Necessary Lies(25)
K?the opened the door wearing a grey dress. Her only piece of jewellery was a golden chain with a small crucifix. They talked for a while, an innocent talk of the winter, the chill of the northerly winds, the slippery pavements, a city forgetful of its pedestrians.
There was a routine to their visits and this was not an exception, in spite of the musical box wrapped in golden wrap, and a card with best wishes of happiness and peace. They brought a cake from the Patisserie Beige in Outrement and a box of Belgian chocolates. K?the cooked dinner. At that time her arthritis did not bother her that much. The movements of her hands were still quick and precise. Like William’s, Anna thought, but of course never said it. The table was set for three, with K?the’s embroidered tablecloth, white damask roses on white linen, the wineglasses enamelled with grapes and vine leaves. The whole apartment smelled of garlic and parsley. And something else. Marjoram.
“Sit down,” K?the said. “Before it all gets cold.”
“Doesn’t she mind living alone?” she kept asking William. “Shouldn’t we ask her to move in with us?” She thought of Babcia who came to live with her parents the day Dziadek died. But William only laughed.
“Of course not. She lives her own life. I told you she doesn’t need anyone else.” He was right, Anna thought, in a way. K?the had her own friends, former nurses like her. At the time when she was less fragile, they went out to concerts, for walks. William recalled the times of her treks to the Rockies, to the Sierra Mountains, to the Grand Canyon, but Anna only saw pictures of these trips, K?the in shorts and sweatshirt, knee-high woollen socks, a green knapsack on her back, leaning on a walking stick. Behind her were the mountains, the canyons, the springs.
Later, when her arthritis made hiking impossible, K?the’s friends came to play bridge with her, leaving behind them full ashtrays and greasy aluminium trays from store-bought hors-d’oeuvres. “Buy and lie,” they called them. Alice Woolth, Bernice Camden, Vicki Norton. Old, wrinkled women, sitting around K?the’s dining room table, smoking, remembering old patients. The woman who called Bernice at four thirty in the morning asking for the result of her pregnancy test from two months before. The man who looked up at Alice as she was wheeling him down the hall to surgery and asked if those three little donuts counted as food.
“Open it, Mother,” William urged her. K?the unwrapped the golden wrap carefully, folding it, putting it away for later. “Come on, play it,” he said and she did, listening to the chiming notes of the Viennese waltz as if it were a funeral dirge. These were William’s words, said to Anna after they had left, for at the time she thought he was hiding his disappointment so well, navigating the conversation past the usual points of no return.
The first signs of trouble came soon enough. “Have you talked to Julchen?” K?the asked, and Anna stopped eating, waiting for William’s reply.
“No, I haven’t heard from her for a while,” he said, and she relaxed for his voice was still normal, still ready to take this question as an innocent inquiry about a granddaughter, nothing else.
“You haven’t?” K?the asked, her voice raising slightly, the first sign of a reproach she was still trying to cover. She hurried to the kitchen from which she emerged with a bottle of soya sauce, even though no one asked for it. William shot Anna a telling look, “See,” he seemed to be saying, “I told you.” But Anna averted her eyes. She was not going to encourage him.
“So what have you been up to, Mother?” William asked when K?the sat down again. There was this false cheerfulness in his voice, the cheerfulness Anna did not like. It was a sign that he had been hurt and was now putting on a face.
“You should try to see her more often, Willi,” K?the said. “I’m not going to interfere in your affairs, but a child is a child. You have to call her. She needs guidance, nein? Ya, ya, you will do whatever you want, you always did.”
“Lovely soup, Mother,” William said, and Anna nodded. “Yes, excellent.” On white china plates the broth looked pale, but it was strong and fragrant with herbs.
K?the gave William a stern look as if he were still a little boy learning his lessons. A fork in the wrong hand, a drop of wine staining the tablecloth were no mere slips; they justified her suspicions that there was more at stake. His character, his entire life.
When they had finished the soup, Anna picked up the plates and carried them to the kitchen. From there, she could hear K?the’s voice asking William what used to be so important that he had to leave Marilyn and Julia for months. “Your wife and child,” she said. Wasn’t he aware how hard it was for a woman to raise a child alone?
“Anna is my wife,” she heard him say. “I don’t want to talk about Marilyn.”
When Anna came back into the dining room William gave her a telling look. “See” it said. “I am trying.” He uncorked the bottle slowly, poured a small amount of wine into his glass to taste it and then filled the other two. Anna stared at her glass. The pink enamelled grapes on green stems seemed to quiver every time the table moved.
“To what shall we drink?” he asked. “Family love?”
K?the took a small sip from her glass. William drank almost half of the wine, as if it were water, and Anna was tempted to do the same.
The pork roast with steamed white cabbage was an excuse for silence. Anna chewed on the meat, poured more sauce on the potatoes, praising the taste of wild mushrooms, the touch of coriander in the steamed cabbage. Then would come the cake, Anna thought, a cup of tea, and they could say good bye for at least another week. But that was not to be.