Dorothea got home just as his visitor was about to leave.
“Have you ever stopped to consider”—setting Robert back on his heels—“how long you’d have to work for that kind of money? Six years, seven years.” She wouldn’t look at him, not even when she was speaking, and tugged the collar of her bathrobe tight, as if she were freezing. “Two hundred thousand, a two and five zeros, we’ve never discussed that, never.”
He could feel his eyes twitching, but he didn’t reply. He knew that — even if he was a blockhead — knew it only too well.
“I thought you guys had finally figured out how it works,” she said. “But you don’t have a clue.”
He looked up. Dorothea was bracing herself with one shoulder against the wall.
“You know …” Her head was swaying as if to some melody. Robert had seen her drunk only once before, before the boys were born. The whole way home she had sobbed and kept kicking at him. He had to drag her along behind him, like a stubborn dog. They hadn’t encountered anyone else. If he had left her on her own, she might have frozen to death. She shouldn’t ever forget that. She often came home late, sometimes very late. But the next morning, in the kitchen, everything was fine again.
“You know …” She let go of her bathrobe, edged her way along the wall to the door, and staggered out.
He followed her to the hall. The toilet door banged shut, the light went on, the toilet seat clattered against the water pipe. She retched and immediately flushed.
It was like a scene in a sitcom, when people suddenly appear, make some remark, and vanish again, leaving the others staring helplessly at one another to the sound of a laugh track.
He could hear her again now. She hadn’t locked the door behind her.
He paid no attention to Dorothea’s shriek or to the hand that waved him off, trying to shoo him away. She had to know that sort of thing wouldn’t work with him. He pushed her aside just a little, grabbed her left hand, and pressed against her hips. She bent down over the toilet bowl again, retched, coughed, spat. He held her forehead with his right hand. Her bathrobe was wide open, its long belt now brushing his toes. A thread of saliva dangled into the toilet bowl, where brownish yellow phlegm was floating.
He spoke calm, yes, comforting words to her, while she plucked at the thread of saliva as if it were a harp string. He raised her forehead a little and pulled the toilet chain. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Just take it easy, Doro, nice and easy.”
Gradually the world settled back into place. If he had to he could hold out till tomorrow morning, no question of that. As long as he felt her forehead resting in his hand nothing bad could happen.
Actually things had turned out just as they should have. His decision was final. He had done everything right. He felt like that ship on the blue waves, its sail to the wind. And even this high-proof stuff, this ill-considered gift, had served a function. How could they otherwise have made it through till tomorrow without brandy, without Dorothea’s forehead in his hand? He was grateful to him, to the fellow with the shiny skull, truly grateful.
Robert now knew how he would get Dorothea through the evening, through the night, no matter what she might have to say.
Once this part was over, he didn’t dare forget to turn off the CD player. Then he could check the CD he had played last, and remember the name of the composer. The alarm clock was set. He let Dorothea go on and on.
With his left hand he brushed the hair from the nape of her neck. That had to feel like a caress. Except she could no longer stay on her feet. Her forehead was damp and warm. Or was that his hand? He pushed in closer, so that he could prop his elbows against his ribs. He would make it through this. He just wanted to switch sides, hold her forehead in his other hand. “You’ve got to bring it all up,” he interrupted. “All of it.” Why wouldn’t she finally just shut up?
It turned out to be no more than a twist of his left wrist, just like a familiar gesture of Dorothea’s when she would tuck up her hair. For a moment he sensed the full weight of her head. His right arm dangled there as if it had fallen asleep.
Robert surprised himself with the deftness of his move, as if he had practiced it. He could feel that crumb of bread between his fingers. Her hair wrapped around his hand was wonderfully soft. He pulled Dorothea’s head back farther and farther. Her face was now directly below his. They stared at each other, watching each other, until he realized that it was too late, that he could no longer simply let go. And so, when she closed her eyes for a moment, he saw no way out except to kiss her open mouth.
Milva, When She Was Still Quite Young
To this day I don’t know what I should make of it. Was it a catastrophe? No big deal? Or merely something a little unusual? For me the worst part was those few minutes immediately afterward, that half hour in the car with Harry and Reiner. Harry was driving fast, though the dust kicked up by the redhead in the VW Passat still hung like fog over the country lane. “Gonna be fun,” Harry kept muttering. “Gonna be great fun.” The windshield wipers went on and water spurted up. Reiner — a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, the crushed pack still in his left hand — was clutching the grip above the door. A stone banged against the undercarriage. I could taste the dust on my tongue.
Before we picked up our wives in Perugia we had to get the story we were going to tell them straight. Even though we ourselves didn’t really understand what role the redhead had played. Was she the guy’s girlfriend, fiancée, a prostitute? Or a sharp-witted wife or daughter or, as Reiner suddenly claimed, a killer, whose plans we had just screwed up — or had we done her a favor?
Without even braking, Harry turned onto the road to Città della Pieve. Should we try to make it back over the border today, or would making it to another region suffice? Or was it totally unnecessary for us to take any special precautions?
Harry and Reiner were arguing. I interrupted them just once to say that it was an absurd idea to try to hide our VW Sharan or let it roll down a slope somewhere — in the valley to our left was the autostrada from Orvieto to Rome. Harry told me not to get involved. “You don’t have to worry your little head, not you, you’re free and clear, you restrained yourself oh so nobly.” As he said it he glanced briefly in the rearview mirror.
My one big worry was that sooner or later my wife, Doreen, would figure things out, no matter what sort of story we dished up.
Until that day I had lied to Doreen more out of laziness, and not because I had ever had anything to hide. But for her there’s nothing worse than a lie. That’s why I wanted us to tell the truth, simply tell how it had all come about.
“Go right ahead, just say what happened!” Harry exclaimed. “Explain that to them.”
I was sitting behind Harry and Reiner and had visions of having to move out, of all the thousand chores, all the running around to be done. Although over the last few years things had actually become easier, it was costing more and more effort to deal with the details of an orderly life. That’s what I was thinking about, and how risky it was to be having such thoughts now.
Reiner and Sabine, Harry and Cynthia — we used to camp out together on the shores of the Baltic, later then on Lake Balaton and, when that got too expensive, in the Tatras. Over the last few years we had all moved several times. Harry and Cynthia had even spent two years in Holland. None of us was still working their old jobs. We called one another on birthdays.
I no longer know which of us came up with the idea of Italy, of Umbria. Two years after the earthquake of ’97, there were still bargain-basement prices, and the photos of vacation houses were a promise of paradise.