The Diplomat's Wife(51)

Delia’s lips purse and a furrow creases her brow. Though too polite to say anything, she is well aware of Simon’s late hours working, how little time he spends at home. “I’ll leave him a plate in the icebox, then. Shall I stay with you while you eat?”

I shake my head. “That’s not necessary.” I enjoy Delia’s company, but I know that she is eager to get home to Charles.

When she has gone, I walk into the kitchen. It is spacious, constructed with marble countertops and oak cabinets that had been the finest on offer in their day. But the appliances are old now, the faucets and handles worn. I fix myself a plate, then carry it to the parlor. The house, I think, not for the first time, had once been grand: a large parlor and dining room for entertaining, high ceilings, elegant, detailed molding. But the furniture is faded and worn, the wood floors creak with age.

As I sit down on the sofa, a framed photograph on the mantel over the fireplace catches my eye. It is a picture of Rachel, playing by the pond on the heath last spring. Rachel, I think, my insides warming. Rachel Hannah Gold. Before the baby was born, I hesitated. I wanted to name her after Rose. But the Jewish tradition was to name after someone who had a long, healthy life, and Rose had not. So we named her Rachel and honored the memory of my mother, Hadassah, with Rachel’s middle name.

It was Simon who had suggested using the same first letter in English and making her Hebrew name, Rivka, the same as Rose’s. Simon is Jewish, too, at least in name. Twice yearly, we dress up and make our way to the synagogue, nodding at the faces we recognize only from the previous year. The grand, formal synagogue could not be more different from our own tiny shul back in the village. I miss the weekly ritual of going to synagogue, the warmth of being surrounded by people whom I had known my whole life. But for Simon, the obligatory semiannual pilgrimage is enough. Once I tried to bring some warmth into the house by preparing Shabbat dinner. Simon watched with an unfamiliar eye as I lit the candles, cut the challah that I had baked from scratch. He politely ate dinner, then excused himself to his study.

I swallow a mouthful of potatoes, still looking at Rachel’s photograph. I had hoped that, once Rachel was born, Simon might become more present at home. He makes small outward gestures, placing her picture on his desk and dutifully joining us on a family outing each Sunday to the park or the zoo. But beyond that he is as indifferent to her as he is to me. When he does hold her, it is gingerly and at arm’s length, as if childhood is contagious, a disease not to be caught.

Indeed, he did not even seem to notice how quickly Rachel arrived after our marriage. “Premature!” Delia exclaimed when she came to visit us at the hospital, sounding as though she meant it. I studied Simon’s face as he held up the tiny baby for Delia to see. Did he suspect anything? But Simon seemed to accept Rachel’s early arrival without question. The respectability that family brought was good for his career.

I finish eating, bring my plate to the kitchen sink. As I wash, I look at the clock. It is not yet eight, which means Simon won’t be home for at least an hour. Loneliness rises in me. My days are busy, but it is always this quiet evening hour that is the hardest. I put the kettle on for tea. What did I expect? I ask myself a few minutes later as I carry a cup and saucer back into the parlor, walking slowly so as not to spill. I should be grateful to have a nice home, a husband who comes home each night. I had imagined marriage as something more, though. Intimate looks across a crowded room, shared jokes whispered in the darkness at night. Would marriage to Paul have been any different? I push the thought quickly away. It is not fair, I know, to compare everyday life with Simon to a fantasy frozen in time. And there is no point in thinking about what I cannot have, in making my marriage seem even more pallid by comparison. But it is too late. A dull ache rises in my stomach as I imagine driving across America in a convertible beside Paul, seeing the world and laughing. Marriage to Paul would not have been like this.

Sitting down on the sofa once more, I force my thoughts back to Simon. I know that I should not take his behavior personally. Simon is distant from everyone. He has no family, other than some cousins he’s mentioned scattered throughout the north. And he speaks little of his parents. Their wedding photograph, a grainy sepia image that sits on the mantelpiece, is the only reminder of them. There is a trunk, Simon once said, of their belongings in the attic. When I pressed him, he promised to show it to me one day. I want to go through the trunk, to see if there are any family mementos I can pass on to Rachel, since I have none of my own to give her.

I also quickly discovered once we were married that Simon has no friends. The whirlwind of dates and social occasions I experienced during our courtship quickly disappeared after the wedding. Except for the occasional obligatory departmental function, we seldom go out. In the beginning, I considered trying to make friends of my own. But how? Our neighbors, used to Simon’s long-standing reclusiveness, keep their distance. The other secretaries, unmarried women without husbands or children, eye me warily, resentful, I suspect, of my audacity in daring to have a husband and a job. And Delia lives on the other side of London, too far away for short visits. So I spend my evenings rattling around the creaky old house, until I am unable to read or listen to the radio any longer.

Is it really so much better when Simon is here? The weekend nights, when we have dinner together, are not unpleasant. Simon will update me on some of the meetings I have not attended at work and I will share stories about Rachel. Last weekend, when I told him how she played in the bath, we actually laughed. But those moments are fleeting, pale imitations of what I had thought a marriage to be. And afterward, he retreats quickly to his study. Simon and I are like young children I have seen in the park sitting beside each other in the sandbox but playing alone, not interacting. Two people living separate lives in the same space.