The Confession

90

Magda was disheartened by the apartment-I hadn’t cleaned a thing while they were gone-and peered closely at the bullet hole in the wall. Standing with her and seeing it through her eyes, shame overcame me. Agnes ran with Pavel to her room, and Magda leaned against the radio and sighed.

“Look,” I said. “I’ll help.”

“You’re damn right you’ll help.”

So we spent that afternoon cleaning. She dusted and mopped; I swept and washed dishes. Both of us went through the apartment with rags, wiping down all surfaces, and by the afternoon it was done. We bathed together, washing each other’s backs, and when we were done I suggested we go to a puppet show. “That’s a nice idea,” she said.

But the theater was closed in deference to Mihai, and on the front door was a twenty-line poem extolling the virtues of that great patron of the arts. We ended up at a restaurant where I told them to get whatever they wanted. Agnes chose fried potatoes. I tried to get her to add some meat to her order, or vegetables, or even ice cream, but she shook her head firmly. “You said whatever I want.”

“Fair enough.”

We put Agnes to bed and undressed in our bedroom. I watched Magda slide out of her clothes as if I’d never seen her do it before in my life. Her face and shoulders were brown from a week in the country, and I touched an old scar on her shoulder, white against her tan. We shut off the lights and kissed for a while and made love without speaking. Then, as we lay beside each other in the dark, she finally began to tell me.

“Remember how it was when you came back from the war?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“You were a different person. Really, you were. The Ferenc I married was bright and happy. God, you could make me laugh. You did it without effort. You saw the humor in everything around you, and you always pointed it out to me.” She shifted, and her hand slid up to my chest. “I was never like that. Then when you came back it was different. Of course, at first you couldn’t do anything. You’d been through something I couldn’t imagine, and I was willing to work with you through it.”

“I remember that. You were so good to me.”

Her fingers weaved through the hair on my chest. “Why wouldn’t I be? Your family was dead, and you’d been through a war. I loved you. So we moved to the Capital when Stefan got you the job. I knew why he wanted to help you-we both felt guilty. But I swear it only happened once.”

“I believe you.”

“Once you were working again, you started to come out of your shell. I can’t tell you how excited that made me. I was looking forward to greeting the boy I’d fallen in love with.” She paused then, her fingers continuing to stroke.

“But he didn’t appear, did he?”

Her hand flattened just over my heart. “Not really. I saw moments of it now and then, particularly after Agnes was born. But you were a different man. I had to realize that. And when you started writing, it seemed to take you away even more. The only time you were like your old self was with Agnes. I was jealous of her for a long time.”

“Of Agnes?”

“She was the only one who got the old Ferenc. I wanted that Ferenc for myself.”

I considered that decade and a half with a man she hadn’t married. “Was it so bad?”

“What?”

“Being with me.”

She stroked the stubble on my cheek. “Of course not. There were moments, I have to admit, when I was scared of you. You’d get into one of those moods, you’d go silent, and I didn’t know if I could trust you. With me. With my body.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said, then paused again, “you don’t realize what your size does to people. You could snap someone in half. You could snap me.”

“But I’d never do that. Not to you.”

“I know you wouldn’t. But sometimes I’d look at you, mulling over your brandy, distant, and wonder if you could. I wondered what would happen if I did something to really provoke your wrath.” She removed her hand. “And then I did. I did the most provocative thing imaginable. And you…you didn’t touch me. Not once. Not many men are that way, Ferenc.” Her hand returned, this time to my scalp. “Maybe this is what I realized at my parents’. I was throwing away my family because I didn’t have enough faith. God,” she said, placing her hand on mine again and squeezing.

I could hear the tears.

She said, “I found that letter you wrote.”

“What letter?”

“It was in your jacket. You said you were going to leave me and take Agnes with you.”

“No,” I said. “You don’t understand-”

“Don’t explain.” Her hand tensed on mine. “I deserve it. But please, consider growing old with me.”

I held her with my arms and legs for a long time until, the crying done, she fell asleep. To the sound of her soft snores, I tried to figure out what I wanted now, now that it had all been exposed. I was numbed by the prospect of decision.

But what numbed me more was my impotence: My decisions did not matter. Kaminski’s threat still resonated in me, and reminded me that any life I chose had a fast-approaching expiration date.

The next morning, over breakfast, Agnes smiled at us-she could tell we were better. Then she asked the question: “Daddy, do you know where my rope ladder is? I can’t find it.”