The Story of a Marriage

by Geir Gulliksen

  And now it was five o’clock, and we sat at dinner, like so many other families in the country, and she saw I’d already begun to dread it. She’d made a stuffing with mushrooms and onions and garlic and basil and salt, stirred into sour cream. The turkey had been in the oven for three and a half hours, I’d boiled the potatoes and made a gravy from the giblets. She’d found the recipe for the salad the day before, with blue cheese and red onions. It was rather too strong with such rich food, and the kids didn’t eat it, but she carved the perfect pale slices of turkey and served. It was essential to us that she carve. We’d have looked like a family in the 1950s if I’d done it, we said, when our eldest boy asked why we always did it that way. She felt light, triumphant. The turkey wasn’t too dry, it was lean and white, though a bit difficult to slice, or perhaps the knife needed sharpening, she was annoyed with herself for not having done it. She raised her glass to me, and then the children. She stretched her foot out and stroked my shin, expecting me to smile, but no. We’d had a good time together (after a few false starts) yet its effect on me was already wearing off, clearly. She went to get the hot gravy from the cooker, and on her return she walked behind me. She placed the gravy boat in front of me, then leaned over me and ran her fingers through my hair. I looked up at her. My eyes were glazed, my lips pursed, she hoped I wasn’t about to start to cry.

  —Are you upset?

  —Not at all.

  But I must have been upset, or irritated, verging on tears of frustration. I never wanted to admit I was cross, it was too petty, cross should have been eradicated from the register of human emotion, I’d once said. But she knew from experience that I could feel very put out, agitated to the point of having to go and lie down. This was clearly going to get awkward if she couldn’t turn it around. She slid her hand down the front of my shirt, rubbed my chest around my heart area. She felt it beating hard and fast, then she bent down and whispered in my ear:

  —You made me come so wonderfully.

  I looked up at her; with her fingers in my hair, she drew my face toward hers and kissed me. I was usually the first to open my lips, this time she did, pushing her tongue against mine, giving me a long kiss. A few smacking noises ensued, causing our oldest boy to groan in despair, he was painfully embarrassed, but she placed her hand in front of my face as if to shield me, and said:

  —Shh. I’m just kissing your dad a bit.

  He produced another noise, a sort of growl. It was almost comical, but it wasn’t meant to be amusing, he was expressing his disgust, he couldn’t bear to look at us. She didn’t remove her hand but kissed me again in the little space her hand created around my face. She bit my bottom lip and looked into my eyes.

  —We’ll only stay until after the fireworks, and then we’ll come home and go to bed, all right?

  —I don’t want to do the fireworks with Paul Edvin. Are he and I supposed to do the fireworks while you and Una Birgitte serve cakes, is that it?

  I was getting worked up, she could see that. Paul Edvin was a sore point with me. He was a teacher, he taught Norwegian and had more than an average interest in literature, music and film. Besides which, he liked to stay at home when he wasn’t at work—social events made him as shy and uncomfortable as they did me—so when we first got to know them, I’d thought he could be the friend I’d never had. But something went wrong, we didn’t find any common ground, our conversations never got beyond the politely conventional. Timmy said that even such exchanges had some value, but I felt deeply frustrated over the fact I could never discuss anything spontaneously with him. And since Una Birgitte believed blind in gender segregation, she always lowered her voice and talked to Timmy when she had anything real to say. Thus excluded, Paul Edvin and I were left to cultivate that male form of human interaction which involved giving each other brief lectures on one thing or another. I could never be myself, the person I wanted to be, something I’d find untenable, and which would eventually drive me to take my leave and march off home.

  Timmy stroked the short, clipped hair on the back of my neck, it felt smooth like fur, like sleek water-resistant otter fur; she was usually the one to cut it. She walked over to the kitchen worktop and picked up her phone. She’d left it on the windowsill face down, and she’d put it on to silent so she wouldn’t be waiting for it to ring. She’d let half the day pass before checking it, so as to be sure of finding a nice message on it. He’d presumably sent several already. She’d even started to think she might prefer not to receive any texts from Gunnar right now, a part of her wanted to be left in peace, with me and the kids. Anyway, she thought, whatever this was between them, it would almost certainly pass. But now she was overwhelmed by an intense, agonizing longing. It occurred to her that he’d had similar thoughts, deciding to find tranquility in the ordinary, the lawful and safe, in his marriage and family. That must be why he hadn’t texted her, and suddenly it seemed so unfair, so wrong, almost bad form. She typed a short text—opening with a bright Hi there!—then changed it to something more downbeat. She said she’d been out skiing, and that she’d looked for him. She put down her phone and returned to the table. As she walked past me, she put her hand on my neck, giving it a squeeze with her fingers, saying she’d got a text from her sister. Then, without waiting for a response, she said

  —I’ll do the fireworks with Paul Edvin. You can just go home when you’re fed up. It’s pretty likely that at least one of your sons will want to go home too.

  This inspired the exact level of happiness in me she’d predicted. I nodded in the direction of our youngest boy, who we’d always agreed resembled me most, and said

  —I think you might just be right.

  He was sitting staring into thin air. He was thinking about something, chewing on his turkey and potatoes with an open mouth and drinking orangeade, depositing greasy smudges on his glass from his mouth and fingers. He had spilled gravy down his white shirt, an oblong stripe that grew wider at the bottom like a map of Norway.

  She reached her foot out toward me under the table, touched my knee with her toes. I looked across at her, my face softened, I raised my glass to her. She’d made it easier for me, and so it was easier for her too, it would be all right.

  9

  One Thursday in February she came home late. She’d been out skiing with him, and they’d gone a long way. Each time they went further than they’d intended. It became impossible to turn back. They wanted to show each other how strong they were, how far they could go. They wanted to show each other how different everything was, how vital and dynamic, when they were together. Besides, it had been such a perfect day out there. A gentle February breeze in the trees, and wet snow in the morning which turned crisp and hard as evening approached. The darkness closed about them, there were no other skiers out, just the two of them. The moon, one-eyed and monochrome, shone down on them, turning the snow and slender spruce trees blue, in perfect stillness.

  She heard the sound of their skis and poles in the frozen snow. They stopped and looked around, talked for a moment. Their voices seemed muffled and intimate out here, padded somehow, she heard herself as though from inside the snow. It would soon be night, and they decided they must turn back. She was hot and aching, and the way back was longer than she remembered. She went ahead of him on the downhill slopes, aware of him watching her. He evaluated everything she did, she felt his gaze follow her rhythm. She dug her poles in on the gentler slopes, forceful and energetic, rising onto the balls of the feet and pushing herself forward, crouching low to minimize wind-drag on every little hill. She enjoyed the speed, and she enjoyed being watched by him.

  And just once she fell; leaning too far forward at a corner she plunged sideways into a snowdrift. It was soft and deep, she didn’t hurt herself, she just got a shower of powdery snow on her face and neck. She felt like a child. Might it have been like that, that the happiness rose inside her like a child? Yes, that was it exactly:
she lay deep in snow unable to get up. He came after her and swerved to a halt beside her, neatly and confidently, and held out his hand to help her. His smile in that moment would fix itself in her mind, first as an image she could conjure up when she was in bed at night, or when she was at work. Then later as an image that would hound her day after day, like a disturbing sound, but she still didn’t know that. He pulled her up and asked if she was all right. But he didn’t let her go, they stood holding hands. Then finally letting go he helped her brush off the snow. He had removed his ski gloves, his hands were big and warm. Their faces drifted toward each other, then away again, like two luminous planets that seem to gravitate toward each other in an otherwise impenetrable dark. They smiled, and started talking about skiing techniques. Though, surely they can’t have done? Well, in fact they could have talked about anything, the meaning of what they said lay not in the words, but in how they were said.

  But she had to get home now. As did he. She had said she’d be back before it got late, whatever that meant, before bedtime at least. He took the lead on the final path down toward the car park. He put her skis next to his. She watched as he stretched up to the ski box on the roof of the car, the movement ran through his body, definite and gentle. They’d taken his car, as usual, and now she was sitting in the passenger seat, being driven home by him. She sent me a text message, received no reply. Not a good sign. She hoped I’d gone to bed, but doubted it. I was probably waiting, going from room to room, irritated or anxious again.

  She knew that. I was always agitated when she got back later than she said. It had happened once, and she’d promised it would never happen again, but it did, once, twice, then frequently. The first time she was late home we were meant to go for a dirty weekend. Not a phrase either of us liked, nonetheless we’d started to use it. We were just going to the cottage together. The kids would stay with her parents, and we’d drive from home straight after work on Friday. She’d arranged to go to the climbing center with him after lunch, her work gave her two hours off a week for sports activities, and he’d said he wanted to give her a climbing lesson. He did, and they lost track of time. She hung there eight meters up on the wall, and he stood beneath her holding the rope and the belay device. He secured her, as they say; she liked to think about what that meant. He shouted up at her, telling her where she could find a grip, out a little to the left, slightly higher, can you feel it? Whenever she reached a difficult bit, he’d tell her she was doing well, that she was great. Her legs were strong and she felt that helped her, he told her so. Afterward he drove her home. She’d got a text from me asking should I worry something’s happened to you or have you just started to get flippant about us? But she had not, she didn’t feel the least bit flippant, not about me, nor us, nor anything else, she said later that night when we’d finally arrived at the cottage and made dinner together, still quarreling. I’d stood and looked at her, and said I’m glad about that, at least.

  And then they’d gone climbing and forgotten to look at the clock again, they’d gone running, several times, and each time they ran further than planned and came back late. Then the ski season started, and he invited her to go on a day trip. He’d taken time off work that day and asked if she wanted to join him, it would be like having a meeting, he’d said. He said it with the same kind of laughter in his voice that she had started to imitate, a merciless laugh, metallic and bright, that practically glinted, like a trumpet blasting in your sleep. He laughed at everything, nothing was too dangerous, it helped her that she’d begun to resemble him. What they were doing presented no danger to anyone at all. It was simple, they liked each other, they had shared interests, they had become good friends. That was why their trips went on longer than they’d intended.

  She announced that she didn’t like having fixed times at which to get home when she went out. She heard me repeat the words, fixed times, in disbelief. I asked if she’d become a teenager again, if I was a daddy to her or if we were still husband and wife. Increasingly often she heard me talk like that, in dramatic and drastic terms. I worked myself up, my eyes filled my face, she could see their whites, my hands shook with rage, I threw a half-opened milk carton. She had to help me wipe the floor afterward, it didn’t seem right to sit and watch. She couldn’t see why I was reacting like this. She didn’t understand why I would ask if we were still husband and wife.

  I was talking, she said, as though she’d been unfaithful, which she certainly hadn’t been. She heard me scoff at the word—unfaithful or not unfaithful—it was beneath our dignity to use such a word. I said that she could go ahead and sleep with him or with anyone else, so long as she didn’t start getting flippant about us. I wasn’t going to stop using that word now that I’d found it. I felt I’d been treated flippantly, just tossed aside, she heard me say. It summed up everything that had grown problematic for me. On another occasion I announced that if she ever got together with him, she’d probably live longer with him than she had with me. Again and again I had to give voice to all my fears, I had to conjure up all the things I least wanted to happen. She watched my face, pinched, enraged and hurt. I stood emptying the dishwasher and slammed the cupboard doors, as I talked. But in the next moment I’d go on about her having to be free, having to do what she wanted. As long as she was my wife and lover, I said, she could do what she wanted with anyone. I stood in front of her, blotchy-faced, glassy-eyed, manic. And all she wanted was to be left in peace.

  And now she was coming home late again. Perhaps she was being flippant, she thought, perhaps she was being neglectful of us, of our relationship, but it couldn’t be helped. She looked at his hands, Gunnar’s hands on the wheel. Smooth, hairless, tanned. She wanted to tell him, that she felt she’d been neglectful again. But then he turned to her and said: I’ve always liked to go skiing on my own. But now I prefer it when you’re with me.

  She knew what this meant. She knew what her response should be. She heard herself respond, and her own words moved her. The heat shot through her body in waves. He drove on, she stared out of the window, not daring to look at him. He said something, without looking at her, precisely what she hoped he would say.

  Some days earlier I’d called her at her work, I was in tears, she could barely understand what I said. She’d tried to calm me down, she suggested I go out, go skiing perhaps, and I’d answered that it wouldn’t help. I’d already been out skiing, I’d taken the same route she usually took, with Gloveman. I could think of nothing else. I’d gone as fast as I was able, skied as hard and as far as I could, trying to exhaust myself. It helped to tire myself out, I stopped thinking. But as soon as I got back home I thought again about her and him.

  I said we had to meet up, that I had to speak with her right away. She relented, she said she could go out to lunch. I sat in the car outside her office, we went for a drive, I started to talk, then I started to cry. I pulled over, she listened to me. I said that I couldn’t go on, that it was torture, I was just waiting for what might happen, that she’d sleep with him, that she’d lose control over herself, over everything that was happening. That our family would be wrecked. What would become of me then, and what would happen to the kids? I hit the steering wheel, I hit my own face, I hyperventilated, I sobbed and curled up in my seat. She put her hands on me, that usually helped. She told me to lean forward and breathe calmly. She made her voice gentle, intimate, comforting. It helped a little. Eventually she grabbed my shoulder and said OK fine. I swear there won’t be anything between him and me other than friendship. I guarantee it, does that help?

  And it did. It was as though, she thought later, she had switched on the light. I stopped crying, and turned to her with the look she knew and liked. My voice returned to normal, warm and deep. I drove her back to work, and when she was about to go in, I asked her to wait a moment.

  —What you said was lovely, it was all I needed. But I don’t want you to guarantee me anything. What kind of life would that be for
you, or even for me? I want you to be alive. I want you to be free. I don’t want you to give me any lifetime guarantees. I’ve suddenly grown so afraid of losing you. I wonder if I’ve always been afraid of it. But it’s precisely this fear that could ruin everything between us. Isn’t it? In Shakespeare’s plays, it’s his characters’ desperate attempts at avoiding disaster that lead them right to it. They try to save themselves or others, and in so doing bring about the very thing they fear. The problem is not whether you are in love with him or not, what’s dangerous is that I’ve become so afraid of it.

  She reached over to me, trying to feel what she’d felt before. She saw her own hand on my shoulder, embraced me and released me, almost without thinking, her thoughts were elsewhere.

  * * *

  —

  Their trips got longer and more frequent. He dropped her off at the gate. The house looked dark, she couldn’t see anyone at the windows. She leaned forward to say goodbye. She closed her mouth and eyes, felt his cheek against hers. She breathed in his smell, the cool, fresh odor of speed and physical exertion and new snow. But something else too: a grown man’s body, an exciting bitter heat that rose from beneath his clothes. He kissed her lightly on the cheek, a dry but promising kiss. He said good luck, and then she saw his hand on her knee. She hadn’t felt it until she saw it. In that instant she felt an intense heat radiating up from his hand, up over her thigh. It went straight into her, through the whole of her, out to the tips of her fingers. She laid her hand on his for a moment, then she had to go.