A Separation

11.

Whatever I said to Yvan, I knew that I would not tell Isabella and Mark about the separation. Not because I wished to protect Isabella, as I had told Yvan, nor out of any loyalty to Christopher, as Yvan suspected, and not because I had made a promise, to him or to myself or to anyone else. I wouldn’t for more selfish reasons: because I wanted to pretend that it was as I had led everyone to believe, that there was no separation, no disintegration of our marriage, no pending divorce. It was the desire to continue to exist in the space—suddenly and inexplicably alive—of our marriage.

How much of this reasoning did I understand then, in the days following Christopher’s death? I would say that at the time, my own motivations were opaque to me. I acted on poorly defined sensations—what are called instincts and impulses—at first the only indication of this vast alteration in my feelings toward Christopher, toward our marriage, was the fact that the world of Gerolimenas, in which I was a charlatan, and which was therefore paltry and insubstantial, had nonetheless become more concrete than any other place, as if the world had reduced itself to this single village on this Greek peninsula.

Even more so as the prospect of our departure neared. I saw neither Mark nor Isabella until the next morning, when they appeared at breakfast, looking entirely like themselves, only perhaps slightly more subdued versions. Isabella looked up when I reached the table and then said, without warning, Will you be ready to leave tomorrow? I had not even sat down. There’s nothing more to be done here, and I would like to take Christopher home.

She was wearing large sunglasses, which she did not remove (she might have been concealing red and swollen eyes), and she called the body by its name, she called the body Christopher. Previously the body had been it, nameless, a small thing that was nonetheless revealing. She had decided to leave and so she had decided to begin grieving, to begin naming things, not as they were—a decaying corpse—but as you wanted them to be—your child, still human, still named and intact.

Isabella said nothing about the investigation—how Mark had persuaded her that there was nothing to be done I still do not know, everything in Isabella’s nature would have fought against it. She turned her head restlessly. The decision to let the investigation rest—I assumed for the time being, I assumed the fight would resume once she had returned to England, once she was back on solid ground—had freed her in some way, and I saw that she was ready to leave, to literally move on.

I would like, she continued quietly, still without looking at me although I now sat beside her, to visit the place where he died before we go. She did not say the place where he was killed or the place where he was murdered, she said the place where he died. Already the specificity of his death was being sanded down, a gloss was being put on it, not killed and not murdered but died. I don’t expect it will help, she continued, but I would like to do that. And then I never want to come back to this place again.

Mark nodded, it was obviously something they had discussed, he even reached across the table and took her hand. The desire to stand in the place where her son had been killed, a place like any other place, death making its claim along a meaningless stretch of road. She would convert that meaningless landscape into something else, it was an act of memorial, she wanted things to become what they were not. The emptiness of death is too hard to sustain, in the end we barely manage to do it for a day, an hour, after the death event itself.

There was something self-serving not only in Isabella’s grief, but in all grief, which in the end concerns itself not with the dead, but with those who are left behind. An act of consignment occurs: the dead became fixed, their internal lives were no longer the fathomless and unsolvable mystery they might once have been, on some level their secrets no longer of interest.

It was easier to mourn a known quantity than an unknown one. For the sake of convenience we believed in the totality of our knowledge, we even protected that illusion. At a certain point, if we were to encounter a diary with the record of the dead one’s innermost thoughts we would refrain, most of us would not open the book but would return it to its resting place undisturbed, even the sight of it would be horrifying. In this way, I thought, we make ghosts of the dead.

I don’t know the place, I said at last.

Mark has arranged a car, Isabella said. She turned to him and pressed his hand, matters between them had evidently improved. We can go in the afternoon, after lunch. Our last lunch in this dreadful restaurant, I must say that I won’t miss it. And although I had myself expressed a similar thought, I instantly resented her for it, after all her son had chosen the hotel, it was one of the last things he did. She looked at Mark again and then leaned forward. Now she pressed her hand onto mine and said, Of course, you will be taken care of. Everything goes to you.

I don’t think I understood—or one part of me understood, everybody understands the phrase taken care of, as well as everything goes to you, everything is everything. But another part remained confused, she had changed tack so suddenly, or perhaps my mind was simply being stubborn, refusing comprehension. What did she mean by everything? There was the apartment, of which Christopher had said, when we began talking of a separation and almost in passing, You should have the flat, if it comes to that.

But I had not taken it up with him, although I had already known it would come to that—I did not even know what he meant by have, whether he meant that I should stay there while he found another place to live, which was in fact what happened, only I too moved out not long after, leaving the place empty. Or whether he meant that I should take ownership of the apartment—which was what Isabella was talking about, that was what she meant by taken care of and everything goes to you, she was not talking about personal effects, mementos or memories, she was talking about money.

I withdrew my hand from Isabella’s. When we married, Christopher had insisted that we both make wills, a morbid and I thought unusual step to take, although I knew it was common, many of our friends had made similar arrangements after their weddings. Weddings always made your mind go to eventualities and these documents acted as safeguards against those eventualities, unless of course they actually made them come true, the prenuptial agreement that led almost seamlessly to the divorce, the will that led—as it had in this case—to the death, shockingly early and unforeseen.

Had Isabella and Mark already consulted Christopher’s will? Was this what he had wanted, everything goes to you, or had Christopher—the day he moved out, or earlier even—made an appointment with his lawyer, Circumstances have changed, I would like to amend my will, no longer the same terms or beneficiary. Or perhaps the thought had occurred to him but he had not acted upon it, the matter was hardly urgent—after all, who would he leave the money to? We had no children, he had no siblings, his parents were themselves wealthy.

But if he had changed the will, perhaps the lawyer—Christopher had used the family lawyer, we both had, a reassuring man—had already told Mark and Isabella, Mark would have called him the moment he’d heard news of Christopher’s death, he would have called him a second time for advice about the investigation, at which point that lawyer might have said, Christopher called me a month ago, two months ago, he wanted to change his will. The marriage had dissolved, or was on the brink of dissolution. Supposing Isabella and Mark had known the entire time, how would I explain myself to them?

Christopher called me before his trip, Isabella continued. I didn’t tell you this, it didn’t seem relevant. Now, of course, I wonder. He left a message, saying that he had something important to tell me.

Her voice was questioning, probing. I was unable to look at her. Christopher must have decided to tell Isabella that we were separated. I leaned back into my seat—it was more upsetting than I would have thought likely or even possible, so it had been truly over for him, with no hope of reconciliation or repair. I must have been flushed or breathing strangely, I felt myself to be on the verge of tears. Mark suddenly leaned forward and asked if I needed some water, I waved my hand to say no. I saw him exchange a glance with Isabella.

She cleared her throat.

Of course, we wondered if you were pregnant, Isabella said. He said that he had something important to tell me. And the fact that you weren’t traveling—

I looked at her in bewilderment. She could not keep herself from looking at me with hope, it was another question that was concealed as a statement, he died loved, we wondered if you were. I did not immediately reply—I was too surprised, although I shouldn’t have been, what else does a mother hope for, when her son gets married, but the issue of progeny? The horror of other people’s expectations. And yet I could understand that unruly hope, which would have been made stronger by the premature death of Christopher, her only son.

Her eyes were still resting on my face, it was pure fantasy or delusion, an idea that had passed through her mind—something important to tell you, like taken care of, is a phrase that seems to have a single meaning, until it doesn’t—and then taken root. In her gaze there were shades of both avarice and distrust, I possessed something that she wanted, some kernel of information (was I pregnant or was I not?) or even the embryonic kernel itself, the fantasized grandchild. I was a hope, that something might yet redeem the unfortunate hell of her only son, senselessly murdered, I was the possibility of a continuation that would not undo the death of her child, but might nonetheless in some way mitigate it.

It would be so much better that way. A grandchild, Christopher’s child. The child in which the features of the son would be visible, a resurrection of sorts. Also—the thought built into the fantasy from the start, integral to its allure, Isabella would have admitted it to herself, if to no one else—then the money, not just Christopher’s money but theirs, all their money, would pass to a descendant, someone they could rightly call an heir. There were no other descendants and I was nothing but a dead end, undoubtedly I would marry again (undoubtedly I would).

I did not blame Isabella for making so callous a calculation—I did not blame her, but I believed her to be capable of it—it seemed natural, perhaps I would have felt the same. And I wished that I could say yes. For a brief moment, it was as incomprehensible to me as it was to Isabella: Christopher was gone and there was nothing, no material remnant—which is what children are, in one sense—nothing but a web of emotions, which would fade with time.

I was not pregnant. The money would not pass from blood to blood. Isabella and Mark would disperse their money amongst various charities.

I’m not pregnant, I said.

She nodded, it was as she had expected, it had only been a hope after all. She lowered her head. As I watched, suspicion crept into her eyes—quickly, as if the emotion had already been lurking, as if it were to hand. I could have told her then—the idea had already half come to her, it was a mere suspicion, but the germ of it had sprung, if I wasn’t pregnant, what then had Christopher wanted to tell her?—she would have been upset but perhaps not entirely surprised. It would have been another terrible adjustment, but after the adjustment of death, the idea that her son was no longer alive and in the world, would this secondary adjustment have meant so much, would it have meant anything at all?

I hesitated—the words were simple enough to say, Christopher and I had separated, that is why I did not come to Greece—and yet the words were impossible to say, they were repulsive to me, a truth I could no longer bear to articulate. I would have sooner invented some perpetual fiction, an alternate reality, in fact we had been talking about having a child, Christopher had been hard at work on his book, he had been very close to finishing, as soon as he was finished writing we would start trying in earnest.

Abruptly, she turned away.

It’s terrible to think that Christopher left nothing behind.

There is his work, I said. He was so close to finishing the book. He came to Greece on his own because he needed to concentrate on his writing, he got so much more work done when he was alone.

There is his work, she repeated.

Perhaps we could set up a fund in Christopher’s name.

Isabella sniffed.

A fund for what? I find that I’m tired of foundations and scholarships. They never really commemorate the person. We can talk about this later, Isabella continued after a brief pause. I only wanted you to know that your situation is in no way precarious, I can’t imagine that you earn a great deal of money from your work, but it’s the last thing you should be worrying about, in the current circumstances.

And I saw that contrary to what I had previously imagined, the tie between us would not simply dissolve, that it would persist for some time. There were material things that kept us together, as the bereaved, even without a child. There would be lunches with Isabella and Mark, telephone calls, this money that I was being offered, that was not rightly mine. It formed one link in a chain that would not break, throughout I would be playing the role of the grieving widow. A part I was already playing—the legitimated version of what I was, my grief, my emotions, labeled and adequately contained.

But in reality, my grief was not housed, and it would remain without address. I would be constantly aware of the gap between things as they were and things as they should have been, afraid that it would show its face in my own, in my way of speaking about Christopher, I would be constantly reminded of how inferior my record of love was to a stronger and more ideal love, one that would have sustained the marriage, even in the face of Christopher’s infidelities, a love that could have saved him. I could have been more self-sacrificing, I could have shown the kind of love that Isabella would have expected, that Isabella did expect, to see in the wife of her child.

How many times are we offered the opportunity to rewrite the past and therefore the future, to reconfigure our present personas—a widow rather than a divorcée, faithful rather than faithless? The past is subject to all kinds of revision, it is hardly a stable field, and every alteration in the past dictates an alteration in the future. Even a change in our conception of the past can result in a different future, different to the one we planned.

We stood up not long after. The car will be here in half an hour, Isabella said. And then tomorrow we will drive to Athens and fly back to London, I’ve already booked the tickets. Mark has booked the driver you used yesterday—Stefano, I think his name is. I stopped, it was impossible for Stefano of all people to drive us to the site of Christopher’s death, I placed one hand on her arm.

What is it?

Would you ask Mark to book a different driver?

But why? I thought you had used him before.

I would prefer another driver. He made me—I hesitated, I did not know exactly what to say—uncomfortable.

It was the right thing, a word that said nothing but insinuated much, immediately Isabella was sympathetic, she linked her arm through mine. Yes, of course, she said. It is difficult being a woman on one’s own, men can be such a nuisance. Mark will request another driver. I realized, as soon as she said it, that Stefano would interpret the cancellation as a confirmation of his suspicions, Mark was as he appeared, another xenophobe in his country. Nor could I expect my fabrication—although in some ways it was simply the truth, Stefano did now make me uncomfortable—to dissuade Mark’s own tendencies to prejudice.

Still, it meant that we would not be driven by Stefano, and that was the important thing, I did not wish to see the driver again. We made our way from the terrace restaurant. As we entered the lobby a peculiar expression crossed Isabella’s face, and I stared at her a moment, perplexed. Her eyes were fixed and she had pursed her lips, she looked perturbed and she was pale, almost as if she had seen a ghost.

I turned to see what she was looking at. The lobby was empty, there was only Maria, who was standing behind the desk and looking straight at us, I had not seen her since Christopher’s body had been found. I realized that she was not looking at me but at Isabella, with an intensity that must have been startling to Isabella, who of course did not know the first thing about Maria or her relationship with Christopher, who did not know that Maria would look at her and see not a hotel guest, another visitor to these parts, but rather the mother of the man she had loved.

And just as Stefano must have looked at Mark and seen a phantom of Christopher himself, Maria must have looked at Isabella and seen the feminized and therefore perverted version of her foreign lover, it must have been disquieting to see Christopher in the soft and feminine curves of Isabella’s face, the same eyes with the same insistent gaze. They continued to gaze at each other, I watched Isabella’s expression change from perplexity to one of vague disdain and disgust, perhaps she thought Maria overly insistent.

Except that it did not appear to be the case, as Isabella continued to look at Maria with an expression of distrust that was too pronounced for a stranger, I began to suspect that she had somehow managed to apprehend (a mother’s intuition) the nature of the relationship between Maria and Christopher, the reason for the fixedness with which the girl was now regarding her. It was as if Maria could not look away, as if the sight of Isabella were too fascinating.

Isabella flushed and turned away. She made an audible sound of disapproval, Strange manners that woman has, and I was reassured, it was entirely in my imagination, how could Isabella have guessed at the link between Christopher and Maria, the fact that he had more recently been intimate with the severe young woman standing behind the hotel lobby reception desk than he had been with me, his wife, by a measure of months?

She continued, That’s exactly the kind of woman Christopher would have liked. I was startled, despite myself I was impressed, she knew her son well, far better than I had known him, how many times had I seen Maria before I had really seen her? Isabella looked at me with a quizzical expression, as if we were merely discussing the peculiarities of a mutual friend, I shrugged and said that I did not know, I could not say, obviously we had nothing in common, this woman and I. She gave Maria another troubled look and then turned away, as if the matter were closed.

It had been closed, until Isabella had incautiously pried the door open again, however briefly. She clenched her jaw as she proceeded in the direction of the stairs as if to say, Enough, no more, and I saw that her mourning was an act of will, just like everything else with Isabella. She said that Mark would tell the concierge to request a different driver, she asked if I would be ready to go in an hour, and I said that was fine, that I would meet her and Mark in the lobby.