November Sky

by Marleen Reichenberg

  He was so sad and withdrawn that I couldn’t possibly be mad at him. Instead, I rocked him gently, like a child, back and forth, and whispered soothing words: Everything would be all right, he just needed rest, and I was with him. I managed to help him into our room, throw off the bedcover, chocolates and all, and helped him to lie down. He dropped onto the mattress and curled up as though he was freezing with cold. I quickly closed the door to the garden, lay down beside him, and covered us both up—so what if my dress got wrinkled? I gently caressed his face until he began to speak, haltingly.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Laura. I love you. I’m insanely happy that you’re my wife. I really thought this would get my dark hours behind me. It was so much fun tonight to talk, laugh, and dance. And then—I didn’t want to drink at first, but then I toasted with the others. I was kind of pumped up after that. Then the music got more and more frantic, the guys at the bar made rude remarks about the wedding night, and I was disgusted. I left the hall and I instantly had a feeling of not belonging, of being caught in a fog and crushed by a gray sky. I felt totally abandoned all of a sudden, lonely and filled with guilt to be so happy and bursting with life. I searched for you. I felt an urge to go to our room. But you weren’t there. And then I felt forced to go outside . . . and—”

  I put a finger to his lips. “Shh, it’s OK. You don’t have to say anything, Nick. I’m here.”

  He drew me close, and his hands trembled as they rubbed my back gently. “Last night I was alone in the house, and had that nightmare again. I missed you very, very much, so I changed plans in the morning and came to you. Stay with me, Laura. Don’t go away again.”

  But I knew I had to at least go back to say good-bye to the remaining guests and provide a plausible explanation for Nick’s absence. When I said I was going, he panicked. Eventually, I called my mother’s cell and explained that Nick wasn’t well because he’d downed too many drinks at the bar.

  “He thought he had to keep up with the other guys on his wedding day. He feels rotten and I don’t want to leave him alone.”

  Mama, who knew that Nick normally didn’t drink a drop, was sympathetic, as I expected she would be, and assured me she’d pass on our thanks and give everyone our best. Most of the guests were already leaving anyway.

  At the end of the conversation she lowered her voice. “Laura? Take care of him and don’t bawl him out. Don’t be upset about your canceled wedding night. You’re not the first couple that’s happened to. There will be many more nights.”

  I fervently hoped she was right. I realized we’d missed not even having this one night by only a hair.

  Nick and I would have been perfect characters for a tragicomedy: We lay spooned on the bed wearing our full wedding garb the whole night through. He huddled up to my back and wrapped an arm around me, as if trying to prevent my escape. He finally went to sleep, exhausted, and I heard his calm, regular breathing. The hairpins on my veil stuck into my head, but I didn’t have the strength to go to the bathroom. And I didn’t want to wake Nick. Dead tired, but also overwrought by the emotional events of the day, I lay on my pillow until morning without getting a wink of sleep.

  All night, I mentally replayed the morning’s turmoil and anxiety about Nick; the euphoria and joy over our wedding; the celebration; and then the pure terror at almost coming too late. The last part of our marriage vows, “until death do us part,” had already almost come true.

  It couldn’t go on like this. Nick had to get to the bottom of his dream, his sudden mental collapses, and his bizarre longing for death—even if I had to drag him by force to a specialist. Otherwise I couldn’t dare leave him alone for a few minutes without going half crazy with fear. What shocked me most was that his mood swings appeared so abruptly. As far as I could tell, there were no warning signs. And yet he trusted me to be there on the spot and save him from himself. But what if I wasn’t there?

  Our wedding motto crossed my mind. It came from chapter twenty-one of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince—how could it not? “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”

  I prayed in silence that my strength to carry this responsibility would never be exhausted.

  Chapter 13

  The autumn sun shone at full strength into our room, and its brash rays tickled my face. I felt Nick stir behind me and I carefully rotated my stiff body onto my back. I sat up and looked at my husband searchingly. I had no idea what his mental state would be. He opened his eyes, stretched, and wiped his forehead. When he saw my face over him, a delicate smile stole over his features.

  “A beautiful good morning, Mrs. Vanderstätt.”

  Good, at least he remembered our wedding. Did he also remember he’d nearly made me a widow? My sleepless night meant that I had neither the strength for a cautious probe nor for a diplomatic answer.

  “Thanks, but it’s not a good morning for me. Nick, I’ve got to go to the bathroom badly. I need to get rid of these deadly needles in my hair and I want to take a shower. Then we have to talk. Please don’t get any ideas about cutting and running.”

  I slid off the bed, straightened out my completely crumpled dress, and gave him a penetrating look. He had propped himself up on an elbow and looked contrite.

  “Where would I go, anyway? I drank too much yesterday, darling, and ruined your wedding night. I’m so sorry.”

  If only it had just been the wedding night, I could have overlooked it. But my faith in the promise he’d sworn to uphold had evaporated. When his dark mood overwhelmed him, he obviously couldn’t control himself. I didn’t buy the excuse that a couple of tequilas were to blame. He’d already toyed with his life once before, and that time he was dead sober. I disappeared into the bathroom without a word, scrubbed my teeth as if that would brush away all of last night, and took a long, hot shower. I planned carefully what I wanted to say to him. Just as I’d wrapped a fluffy towel around me, my husband appeared in the doorway as naked as God had made him.

  “Can I come in?”

  I nodded, and he blew me a kiss as he walked into the steamy shower. As I did so often, I couldn’t help but admire his well-built, tanned body. I felt like I was in a lousy film. How could he be so debonair? Though his behavior struck me as incredibly odd, I wondered if I was playing the drama queen. Maybe he really did drink too much and wasn’t serious about hanging himself from that tree. No! Stop trying to gloss it over! Something’s not right with him. We have to find out what it is together.

  My rational side snapped me back to reality. I vowed to stay on him until he promised to see a doctor about the life-threatening attacks. We had to find out the reason for them, or at least develop some coping strategies so he didn’t regard his death as the only way out when suffering one of his grim moods. I’d read somewhere that the human brain functions like a computer, and you can simply delete bugs or reprogram an incorrect response. I knew next to nothing about psychology, but I felt confident that an expert could help Nick. Then we could have a carefree, normal relationship at last.

  Nick was unusually calm while driving back to Munich.

  “I’m just exhausted. And I’ve got a headache from that goddamn devil’s brew those idiots made me drink. Remind me never to have hard stuff again,” he replied to my concerned inquiry.

  He said not one word about his despair and what he was about to do when I found him. I suppressed any comment or question regarding that, since he was behind the wheel, and we were on the autobahn to the Inner City. Instead, I would wait for a relaxed, appropriate moment for the discussion.

  The house was empty. Nick’s parents had gone back to Marbella that morning, taking Hanna with them. She would stay for two weeks in order to give “young bliss,” as she phrased it, a few undisturbed days. Nick had to shoot in two days, so we’d postponed our honeymoon until January, when he had some free time.

  When we arrived in Grünwald, I tried to help him
with our baggage, but he refused, scandalized. “So it’s come to that, has it? I should let my new wife lug our baggage upstairs right after the wedding. It’s enough that I screwed up yesterday’s celebration and our wedding night, sweetheart. I’ll count myself lucky if you don’t immediately sue for divorce.”

  The thought would never have entered my head. I knew Nick loved me and would never deliberately hurt me. He offered a thousand heartfelt apologies that afternoon while we unpacked. But he was playing down the seriousness of the situation. I hung up my wrinkled wedding gown and turned around to confront him.

  “Nick, I can easily handle your drunkenness and that we lay chastely together on our wedding night. I’m sure there are more brides and grooms who do that than meet the eye. But you were not totally sloshed. Even though you’re not used to booze, you don’t become so non compos mentis from two silly little drinks.”

  He shook his head in his defense, but I continued.

  “Nick, I kept you from taking the belt you tied in a noose and going up the nearest tree. And please don’t give me any fairy tales about what your intentions up there were. I know what they were, and so do you, even if you can’t admit it right now.”

  He stood in the middle of the bedroom, tuxedo in hand, looking like a drenched poodle. His shoulders had sagged during my unsparing tirade, and when I saw his deeply afflicted look, I was sorry I’d been so hard on him. I rushed over, grasped him in my arms, and pulled myself to him. I lay my head on his chest and listened to his rapid heartbeat.

  Pity welled up inside me as he softly whispered, “I felt that irresistible compulsion again. I stood there a long time, fighting it. But it was more powerful, and suddenly my belt was there in my hand.”

  His hands roamed restlessly over my back. “I didn’t snap out of it until you were in front of me. And I was immensely thankful that you got there in time.”

  I took a step back, lifted my head, and gave him a beseeching look. “Nick, I beg you, go to a specialist. A psychiatrist or psychologist, someone who knows about mental distress and can help you.”

  His handsome, serious face clouded over and he obstinately shook his head.

  “Laura, you know me, don’t you? This mental agony isn’t with me all the time. Not even a lasting depression. I’m always fine immediately after these blackouts. Even now the whole thing seems like a bad dream—it’s miles away. I don’t see what a psychiatrist has got to do with it.”

  His face grew dark.

  “When I was a kid, I sometimes had to go to the school psychologist. I didn’t get along with two of my classmates, didn’t want to go to school anymore, and the principal advised Mama to send me to this guy. I went exactly three times.”

  That must have been the episode with the twins Hanna told me about. His lips grew tight before he continued. “The doctor was a total oddball, obsequious, overly friendly. He scared the hell out of me with his probing questions. And he kept looking at me hard, as if X-raying me. I felt like a dangerous criminal. After my third visit I pretended to my parents, Hanna, and everyone else that I was much better and convinced my mother that I didn’t have to see the man anymore. Since then I’ve had absolutely no faith that any psychologist can help me.”

  “Nick, they’re not all like him. You had rotten luck and were just a kid.”

  He stubbornly shook his head. “No, Laura. I am not going to a shrink. That’s my last word on the subject.”

  We talked all afternoon. I wouldn’t stop until I’d made him say he’d give it a try to please me.

  Resigned, he put his hands up and capitulated. “OK, sweetheart, you win. I’ll keep my ears open for somebody suitable and make an appointment as soon as I can. But first, we’re going to Paris.”

  It turned out Nick had secretly rearranged his shooting times with the help of the crew, and so he didn’t have to work the next week. Instead, he was giving me a treat: a trip to the City of Love. He’d even allowed for my fear of flying, and we were going by high-speed train.

  I felt ambivalent, however. On the one hand, I was enormously happy to finally see all those famous sights in real life. On the other hand, there were so many possibilities in Paris to . . . high buildings, the Seine with its many bridges, trains . . . I vigorously tried to suppress my fears. It was true that Nick was completely normal most of the time, well balanced. Usually he was in a great mood, well above average. And he’d promised to get help. My fears about him couldn’t rule me. When the two of us were together, there was no danger of anything happening to him. And a time-out for a few days would do us both good.

  Experiencing Paris with Nick was amazing. We stayed in an enchanting, romantic hotel a stone’s throw away from the Jardin du Luxembourg. The room had an unbelievably comfortable bed, and we immediately made up, in spades, for our messed-up wedding night. The rest of the time, we explored the city. Though I thought I knew about the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and Sacré-Coeur from books and TV, I was completely unprepared for seeing these structures in their full glory. Being in Paris—this living, exciting city bristling with art and cultural monuments—was like being on a unique film set—with Nick as my leading man.

  Because French was Angela’s mother tongue, he spoke it perfectly, and enchanted the locals with his charm. Hotel staff, passersby, waiters, ticket sellers—they practically fell over him when he asked questions with his beaming smile or thanked them for their trouble. His knowledge of the city was incredible, and he had energy for the two of us, pulling me from one sight to the next, even when I whined about exhaustion or sore feet.

  Even so, he also told me things I didn’t necessarily want to know. When we took a break on a bench in the gardens of the Place du Trocadéro and enjoyed the wonderful, unobstructed view of the Eiffel Tower in all its magnificence, I learned that more than four hundred people are alleged to have jumped off the tower or hanged themselves on the girders. Nick explained that that was why all the lookouts were secured. Though he said it in a completely normal, casual voice, I felt a sharp stitch in my gut.

  I made a face. “Nick? Can’t you tell me something nicer? When it was built, for instance, or how high it is. Facts from the guidebook and not that morbid stuff.”

  Nick smiled in all innocence. “Sorry, darling, but I did get that ‘morbid stuff’ from my guide to Paris. The tower is about 1,050 feet high; they started building it in 1887 and finished it two years later.”

  He suggested with a wink, “We can easily walk to the Champs de Mars and go up it from there. There are nine elevators and three viewing platforms, and from the top you can see for fifty miles on a clear day. There’s a saying, that if you haven’t been up the Eiffel Tower, you haven’t seen Paris.”

  He knew perfectly well I’d rather throw myself into the Seine than agree to go up to that unthinkable height. But I picked up a tiny undertone of regret in his words. A crazy thought came into my head: I’d modify my secret promise from my wedding day and go up that damn tower with my dear husband, and look yearningly toward the Champs de Mars. The elevator was the least of my problems; it was the view from its windy heights that was the real challenge. But still, I wouldn’t have to jump into the void with a parachute. Besides, Nick was with me, and if I became completely overwhelmed, I simply wouldn’t go out onto the platform. I’d just wait for him at the elevators.

  I put on my most nonchalant voice: “Well, OK, then let’s go up it.”

  Nick almost fell off the bench. Then he recovered rapidly, jumped up, and grabbed me before I could change my mind.

  He was beaming. “Sweetheart, I know that beating this phobia costs you an awful lot. But you won’t regret it—I promise you that.”

  Two hours later I thoroughly regretted my spontaneous decision. There was bustling activity all around us. Myriad tourists from all ends of the earth strolled over the Champs de Mars, pursued by pushy, rushing hawkers selling little plastic Eiffel Towers on large
rings, while others peddled their wares on a cloth spread out on the ground.

  At one of the elevators, I thought the line seemed to be moving far too fast. Even standing directly under the tower and seeing the breathtaking view of the gigantic steel construct above me made me break out into a sweat and feel an aching fear in my stomach. As we waited, I realized that the two-story incline cars continually going up and down were not really enclosed but had large windows all around. I shifted nervously from one foot to the other. Nick gripped my hand to calm me down.

  “We can forget the first platform, it’s about two hundred feet up. We’ll go to the second one. We can decide later if we want to go up to the top.”

  I did not want to go up anywhere. Not to the first platform, not to the second. I felt sick. But the yellow elevator had arrived, and we were in the next group waiting. Nick simply pulled me along with the crowd. I stood defiantly right in the middle of the car and let everybody else rush to the windows.

  “I can’t look out or I’ll toss my breakfast.”

  Nick stayed close and said with an encouraging smile, “Just look at me, that’s the best view anyway.”

  I was able to survive the shaky trip more or less by looking desperately at Nick’s chest. He read me a stream of technical details from his beat-up guidebook, but they went right by me and only a few fragments stuck. My mind was busy coping with the panic that was giving me sweaty palms and a racing pulse. I clutched Nick’s waist as the crowd pushed me against him. How could they all stand around so matter-of-factly, like in a café, and keep staring down through the windows?

  A young woman next to me said to her son, “We could have taken the stairs. Only a ridiculous seven hundred steps.”

  Or a ridiculous seven hundred opportunities to stumble and fall because of the distraction of looking down. The elevator stopped with a jerk. Though the solid platform floor was under my feet, the wind felt quite cool. I shunned the panorama and concentrated on the people who got out with us. Then I focused my attention on the kiosk near the elevator. I’d rather have kept looking at the items there and stayed away from the railing altogether, but Nick spoke to me with an angel’s tongue and talked me into chancing a look at Paris lying below.