The Greenhouse

Sixty

I’m trying to figure out what makes a woman tick and come to the conclusion that Anna’s emotional life is considerably more complex and varied than that of the guys I know. She sometimes looks worried, but the thing that puzzles me the most is how distant she can seem, as if she isn’t actually here, as if she is tackling several problems at once. Even though she might only be sitting forty centimeters away from me, on the other side of the table, so close in fact that if we were a couple I would be able to kiss her without having to move, it’s as if she doesn’t notice me.

Apart from that she’s considerate and warm and often smiles at me and praises me every evening for my cooking, and it’s not as if she doesn’t put her books down when I’m talking to her. She seems happy to see us when my daughter and I come through the door, but then after a short while she sinks back into her books again.

She does sometimes look at me when I’m playing with the child, although I’m not sure whether she’s looking at me as much as I’m looking at her. She’s probably examining me with my daughter from a genetic point of view. I have my suspicion confirmed when I turn the loaf of bread around on the carving board.

— Are you left-handed? she asks, looking at me with interested aquamarine eyes.

Because we’re temporarily living under the same roof and it’s a small apartment, we sometimes have to squeeze past each other, so we occasionally accidentally touch. I’ve also deliberately stroked her once and twice. I think of the body just as much as before, but try to limit it to those hours when Anna is not around, like when I’m working in the garden. I’m so afraid that my thoughts will become externally visible. Anna might be one of those women who can see images of people’s thoughts before they’ve even thought them themselves, hovering over their heads in frilly steam bubbles. Mom was like that, could read my thoughts. I certainly want to have Anna as a friend, but the fact that she’s a woman and we have a child together undeniably complicates things. When we’re in the same room, the mother of my child and I, I feel I’m constantly losing the thread of our conversations. Especially if she’s just out of the shower with wet hair or has slipped a hairpin in it to keep it off her face. It isn’t until I’m under the covers, alone with my soul, and the girls are asleep in the next room that I feel I can allow myself to think of the body; it reminds me yet once more that I’m alive. I’ll admit that I have entertained the possibility that something might spark off between Anna and me, something other than a new life, I mean. The thing that saves me from the narrow alley of physical yearnings is the open kitchen window. From the pillow, my direct line of vision through the darkness outside leads to the insurmountable monastery wall, behind which, on the side of the slumbering vineyard, are my rose beds, which I must water tomorrow. I’m the only man who knows about a certain type of resilient rose out there in the darkness under the yellow moon.