When I got home, I went straight up to our flat. I hugged my wife, and then my children, who knew nothing of what had happened and were surprised to see their father in the afternoon. My wife had calmed down. Dieter Tiberius had been up and apologised profusely. He didn’t know how he could have come up with such nonsense either. He sometimes had ‘episodes’, presumably something to do with growing up in a home. All he wanted was to get on with his neighbours, and he would act accordingly in the future, most definitely.
‘Should I talk to him anyway?’ I asked my wife—another mistake. I shouldn’t have left the decision to her. She had given vent to her feelings by shouting at him, and felt reassured by their later conversation and his many apologies. She hoped he was chastened. I recklessly embraced this hope, rather than go downstairs.
In the five weeks that followed, nothing happened, and we considered ourselves vindicated. We had settled a disagreeable episode in a sensible way. Sometimes we heard snatches of dialogue from Tootsie, sometimes the toilet being flushed, but there were no more biscuits, no more books, no more letters for my wife, and Dieter Tiberius himself was no longer in evidence.
8
ON 15 APRIL OF THAT YEAR, I flew to Bali for a wedding, via Frankfurt and Singapore. I travelled alone, without my wife and children. After a brief discussion, we had agreed that a five-day trip with two fourteen-hour flights was too strenuous for small children, especially with the six hours’ time difference. I must admit, however, that it suited me very well. We could certainly have managed with Paul and Fay, but it wasn’t at all what I wanted, and, if I remember rightly, I was the one who first said we couldn’t put our children through a journey like that. Rebecca went along with my view.
I ought, at this point, to say a few words about the state of our relationship at the time we got caught up in this maelstrom. Our marriage was, to put it cautiously, troubled, and I fear this was probably my fault. There was no breakdown as such, no constant bickering, no door-slamming, no running away, no hatred—none of that. It was simply that over the course of the years, I had withdrawn from the marriage. I don’t mean from the children—I am a father who adores his children, plays with them, talks to them, is never happier than when he is with them. I mean the marriage itself—my relationship with my wife.
I don’t know how it started. I don’t think you ever know how things start, unless a bombshell is dropped and an affair exposed or something along those lines, but it wasn’t like that with us. The best way of putting it is to say that I slunk out of my marriage by degrees, over a long period of time. I often tried to work out when I realised that something wasn’t right—when it became clear to me that the answer to the question ‘How are things at home?’ had stopped corresponding with reality. The answer is invariably ‘good’ or ‘great’, with an optimistic smile to match. It was my answer too, well after it was no longer true.
A moment of minor revelation came one evening in Hedin, one of the city’s top restaurants. It has a Michelin star and eighteen points in Gault Millau. The tables were filled with couples and groups in festive mood, because even if you don’t arrive in festive mood, a dinner such as you get at Hedin makes you feel festive at once. Only one table was occupied by a solitary man, and he too was in festive mood, celebrating a private feast. He ate six courses: sea urchin with Sichuan pepper and pineapple, then abalone, then sea bass with Alba truffles and twenty-year-old rice wine, then partridge with Chinese honey and sprouts, then Kobe beef with beetroot and Périgord truffles and finally caramel au beurre salé with passionfruit and Japanese chestnuts—each course with its own wine selected by the sommelier. Between courses, the man sitting there alone drew in a soft lead pencil on a pad of paper. He was making sketches of a family house, dashing them off, and he looked satisfied, even happy. Although the chair opposite him clearly lacked an inhabitant, he lacked for nothing. I was that man.
I only felt gloomy once that evening, when it occurred to me that it was, perhaps, a little strange to be enjoying in solitary splendour the hours traditionally spent à deux, while my wife sat at home with a book, watching over our sleeping children. It was then I realised that I did not like being with my wife, that I was avoiding her, that my happiest hours were spent alone or with the children. I did not pursue the thought, deliberately suppressing it. I took the abalone shell home; it is patterned with black and mother-of-pearl and looks valuable. ‘From a Japanese client who’s planning to move to Berlin,’ I told my wife, although I had no idea whether the abalone sea snail, also known as a sea ear, had any connection to Japan—and why should I have a Japanese client? I never had Japanese clients. Rebecca was pleased and asked no questions.
I had been eating out alone for a while. It started at a time when I could still call my marriage happy. I’d be behind on a commission and forced to put in late nights. If I didn’t feel like ordering the usual pizza or Asian takeaway, I’d go and sit in the trattoria around the corner from the office and work on my sketches. Sometimes I took my laptop along. My wife was sympathetic; she appreciated that I couldn’t keep on top of my work without sacrificing the odd evening. Soon I was fed up with the food at the trattoria, because the menu never changed and the owner wasn’t Italian in any case—he was a Bulgarian playing at being Italian. Nothing against Bulgarians, but if I go out for Italian, I want to see Italians. I want them to say prego and grazie and, if they insist, grazie dottore, even though I don’t have a PhD. The Bulgarian said all that, pleasantly enough and with an Italian-sounding accent, but once I’d found out that he was Bulgarian, I began to look around for another restaurant, a better one, and then for an even better one, until I had developed into a connoisseur. It was an expensive business—too expensive, in fact—but I didn’t care. I didn’t tell my wife where I spent my evenings. She thought I was in the office or at the cheap Italian place around the corner from the office. She was, however, surprised at the speed with which our money was disappearing.
I avoided her at home, too. When I got back from work, I didn’t join her in the kitchen where she was peeling carrots or potatoes; I went to the children’s rooms. This was easy to justify, because the children hadn’t seen their father all day, and children need a father, of course they do. That really is true, but for me the children were also—and these are bitter words—a shield protecting me from being alone with my wife. I looked at her, if I looked at her at all, without being touched by her beauty, and I listened to her, if I listened to her at all, without hearing her words. What drove me away? What drove me away from the woman I had once loved so much?
I know that I don’t know is not a good answer, but it’s the only way I can begin. There is something inexplicable about my retreat, something vague and imprecise. It happened imperceptibly, gradually; I faded away without meaning to, without cause. I simply stayed away. To begin with, it didn’t even feel as if that’s what I was doing. Our phones make it so easy to distance ourselves from one another without losing touch. I was pleased when I got a loving text message from my wife between courses at Luna or Stranz, or as I was staring with a degree of resentment at a bill for two hundred and fifty euros, not including service, of course, so in fact two hundred and seventy euros—no good being stingy. I would write Rebecca a loving text message back. I wasn’t lonely—no one with a family is ever lonely, not even when he’s alone, because he knows he can go home to his loved ones at any time. In such circumstances, solitude can become a pleasure.
Now and then I didn’t go straight home after dinner, but dropped into a bar and drank a negroni. Sometimes I’d tell the barman about my family—my marvellous children and my beautiful, intelligent and wonderful wife—and because I didn’t want the barman wondering why I wasn’t with this beautiful, intelligent and wonderful wife, I’d say I lived in Frankfurt—business trip to Berlin, miss her like anything. Ping, a text message. Sooo tired. Enjoy your work, my poor husband, and give me a kiss when you come to bed, eh? ‘That’s her. She’s going to bed now,’ I’d tell the ba
rman as he mixed me another negroni, and we’d both smile.
‘Indestructible’ was a word I liked to use on such occasions. ‘We have our problems too,’ I’d say—to barmen, to my friends, to acquaintances. ‘We have our little ups and downs. Don’t we all? But one thing’s for sure—our marriage is indestructible.’ It’s a powerful word—a word that speaks of absolute unity, of eternity. How foolish it is to label a marriage with a word like that, particularly in this day and age, when people come together, do what they feel like doing, drift apart, and it’s all fine. Marriage is no longer sacrosanct. The old conventions have broken down, and we have to manage on our own.
Rebecca and I didn’t manage very well. When I got home, I would speak more softly, stoop a little. I was smaller, slower, an unassuming person, largely without feelings. It was as that person that I walked through the front door—a hug, a few routine words with my wife, then I’d go to the children’s rooms. Even once Paul and Fay were in bed, I didn’t talk to my wife; I would sit and read a book. Another evening would pass without conversation, but we were still there, I told myself. Still indestructible. I reassured myself with that powerful and fearful word in those moments of clarity when I realised my marriage was dying a slow death.
9
I AM THE SILENT TYPE, a man who doesn’t mind if he doesn’t speak or hear a word for days on end, as I realise whenever I’m on one of my thinking retreats: five days on Amrum, walks on the mud flats and in the dunes, intense thinking, sketching in cafes and restaurants, brief exchanges with waiters—not a word too many. I am at ease with myself. I used to think I was probably the only person I could be with without ever getting bored. I also liked to think that the only conversations free from misunderstanding are conversations with oneself. I got positively drunk on such insights. What a fool I was.
The truth is, no one is ever bored in my wife’s company. She is more intelligent than me or anyone I know, talkative and original, with a sunny, calm disposition and a good sense of humour, and everything about her is softly elegant, right down to her gliding walk. When I am sitting at home at my desk, Rebecca can startle me by coming up behind me and laying a hand on my shoulder. I don’t hear her approaching, although she likes to wear high-heeled shoes even in the flat—and we have parquet floors. It’s true that I can become very engrossed in my work, but what other woman can walk across parquet in high heels almost soundlessly? Someone once said of the poet Anna Akhmatova, ‘She doesn’t touch the ground when she walks…’ My wife’s like that.
She has rather an unfortunate voice, quite high and inclined to crack, but it doesn’t usually matter. Our everyday disagreements aren’t that bad—they’re mostly arguments rather than fights—and are soon resolved. ‘Randolphrandolphrandolph,’ says Rebecca, when everything important has been said and anything else would only send us spiralling into destructive loops—and she shakes her head. ‘Rebeccarebeccarebecca,’ I say, already smiling and in the same tone of reproach and forgiveness—and I too shake my head. Or else I say ‘Rebeccarebeccarebecca’ first, and then she says ‘Randolphrandolphrandolph’. That conciliatory echo never fails us—we can rely on each other for that.
But I am afraid there’s a bit more to it than these day-to-day disagreements. My marvellously calm and sunny wife sometimes loses control completely, exploding like a suicide bomber. The comparison is tasteless, but somehow also apposite, because during these fits all traces of Rebecca’s usual delightful self are obliterated and the incendiary force of her anger obliterates me too, if only momentarily. I cannot say precisely what triggers these explosions—it is usually funny little things.
For instance, I once announced that I was going to leave for a business trip to Munich on the evening of 1 January, because I had an appointment early the following day. I didn’t think Rebecca would mind—New Year’s Day is always a write-off, after the party the night before. You sit out your hangover, watch the ski jumping on TV, wonder whether to bother putting your resolutions into practice and go to bed early. On 1 January everyone is as taciturn and self-absorbed as I am on a normal day. No one feels like chatting, or spending time with their family. But when Rebecca heard of my plan, she was furious. She leapt out of her chair, arm outstretched, index finger stabbing at the air. How could I think of abandoning my family during the holidays? Were there no limits? She was shrieking at me, almost screaming, her face red, thick veins protruding from her neck. I could tell just by looking at her there was no point in arguing.
I have to confess, these fits knock me sideways. I freeze, muscles clenched, heart beating wildly, and my head feels as if my brain might explode. I am, I fear, scared at such moments. I want to run away, but I can’t move, want to say something but can’t speak. Outwardly I am turned to stone, but inside I am raging.
It is only by destroying something that Rebecca can get control of her fury. She hurls a glass at the floor, a plate against the wall. She used to take oranges from the fruit bowls in the kitchen or living room and fling them so hard at the wall that they burst. That proved particularly expensive, because we like to keep our flat looking nice and always had the wallpaper or paint touched up afterwards by professional decorators. We have stopped buying oranges now. As soon as Rebecca has smashed or broken something, she calms down and takes me in her arms, holding me tight and yet lovingly, and stroking my head. ‘Sorry,’ she whispers in my ear. It takes me a while to ease myself out of my spasm. Then I tell her all is forgiven and help her gather up the broken pieces.
These fits are not frequent, maybe two or three a year. We have sometimes talked about them. Rebecca doesn’t know what gets into her any more than I do, or how she can avoid it. We have agreed that I will have to put up with it.
‘Can you?’ she once asked.
‘Of course,’ I said, kissing her, but there is no denying that I occasionally feel tense when I am sitting with my wife and things are less than harmonious, or that I may act more than usually charming to avoid triggering a fit. I don’t much like myself at such times.
‘Her fits are driving me away from her,’ I said to my little brother, as we sat together at the counter in Blum, a little old bar near Winterfeldplatz where we always go when he’s in Berlin.
‘It’s not her fault—it’s yours,’ he said.
‘But why does she have to attack me like that?’ I asked.
‘Because you’re starving her.’
‘I wouldn’t be starving her if she didn’t attack me like that,’ I told him.
‘Stop it,’ said my little brother. ‘Just try not disappearing for once.’
‘I don’t disappear,’ I said, defiantly.
‘Oh yes, you do,’ he said. ‘It was just the same when we were little. We’d all be there in the living room together, and Mum would sit at the table with us, playing a game, and you’d just disappear.’
‘That was Dad’s fault,’ I said. ‘I hated being in the same room as him.’
Then my brother said those words I can’t stand: ‘You’re just like him.’ That isn’t true—and if it were, I wouldn’t want it pointed out to me.
I pushed the flat of my hand against my brother’s shoulder, not very hard, but not gently, either. He did the same to me, only rather harder. My negroni, which I was holding in my left hand, sloshed onto my trousers. I put it down, leapt to my feet and pulled my little brother off his stool; two of his shirt buttons burst. We wrestled, but only briefly, because the barman thrust himself between us.
‘You’d better clear out of here,’ he said.
We paid and left. Outside we laughed about it, hugged each other and set out to find another bar. We drank negronis until dawn.
When I got up at about midday, my little brother was sitting in the kitchen with my wife, drinking coffee while she sewed the buttons back on his shirt.
‘You don’t have to tell him we can’t escape our gene pool,’ I said ill-naturedly to my wife, who was always telling me precisely that. ‘It’s what he thinks anyway.’
> ‘Now, now,’ said my little brother.
I was still standing in the kitchen door. My wife put down the shirt, button, needle and thread, got up and took me in her arms.
‘I love your gene pool,’ she said.
I put my right hand on her hip. My little brother got up, came over to us, took my left hand and put it on my wife’s shoulder.
‘There,’ he said, ‘you see.’
10
IN THE WEEKS BEFORE DIETER TIBERIUS STRUCK, Rebecca and I lived together in an almost unbearable state of apathy. My wife had given up fighting for me. She no longer asked: ‘What’s wrong with you?’ She always got the same answer in any case: ‘Nothing.’ It’s the most terrible answer of all. It ought to be banned, proscribed under the marriage act, because it’s almost never true and leaves the other person helpless. You can’t do anything about nothing.
I lived in the expectation that our conversations would go awry, and they did go awry. We’d got into a routine of letting it happen—or rather, I’d got into a routine. That meant that my expectations were invariably fulfilled, which is something you can get used to.
One of the peculiarities of our marriage was that we were having amazing sex at that time. Or perhaps I should say that I was having amazing sex—but it was a while before that became clear to me. I completely lost myself to my wife’s body, terrified but elated, because there was no ground beneath me, no purchase. I’m a talker in bed, a little on the vulgar side, to be honest, but I’m also prone to confessions of eternal love—to declaring never before and never again and no other woman. I kept this up even in our more difficult times, and what I said was perhaps true not only in the moment, while we were in bed, but also more broadly—yet after my violent release I thought no more about it.
About a week before I flew to Bali, my wife flung a question into my post-coital oblivion: ‘Who were you sleeping with just now?’
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