The Confession

40

I have to step back and apologize for the details. They are uncommon for a confession, and I only use them after the greatest deliberation. But to understand all that follows, the whole web of circumstances must be explained, because otherwise nothing can really be understood.

We smoked in bed. At first we were too exhausted to speak, and the only sounds were our breaths. She crept away while I stared at the ceiling, where little spots were moving rapidly, joining, separating. I was not thinking of what we’d done; I wasn’t thinking of Magda. I was too exhausted. Vera returned with the wine bottle and our glasses.

“Well,” she said, standing naked and smiling.

I accepted a glass. “Well.”

She sat beside me, back against the headboard, and took a sip. “What did you think, Ferenc?”

“I’m speechless.”

“That pleases me.” She rubbed her wrists and lit another cigarette. “You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting. Much longer than since last Christmas. Karel-well, that’ s what happens in a marriage, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Repetition. The same two positions. Then one. You start to do it just because the other one happens to be in your bed. Boredom. There’s no other reason.” She took a drag and exhaled it into the air. “What about you and Magda?”

“We haven’t had sex in over a year.”

“What?”

The ceiling was moving again. I’d said too much. But no-after what we’d just done, how could that be too much? I felt something huge shift inside me. The world was an entirely different place.

“Oh,” she said as she stroked my cheek. “You’re crying.”

She held me until it passed. I never suspected such patience was in her. Her bony chest was against my nose. She still smelled of lavender, but now it was mixed with the smell of me.

I’d seen a man buried that day, a man who’d witnessed a hundred years of what humanity can do to itself. Now I was in a married woman’s bed, weeping. This is what humanity can do to itself.