Maladaptive stress reaction.
That’s the diagnosis my wife received in connection with what happened to her when she was young. She must have explained to me what it meant, but I remember very little from that part of the conversation. There was so much else that demanded attention, so much to absorb all at once. As far as the medical condition was concerned, I actually only managed to grasp that it consisted of a disproportionately strong reaction—in terms of emotions and behavior—to a specific event.
Finally eight or nine months ago, my wife revealed the whole thing to me, describing her reaction and her actions at that time. She was finally ready to confide in me, she said. She didn’t cry as she talked. Her voice was calm and contrasted sharply to the violence contained in her words. I wish I could say that I handled it well. I wish that I could say that what she told me hadn’t affected my view of her.
We were lying in bed, and I felt the nausea rising in me. I patted her clumsily on the head and then excused myself, saying that I must have eaten something that wasn’t sitting well. I said that she shouldn’t move from that spot, that I would be right back and would hold her again. Then I raced to the bathroom and threw up. My legs were shaking, and I couldn’t stand up. Every time I tried, I was overcome by dizziness. When I eventually returned to the bedroom, she was lying still, with her eyes closed and her tangled hair spread over the pillow. She had fallen asleep. I’m ashamed to say this, but I was relieved. It meant I wouldn’t need to say anything more to her that night. I wouldn’t need to collect myself and make assurances and comfort her. I couldn’t have pulled that off.
During the weeks and months that followed, she proceeded as if nothing had changed, as if she were the same, as if I were expected to think and believe that. Instead it felt like she had slipped out of my hands or that I had drifted away and was seeing her through new eyes, from a distance. I grew increasingly unsure of who she actually was. Had I ever known?
She had her plans—the plans that had recently been ours together—and she talked about the future more than ever. Every time she did, the ground shook beneath my feet. It wasn’t just her that I was unsure of. Who was I, I who had married someone I knew so little about? How could I trust my own judgment again after having so seriously misjudged someone I loved?
Loved? Love?
I don’t know, I wanted to scream. I don’t know. I don’t know. What I had taken for granted was gone. There was no longer any fixed point to rely on. I was tossed around, back and forth, and had nothing to hold on to. Nothing and no one. Until Anna captivated me.
Anna. I know what I’m doing with her is wrong. The secret conversations and messages, the clandestine meetings. The trips that are getting longer and longer and more frequent and that are no longer business trips but something else—a flight from home, a chance to meet Anna in a strange city and spend time outside the closed rooms we are usually obliged to remain in.
From the beginning, those moments with Anna gave me space to breathe, a way out of what was squeezing my rib cage and screaming in my ears, but now… It can’t continue like this. I owe us all the truth. I’ve decided. I’m going to tell my wife about my confusion and my doubt. I’ll be honest about how I’ve been feeling since her revelation, and I’ll tell her about Anna. There quite simply isn’t any other alternative. It’s make or break.
Tonight.
My heart is pounding, pounding and throbbing. Tonight’s the night.
16
The night she found out, she’d made his favorite meal and set the table using the best china. She had dressed up even though they were just eating at home. She left her hair down, over her shoulders, because she knew he liked that. Then he came home, helped himself to the lamb and the potato casserole, and said that he appreciated her efforts.
She had time to think that tonight was the turning point. As of right now, everything would be better. There’s nothing to worry about, she thought. He loves me.
Then the blow came. He told her about the woman he was seeing, the woman he was cheating on her with. Life was dislocated, and she disappeared into herself just as she had done one time before.
Days and nights followed when she didn’t get out of bed at all. Dark, pounding hours when she couldn’t absorb what had happened. But then, finally, the truth forced its way in under her skin, searing into her flesh. The extent of the betrayal was clear. As were the parallels to the past. Everything was still in her, everything.
But even though he must have realized how much he’d hurt her, he didn’t show any remorse, didn’t ask for forgiveness.
Sharp thorns penetrated, poking holes into old wounds, and outran something stinky and viscous. A black sludge filled her cells and veins. It took over, became one with her. She didn’t feel hatred. She was hatred.
Her husband, who said he loved her, who had lulled her into a sense of security and made her deliver herself into his hands. Her husband, who had promised to love her until death do them part.
That husband.
Suddenly she knew, with a conviction that cut through everything else, that whatever happened from now on, under no circumstances could she allow him to keep on living as if nothing had happened.
She couldn’t allow him to live at all.
17
Since Leo went home, I’ve felt increasingly wound up. Something is on the move inside me. Some sort of change is either coming or has already occurred. After having wandered around as if in a trance for the last month, empty and indifferent, it’s like I’m waking up. Thoughts and feelings that remained at a distance before now rise to the surface and unsettle me. I get nothing done, but the hours somehow pass anyway.
When evening comes, Veronica shows up in the kitchen and starts cooking. For once her hair isn’t up in her characteristic high ponytail but is down over her shoulders. She’s wearing a dark-red sleeveless dress, and her lips are painted a similar color. She’s always elegant, but tonight she appears to have taken it to a new level. I imagine that the Storm family is expecting visitors, but in the end, Philip is the only one who has dinner with Veronica. There’s no sign of Leo, but his words still echo in the back of my mind, from his story about the purse being thrown over the bridge railing into the dark eddies below: There are worse things I could tell you—much worse.
Veronica opens the oven door and takes out a casserole dish that she places on the table. While Philip helps himself to the food, she pours wine into their glasses. The atmosphere seems romantic—the best possible conditions—and yet something goes wrong. It happens so fast. One moment they’re sitting there eating and talking, and the next Veronica bursts into tears. True, I can’t see her tears, but there’s no mistaking her body language. Her hands alternately wipe her nose and eyes. At first Philip sits perfectly still and stares at his wife. Then he turns his chair toward her and awkwardly puts his arm around her shoulders. She shakes him off, hastily gets up from the table, and runs out of the room. She doesn’t come back. Philip is left alone. He sits there twisting his napkin in his hands.
And in the darkness in the house across from theirs, I sit with my light off, a shadow among shadows. What I just witnessed actually wasn’t all that surprising, a normal dinner. A normal marital argument. But my sense is otherwise. It feels as if I’m onto something, something unpleasant, something frightening. I blink, and then there’s that black fire in Veronica’s eyes as she watches Philip walking away, the rage or hatred or whatever it is that he doesn’t turn around and discover. Maybe he suspects it, though.