Necessary Lies(36)
In William’s study, books take up the whole wall. These are mostly hardcover; he hated cheap editions that would fall apart before he finished reading them.
“I hate jealousy,” he kept telling her. “It’s not the way to live.” How convenient, she tells him now. How very convenient for you. I hate to be lied to, does this matter?
She starts by opening the desk drawers, one by one, yanking the papers out. She holds the white sheets to the window as if they could contain some hidden marks, some traces of invisible ink. Why would Ursula be the only one? Why not other women? Students? Colleagues? Friends? She looks for hiding places, empties each file. She opens books, upsets the even rows on the shelves, leafs through the pages in search of evidence. When she finds a folded sheet, she pounces on it, heart fluttering. On one there are a few musical notes. On another Julia’s childhood drawings of giant smiling heads on spidery legs, with arms sprouting from the ears. The books land on the carpet, one by one, and when she walks back to the desk she trips over them.
She has found a whole stack of last year’s birthday cards, Happy 50th Birthday, Many Happy Returns of the Day. She is surprised William kept them. She had needed to hoard keepsakes, theatre programs, tickets, old calendars. Stash them away “like a hamster” he laughed, but now even this discovery hurts. What else did he keep away from her? She deciphers all the signatures. Malcolm, Jerry Dryden, Leanore. Old friends, everyone beyond suspicion. “Support the arts, kiss a musician,” Malcolm’s card says, letters dancing over a figure of a bass player, surrounded by floating notes. No card from Julia, the lingering disappointment of that otherwise splendid day.
The computer starts with a hum of the hard drive, the beeps of files loading. Anna stares at the screen, viewing the content of each file. Official letters, “On behalf of the editorial board of the Musical Quarterly…,” an unfinished article on the German performances of Beethoven’s Ninth in the last one hundred and fifty years, grant proposals, reports.
Nothing. Not that she really hoped she would find anything. He wouldn’t keep things here, not where she could’ve stumbled onto something by chance. Even now she has a feeling that William has prepared himself for this invasion, that he has foreseen her moves. Everything in this room is in order, everything can be accounted for.
“Liar!”
She pounces on the pile of telephone bills: Germany 20 minutes, Germany 10 minutes. Among his calls to London, Amsterdam, Moscow always the same Berlin number. The last call was on New Year’s Eve, only weeks before he died. Two minutes, enough for a short message on the answering machine. Ursula wasn’t home?
At night Anna wakes every hour, but manages to fall asleep again and again. The dreams are shallow and jittery, impossible to connect. She is walking through a field of grass and flowers, so high that they reach her face. She has to spread the grass with her arms, but even then each step is a struggle. Her legs get tangled in the roots, the blades of grass beat her face.
Ursula, her voice multiplied by echoes, shouts something to her from a long maze of tunnels. Someone laughs at Anna from afar, the laughter coming closer and closer. At dawn, William appears. He is standing over the bed telling her that nothing has really happened, that it is all just a bad dream from which she will soon wake. “I promise,” he says and when she does wake up, for a split second she believes him again, until her hand touches the empty space in her bed. Then she begins to sob, pounding the bed with her fists until she has no strength left.
In the morning, at William’s desk, Anna takes out a clean sheet of paper. How could you…. she starts and crosses it out, Why couldn’t he…. You owe me an explanation... Can you even try to explain why….. She crumples the sheets into balls and throws them on the floor.
I have found your letters to my husband, she finally writes. I know he was your lover. If he were alive I would ask him why he lied to me, but now I have to ask you. She catches the glint of her wedding ring as she writes. She slides it off her finger and throws it into an open drawer.
She licks the long white envelope, and the glue leaves a bitter taste on her tongue. She copies the Berlin address, and takes the letter to the mailbox across the street. Only when the envelope drops inside she wonders if Ursula knows of William’s death. If she does, who has told her.
Her conversation with Julia is a short one. “I’ve found Ursula’s letters,” Anna says. The silence on the phone is already a sign.
“Where were they?” Julia asks. She is not surprised but her voice is lower, deeper than a minute before.
“What does it matter where they were?” Anna snaps. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Where did you find them?”
“In his office. Why didn’t you tell me?”
It is the tone of Julia’s voice that maddens her. Slow, deliberate, calm. The voice of the social worker her stepdaughter has become. “It’s not so simple. You have to understand my position.” A voice so different from the sobs she treated William to, the late night calls for help.
“No, I don’t have to,” Anna says to that voice. “I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to. Isn’t that what you always believed in?”
“I’ve paid my price,” Julia says.
“You were not the only one. But why am I saying it? You never cared for anyone but yourself.”