The Truth and Other Lies

15

Ms. Eisendraht was at the window watering the dragon tree and didn’t turn around when Betty walked through the outer office into Moreany’s room without a word of greeting. Moreany was sitting pale and very quiet behind his desk and didn’t get up to give her his hand. Betty shut the office door.

“I’d like to clarify something, Claus,” she began, but before she could continue, Moreany motioned toward the Eames chair.

“Sit down, please.”

She sat down, crossing her legs to conceal the run. It might be something nice or something really awful, but there was no way it was the trifling matter of the car rental. She hadn’t put in an appearance at the office for two days, and a foreboding rose up in her that a number of events must have overlapped in the interim. Moreany took off his reading glasses and set them on his immaculate desk. It was never tidy — that wasn’t a good sign either.

“I’ve put you in a very awkward situation.” Moreany breathed deeply. He screwed up his eyes. The whole thing was obviously difficult for him. “Please accept my apologies and forgive me my — how should I put it? — passionate stupidity.”

Then he said no more. Betty waited until the silence was unbearable.

“What’s happened?”

Moreany slid open the drawer of his desk, took out an opened envelope, and held it out to Betty. She got up and accepted it after some hesitation.

“I only opened it because it was addressed to me.”

Betty felt the envelope and saw the stamp of her gynecological practice on the back. With two fingers she pulled out the CD with the ultrasound images of her baby stored on it.

“It’s a girl,” Moreany said gently. “The bill’s enclosed. Allow me to settle it for you.”

Back to the beginnings of humankind. A Cro-Magnon man returns exhausted but happy after a day’s hunting. In his comfortable cave in, let us say, present-day Apulia, he throws freshly killed game down next to the fire and looks around for his wife. He is tired, he is hungry, he wants to tell her about his hunting success. In the dark of the cave he hears her groaning. He takes up a burning piece of wood and goes to look for her. He finds her lying in a side passage, her newborn baby beside her. The bitten-off umbilical cord is still hanging out of her womb. The woman is clutching the baby, covering the fine small face with her hands. He tears it out of her arms; the baby begins to scream; he sniffs it and scrutinizes it. It’s a little Neanderthal. He knows at once that he is not the father of this bastard. He kills the child with one swipe against the rock wall and returns to the fire. The woman cowers in her corner of the cave, not knowing whether she’ll survive the night.

Since the Pleistocene, things have moved on, it is true, but the question of paternity remains a delicate one, even for women now. No matter who had sent the ultrasound images to Moreany, there was no way it was a misunderstanding and even less chance it was a wrong address. It was simply the work of a very bad person. Henry can be ruled out, thought Betty, as she stood at Moreany’s desk, taking stock, because it wouldn’t be in his interest. Henry’s never done anything that wasn’t in his interest. But no one except him could have known about her pregnancy. She hadn’t even told her mother. An obscure enemy had done it, invisible and yet very close. After this brief analysis, Betty sat back down in Moreany’s Eames chair and, by way of explanation, said the only sensible thing she could think of — nothing.

As Moreany, likewise speechless, sat at his desk looking at Betty, his heart was weeping. The last plan of his life had failed. His late-summer romance in Venice was to remain a foolish old man’s dream. The end would be lonely. There’s no more to be done, he thought, I’ve reached the end of my journey. He got up, walked a little unsteadily to the black ebony side table, poured cognac into two balloon glasses, and handed one to Betty.

“I’d like you to do something for me. Drive to Henry’s and discuss the novel with him. I can imagine that he needs you at present. Time’s running short; it’s almost too late for the book fair. He told me he’s only got twenty pages to go, but I can’t believe he’s able to write just now. It would be a real shame if he couldn’t finish the novel before I go on vacation, eh?”

Her mouth was so dry that her lips stuck together when she sipped the cognac. The alcohol burned in her throat. He doesn’t know, she realized all of a sudden. He doesn’t know it’s Henry’s. She got up, put the glass down on the table, and hugged Moreany. She pressed him tightly to her. Never had she been so close to him, or felt so grateful. What a noble man, what a wonderful man, she thought.

“I’ll call him now, Claus, I promise.”

Moreany nodded, a little tired. “Thanks. Don’t tell him anything about me if you can help it.”

If Moreany had asked for her hand just then, she would have said yes without hesitation.

“Of course I won’t, Claus.”

Honor took from her ear the glass she’d been using to eavesdrop at the dividing wall and quickly sat down at the computer. In a single gesture she slipped on her headphones and placed her fingers on the keyboard. Betty didn’t walk through the outer office in silence as she usually did, but stopped in front of Honor and rested her palms on the desk.

“Honor,” she said softly, “can I ask you a favor?”

Honor took off the headphones. It really was the first time that this person had addressed her respectfully and, above all, directly. She wanted to hear it again.

“Pardon?”

“May I ask you a favor?”

“Anytime. What can I do for you?”

“Next time one of those insurance fellows calls you, please don’t pass on confidential information about Mr. Hayden.”

Eisendraht’s head jerked, like a chicken that has just spotted a grain of corn. “He asked me about Mr. Hayden!”

“Yes. A lot of people do. And we protect the privacy of our authors, do we not?”

This “do we not” left Honor no alternative. “I’ve been working here for many years, Betty,” she said, “and if there’s anything that’s sacred to me it’s the privacy of our authors. You ought to know that.”

“All I know is that it was you.”

Betty was already out the door, leaving Honor Eisendraht in a state of turbulence.

——

“She did what?”

Henry leaped up and began to pace in front of the picture window in his studio. The hovawart immediately got up from its place under the coffee table and slunk out of the room with its tail between its legs. It wouldn’t come back until its finely tuned ability to pick up on bad vibes had given it the all clear.

On the table in front of Betty was the envelope with the ultrasound images of the fetus. She followed Henry from the sofa with her eyes. Against the light she could see his silhouette flitting back and forth, a restless shadow.

“The envelope went straight to Moreany,” she went on. “She rang up the practice and asked them to send the pictures to him at the company.”

“Eisendraht?”

“It must be her. It was a woman. She pretended to be me. She knows how old I am, where I live, and that I’m pregnant.”

Henry turned his back on Betty for a moment and looked out at the fields. It wasn’t yet ten in the morning and the sun was already blazing down. Not a cloud was in the sky. There was just a stork circling high, high up. It was going to be a hot day.

“How can she know that?” he asked, without turning around.

“Not from me.” Betty took off a shoe and pulled her leg up onto the sofa. “And no,” she added, “I haven’t told Moreany anything. No one except the doctor knew about it. By the way, the insurance man dropped by yesterday and wanted the car key for the Subaru. I didn’t have a key to give him.”

Although she couldn’t see Henry’s eyes against the light, she thought she could feel his penetrating gaze.

“No key? You don’t have a key at all?”

“No.” Betty leaned forward and took the envelope from the coffee table. “It was your idea to report it stolen. Why are we behaving like criminals, Henry? Why are we doing this to ourselves instead of simply grieving for your wife and being pleased about our baby?”

She shaded her eyes, so she could see Henry.

“Can you come out of the light, please? I can’t see you.”

Henry let down the electric blinds; it was at once cooler and pleasantly dim in the large room. He was visible once again.

“I’m going to the police, Henry. It doesn’t make sense any longer.”

“Ah,” he said quietly — and then, after a long pause—“You know what will happen then?”

Betty took the CD out of the envelope. The light was refracted into the colors of the spectrum. She spun it in her hand. She’s already gone into defensive mother mode, thought Henry all of a sudden. She’s not scared of me anymore. She just wants to keep the baby safe.

“What happens then I quite frankly don’t care,” Betty replied. “I think truth is the best policy for us. I don’t want our baby to be born in prison. Wouldn’t you like to have a look?”

Henry stared at the silver disc in her hand. It had all begun with that image. A little photo of a living piece of tissue, no bigger than a matchbox. At the sight of the fetus, the demon in him had been aroused, his old mate and protector from difficult times. Follow me, it had whispered, and Henry had once again followed. It had driven with him to the cliffs to kill his wife and crept in after him among the rafters of his house where the marten lurked. The demon had told him the correct bend in which to lie in wait for his enemy, and was even now whispering its dark plan in his ear.

“The novel’s finished.”

Betty looked at him in surprise. “Really?”

“Yes. I suddenly saw the end. Then I sat down and wrote. I’ve been working through the night.”

She put the CD back on the table. “I can’t believe it. Can I read it?”

“By all means. Read it, tell me what you think, and then we’ll celebrate.” Henry went over to his desk and took the manuscript. He weighed it in his hand and passed it to her. “I haven’t had time to type it up on the computer yet. That’s the only version. There’s still no copy.” He saw that Betty was about to object, and raised his hand.

“I’d like you to read it before Moreany. And afterward we’ll go to the police together and clear up this whole business. And now”—Henry joined her on the sofa and reached for the CD—“show me our baby.”