Hausfrau (27 page)

Anna related this story to Doktor Messerli a few days after the second, more successful encounter. Doktor Messerli asked what Anna thought it meant.

Anna said she thought it meant that things were looking up.

A
WEEK AND A
half after the accident Victor went back to school and Bruno returned to the bank. What else could either of them do? Bruno tackled his grief by throwing himself into work. At the bank he was focused, efficient, busy. At home he filled the extra hours with chores and fix-it projects. He painted the basement and replaced the rotting boards in the shed. He bought a dishwasher and installed it. It helped his hands to have something to do.

They had tried making love the night before he went back to the office. It was a failure. Bruno lay behind Anna in their bed and locked his arms around her and pulled her toward his erection. He buried his face in her hair and braced his tottering body against his wife’s beautiful, brittle back and pulsed
gently but with intention into her. “Please, Anna,” he said. “I need you. I need to be with you.” But Anna could not stop crying and that in turn made Bruno cry. He rolled away. Anna shrank into herself. For an hour Bruno stared at the ceiling as if it might move. Eventually they both fell into tandem, fretful sleeps.

Anna stayed mostly in bed. Time froze. The house palled. She hadn’t bothered to ask for a refund for her German class, but she had no intention of returning. It felt pointless, rude to the memory of her son. As if she would have been able to concentrate. Grief consumed every minute. Anna was sick all the time. She ate only broth and toast. She grew thin. On walks she hallucinated birds. Black and erratic, they followed her up and back down the hill. They kept to the margins of her vision but daily the flock grew larger and less peripheral.

Mary volunteered to withdraw from the class as well so that she could come to the Benzes’ every day and take care of Anna and Polly Jean (Monika could not, of course, watch Polly indefinitely). Anna talked Mary out of it, reasoning that whatever Mary learned she could, in turn, teach Anna once she felt better, even though Anna doubted she ever would. And Ursula would be coming over; Anna wouldn’t be alone. Mary accepted this and did as Anna suggested.

When Victor came home from school he’d bring his snack into the living room and mother and son would sit together on the couch and watch television. Neither wanted to talk. Victor regressed. At night he sucked his thumb and once or twice he wet the bed and the programs he watched on TV were much too young for him. They were cartoons that Charles had liked. Silly children’s shows about red tractors or construction men or trains. On the couch Victor would lean tentatively into
Anna as he watched them. Anna would run her fingers lightly through his hair.

He is too timid to ask for comfort,
Anna thought.
He isn’t Charles.

“D
O YOU BELIEVE IN
Hell?” Anna asked.

“What’s this?” Stephen pulled Anna closer. It was a remarkably cold morning in early February. They spooned beneath an eiderdown comforter made for one.

“Oh. Just fire stuff.” Anna smiled as she said it. Her voice was light, relaxed, and happy. It was all she wanted, to be pressed so tightly against him, seamless as the woodwork joinery of a Mennonite table.

Stephen exhaled. “I don’t really think about it.”

“Hell, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“You aren’t religious.”

“Not at all.”

“Your parents?”

Stephen stretched and shivered and checked his watch. It was time to get up. “Grandparents. Greek Orthodox.” He stood and yawned and threw on a pair of sweatpants as quickly as he could.

“You’re Greek?” Anna had never thought to ask about his background.

“Cypriot.”

“Oh.” Anna didn’t have any more immediate questions.

“Say, though …” Stephen turned back to the bed and Anna sat up. “Here’s something about fire you probably don’t know. And since you love these divagations …” He offered
her a perfect replica of the smile he gave her the first time they met.

“Tell me.” Anna loved it when he played along. She batted her eyes and indulged her voice a lilt.

Stephen sat next to her on the edge of the bed. “So, in Jerusalem every Easter, a priest takes a couple of candles into the church they say is built on top of Jesus’s tomb.”

“This is an Orthodox thing?”

Stephen nodded yes as he continued. “He goes down into the crypt alone, says an ancient prayer, and when he comes back up the candles are lit.”

“Okay. What’s the miracle?” Anna gave over to the lecture with attentive, schoolgirl glee.

“Ah. The miracle is he’s frisked before he goes into the church to prove he isn’t hiding matches or a lighter in his robes. The tomb too. They check it. So where does it come from, the fire? That’s the mystery.”

“Where does it come from?”

“What’s said is a blue light appears out of a cloud that itself materializes out of empty air. The light and the cloud kind of dance around each other until they contract into a single, floating column of flame.” Stephen mimed how the elements might come together.

“Who says?”

“The priests. And from this flame he lights his candles.” Anna enjoyed these moderate theatrics. “And then he shares the flame and the people tremble with awe. It’s called Holy Fire. Because it comes from God.” Stephen yawned and stood up again. “So they say.”

Anna was fascinated. “Have you seen it? Do you believe in the miracle?”

“Anna, don’t be daft. There is no miracle. He’s hidden the matches somewhere.”

Anna slouched forward. She’d hoped he would say
Yes, I absolutely believe it.
“But isn’t a blue flame unusual?”

Stephen bent and kissed the back of her neck. “There are a dozen colors of fire. This is trick of light, of atmosphere. Group hysteria.”

“So you don’t believe in Hell?”

“Anna, I don’t even believe in Heaven.”

I
T WAS THE CLOSEST
Anna came to a confession. A week after the funeral, a Saturday morning. Mary had come over as she had done every day since the accident. She brought a casserole, a tin of cinnamon tea cakes, another tin, this one filled with walnut fudge, and a bag of various other treats and snacks she thought either Anna or Bruno or Victor might enjoy. “Mary, this isn’t necessary,” Anna said. She knew she wouldn’t eat a bite of it. Mary waved her off and told her it made her happy to do it.
It’s how she sublimates her pain,
Anna finally realized. Mary put her grief to use. In that way she was as practical as Bruno or Ursula. But Mary had a tenderness they lacked.
Is it because she’s Canadian?
Anna wondered.
No, it is because she’s Mary.

Mary came into the bedroom with mugs of tea and pulled a chair right next to the bed. She told Anna she was there for her. They could talk, or not talk. Mary would listen or they could just share silence. “Whatever you need, Anna.”

Anna lay quietly for several minutes and listened as Mary made neutral, inconsequential conversation about Tim and the kids. She mentioned that she talked to Nancy, who sent love
and wanted Mary to let Anna know that if there was anything she needed, she shouldn’t hesitate to contact her. Anna said thank you; Mary said she’d pass it along. The conversation idled.

“Mary, what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

Mary set her mug on the nightstand and put her elbows on her knees and her chin in her palms like a young girl might and thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I’ve always tried to be respectable. I’m boring like that, I guess,” she dismissed herself.

“No, Mary, you’re good like that.”

Mary blushed. Anna had embarrassed her. “Let me think. Maybe it was the time I …” Mary stopped and rearranged herself in the chair. “Oh, Anna, I don’t want to say! Why do you want to know?”

“It will make me feel better.”

Mary didn’t understand what she meant but did not press her to explain. “Okay, Anna. You want to know? I’ll tell you. But it’s a secret—really, please—you can’t tell anyone.” Anna nodded. “In high school I set fire to the shed behind my volleyball coach’s house.”

“Mary!” Anna didn’t know whether to be impressed or appalled.

Mary backtracked. “It wasn’t just me. The whole team. We all set it on fire. And it was an old, dilapidated shed to begin with, so …”

Anna was dumbstruck. “Why?”

Mary sighed. “The girls on the team, most of us, we’d been very, very mean to this other girl. Absolutely cruel. We spread rumors about her, we let the air out of her bicycle tires, we
told her a boy she had a crush on wanted to date her when he didn’t, we cut her hair …”

“You cut her
hair
?”

Mary nodded shamefully. “Anna, we were awful. But we were trying to be. We wanted to make her miserable. She quit the team. She transferred schools, actually.”

“But why did you do this?”

Mary shrugged. “It was just one of those high school girl decisions that got made randomly and early on. I didn’t make it. I can’t even say I hated her.” Mary hung her head. Anna could tell she’d felt bad about this for years. “I honestly can’t tell you how it happened that she became our enemy.”

“But the shed?”

“Oh. Our coach found out and made us forfeit the season. It ruined our record. We were angry. So one night we snuck onto her property. One girl had the gas can, another had some newspaper. I struck a match and set the whole thing going. Then we ran.”

“And you didn’t get caught? Surely she suspected you …”

Mary shook her head. “We covered our tracks. And we kept our mouths shut. We couldn’t be charged on suspicion alone. There wasn’t any proof.” Anna nodded. “So that’s it. The worst thing I ever did.”

“And you had to think before answering?”

“Well, no. But I try not to dwell on it.”

“What happened after that?”

“Well, after that we got a new volleyball coach. So we got rid of her as well. The next year we won every game we played. Then I graduated.” Mary stopped to think for a second. “Well, maybe
that’s
the worst thing. Running her off. And that poor
girl.” Mary shook her head. “You know I can’t even remember her name.”

“That’s pretty bad.”

“I’ve never told a soul about this, Anna. Not even Tim.”

“Didn’t he go to the same high school?”

Mary nodded her head yes. “Like I said. We didn’t say a word.” Mary exhaled. “We were just so stupid and thoughtless. This girl didn’t deserve the treatment we gave her. And we weren’t terrible ourselves, I don’t think. Just so destructive. One destruction fueled the next one. We weren’t thinking. We should have been. But we weren’t. Can you understand that?”

“Mary, this is all my fault.”

Mary slid to the edge of her chair and reached for Anna’s blanket and smoothed it down and around her body like she did with her children when she tucked them into bed, mothering her. “What is, honey? And of course it isn’t. I’m sure of it.” Anna wasn’t brave enough to continue.

“Anna,” Mary cooed. “You can tell me anything.” Anna believed that yes, she probably could.

But knew without a doubt she wouldn’t.

K
ARL CAME TO THE
house just once after the funeral. He and Bruno and Guido were going to a ZSC Lions game. Bruno wasn’t home from work. Ursula had taken Victor and Polly on a walk. Anna was dressed, but shabbily. Karl knocked a timid knock.

“Hallo, Anna. How are you touching?”

Anna looked both through and past him. He could have guessed how she felt, he didn’t need to ask. But asking was customary. Responding was optional.

“Come in,” Anna said and showed him into the living room. Karl stepped through the hall and into the house. Anna had been watching a game show on television.
5 Gegen 5.
Five against five others. It was a Swiss version of the American program
Family Feud.

Karl wasn’t sure what to do with his hands, so he pushed them as deeply into his jacket pockets as he could and then looked to Anna for a cue. Anna shrugged and motioned him to a chair as she shuffled back to her seat on the couch. They spent the next five complicated minutes pretending that neither had seen the other naked.

Anna hadn’t turned the TV off. One of the teams was made up of members of a Burgdorf yodeling club and the other a women’s floorball team from Winterthur. The question—asked in Schwiizerdütsch—was, as near as Anna could tell, “Name a favorite ice cream flavor.” The top response, chocolate, had already been given. One of the women on the floorball team answered “Strawberry!” It was second to last on the list. Anna stared at the television with bloodshot eyes and wondered whether pistachio was on the board. It wasn’t.

“You must never, never, never tell Bruno.”

Karl nodded. It was solemn and small. Then the two of them sat in stillness. Outside, the sun set so quickly it was almost audible.

I
N THE BACK OF
her notebook, Anna kept a running list of potentially useful German phrases.
Mum’s the word! A thousand thanks! Don’t mention it! Ah, but there’s a catch. No ifs, ands, or buts! Ready, set, GO! Good things come in threes! When in Rome! Do you have a toothpick? An eye for an eye.
By the skin of my teeth. Where is the drugstore? Where are the trains? How are you doing? I’m doing well! I’m great! I’m pretty good! I’m okay. I’m miserable. I am sick. I need help.

I
N A SESSION BEFORE
Charles’s death, Doktor Messerli attempted to instruct Anna in the difference between a reason and an excuse. She split these hairs in an Anna-like way.

“I suppose,” Anna conceded dully. She wasn’t exactly listening.

The Doktor frowned but pressed ahead to make her point. “You’re unhappy? Fine. You have grounds for occasional sorrow. Swiss customs still elude you. Yours is a difficult marriage—all marriages are difficult, Anna, even the good ones—and you have few friends and no pastimes. Your children are young. They’re demanding. All of it is difficult. But,” Doktor Messerli continued, “for every reason you present to justify your sadness, you offer a tandem excuse that serves no purpose other than to prolong your misery. ‘I cannot change the intractable Swiss,’ you whine. ‘There’s nothing I can do to make Bruno more attentive’—Anna, have you tried just simply
asking
him for more attention?—‘I am too shy to make friends,’ ‘Taking care of an infant requires all the energy I have.’ There’s nothing you can do to change your life? That’s the biggest excuse of all.” Anna couldn’t disagree.