Mark never hurries. That is one of my favorite things about him, that and the way the skin around his eyes gets all crinkly when he laughs. He is tall and when we first met, oh so many years ago, quite muscular. Today there isn’t much muscle left in spite of the fact that he lifts those silly weights every morning. You would think that after forty-six years of marriage nothing would surprise me about him but nothing could have prepared me for it.
We walk along the riverside almost every day unless winter ice or heavy rains prevents it, and it was during one of our walks on a beautiful day in October that the shit hit the fan. I was in a rather contemplative frame of mind, strolling along thinking about swans. I wondered if they know how graceful they are. Proud. A little boy, a beautiful child about six years old came towards us on a scooter. He wore a helmet, elbow pads, knee pads, shin guards. Nothing will happen to this child if his parents have anything to say about it although there are things from which we cannot be protected. There was a certain arrogance about him, a flicker of recognition, and then he was gone. My mind returned to the swans. It pleased me to see how faithful they are, two swans on the river, always within sight of each other. At least I assumed that there was no adultery on the river, that they loved each other dearly and kept each other warm during those long winter nights. I hope so anyway.
The sun was shining through the branches making intricate patterns on the ground. Each leaf, holding on for dear life, fluttered until a gust of wind blew it to the Persian carpet of multi-colored leaves surrounding us. I kicked through a pile as I used to do when I was a girl. The sky was such a pure blue it almost made me cry.
“What a handsome child,” I said to Mark. My inability to have children was a festering wound and the reason I held God in rather low esteem.
“Notice those clouds? Cumulus. We’re in for some rain later today.” How typical, Mark could never bring himself to even mention children and I suddenly wanted to grab him and shake him like a Raggedy Andy doll until every bit of stuffing fell out. Is there anything, anything at all, in the hollow shell known as Mark other than cotton batting? Forty-six years and I know him less now than I did on the day we were married.
“I want to talk about children, Mark. Why did you stay with me when you knew you could never be a father. You would have been a great father.”
Mark paused, he never hurries, especially when he is choosing his words carefully.
“I have a child and that child has grown and has a child of her own, a little boy, he is six years old.”
“Where are they?” I listened as if I was hearing a radio from another room, only hearing every other word, making no sense whatsoever. A ping of alarm, even horror, began growing in the back of my mind which had always had a tendency towards negativity. The trickle became a flood and suddenly I wanted to kill him.
“Where are they?”
“In Berlin. We met during those terrible days at the end of World War Two. During the reconstruction.”
“Do you keep in touch?” Keep in touch. What is that supposed to mean, secret letters, Christmas cards, long intimate phone calls on a disposable cellphone? School pictures? Keep in touch? I never want to touch this man again. We continued our slow walk, Mark never hurries.
“What is her name? What is your daughter’s name? What is your grandson’s name? I wanted to know everything and I didn’t want to hear another word because I knew if they had a name they were real. Nameless is better, yet I pursued it relentlessly.
“Tell me their names.”
“Her name was Ernestine.”
“Who?” Your mistress or your daughter?”
“She wasn’t my mistress?”
“Well what was she then, she must have been more than a quick roll in the hay.”
“She was a great deal more to me than a roll in the hay, but that was so long ago.”
“So long ago, but you think about her every day, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Ernestine, Ernestine. What a dreadful name, I was outraged although my defenses were down.
“Tell me more, what is your daughter’s name?”
“Gretchen.”
“Gretchen? How quant, right out of a fucking fairy tale. Gretchen!” I spat out the name as if it were dirt.
“And the child’s name? Your grandson?”
“Otto.”
“Otto? You had the nerve to name him after your father?”
“Yes.”
It was that, that last piece of information that completely destroyed my world as we continued our walk. An aerial view of two elderly people walking and talking might make you smile and think how sweet, two seniors who love each other after all these years. I hate him.
I looked out over the river at the swans, keeping their distance, but always within sight of each other.
