“Why didn’t you tell me?” She slapped a card with an address on it next to the manuscript of my talk. “That’s where Frau Weiss lives. You ought to visit her, you know.”
Her eyes said “murder”—the same rage I had captured twice when she was a child. I was afraid for myself and for our children.
The fear that had been teasing at the corner of my mind since her father’s death had now become raw terror.
I passed my tongue over my dry lips, searching for words that I could not find. “I didn’t know about the boy, I really didn’t. I searched here often when I was in the service. They disappeared. How did you find them?”
“I was over at the gallery”—she collapsed into the big beige couch on the other side of our suite—“listening to what the volk were saying. They like the stuff, not that it matters anymore. And then I see an O’Malley, a junior version, but a real O’Malley, no doubt about him. He’s with his mother, a blonde. I recognize her too. She’s the girl in your picture, you know which one.”
“Yes.”
“Well”—Rosemarie was surging toward hysteria—“I follow them home, ring the doorbell of their nice little house, and say that I would like to take a close look at my husband’s son.”
“Dear God, Rosemarie, why?”
“Why not? Your Trudi doesn’t try to bluff. She recognizes me instantly from all the pictures in the gallery. She invites me in for tea. Wasn’t that sweet of her?”
Would I be able to explain? Ever? In terms that Rosemarie could understand? I wasn’t sure.
“It’s not what you think, Rosemarie.”
“Oh”—she waved her hand contemptuously—“she told me a little of the glorious story. What a hero you were. Saved them all.”
“I did not want to abandon them. I searched—”
“I don’t care about that.” She leaped off the couch. “What I want to know is why the fuck you didn’t tell me?”
It was a fair question. I had thought about it often and prepared my answer. The only trouble was that now I couldn’t remember it.
“Rosemarie”—my voice cracked on the word—“I thought about it and I decided that it would not… not help matters any.”
“I told you about Dad.”
“That was different.”
“How the fuck was it different?”
“You said then that the reason to tell me was to explain why… why you would be under stress sometimes. I didn’t think that my… my affair with Trudi made that much difference.”
“Screw them and leave them, huh, O’Malley?”
Why didn’t I yell at her to shut up and act her age? It never occurred to me to do so. I felt too guilty to defend myself.
“It wasn’t that way, Rosemarie. It really wasn’t. We were both young and lonely and scared. I thought I loved her. I don’t know, to tell you the truth, what she thought, whether in her situation she had any choice. She wasn’t a whore, Rosemarie, nothing like that.”
“That’s patent. I’m not angry at her. I’m angry at you.”
“We weren’t engaged then, Rosemarie. I was not unfaithful to you. I’ve never been unfaithful to you.”
“Was she better in bed than I am?” She was striding back and forth across the parlor. “Were her tits better than mine?”
“No to both questions, not that they’re to the point. We were kids, Rosemarie, kids.”
“You still love her, don’t you? Do you want to divorce me?”
“Rosemarie, that’s asinine. Calm down so we can talk about it reasonably. You’re acting like a maniac.”
“Do you think so? Funny, I don’t, you miserable, lousy little son of a bitch. I asked you a question. I demand an answer. Now that I’ve found your mistress for you, do you want to get rid of me?”
“All right.” I buried my face in my hands. “I’ll answer if you insist, but I think our years together should make the answer clear before I say it.”
“Goddamn it, you little motherfucker, answer me!”
I didn’t mind the “motherfucker,” although it was not part of Rosemarie’s normal vocabulary. Or even her drunken vocabulary. I didn’t like the “little” at all, but now was not the time to debate that.
“No.” I sighed. “I don’t want a divorce.”
“Not the way I love you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Yes, it is,” I shouted back, “you’ve no right to cross-examine me this way!”
“Right! Will you look at who’s talking about rights? Well, I have a right to know if you still love her. DO YOU STILL LOVE HER?”
“I haven’t seen her”—I struggled out of my chair at the table, now angry myself—“in ten years.”
“So?”
“Damn it to hell, Rosemarie, will you simmer down and listen? It was a teenage love affair, a long time ago. It has nothing to do with us now.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it would unnecessarily upset you—”
“And there I was”—she slammed the table—“thinking that you were very clever as a virgin lover. She taught you how to love.”
“You taught me a lot more,” I said heavily.
“Bullshit… you still haven’t answered my question: DO YOU STILL LOVE HER?”
“I have fond memories”—I tried to choose my words carefully, knowing that I was guilty till I was proven innocent, and I couldn’t prove myself innocent—“of those months. As anyone would of a teenage love affair. But I have no desire, not the slightest, to renew that affair. You’re my wife and my lover and my agent and my friend. There isn’t, there can’t be, there never will be anyone else.”
“Bullshit. You’re a lousy lying little fucker,” she screamed. “I’ll never trust you again.”
“Is there nothing that I can say”—I was filling up with tears now, my whole life disappearing before my eyes—“that will persuade you that… it’s been over for ten years?”
“There’s a red-haired little boy that suggests it hasn’t.”
“I didn’t know about the boy.”
“Are you proud that you have an illegitimate child?”
“Of course not. But I’m glad he’s alive.”
“I BET you are.”
“I can’t take this anymore, Rosemarie.” I choked on the words. “I’m going out for a long walk. I hope you’ve calmed down when I come back.”
“Don’t bother coming back!” she shouted after me.
I walked for hours, all the way to the outskirts of the town, almost as far as the Mercedes works. I knew that I had bungled the confrontation. My decision not to tell her about Trudi, damn it, was the right one. Why couldn’t she see that?
Because she was shocked and upset. Understandably. She had reason to vent her emotions. I should have vented my emotions back at her. The confrontation flickered out because I had run away from the fight. It would have been much wiser to stand up to her and clear the air. If I had continued to shout at her, she would have run out of steam eventually and we could have picked up the pieces.
I could not deal with an angry woman who shouted obscenities at me. I had run away from my wife’s temper and foul tongue.
Mistake.
I was not at all sure that I could avoid the mistake again when I returned to the hotel.
I walked back to the Bahnhaus Platz with much less energy than had marked my hike to the edge of the city. Too much exercise, I told myself as I rode up the elevator to our suite that I absolutely had to stand up her.
I wasn’t sure I could.
In fact I didn’t have to.
There was a note waiting on the bed:
“Gone home.”