In the Shadow of Sadd

She dropped the idea of heating the milk. Nothing was going to live up to the expectations she had written down anyway. There was a dead body out behind the shed, and it was she who had buried it there. She shook her head and blew on the surface of the tea.

Christian could be home any minute. She checked the clock, and then spied after his car. According to the schedule she was supposed to take another pill now. Instead, she took the package and put it in the medicine cabinet. Maybe I’ll throw them out later, she thought, and considered taking a cleansing cure to rid her body of all the poison they had forced her to ingest. Maybe vegetables, citrus fruits or a fast, she thought, trying to remember what she had read on the subject in the ladies’ magazines. It would also be symbolic to get rid of all that crap that had polluted her entire life, both physically and emotionally. She pushed the small cardboard box to the back of the cabinet.

The dog heard him several seconds before she picked up the sound herself. She hurried out to the kitchen and saw the dark-blue Lexus parking in the carport. She rushed out and opened the door with a smile. She held back the dog with one hand, and tried to make it look easy, as she waved to her husband with the other. He saw her while still in the car, and his face lit up as he smiled. When he closed the car door, he called for the dog and clapped his hands, making the paper bag he had over his arm swing back and forth.

“Come here, come to Daddy!”

The pull on the collar was so violent that she had to brace herself in the doorway to hold the dog back.

“Let her go,” he shouted on his way to the house.

She shook her head and nodded in the direction of the yard.

When he reached the door, he stood for a moment in the rain and looked at her, as though considering her condition. She stepped to the side, so he could come in, and didn’t understand what had happened to his happy smile.

They awkwardly embraced, and she hurriedly told him that everything had gone well, and in the same breath included that she felt better than she had in a long time. She released him and went out into the kitchen to get away from the familiar sense of distance she could feel taking form between them. He took off his coat and followed her, his eyes warming up again. When he reached her, he stood behind her and pulled her in to him.

“Now it’s back to everyday life,” he said, and kissed the back of her head while his hands rested on her breasts.

She enjoyed the warmth of the closeness for a moment before clearing her throat and turning around to destroy the good atmosphere. She stopped in the middle of her motion – it suddenly felt more right to pour him a cup of tea, so they could sit across from one another in the living room when she asked him for an explanation.

Without asking if he felt like tea, she brought his cup in, and put it on the coffee table across from her own.

He looked at her, a little confused, when she came back with the teapot.

“I got the take-out.” He pointed at the bag on the kitchen table. “It’s still hot – shouldn’t we eat before we drink tea?”

He lifted the one eyebrow inquisitively.

She had already filled his cup, and now stared down at the table while she told him that she’d like to talk about what was out in the yard before they ate.

He stood still and remained quiet.

“You have to be honest,” she said in a clear and deliberate tone, finally looking up at him. “I’ll always help you when you ask for help. But I have a right to know what we’re mixed up in.”

He sat down and pushed his cup away as he looked at her. His gaze was still warm – more dumbfounded than concerned. She was surprised. She had otherwise become accustomed to seeing her husband’s gaze overflow with worry when she said something that brought him down. But she had never before experienced that he had simply sounded as if they were not speaking the same language.

Again, she implored him to be honest with her, a little sharper this time.

He closed his eyes a moment and rubbed his forehead, then rested his chin in his hands and looked at her earnestly.

“Of course I’ll be honest with you. I think I always have been, but right now I’m a little confused. What’s this all about?”

She rearranged herself on the sofa and swallowed the impulse to raise her voice, saying instead, calmly, “I mean, you could have been honest about the rat, and told me that he was wrapped in a plastic sack...” she began, implying with her tone that he should continue where she left off. But Christian just raised his eyebrow again and stared at her silently, so she continued:

“And you could have said which car you wanted me to look behind. It was just by chance that I saw the white van!”

He held her gaze as he rose from the sofa, and went around the coffee table to her chair. With his eyes still locked on hers he squatted next to her chair, took her hand and began to stroke it with his thumb.

“What exactly are you talking about, honey?” he asked.

She was somewhat comforted that they no longer seemed to be speaking two different languages. But now he was pretending that he didn’t know what she meant, which was equally provocative. She didn’t want to reveal her frustration, however, so she continued calmly.

“The rat behind the car,” she explained slowly and clearly, as she stared back into his dark-blue eyes. “The one you asked me to bury.”

He finally nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “Good for you that you found it and took care of it.”

He rose again, and she sensed that he considered the case closed – but she had decided that this wouldn’t do either. All this beating around the bush was ridiculous. He had gotten her to bury a dead body. Now she wanted to hear it – even though it was more comfortable to avoid talking about the mafia, she knew that was a poor solution. If they wanted to have any hope of returning to their old lives, being open with each other was the only way forward. And now they had jumped off the cliff together.

She took a breath and considered how to formulate her response, but then simply threw herself into it.

“Where did the white van come from?” she asked, straining to make herself sound as downbeat as possible, as though she were speaking of some weekday banality.

His tone was also light, when he responded that he hadn’t noticed any white van.

“The big white van,” she clarified.

He shook his head and went out into the kitchen to prepare the Thai food. She heard him getting plates out of the cabinet and opening the refrigerator.

“Do you think we should do something to cover the spot where I dug the hole,” she shouted to him, “so no one can see the ground’s been disturbed?”

She was done with the riddles. If he wanted to play that game, fine, but she was done playing along. She’d so looked forward to coming home, and she’d done what he asked her to do.

He came over and stood in the doorway.

“No one will notice the hole.”

“Well, he wasn’t that small,” she said, and followed him with her eyes as he went back out to the kitchen and began to dividing the food onto two plates. He returned and put the plates on the coffee table. They seldom ate in the living room – she actually couldn’t remember they had ever done so in the time they had lived there, but that was just one of the changes that had taken place lately.

She thanked him and nodded when he offered her wine.

The noodles gave off curls of steam, and she stared at the small, curved cashews between the chicken and the vegetables.

“Did you know him?” she asked, looking down at her plate, and not knowing if she really wanted to hear the answer.

He began to eat.

“Did I know who?” he asked, when he was done chewing.

She usually gave a little sigh before she gave her rage free reign, to let him know it was his last chance before her mood swung in the opposite direction. But the eruption now came without warning.

“The dead body, for Christ’s sake!” she shouted. “Did you know him?”

“Honey, I asked you to remove a dead rat from out behind the car.”

He’d put down his chopsticks, and regarded her now to gauge how long the fit would last.

“I didn’t know anybody, and I have no idea what white van you’re talking about. I left a dead animal behind your car.”

He began to eat again, wrapping noodles around the two chopsticks and concentrating when raising them to his mouth, but she could see he was getting angry.

She pushed her plate away and stared down at the coffee table. She felt the tears beginning to well up in her eyes, and quickly blinked them away.

“There was no rat behind my car,” she finally said, and looked up.

He was gathering a mouthful of vegetables, so he could capture them with the sticks, and he cast a glance at her without giving up on the venture.

“Sweetheart, tell me again about the hole you dug in the yard, and what it was you buried in it.”

She hesitated, felt the despair building up, but gathered herself and told him about the white van that had been parked at the edge of the forest.

“It was parked just outside our gate,” she said. “I moved the body with the wheelbarrow.”

Christian had once again put his chopsticks down, and now stared at his wife in astonishment.

“You found a corpse in a van parked out back?” he asked in wonder, as though their conversation was only just getting started.

She nodded.

“He was in the back of the van, but they tried to cover him up with a rug. There was a lot of junk inside – a bicycle with training wheels and a palm, but I saw his hand when I was looking for the rat.

Before he said it, she knew what was coming. She could see it in his eyes.

“Have you taken your pills today?”

She nodded and froze up inside. That was too much, how f*cking dare he.

“What have you gotten yourself into?”she asked, naked of any pretense. She didn’t want to play games anymore, like they had made some kind of secret alliance where they spoke in code. “I can’t take it anymore,” she said, without waiting for his response.

He was about to say something when she continued:

“I’m not crazy or delusional or anything else. I know what’s happening around me, and what happened today wasn’t something I made up, so stop looking at me like that.”

She could sense that he was figuring out how to react. “I don’t think you’re crazy,” he began, “but you’ve just come home after a long stay in the ward – it wouldn’t be so strange if ...”

“It’s not like that,” she interrupted. “There was a van down by the woods. It might still be there.”

She got up, angry with herself for not immediately taking him out into the yard. In her heart, she knew she hadn’t done so because she didn’t want to know if he had killed the man himself, or if he had simply been told to get rid of the body, but now she was forced to move on. She couldn’t stand him looking at her like that. And in her bones she felt she was being treated unfairly.

“Come on, she called to him from the utility room, seeing he was still on the sofa.

She already had her rubber boots on, when she heard him suggest that they finish their food while it was still hot.

“No!” she yelled, so the dog started and rushed back to the kitchen. “Now!”

He looked at her gravely as he put on his raincoat. On their way to the door he squeezed her arm and said that it was okay, he didn’t mind going out.”

“It isn’t okay,” she snarled. “Don’t patronize me like that. You’re the one who got me involved in this, so don’t you talk down to me.”

“I’m not!” he said, sounding offended. “I just don’t know what you mean by ‘got you involved.’ I know nothing about any van or corpse, but let’s go have a look.”

She had already opened the door and seen that the rain had stopped. The dog jumped and danced, but she asked him to lock it into the kitchen.

“It’ll pick up the scent,” she said, as she started off.

Though the dark rainclouds stole some of the evening light, the tree line and stone fence were clearly visible from the yard, and equally clear was the fact that the old white Chevy was gone. She continued unapologetically and gestured him along as she thought, relieved, that at least this meant that it hadn’t been his responsibility to move the van.

She stopped and pointed down at the ground.

“This is exactly where it was,” she said, and waited for Christian to catch up to her. “Right here. I wheeled the wheelbarrow to the gate, and carried the body from here and loaded him on.” She gestured an imaginary line from where she stood to the inside of the gate.

He nodded all the while as she spoke.

“Did you notice when the van disappeared?” he asked, sounding suddenly interested.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“No, I was out with the dog, before you got home, but I wasn’t watching. She fell quiet, considering how to continue. “It could have left after you got home. People are always going by ... or parking, for that matter.”

He agreed and bent down.

“A van like that is very heavy,” he said. “It must have left tracks.”

He kicked the grass and stared at the ground, then walked away and regarded the site.

She bent down, but couldn’t see any tracks either.

“It’s been raining all day,” she objected.

He started back towards the gate.

“And there could’ve been other cars that came afterwards,” she continued, when he turned to see if she was following him.

He nodded and reached out his hand towards her.

“That’s true,” he said softly, closing his hands around hers. They went slowly back towards the house. When they reached the shed, she pulled at him, to bring him around to the back, but he pulled her to him and put his arm around her.

“Let’s deal with it tomorrow,” he said. “I’m really hungry, and then I want to sit on the sofa and feel what it’s like to really have you back home.”

“You’re coming with me to see if I did a good enough job. I’m not an expert gravedigger – maybe we should put something on top, so no one can see the difference.”

His hold on her shoulder became more firm, and he used some force as he led her back.”

She began to cry.

“If you don’t believe me, then just stay right here while I dig him up again.”

She tried to rip herself loose.

“I’m not making this up. You can see for yourself.”

He was now holding her with both hands. He was still speaking calmly, but began to push her up to the house and into the foyer.

“Stop! No more talk of bodies, rats and vans. Let’s eat, and we can talk about it tomorrow.”

He helped her out of her oilskin jacket.

“That’s not fair,” she whispered after she had kicked off her rubber boots, and went past him on her way into the living room.

He followed her, leaned up against the door and looked at her when she had sat down.

“I don’t want to hear any more about the mafia and bodies in the backyard. I’ve been looking forward to you coming home so much, but it just never stops. Why do you convince yourself that I could ever do such horrific things? You’re making these ugly accusations. If I ever killed a man, I would never ask you to bury the body. Don’t you realize how absurd that sounds?”

The tears had dried up on her cheeks, and she nodded in exhaustion. She felt that the forces she had harnessed while fighting to expose a truth were slowly receding away again. She couldn’t handle it anymore. Perhaps it was fear that prevented him from opening up to her, perhaps it was mistrust. When it came down to it, maybe he didn’t trust her. She didn’t know, and in a way it was easier to avoid dealing with it. It might end up being a relief to simply ignore and neglect everything that up to now had awakened her suspicion. Just float on the surface. The thought calmed her – it was good to know that she had an escape route, and she realized that the time had come for her to use it; to close her eyes and ears, and do what he told her to do, without getting involved.

She had gotten up, and went around lighting the candles in the living room while Christian reheated their food. After she had been all the way around, she put the lighter back on the sideboard, stood for a moment and lingered by the picture of herself and Christian. She heard him say something from out in the kitchen and shouted “What!” But his voice disappeared down the corridor to the office, and she guessed he was using the cordless phone.

Without a thought she lifted the phone and turned it on. Before she had even lifted the phone to her ear she could hear his voice.

“... she claims she’s taken it, so apparently it isn’t working.”

She felt an icy chill run down her spine.

“It’s just as bad as before,” she heard Christian say. “You have to admit her again, tonight.”

She hung up the phone and used both hands to put it back on its base. Her muscles twitched as the abyss opened up inside of her. It was so dark and endless that she didn’t even manage to lift a hand, as she fell to the floor and disappeared into her own mind.