The Reluctant Trophy Wife

by Judith Petres Balogh

  Random thoughts assaulted her, but these had nothing to do with the planned novel. Again she was thinking of her two new friends and tried to put her impressions in proper order. She never paid much attention to parapsychology, because she found most of it fraudulent or at best the claims unfounded, and rapidly lost her initial interest. However, she continued to believe that a special, invisible aura surrounds every person. This aura gives out a radiation that interacts positively, negatively, or neutrally with the aura of others. At least this is how she explained to herself why she liked or disliked some people even before really knowing them, or why she could easily forget others with whom she spent an evening at somebody’s dinner party.

  She believed that when the aura of two people react negatively they reject each other before a single word has been spoken. This happened several times at the university at the beginning of a given semester. A professor would walk into the lecture hall, place his papers on the desk, clear his throat, look at the audience just like any other professor would, but then without any obvious reason she instantly bristled against him without a valid reason. At that moment she knew that she would not suffer him for a whole semester. As soon as class was over she rushed to the registrar to change to another professor’s class.

  Often the opposite happened. She saw somebody, whom others might not have noticed, but felt drawn toward that person and wished to be connected to him.

  This is a convenient arrangement in the world. It is a security system, a clever design that assures an agreeable partner for almost everyone. It prevents the unspeakable drama of everybody liking the very same person, or the deep sorrow of never be liked by anybody. She no longer wondered how a certain woman could choose a man, whom Lena disliked on sight. Using her homemade theory, she simply explained to herself, that their auras mixed well, while hers rejected his.

  Clyde’s aura, while reacting positively with those of strangers, was neutral to hers. On the other hand, Sarah and the priest, different as they were, came closer to her in that short time she knew them than anyone before. It was simply a case of her aura reacting openly and positively with theirs, and thus harmony was instantly established.

  Her next thoughts turned to Adrienne. It was painful not to know how she was doing; it was disturbing to imagine how she would extricate herself from the undeniably suspicious and unexplainable situation at the cottage. After all, she was there with a man at a time when she was supposed to be at work, and she was with a man, whom her husband probably did not even know. Lena tried to imagine the course of the trial and shuddered at the thought that Adrienne would have to answer questions under oath. The lawyers and the prosecutor undoubtedly would want to know many details; details she much rather would not talk about. Lena also worried about her friend’s injuries. Where did the bullet enter and how much damage did it cause, how much chance had she to resume an active and happy life? During his occasional calls Clyde was very abrupt when she wanted to talk about Adrienne.

  The new tie to Sarah and to Father Paul was so special that she also felt uncomfortably disloyal to Adrienne. Her thoughts and her undivided attention no longer lingered constantly with the injured friend; the hopelessness and depression caused by the tragedy gradually moved into the background. She was still aware of it, of course, but the pain was no longer quite as intense as in the beginning. The initial shock and horror gave way to a new, peaceful and happy friendship. Being a decent person, she felt uncomfortable about this disloyalty and thinking about it a flood of guilt and remorse swept over her. Impulsively she switched off the computer and started a long overdue, handwritten letter to Adrienne.

  “My Dearest Adrienne,” she wrote. “I cannot tell you all that I feel, how shocked and frightened I was. I can barely imagine what you are going through right now. How many times I played with the futile idea of “what if…”

  What if there was no storm… what if I had not asked you to drive to the cottage… what if…You are the last person, who should have been involved in such a situation. It pains me that some might interpret your decent and noble motive for something else.

  You are surely thinking that I abandoned you at a time when you most needed a friend. This makes writing this letter so very difficult.

  Adrienne, you must believe me this: I did not leave voluntarily. Clyde was convinced that my presence at home would hurt you, me, but mostly him. His method of damage control was to send me away, far away. I believe he was wrong and that he overreacted. I could not, and still cannot, see the dangers he envisioned. However, as is his habit he never took into consideration what I wanted. He just went ahead planning with that dreadful stubbornness of his.

  Truthfully, I did not have the strength to aggressively refuse his demand. You were right when you indicated that I permit myself to be manipulated by him. You were also right when you hinted that I lost my identity and personal goals on my way to nowhere.

  Having been removed from the arid marital situation I can think clearer now and am realizing how correct you were and how I need to find myself before I am totally lost in his outwardly elegant egoism and go up in a smoke of no consequence on the sacrificial altar of his career.

  However, these excuses are irrelevant. I am only telling you this, because I want to make my desertion less painful by explaining that it was not my decision to leave you, and that I too suffered from it. But all this is only of secondary significance. Now the only important thing is that you regain your health, both psychologically and physically and that your husband understands and believes you.

  I worried about you then, and am worried about you now. My words might sound hollow to you after I deserted you, but please believe me, there is nothing I wish more than the intact friendship we had before the roof fell in and of course my most sincere wish is that you would be well again. I know that you are enduring hell, and I also know that your road of suffering has not yet ended. Despite my obvious desertion, please believe me that I would like to be with you for the rest of this road. You are my friend, and you are very special.

  I do not know when you will read this or even if you will ever receive my letter. However, I cannot spend another day without first telling you how I miss you, how I pray for you, how I wish I could have been stronger when decisions were made. Rest well my Adrienne, gather your strength and if you can, please forgive me. I hope to see you, but only God and Clyde know how soon this would be. Your Lena.

  She read the letter again, placed it in the envelope addressed to the rehabilitation center that Clyde mentioned as the place where Adrienne would be eventually transferred. She felt relieved, because finally and belatedly she did the right thing. The heavy burden of guilt she was carrying ever since she left home was somewhat lifted. The gloom of the day left her and she wandered into the kitchen to make another cup of instant coffee, realizing that Juli néni’s curious gaze followed her movements. The old woman forgave the weakness for the “long American coffee”, but still could not fully understand Lena’s preference for it, and was convinced that it was a poor excuse for a beverage and very likely quite dangerous too; after all, who knows what sort of witchery was used when decent coffee beans were turned into instantly dissoluble crystals. People died of lesser insults to the body. On this single point they disagreed, albeit harmoniously. Both lacked the words to convince the other.

  Carrying her cup she moved back to the computer. After having written the letter to Adrienne she felt relieved, freed of a heavy burden and the thoughts started to flow almost instantly, just as they did in the past.

  To her the process of writing was always a miracle. It never failed to amaze that as soon as her fingers started to fly across the keyboard she did not have to stop to form the thoughts. The sentences seemed to come on their own without having to consciously consider what to put down next; the ideas came from some unknown source. When after an hour of typing she reread the section just produced she was usually surprised, because she was not aware of having stopped to plan the sent
ences; yet, page after page coherent and stylish text was produced. Apparently the process was working either under or above the conscious mind, and yet it was all her own, because the style of the written work was recognizably personal and constant, and quite different from the writing of everybody else. This magic is the reason one “recognizes” by its unique style whether a painting was done by El Greco, Rubens, Fra Angelico, or whether a musical composition was done by Beethoven, Bach or Verdi, or some lines of poetry written by Shakespeare, Whitman or T.S. Eliot. Perhaps this mystic source of creativity resides in that elusive thing we call the soul, and this soul might not even dwell in the body, but hovers around it, free of the body’s limitations, and is so elusive that it cannot be located, dissected, measured, analyzed. The ancestors must have guessed this and believed that the nine muses were responsible for artistic inspirations. It was disappointing that no Muse was found to inspire prose. Perhaps the Greeks did not value prose as much as John Updike, or any of those sages, who write critiques in the literary section of New York Times, or labor over doctoral dissertations in literature.

  As she recalled her bitter reaction to the rejection of OCTOBER THOUGHTS she realized for the first time the true reason why it hurt so much. The judges did not merely refuse a piece of writing in the manner a chef rejects a fallen soufflé or an overcooked salmon filet done by one of his cooks; they rejected her very self. When the work of a seamstress, an engineer, a locksmith or an auto mechanic is evaluated, it is the product that is either approved, or refused; but when a written work is rejected the judgment is no longer about a piece of work; it is about the artist as well. Spirit, intellectual capacity, aesthetic sensitivity, morality, philosophy and personal impressions are all part of the product, and these are the very qualities evaluated, and in her case were found wanting. After the rejection, for the first time in her life, she doubted not just her ability to write, but also her very worth as a human being. That hurt.

  Since she made friends with Sarah and Father Paul her self-confidence was slowly returning. She was entering a new and safe world where she could work confidently with the talents she possessed, even if these were limited in comparison to the talents of others. After she sent the conciliatory letter to Adrienne, the heavy block of misapprehension and guilt left her and once again writing flowed easily. Her forgotten coffee turned cold, her surrounding faded away and she was completely engrossed in writing; effortlessly she completed the first chapter of the book. As she stood up and stretched her stiff body, she knew that she could do it and after a very long time she was truly happy. Exuberantly happy. She left the laptop reluctantly to eat Juli néni’s perfect lunch.

  THIRTEEN

  Gradually she adjusted her life to fit the slow pace of the village. Time played tricks on her. While she produced page after page for the emerging novel, it would rush by at a dizzy speed and before she realized its passage it was Sunday, and lunch at Sarah’s cottage. Then it would slow down to a gentle pace and pass in luxurious laziness and she had a hard time remembering which day of the week it was. She slept a great deal, much more than she was used to and it felt good. She also devoted time to learn the language. It was more difficult than she first anticipated, but decided that if young American children with dubious commitment to the task could learn to spell correctly twenty-five words a week, she then could easily learn twenty Hungarian words a day, considering that she was highly motivated. She found the grammar difficult, and never really understood how to use the suffixes correctly, of which there were far too many. On the other hand she was greatly relieved that at least it was a phonetically honest, consistent and logical language. Juli néni was an admiring audience and soon Lena was able to exchange simple conversations with her or say pleasantries to people she met during her walks.

  Unless she had an errand to do in the village or in the next town, less than two dozen kilometers away, Lena usually took her walks in the morning when the air was still cool. It was a time devoted to sort through impressions and problems, or to think about the development of the characters, or the plot in her book. As time passed the morning walks were gradually longer. The more she walked and the more she meditated, the clearer were her goals, her expectations and her place in life. She discovered the pleasure of being her own company, and knew that she was gradually developing a streak in her character, which was at odds with her role as the trophy wife.

  At times during these solitary walks she carried on a silent monologue explaining to Clyde how sometimes the very best intentions have the perverted habit of turning out with opposite results. She pointed out to him that her transformation into a different person was solely his fault, because he alone planned this ridiculous exile. Through it he unwittingly exposed her to people, who were congenial, and whose ideas, which she was gradually absorbing, would scandalize their social circle or at least make her quite ridiculous in their eyes. Yes Clyde, she told him across the miles, these two people are gradually changing your trophy wife into somebody who would not please you quite so much. Had you let me stay home and had kept me under your relentless influence and surveillance, I probably would never have changed my thinking and preferences, or perhaps the change would not have come so rapidly, so unexpectedly.

  These silent and mostly unfair attacks did not make her any happier. She still avoided the church on Sundays, but liked to stop in during the afternoon hours, when the place was all hers. Father Paul left the door of the church open all day and she liked to sit in the silence and meditate. Later she discovered that he held evening masses, and gradually started to attend those. In the beginning, she felt self-conscious, but that too passed. Only a very few old women attended and they did not pay any attention to Lena. Father Paul was standing behind the flower decorated altar, the evening sun slanted through the high windows and reflected on the gold of his chasuble. He was extraordinarily distant and even beautiful in a serene way as he officiated, apparently oblivious of the almost empty church. He appeared to exist in an altogether different world, where Lena had no admittance.

  She then tried to pray, but real devoutness eluded her and instead she counted covertly how many were present. She wished there were more and admitted ruefully that she wished it for his and not for God’s sake. It seemed sad that day after day he would perform the ritual of celebration for just a handful of octogenarians. For a while she just sat there and could not pray. Her thoughts wandered aimlessly and irrelevant episodes disturbed her pious determination to carry on a conversation with the Almighty. These random fragments also prevented her to follow the service. Eventually as she contemplated his stately movements, executed exactly as done for hundreds of years, she slowly lost her reservations and could even form a supplication. It was not even a proper prayer, but she fervently repeated it: Lord, help me to believe as he does. And then waited for the miracle.

  During her walks she explored her temporary home territory and often turned into as yet undiscovered paths. Each day she loved more what she saw. The lake and the hills surrounding it were omnipresent and reassuring, but the half hidden paths held many delights and surprises. A few weeks ago she would have laughed at the improbable notions, but in her new frame of mind she felt true and personal love for the landscape, the trees and flowers and most of all for the lake. The place felt like home in a way her elegant mansion back home never did.

  She was bemused at the sight of stone crosses erected everywhere on the roadside and on remote paths. There was always a bunch of fresh flowers at the feet of Christ; often in glass jars that once held milk or pickles. At other crosses people placed intricately woven wreaths made of grapevine cuttings and flowers. These were unmistakable signs showing that people cared. When passing a cross, women crossed themselves and men lifted their hats. The silent veneration was probably as old as history, and the greeting to an invisible and almighty power was unquestioning, uncomplicated and respectful. To them His presence was natural, very real, and part of their everyday life.

  Most of al
l she preferred to wander on the narrow paths among the vineyards, or as the locals referred to them ‘grape-gardens’. There was poetry there, but also the kind of order, which is the result of hard work. The rows of vine-stocks marched up and down the gentle hills in severe order, the only discord to their military exactness was an occasional peach or almond tree planted among the rows. According to local conviction, the fragrance of the flowers and of the fruits improves the bouquet of the wine, while the shades of these delicate trees are negligible and do not rob the grapes of the much needed sunshine. Grapevines are sun-worshipers and can only develop decently when they get enough of it, the vintners readily explained.

  White-washed wine cellars dotted the hillside, slumbering in the early summer, their shutters and doors closed, resting up for the hectic activities starting around late September, early October. People half hidden among the grapevines did mysterious things, which she could not see from the path. Perhaps they were tying the vines to the stakes, or were pruning, or just talking to their plants like Sarah did. It seemed that they wanted to be near their grapevines to encourage, support and to love them. Father Paul translated the farmers’ often-repeated belief that “the master’s watchful eye makes the plants grow strong.” However, they must have kept one watchful eye on the paths winding among the vineyards, because they never failed to spot Lena when she passed by.