together.”
“You don’t have to tel me, Dana. I never expected or wanted you to be alone. I was hoping you’d nd someone. I slept with someone while we were married, you know.”
“What?”
“Remember at that rst place I worked? The other woman who quit when I quit—I had sex with her a few times in the o ce, after hours, and also once at our place, when she did the wal painting in the kitchen.”
I heard the words, they were very bumpy, like a bumpy wagon ride, but I was having trouble understanding them.
“I didn’t do it to hurt you. It was the rst year of our marriage, and I wasn’t used to monogamy. She came on to me, and I gave in. And then I decided it wasn’t worth the guilt and also it wasn’t worth how you’d feel if you found out.”
“How long did it go on for?”
“Just two or three weeks, I don’t remember exactly. I didn’t have any feelings toward her—maybe I just wanted to feel like a macho stud.
Maybe I was at ered by her desire. Maybe I was afraid of how much I loved you and I wanted to cheat on you before you cheated on me.
Maybe I was just a jerk.”
“Does that time with the feet have anything to do with that?”
“Feet?”
“I once kissed your feet, and you got very upset and left the house.”
“Oh yes …I’d forgot en al about that. Yes. I suddenly had an at ack of unbearable guilt.”
“That was the only time?”
“Yes.”
“How did it end?”
“We both left the firm, and she got a job in another part of the country. But I wouldn’t have continued with her anyhow.”
“She was in love with you. She put your initials al over the painting.”
“When did you notice that?”
“Only recently—someone came to visit, another activist, and he pointed it out.”
“I was very angry with her for doing that. She ruined that room for me.”
“Is that why we never ate in the kitchen?”
“Yes.”
“That hurts me. Even after al this time, it hurts. Was she very beautiful?”
“No, she was very, very ugly. She had a mustache and hair on her back and warts on her chin, and she smel ed of old cheese.”
“Tel me.”
“We’re just human, Dana. That means we’re fucked up and we mess up. It means we do stupid and insane things. I don’t think anyone studying the human species would believe the things we do. Maybe you expect too much of people, and also of yourself.”
“I don’t think I expect too much. If you knew what the characters in my novels expect, that would give you perspective.”
“I had to leave because I couldn’t bear to lose you.”
“But what did you think when you saw al those ads I put in the newspaper?”
“I told you, I thought you felt sorry for me and that you felt a sense of duty. You always had a sense of duty.”
“A sense of duty! Yes, toward my country, toward my country’s victims. But do you think I’d make personal decisions based on a sense of duty? How could you have so lit le trust in me?”
“You know trust was never my strong point.”
“We’re such opposites in some ways. I believed you loved me right from the word go, even though you never said it. I just felt it from the way you looked at me and ran your ngers through my hair, and made jokes about me. And you—you didn’t believe it even though I let you know every way I could.”
“Yes, it’s true. You let me know.”
“I was very loved as a child. I guess it wasn’t hard for me to believe that you adored me, too. Your parents were a lot tougher with you.
They’re tough people, like everyone in this country. My parents were imports, they never fit in.”
“I don’t know what to feel.”
“You made a mistake, Daniel. A very sad mistake, one which caused everyone a lot of pain. Touch me.”
“Your skin was always as smooth as silk.”
