “Ferenc, I didn’t think you’d come. Give me that coat.”
I gave it to her and watched her take it through the kitchen to the bedroom to toss it on the bed. She noticed my hesitation when we kissed.
“I was going to whip up something to eat. You hungry?”
“I just ate.”
“Then I’ll wait.”
I sat on the sofa. She stood in front of me a moment, then straddled my knees. “Tell me, Ferenc.”
“Yes, we should talk.” I moved her off of my knees-she was light, easy to lift-and onto the cushion beside me.
Frowning, she left a hand on my thigh.
“It’s over. From this moment. It’s over.”
“Us?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Look: I have to make things work with Magda. It’s what I have to do.”
Vera looked at her hand on my leg, then began to stroke. “You don’t have fun with me?”
“That’s not it.”
“You don’t like what we do?”
“You know I like it.”
“Well then,” she said. “You keep working on Magda, and at the same time keep working on me.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Sure it is. I do it all the time, and I can tell you how easy it is.”
I took her hand from my leg and put it on her own, but her other hand fell upon mine and pressed it to her thigh.
“Listen, Ferenc.”
“I can’t listen.”
She drew my hand up into her groin, and though I could have resisted, I didn’t.
“I should go now.”
“Don’t be a bastard,” she said, but her voice was soft. She put her free hand on my crotch. “She won’t do the things I’ll do, you know this.”
As she massaged me, she leaned up to my ear and whispered what she would do. I looked at her, momentarily shocked, then easing into it. But the fears of a life of regret flashed back, and I took her hand off me. “I really should go.”
“You know what your problem is?”
I should have stood up and left. But I said, “Let’s pretend I don’t know.”
“Simplicity.”
“Thanks for the insight.”
She shook her head. “It’s true. You’re desperate for simplicity. It’s why you’ve held on so long to a dead marriage. You want to think you understand everything, but you’ll never understand yourself until you accept your contradictions.”
I stood up, but didn’t walk away.
She said, “You need to learn that specific actions do not yield specific results. Just because you’re good to your marriage doesn’t mean it’ll be good to you.” She grabbed my arm, but I pulled it away.
“You don’t get it,” I said. “It’s…it has to do with Stefan. With my daughter, with everything.”
She pulled her lips back and showed me her teeth.
