Hausfrau (23 page)

“Is that why you never married?” Mary asked.

“Sure,” she said in a throwaway tone as she rose and gathered the women’s empty plates. Anna and Mary were silent. Nancy shook her head. “Really, I want to be clear. My life is no more commendable than either of your lives.” Mary twisted her face into a question mark. Anna looked blankly at Nancy
and waited for her to continue. “We’re modern women in a modern world. Our needs are met and many of our wants.” Mary nodded. Nancy continued. “We have rights and the means to exercise them. Each of our lives is our own and as far as I know we get one apiece and no more. We should do something with them. If we can. If we’re able to. It’s a travesty when a woman wastes herself. That’s all.”

A travesty to waste one’s self.
It was a truth Anna couldn’t refute.

Nancy took the plates into the kitchen and returned with coffee and biscuits. Dessert was spent gossiping about people in the German class.

“I still think Archie has a crush on you, Anna,” Mary giggled.

“I
know
he does,” Nancy added. Anna asked them to drop it. Yes, they were pals. But nothing more.

“Oh, god no, Anna!” Mary almost choked on her water. “That’s not what I meant! I’d never suggest such a thing!”
Of course you wouldn’t,
Anna thought. It was wistful thinking. Mary’s goodness made Anna’s badness worse. Anna’s shameless self felt shame. It was a strange, recursive feeling.

“What’s his story, anyway?” Nancy asked. Both Nancy and Mary turned to Anna for the answer. If anyone knew it would be she.

Anna scanned her thoughts for something to tell them but she couldn’t come up with any details that weren’t sexual.
He likes it when I’m on top. He’s into biting, dirty talk. He likes to smell me—should I tell them that? He puts his face between my legs and inhales me like I’m a goddamn bowl of potpourri.
But when was his birthday? What did he study in school? Did he go to school? Had he ever been married? Any children? Are
his parents alive? Any known allergies? She knew he had no visible scars. Was this all she knew of him?
Think, Anna. This can’t be all.

“He’s got a brother.” That was the best she could do.

A
RCHIE TRIED TO HOLD
Anna’s hand. He’d never done that before and the awkwardness of the attempt startled Anna, and so she let him hold it, albeit limply. Barely a minute passed before she wrangled it free. It had felt wrong and his palms were damp.

They walked around the zoo for a quarter of an hour and said nothing to each other.

In the rainforest reserve they stared at lizards sleeping in trees and dodged the birds that hopped freely down the paths. Anna looked at all the placards but recognized neither the German nor the English names for these exotic animals. At the South African habitat they leaned against a rail and watched a mountain goat preside over a congregation of baboons on jagged, beige rocks. The largest of the baboons, a male, stood on his legs, turned to face Anna and Archie directly, and presented his red, erect penis as he hissed and sneered. “Okay, Archie,” Anna said. “It’s time to talk.”

Anna couldn’t remember the last time she’d broken up with anyone.
Is ending an affair the same as breaking up?
Anna decided it was close enough and told him as much: “Archie, I am breaking up with you.”

Archie stared past the baboons. “So that’s how it is.” She hadn’t expected him to be devastated and he didn’t seem to be. “Yes,” Anna said. “This is how it is.” He didn’t ask why, though Anna would have told him if he had. “I need to go,
Archie.” Anna hiked her book bag back up her shoulder. She’d been carrying it around the whole time. She looked once more into his eyes and turned to leave.

Archie grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back toward him. “Not without a goodbye kiss,” he said as he laid his lips to hers and held her tight against her own protestations. Anna struggled briefly against his mouth and his arms but then relented, for there was no real harm in a goodbye kiss and she was too emotionally weak to fight him. So in the middle of the Zürich Zoo and on her thirty-eighth birthday, Anna let the Scotsman search her mouth with his tongue and her breasts with his hands for what would be the last, passive time.

Public displays of affection always draw attention; Archie and Anna made an obvious pair. They were the only adults in the entire zoo unaccompanied by toddlers in strollers or schoolchildren on a class trip, like the group who walked up to the South African habitat in the middle of the pair’s final kiss. Children around the world are all alike. At a certain age, the sight of two people kissing will invariably invoke giggles and “ewwwww”s and “oooohhh”s and every available finger will point in the couple’s direction. This is what happened to Archie and Anna. And yet, they kissed through it. It was a moment. Anna let the moment have its gravity. A last kiss, she thought, is an occasion.

The kiss was on its downslope. Anna was ending it. She drew a breath, then licked her lips then made one, two motions to pull away before finally wrenching her mouth loose from his. “Well,” she said, “I guess that’s it.”

But it wasn’t.

A singular thin, tinny voice rose above the chorus of whooping children. “Mami?”

Anna whipped around to look. It was Charles.

She had forgotten. It had been planned for weeks. Anna had been so wrapped up in her private, secret life that she’d forgotten.

Charles’s class had taken a field trip to the zoo.

Anna had been caught.

“I
T
’
S QUITE COMMON FOR THE SUBCONSCIOUS TO CREATE INTENTIONAL
scenarios that force you to face something you’ve been ignoring. Your dreams might get louder and more violent. You may become forgetful or accident-prone. Psyche will do anything to get your attention. She will sabotage your consciousness if she must.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think of an abscess. Untreated, the wound swells and causes pain and eventually ruptures.”

“That’s revolting.”

“It is. Infections are. This is an infection. Of the soul.”

A
NNA DID NOT IMMEDIATELY
know what to do and so she did nothing. That was a crucial moment of composure. She didn’t look back at Archie but she didn’t have to. “Get lost,” she said through the smile she’d put on in order to face Charles. Anna stepped toward her son.

“Hey,
Schatz,
my love!” Anna’s voice oscillated as she
bent down and wrapped her arms around Charles and drew him into her so that her body blocked his line of vision and he couldn’t see Archie as he slipped away. Charles’s teacher seemed to understand what the class had just interrupted. Frau Kopp was young and savvy and European and she knew the difference between Herr Benz and the man Anna had just been kissing. Her eyes were sympathetic, continental.

“Why are you here, Mami? Who was that man?”

Anna ignored the second question. “I’m here to take you home,
Schatz,
” she said, then turned to Frau Kopp for corroboration. “It’s okay, yes?” Frau Kopp gave an almost imperceptible nod. By then the children’s attention had shifted from Anna and Archie to the baboon with the erection. They howled with laughter until Frau Kopp settled them down and ushered them toward the penguins. It was almost feeding time and a zookeeper had promised the children they could watch. Charles looked perplexed. “Do you want to get an
Eis
?” Anna’s mind tap-danced around ways to distract him from what he’d seen, and Charles loved ice cream and would eat it every day if Anna allowed it. “Green?” he asked. Anna forced a grin. “Of course!” Pistachio was his favorite. Charles hopped up and down and Anna took his left hand and led him away while with his right he waved goodbye in the direction of his classmates, who were by then entirely focused on the penguins they would soon watch being fed.

Anna and Charles took the bus, then the tram to Stadelhofen and at a Mövenpick shop near the station she bought her son a small cup of pistachio ice cream, which he ate in the store. Anna chattered the entire time. She left no space in conversation to let Charles speak. Charles, deferential as he was,
gave over to his mother’s babbling. For his meekness, Anna was grateful.

Charles finished his ice cream and Anna suggested they go watch the trains. Charles grinned and Anna took his hand and led him from the Mövenpick to the train station, and up the stairs, to the gallery-like walkway that overlooked Stadelhofen’s open-air train tracks. From above, they watched several trains pull in and roll out, including an S5 on its way to Uster, the train Mary most often rode in and out of the city. The promenade above the tracks was supported by angular steel ribs spaced at even intervals along the entire walkway. Anna thought the effect Jonah-like.
This is torture in the belly of a fish.
Charles answered with a great deal of animation when Anna asked about the animals he’d seen that day. He rambled on about lions and black bears and flamingos and hippopotami for several minutes, but after a while, the imminent question resurfaced.

“Who was that man?”

“What man, Charles?”

“The man you were kissing. I saw you kissing a man.”

Anna feigned surprise, tried to tease him. “Really? How strange! I think you’re making that up, Charles. I wasn’t kissing anyone.” This wasn’t entirely a lie. It was Archie who kissed her. Anna felt like an ass, relying on the childish logic of exactitude.

Charles had none of it. “I saw him!” He was deeply upset.

Anna stiffened. “Charles.” Her voice was firm and stern. It was a tone she never used with him and one, therefore, he was unaccustomed to hearing. He tensed visibly. “Charles,” she repeated. “You didn’t see a thing.” Charles’s eyes dilated. He
tried to look away. “Listen to me.” Anna snapped her fingers and drew his attention back to her face. “Did you hear me? I said you didn’t see anything. And you are not to tell anyone you did. Do you understand?” Charles didn’t answer. Anna took his face in both her hands and turned it straight to face her own. It was something she’d seen angry mothers do. Her voice was pinched. “Do you understand?” Charles blinked. Her words were hot and hushed. “Listen to me. I am telling you for the last time that you made a mistake. Don’t make me say it again.” Charles whimpered. “You don’t tell anyone. Not Papi or Victor or Max or Grosi. If you do I will be so angry.” Anna nodded gravely for effect. “I’ll tell them you’re lying and they’ll be angry too. I’m the mother. They’ll believe me.” Charles started to cry. Anna shook her head. “Charles, I mean it. Unless you want something bad to happen, you need to be quiet. Don’t even say you saw me at the zoo.” And then she added, “Don’t tell anyone we came to watch the trains.”

Whatever Anna had intended, it seemed to work. Charles looked grave and terrified. He sniffed and he shook and eked out a nearly inaudible
okay.
Anna was satisfied. She didn’t need to elaborate. She left Charles to imagine what those really bad things might be. She knew her son. She knew he’d never say a word. She’d never been cruel like this before.

“C’mon. Let’s go home.” Anna stood up, slung her bag over her shoulder, and brushed her hands on the top of her thighs. Charles turned back toward her and she put her arm around him and squeezed him against her hip in a protective, loving way. This seemed to comfort him and together they crossed the bridge that would lead them down the stairs to the platform.

They’d just passed the midway point when Anna startled
herself with a memory. “Wait, come here.” Anna stopped, knelt, grabbed Charles’s hands and turned her son to face her. “Do you remember the first time we went to Tante Mary’s house? The first time you met Max?” Charles hesitated. Was this a trick? Was this, like the kiss he did not see, a memory he didn’t recall? “No, it’s okay. Tell me. Do you remember?” Charles gave a cautious nod. “Do you remember when you came downstairs and Max told everyone you’d told him a secret?” Once more, Charles nodded, then let his gaze fall to the floor of the walkway. “Good boy. Now tell me what the secret was.” It was a paranoiac’s question. She was afraid that his secret was one of her own. “Tell me.”

Charles shuffled slowly foot to foot. “I told Max that I thought Marlies Zwygart was pretty.” His whole body flushed with embarrassment. Anna’s ring tightened on her finger. She’d never felt so awful in her life.

T
HE FIVE MOST FREQUENTLY
used German verbs are all irregular. Their conjugations don’t follow a pattern:
To have. To have to. To want. To go. To be. Possession. Obligation. Yearning. Flight. Existence.
Concepts all. And irregular. These verbs are the culmination of insufficiency. Life is loss. Frequent, usual loss. Loss doesn’t follow a pattern either. You survive it only by memorizing how.

A
NNA WATCHED
C
HARLES VERY
closely that night. And the next night. And the one after that. She kept a vigilant eye on him until she was sure that he hadn’t and he wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened at the zoo. By the third night she started
to relax. He’d never once disobeyed her—why would this time be any different? There was no cause to believe that it would.

What else could I have done?
Anna rationalized.

That night after the children were in bed she knocked on Bruno’s office door.

“Are you going for a walk?” he asked. He didn’t look away from the computer screen.

“No.” It was a fair-enough assumption. Most usually that was what Anna came to his office to tell him at this late hour. It sank her heart a little, Bruno thinking that’s the only reason Anna would ever knock upon his door. It sank a little more, she conceding that it most often was.

“Did you need something?”

She had interrupted him watching online videos of the Schweizer Luftwaffe, the Swiss Air Force. Earlier in the afternoon, the Benzes had heard from inside the house the matchless sound of supersonic jets slicing through the sky. An air show? Flying practice? General maneuvers? Unclear. The noise was tremendous. The whole family went outside to watch. Polly Jean didn’t like it one bit. Anna held her tightly against her body and covered her ears. Victor and Charles were captivated, then alarmed.
How fast they flew! How close they came to each other!
Charles reached for Anna’s hand, and when one of the planes executed a barrel roll right above the house, Victor threw his arms around his mother’s legs. That was unforeseen. In light of the week’s troubles Anna welcomed any request for consolation.