How to Be a Good Wife (14 page)

We sit and eat in silence. The fish tastes better today, less salty.

My spoon feels strange in my hand: not right, too big, as if it has suddenly grown. I see another spoon for a moment, a child’s spoon with a plastic handle. I look down, and the image disappears.

I take another mouthful of food. Soon, I am scraping the bottom of the bowl.

When we are both finished, I put our bowls by the sink and turn on the tap. Hector comes and stands behind me, puts his arms around my waist, takes my hand off the tap.

‘Do it tomorrow,’ he says.

I pause, and then I turn the tap off and pull the plug out. The water drains away.

He takes my hand and we walk through to the living room.

Hector turns on the television and we watch the news. I rest my head on his shoulder and imagine I can hear his heart beating.

If you do what I say, there’s no reason for anyone to get hurt.

I sit up. ‘What did you say?’

‘What?’

‘What did you just say?’ My voice is sharp.

Hector looks at me strangely. ‘I didn’t say anything.’

I stare at him. I definitely heard the voice again, and it sounded familiar.

I stand up. ‘I’m going up to bed,’ I say.

‘But it’s only eight thirty.’

‘I’m tired.’

‘I thought we were having a nice time,’ he says.

I walk towards the door.

In the kitchen, I wash the plates. Then I go to wipe down the kitchen table. As I rub the surface, it changes. It is white now, scratched. I look around the room at the grey concrete walls, the neatly made bed, the grey carpet. Wiping the table with a sponge, she looks up, but she doesn’t notice me, glancing at the yellow clock. Seven twenty-five. Scrubbing desperately, she increases her speed.

Discarding the sponge, she puts down two place-mats. Then the cutlery, one pair for an adult, and one for a child. Two plates with a flowered rim. She fills two plastic beakers with water from the dirty sink.

There is the sound then: a terrible, heavy scraping. Dropping the sponge into the sink, she stands at the edge of the table and straightens one of the forks. Then she looks up at the trapdoor in the ceiling, and it begins to lower, spraying dirt into the room. Some lands in her hair but she doesn’t brush it out.

She keeps her eyes on the floor as he descends the steps: first his brown boots, then his work trousers, then his green shirt, his brown hair. He’s carrying a Tupperware container in his hands. I can’t see his face; he takes the nearest chair, so that his back is facing me. He uses his long fingernails to flip the lid and spoons the brown stew onto the plates.

‘Did you have a good day?’ she says.

‘Sit down,’ he says.

She does.

He passes her the plate with less food in it.

She waits for him to start, tapping her spoon, then eats with small, bird-like movements, chewing slowly. The restraint she uses reminds me of someone acting, not really eating.

When she’s finished, she watches him eat.

‘Can I have that?’ she says, pointing at the centimetre of food left in the Tupperware box on the table.

He moves it away. ‘No,’ he says. ‘You know how you get when you’ve had too much to eat.’

He scrapes his fork against the china, shovelling down the last mouthful.

‘It smells of smoke in here,’ he says. ‘How many cigarettes do you have left?’

‘I finished my last one today,’ she says.

‘Good,’ he says. ‘I’m not bringing you any more. It’s disgusting in here. I don’t know how you can live like this.’ She looks at the table. ‘Come on, then,’ he says. ‘I haven’t got all day.’

She takes the dishes to the sink and washes them.

‘Hurry up,’ he says.

She dries them on a towel and hands them to him.

He gets up. He hands her a spoon and taps the top of the Tupperware box. ‘I’ll leave this for you,’ he says. ‘Just this once.’

She smiles. ‘Thank you,’ she says.

‘But don’t eat it all at once. I’ll try and come again tomorrow but I might not be able to.’

‘Do you want to play cards?’ she says.

‘I have to get going.’

‘Chess?’

‘No. It’s enough that I come down here and eat with you.’ He starts climbing the ladder. ‘Clean this place up,’ he says.

Once he’s gone, she goes to the bed, puts her hand underneath the mattress and pulls out a packet of cigarettes, half full. She slides one out and lights it, breathing in deeply, her exhaled smoke blocking my view of her. I reach forward to waft it away, but she is gone, and I am back in the kitchen. I feel myself fall backwards onto one of the chairs. I can still hear his voice, vaguely familiar. Willing it back into the room, I try to work out where I have heard it before. The girl too is familiar. The things I have been seeing are too vivid not to be real: I feel what she must have felt, things I couldn’t possibly know.

*

In the bathroom, after I have washed my face, I see Hector’s razor, glinting at the edge of the sink. I pick it up, turning it over and over in my hands, looking at the faint blue lines that run under the skin of my wrist.

After standing there for some time, I put the razor back.

Lying under the sheets in the darkness, I wait for her to come to me. She doesn’t, and I don’t know if I am happy or sad.

Just as I am drifting off, I think I hear someone else breathing. Holding my breath, I can still hear the slow breaths like waves receding and coming back, over and over. My heart beats faster: there is something heavy on my arm. I try to lift it, and I feel her there, hear her quiet protestation. Her body is warm and I shuffle closer, cupping myself around her. The smell is unpleasant: mildew and smoke, and it makes me ache as I breathe her in, burying my face in her musty hair.

We lie together for a long time. As I reach out, stroking her hair with my fingertips, I feel her stir. Her body tenses, her hand clutching mine, squeezing it. I hear something then, the sound of something far above our heads. She squeezes my hand again, moving her narrow body closer to mine. ‘He’s coming,’ she whispers, urgently.

I hear the door of the bedroom begin to open. Under the covers, I pull her closer. There are heavy footsteps, moving across the room; a dark shadow looms over me. I hear myself cry out and I reach to switch the bedroom light on.

But there is no one there, and she is gone. She doesn’t come back. I flick the light off and lie awake for a long time, afraid to go to sleep.

Hector comes up sometime later. I hear him, trying to be quiet. The bathroom light throws a square of yellow onto the bedroom floor before he can shut it behind him. I hear the rush of water and Hector coughing under his breath. I imagine him in front of the mirror, cupping the water in his broad hands and splashing his face.

The toilet flushes, and the door opens. He leaves it open a crack and from the bed I watch his shadow as he removes his clothes and folds them neatly onto the chair. His sagging nipples and stomach reveal themselves as he turns to the side to remove his vest. Finally, he stands in his boxer shorts removing his socks. The tufts of hair on his head are like wire wool.

He climbs into the bed, moving closer to me until I feel his arms around me, his breath on my neck, his warm stomach against my back.

*

I dream of Hector’s classroom at the school across the valley. It smells of chalk and wood, and blue light streams through the huge windows which spread across the far wall.

I am standing at the back of the room, watching Hector at the blackboard, wearing his blue jacket with patches at the elbows. He turns away from me, reaching up and writing something slowly on the blackboard. I watch the back of his head, his drooping shoulders, the awkward bend of his arm. His fingers tremble, but the letters and numbers come out clearly. He tries to explain the formula to me, but I can’t work it out, however hard I try. He frowns, tutting under his breath.
You’re not logical
, he says.
If you were a rational person, you would understand.

I have failed him again.

*

Some time later, through my sleep, I hear the sounds of a man breathing. The room is totally dark, and I try and lift myself up, but there is something heavy on top of me and I can’t move. The breathing is slow, and quiet. There’s something in between my legs; I can feel my nightgown has ridden up. I try to pull it down, but I’m stuck, pinned to the bed. Crying out, still bleary with sleep, I push the thing away, but something takes hold of my hands.

Then I feel something between my legs, and there is a sharp pain. The breathing is getting faster. I try to push it away, but I can’t.

I cry out, my voice hoarse.

The bedside light flicks on. Hector’s face is over mine.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asks.

‘What are you doing?’ I say.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You were . . . on top of me,’ I say.

He looks confused. ‘You woke me up,’ he says.

‘I was asleep,’ I say.

‘No, I was asleep,’ he says, ‘and then I felt your hands on me. I thought you wanted to.’

I sit up in bed. ‘I was asleep, Hector.’

Hector shakes his head. ‘That’s not what happened,’ he says.

His eyes are bleary from sleep, but he is sweating, the hairs on his chest damp.

We stare at each other. I slide my legs out of the bed. I feel disgusting, my skin clammy.

‘Where are you going?’ he says.

‘To have a shower,’ I say.

‘It’s the middle of the night, Marta.’

‘Well, I’m awake now,’ I say, ‘and I need a shower.’

Hector sighs, and sinks back into the bed.

In the bathroom, I lean close to the mirror and tell myself that I know what happened. That I was asleep, and that it was Hector who woke me. That I am in control of my actions, that I don’t sleep walk or worse. I am Marta Bjornstad, I say. If that is true, though, my husband has just tried to rape me. I’d almost rather believe that I was losing my mind.

I walk out of the bathroom and through the dark bedroom, past Hector’s gentle snoring. Downstairs, I go to the living room. The large bay window is filled with black squares. I watch the light fixture on the ceiling until my eyes burn. Shutting my eyes, I watch the coloured dots shrink and grow. Then I do it again. And again. Soon, I can’t see anything but white.

I cross the room, from one end to the other, counting my steps. Twelve steps across. I keep going. I lose count. I begin again, this time putting one foot directly in front of the other, no gap, and walking in a straight line. If I step too far, or not straight enough, I start over. I get to three hundred and fifty-seven. I stop and watch my bare feet against the carpet for a long time. Ten toes, ten toenails, ten toes, ten toenails, ten toes ten toenails ten toes ten toenails.

I go to the hall. Outside, the day is beginning, the blue light filling the hallway, making everything cold and flat. It feels as if the light is fading, turning to darkness. I put my hands up to my temples, needing the light to come back, to make everything clear again.

Drawing the blind at the small hall window, it is still not light enough. I open it, feeling the cold air push against my cheeks, my blood rising. In the kitchen, I push back the patio doors as far as they will go. I don’t stop until every curtain is pulled back, every window opened.

Still, there are shadows everywhere: behind picture frames, under furniture, at the corners of my vision.

I stand at the front door and look at the snow. The blue light makes everything glow. When I look down at the raised wooden porch, the stone doorstep has been pushed aside and there is a deep black hole.

She’s lying there, her body like a child’s in the white pyjamas with the pink hearts, dirty and stained yellow. This is the thinnest I have seen her. I wonder if she is dead, as I kneel down by her side, taking her hand in mine. I cup my hand over her mouth, but feel nothing. Just as I am giving up hope, I feel a slight warmth on my palm. Putting my ear down close, I hear her breath rattle in and out, in time with mine. I lie down, wrapping my body around her, rubbing her hands, trying to warm her up.

Some time later, I open my eyes. They are heavy, but as I lift the lids a little, I make out the white pyjamas I’m wearing. My breath wheezes in and out of my chest: blinking makes me ache. When I try to move, everything is slow and heavy, as if my body is weighed down. I want to shut my eyes and go back to sleep.

Then there are hands behind my head and under my back, and I am being lifted. I try to call out, but my mouth is pressed against material. It smells familiar, and I lean closer.

I feel my head loll back, my mouth slip open. I see the blue sky above us, so huge and vast, and I blink as the sun swings across my vision. My head rings with the sharp new light. I hear a man panting. We are at the doorway, going back into the dark. I reach out for the edge of the doorframe. He stops, unhooks my hands. They fall, and then we’re through the door, and he shuts it behind us.

He is breathing quickly now, as he lowers me onto the floor of the hallway. I watch his face hover over mine, shadowy in the dim hall light.

‘Marta?’ he says.

I blink, making out the man’s features: the sagging skin around the face, the clear blue eyes. It is Hector.

I look down at my body. I am myself again. But I was her: I was in her body and it felt like there was no escape.

‘What happened?’ I say.

‘I found you on the doorstep,’ he says. It still feels eerily familiar. ‘You’re freezing.’ He puts his warm hand onto my forehead. ‘Why are all the doors and windows open?’

‘You carried me in?’ I ask.

‘I had to. You wouldn’t respond,’ he says. ‘I was talking to you for ages, trying to get you to wake up. I couldn’t just leave you out there.’

I see the thin layer of wetness on his forehead.

‘Is your knee OK?’ I ask.

He shrugs. ‘It’ll be fine.’

‘I didn’t hear you,’ I say.

‘I know,’ he says. ‘I was worried about you. I am worried. You’re like how you were when I first found you, Marta.’ Hector’s eyes are wide. ‘I carried you in then, too. You were too weak to walk.’