The Secret Wife(76)
The word ‘obvious’ came into her head. The counsellor had told Tom he wanted to be found out when he left his phone in the hall. He chose someone who looked like an obvious sex object. He was trying to get Kitty’s attention, to make her sit up and take notice. Well, she thought, he had certainly done that. If she emailed him now, sarcasm would almost certainly slip into her tone.
What did other couples do in their position? Have a huge fight to clear the air? Arguing and confrontation had never been her style. Perhaps it was something to do with being an only child. She hated to feel out of control, but at the same time she realised that bottling things up could make them worse. It was her avoidance of emotional issues Tom was talking about in his letter. Maybe if she was able to tell him how she felt about Karren Bayliss, they could start an honest conversation – but she couldn’t think how to begin.
‘Dear Tom, How could you?’ That wasn’t her style. She’d leave it for another day, when she had decided on the words.
That evening she looked through Dmitri’s novels. The first one, published in 1924, had no dedication, but Exile was ‘For Nicholas’, and The Boot that Kicked was ‘For Marta’, her grandmother. The last two novels, published in America in the 40s, were ‘For Rosa’ but in the acknowledgements pages he thanked Alfred A. Knopf for having faith in him, he thanked his family for their support and he thanked Irena Markova, his English translator, for her talent. She flicked back to his first novel and thought what a shame that Irena Markova had not translated that one, because it was such a clunky read. Even in a poor translation the description of first love was overpowering. Dmitri described the sense of completion that comes from having another brain to bounce ideas off, the secret joy of watching another person across a crowded room and knowing exactly what they are thinking at that precise moment, the miracle of a partner who knows you better than you know yourself.
One phrase stuck in her mind: Mikhail talks of his great fondness for Valerina’s ‘intimate imperfections’ – a tiny mole behind her ear, the way she nibbled the corners of her nails when nervous. An image sprang into Kitty’s head of Tom trying to hide the bulge at his waistline by pulling his shirt out an inch or two in a blouson style; he’d suck in his belly while examining the effect in the mirror, unaware she was watching. That made her smile. And then she thought of him singing along to 90s pop songs in an off-key falsetto. Her face broke into a grin. There was no doubt she still loved him.
Could they save their marriage? With all her heart she hoped so.
Chapter Forty-Four
Berlin, 1924
When Dmitri first moved to Berlin it had been a cheap city in which to live, but in 1923 prices began to rise stratospherically as hyperinflation was triggered by the government’s decision to print more money. A loaf of bread that had cost 163 marks in 1922 was selling for 200 million marks by November 1923, and wages could not keep pace. Dmitri was forced to ask his family in Constantinople to wire money, which he found humiliating. He would have left Germany entirely, but for the fact that a Berlin publishing company had offered to publish his novel.
Burtsev, the editor of Rul, had passed his manuscript to the Slowo publishing house, which was part of the same company. Much to Dmitri’s astonishment, it was accepted and in spring 1924 Interminable Love was published to moderate acclaim. Dmitri was invited to give a reading at Rodina’s bookshop, and many Russian émigré papers ran favourable reviews. A friend of the owner of Rodina’s asked for permission to translate it into German, and another woman wrote asking if she might do the English translation. Dmitri was reluctant, because he felt it was a quintessentially Russian novel that would be impossible to translate, but he needed the money and so he agreed.
Throughout, he felt ambivalent about the publishing process. He found it embarrassing to have the intimate feelings of his characters – which were in essence his own – exposed to the public. He would have preferred to remain anonymous but Rosa was overjoyed by his success. She recommended his novel to all the customers in her café, and often wandered into bookshops to move it to a more prominent position.
When the German edition of Interminable Love was published, he gave her a copy but if she read it she never told him. Putting himself in her position, it would be hard to read about his love for another woman. She must guess it was about Tatiana. Perhaps she decided not to read it after all, but still she helped promote it and most people who knew them assumed it was about Rosa.
They began to be invited to literary salons and Rosa was intellectually out of her depth in the conversations about art and literature but everyone liked her for her open, friendly nature and admired her off-beat dress sense. She bought her clothes in flea markets and deliberately chose mismatching colours such as lime green and purple, hot pink and orange, when throwing outfits together: Dmitri described her look as like ‘an explosion in a garment factory’. There was no artifice about her and that was refreshing in a town where so many people were hiding their true natures, especially amongst the Russian community.
Soon Rosa had many more friends in Berlin’s literary set than Dmitri did, and she invited them back to their apartment to drink schnapps and listen to poetry being read aloud. He watched her sometimes and marvelled at her ability to remember the names of friends’ children and the fine details of their lives. She complimented people on their writing and laughed at their witticisms, making them feel good about themselves. Perhaps that was the key to her social success.