by Clare Flynn
‘I was a young man. To mark my graduation from the university my brother arranged for me to have an experience with a woman.’
‘I see.’ She was glad the darkness hid her blushes. Relief that he was not as completely inexperienced as she was, mingled with a feeling of disgust that he was telling her this. She didn’t want to know the details.
‘Alphonsus paid her. My two best friends came with me. She dealt with us all, one after the other. I was the last.’
There was silence again, then he said, ‘She was a lot older than me and at first I was repelled by her and didn’t want to go ahead. So I understand how you must be feeling now.’
Eliza mumbled a negative, but knew it didn’t sound convincing.
‘She must have been used to dealing with young graduates as she was kind but very matter of fact. She was wrapped in a sheet which she dropped and showed me her body. I told myself that I was now a doctor and that made me feel better. It became more like a scientific experiment and I could be detached and stopped feeling ashamed. She gave me a glass of schnapps and that helped even more and before long she got me to laugh and then the whole thing was over before I’d even realised it was getting started. A bit of a disappointment. Before that day I had presumed I would only do something so intimate with someone I loved and ever since I swore I would not do it again, unless and until it were with someone I cared for.’
His head was resting against the top of her arm and she felt the scratch of his beard through the linen of her nightgown. She reminded herself that she had to view this as practically as Dr Feigenbaum had all those years ago. It was a necessity. Something to be got out of the way. An essential pre-requisite to becoming a mother. She eased up her nightgown, moved her legs apart, took his hand and placed it between them. He gave a small choked cry, then moved his other hand and laid it against her damaged cheek, stroking her face tenderly.
‘I’ll try not to hurt you, Eliza, my love. You have given my life back to me, my darling girl. You have made me so happy. I love you with all my heart.’
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to reimagine the patterns that she had seen on the ceiling, to shut out the temptation to pretend that it was Jack Brennan who was lying on top of her. Her body was rigid, her eyes closed and her arms by her sides, like a corpse. As he pushed himself into her she almost cried out with the pain, but bit her lip instead. It hurt like hell. The sharpness of the pain seared through her, but then gave way to an uncomfortable ache as he worked in and out on top of her. She began to count the thrusts in her head, hoping that it would distract her from what was happening, that it would help her get through this. She reminded herself that she was doing this to have a baby. But it felt demeaning, degrading. Like animals. So embarrassing. It didn’t seem right. Not when Dr Feigenbaum was such a dignified person, so quiet, so private, so closed. But here he was now, grunting like an animal on top of her.
He lifted his head and looked at her in the dark, then bent down and kissed her forehead. Drops of sweat fell from his face onto her own. ‘Breathe,’ he said. ‘Breathe deeply. Slowly.’
She did as he asked and as she exhaled, she felt the tension leaving her limbs. She kept her eyes shut and carried on with slow deep breaths as the pain faded. Just as she was starting to become accustomed to the rhythm of his movement inside her, beginning to feel a small answering sensation each time he moved in and out, he gave a terrible cry, like a stuck pig, then fell away from her, leaving her suddenly empty, a sticky mess seeping between her legs.
He rolled over and reached for her hand. ‘I didn’t hurt you too much, liebchen?’
She mumbled a response of sorts, shy, awkward, hoping he would go to sleep. What they had just done seemed beyond belief. It was too intimate. How could she ever look him in the face again?
When she was sure he was asleep, she slipped out of bed, put on her dressing gown and crept downstairs to the parlour, where she sat on the floor in front of the hearth watching the dying embers of the fire. She wondered whether what Dr Feigenbaum had done had already made a baby inside her. She hugged her knees, conscious of the stickiness that he had deposited on the top of her thighs. It was disgusting. And yet? She slipped her fingers under her nightgown and touched herself down there, provoking her hips into a sudden and unexpected jerk. When her stepmother had walked into the bedroom and caught her touching herself there when she was about fourteen, she’d told her it was a mortal sin and if she did it again she would end up in hell. How was that possible when, according to the church, what Dr Feigenbaum had just done to her was seen as part of the sacrament of marriage? It didn’t make any sense. Her hand wandered back and she stroked herself again, this time letting her fingers go inside, touching herself where he had been.
The following evening Eliza waited for her husband again in the darkened bedroom. This time however, he dropped a light kiss on her forehead and wished her goodnight, going quickly to sleep. She lay in the dark beside him, feeling a mixture of relief and disappointment. Had she done something wrong? Who could she ask? Was once enough to bring about a pregnancy? Could she ask him? He was after all a doctor and presumably would be accustomed to such questions. Perhaps after all he found her unattractive. But then he had only made love once before in his entire life so maybe he would not expect or want to do it again so soon. How often were they supposed to do it? She mulled these and more questions over in her head, lying on her back staring at the moonlight leaking into the room above the curtains. Eventually she drifted into sleep.
The following morning she awoke to him stroking her breasts. Shocked, she started to sit up but he pushed her back down gently.
‘Let’s stay here a while.’
He moved one of his hands down and laid the flat of his palm on her, then his fingers moved between her legs, probing and stroking. She turned her head away, embarrassed by what he was doing, her breathing fast and uneven. Then she relaxed and let herself give in to the sensations. It felt strange that those long, ink-stained, spatulate fingers that she was used to seeing gripping a leaking fountain pen, were now touching her down there, causing her to make little cries. It was better than what she had done to herself in front of the fire. Her face was burning and she kept her head turned away from him, overcome by the intense sensations.
He leaned over her and asked her if she was all right, or if she wanted him to stop.
‘Don’t stop!’ she said. ‘Please don’t stop.’ Then suddenly. ‘Yes stop. Inside me. I want you inside me!’
She didn’t know where the words had come from. What was happening to her? What had he done to her? When he positioned himself on top of her, she grasped him with both her arms, pulling him into her, bringing her knees up and her legs wrapping around his back. She groaned as he entered her, moving her arms to hold him tighter as they started to move together. He looked down at her, his face frowning in concentration, his eyes out of focus, unrecognisable as though he were in a mystical state of trance.
When it was over, she turned on her side away from him, her body wet with sweat, her breathing rough and uncontrolled. She was drowsy, sated. She had never imagined it would be pleasurable.
Then Feigenbaum started coughing: uncontrollable coughs that made him struggle for breath. Alarmed, she piled the pillows behind him to prop him upright. Eventually he settled and they sat there, side by side in the bed and Eliza suddenly felt ridiculous. It was absurd, undignified what they had just done together. Embarrassing. She had lost control. She hated that. He was practically an old man and judging by the coughing fit, possibly not long for this world, particularly if he exerted himself the way he had done just now. So undignified.
He reached for her hand. ‘I love you, Eliza,’ he said.
She squeezed her eyes tight shut. She didn’t want to look at him with his white hair, his white, loose skin, his small paunch. And she certainly didn’t want to look at those ink stained fingers now stroking her hand.
They sat in silence for a few minutes and
Eliza wondered when it would be appropriate for her to reclaim her hand and get out of bed, But she knew he would look at her. Watch her as she went across the room. Take in her body with his eyes just as he had taken her body with his own.
‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked.
‘Nothing really,’ she said.
‘Tell me.’
She took her hand back from under his and pretended to adjust her hair. ‘When we were in that restaurant in New York why did you ask me to marry you? You barely knew me.’
‘I knew you.’
‘That’s not possible.’
‘It was recognition. I saw in you something. A strong feeling. A connection. Recognition is the best word.’
‘I saw nothing,’ she said.
He flinched.
‘You were just a stranger. Kind-hearted, yes, but a stranger.’
‘And now?’
‘You are a kind man.’
‘But no longer a stranger?'
She could sense the hesitance and hope in his voice.
‘I know more of you, but…’
‘Yes?’
‘I think I will always feel apart from you, distant.’ As she spoke she knew her words were knife wounds but she felt compelled to twist the knife further, to regain some separation, some distance after the strange, primeval intimacy of their love-making. ‘I don’t know you at all.’
‘You haven’t tried to know me.’ His voice was sad rather than accusatory.
‘Perhaps I don’t want to.’ She knew she was being cruel, but couldn’t help herself.
‘I wish it were otherwise.’
‘Do you still believe you love me?’
‘I do love you.’
‘How is that possible? Love must travel two ways.’
Without waiting for his answer, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, reached for her dressing gown and went to the bathroom, leaving him propped up against the pillows, his eyes rheumy and sad.
29
Birth of an Empire
Dr Feigenbaum’s book was almost complete. Eliza was typing up the final chapter. She had the glossary and index to prepare and then it would be ready for publication.
She had become increasingly absorbed by the task. The doctor’s style was ponderous and florid and she had taken it upon herself to recast some of the writing to make it flow more smoothly.
He was alarmed when she told him. ‘You’ve changed the text? How? Why?’
‘Not all of it. Just the opening chapter. For you to consider. If you like it, well and good and I can work on the rest; if you don’t, then I still have your original draft here.’ She brandished a handful of papers.
‘Read it aloud.’
She began to read and he listened, his expression inscrutable. When she finished the chapter, he nodded and smiled. ‘You have worked wonders with my clumsy syntax. Thank you, Eliza. Please continue with the rest of the manuscript. It will be a better book for what you are doing.’
The next evening he went out to his weekly chess club. Eliza looked forward to those evenings when she had the house to herself. She still found his presence awkward and struggled to reconcile the man who puffed at his pipe and read his German newspaper with the man who did embarrassing things to her body in bed and could make her cry out with pleasure. In the darkness of the bedroom she was able to relax, but she could not imagine a time coming when she would feel comfortable in conversation with him.
When he arrived home that night, he came into the parlour without taking off his coat, so eager was he to speak.
‘Something amusing happened this evening, my dearest. I was extolling your virtues as an editor when Edward Larkman – you remember him? – the dental surgeon – he is working on a volume outlining the techniques and methods of modern dentistry – he asked whether you would be willing to transcribe and edit his book and prepare the index, footnotes and glossary. Of course, I told him it was out of the question for you to take on work now that we are married. But I thought you would be amused, my dear.’ He took his coat off and flung it absently on the chair, eager to continue. ‘Then, Felix Montague, I don’t think you’ve met him – he is a breeder of racehorses – he said he’d a mind to write his memoirs – a record of his past triumphs and his training methods. Once the two of them had started, several of the others announced that they had writing plans and were in need of the services of an editor. By the end of the evening there were tomes in the making on matters as diverse as palaeontology and numismatics. Oh – and a history of the Cahokian tribal lands!’ He reached for his pipe where it lay on the mantelpiece. ‘Eliza, Eliza! You have inspired a flowering of technical writing in St Louis as has never been witnessed before!’ He chuckled as he stuffed the bowl of his pipe.
‘Why should it be out of the question because I’m married?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘A married woman does not work, Eliza. Not if her husband is able to support her. You know that. Before long we both hope you will have children to occupy your time.’
‘Why can’t I do both?’
He looked puzzled.
‘I enjoy the work I’ve been doing for you. I think I am good at it, so why would I want to stop?’
‘You are certainly good at it. But no woman chooses to work if she doesn’t need to.’
‘This woman does. I think I should be bored if I were expected to deal with nothing but household matters. Anyway, Marta has all of those under control. I think I should be perfectly capable of bringing up children while continuing editing. In fact I would be positively overjoyed. I have been dreading finishing your book.’
A tone of defiance had crept into her voice and he looked at her, smiling.
‘I see. Then far be it from me to stand in your way. I will share the good news with my fellow authors. But don’t say I didn’t warn you! At the rate they are clamouring for your services I think you could be overwhelmed.’
She thought for a moment. ‘How are they intending to publish their books?’
‘I suppose the same as I am. Our friend Gunter Hoffman has a printing press.’
‘That’s all very well but what about distributing them?’
‘Ah! You are ahead of me, my dearest, I had not thought of that challenge.’
‘It occurs to me that if so many of your friends and acquaintances are planning to write books of this kind – text books, works of a scientific or specialist nature – there may be advantages in grouping together to print and distribute them. Perhaps a partnership?’
‘Indeed! We could form a publishing company. Here in St Louis.’
Eliza clapped her hands together and smiled at him. ‘Now wouldn’t that be something!’
‘But how would this be achieved? Neither of us knows anything of such matters.’
‘You are a clever man, Karl. And you have connections throughout the city. The breweries would all be interested in your book and I imagine the same will be true of dentists and horse breeders and such. And there are the universities. Not just in St Louis but in the state. Why even the whole darned country! We just need a plan to reach these people, to make them aware of the books we offer. But first of all we must speak with your Herr Hoffman and find out if he wants to join the enterprise.’
She carried on, buoyed up by an enthusiasm she hadn’t experienced since she had been in America. Feigenbaum played devil’s advocate but the longer they talked the more his excitement mirrored hers.
‘We have proved to be good partners in working on your book, so why not in a larger enterprise? I think we complement each other well,’ she said.
‘In so many ways.’ Overcome, he flung his arms around her and hugged her tightly. ‘I think a toast is called for.’
Thus was born Feigenbaum & Hoffman, printers and publishers of text books and academic works. That night, Christabel Feigenbaum, the first of their two daughters, was also conceived.
Eliza’s feelings for Karl Feigenbaum changed the moment she watched him holding their
first born in his arms. The expression on his face, the pure undiluted love, moved her. She shivered.
He looked up at her and smiled. ‘You have made me so happy. You have given me the greatest gift. When I boarded that ship in Liverpool I had no idea that everything would change so much. I was an empty old man, a weary, wizened creature who thought life had passed him by in his Belgian backwater. I never dreamed I would one day be a husband and a father. My dear, dear girl, Eliza.’ He brushed the tears from his eyes as his voice broke with emotion. ‘I love you so much.’
She leaned forward and squeezed his arm, then let her hand stroke first the head of the baby girl and then rest against his cheek.
‘Thank you, Karl. Thank you. You too have made me happy.’ She paused, took a deep breath then said the words. ‘I love you too, Karl.'
He gasped and still cradling his daughter, reached for Eliza’s hand and squeezed it. ‘I thought I would never hear those words from you. I told myself to be content with your kindness, with your presence, your companionship. I never dared to hope that one day you might come to love me.'
Now she had spoken, she could not take the words back. Had she been overwhelmed by the moment, the hormonal rush of giving birth, the joy of holding her own child? How could she possibly love this strange German man, with his Franco-German accent and Santa Claus beard? The sunlight shone through the bedroom window and lit up his face as he gazed upon his child. It was a kind face, now a familiar face and one she had come to like looking back at her across the table at mealtimes.
She watched him as he stroked his daughter’s head, humming a German lullaby, his eyes still damp with unshed tears.
He was the person who cared for her more than anyone. He had rescued her from detention, lent her money, given her refuge and work. He had paid for her teeth to be fixed. He had told her she was beautiful every day since they married, even though she knew she wasn’t anymore. He had built with her the publishing company that already was in profit in less than a year. Her respect for him had grown and she had found an unexpected pleasure in working so closely with him. While there was no doubt that Eliza was the creative force behind the business, she struggled to imagine how she would have got it off the ground without him and how she would have made such progress without his wise counsel, encouragement and boundless enthusiasm. He had given purpose to her life. What was love anyway? She had always thought of it as a grand passion, an agonising rush of desire. Now she was not so sure. Perhaps love was the accumulation of small things, little acts of consideration, the persistence of a man in loving even when he receives nothing in return. Day after day, loving her by doing, being, caring, giving. What resistance did she have in the face of that? It was inevitable that in the end she would start to love him back. She tried to imagine life without him. It was not an appealing prospect.
