One day while Stephen was in the bathroom Anna pilfered a blue linen handkerchief from his sock drawer. It was embroidered with initials that weren’t his. It might have been his grandfather’s. She felt bad, but only for a bit. Like the pebble, she’d carried it in her purse since the day she took it.
I think you would make a good wife for me, Bruno had said.
But that’s not why Anna said yes.
She said yes because she couldn’t imagine a man more suited for her than he.
“MEN DON’T USUALLY HAVE affairs because they are lonely or want emotional connections. For a man, the reason often reduces to simply this: the challenge of the seduction.” Anna had told the Doktor about Edith and Niklas.
“What about women?”
The Doktor looked sympathetically and directly into Anna’s eyes. “I’m worried about you, Anna.”
THE CONVERSATION WITH NIKLAS continued, pained though it was. Niklas had lived in Switzerland for less than six months. He peppered Anna with questions. He asked about day excursions from Zürich, specialty shops for foodstuffs, where he might buy a mountain bike. He was chatty and curious. Anna tensed. He was much too young for Edith. Much, much. Niklas worked for Otto. How flagrant of her. It was an unexpected instance of correctness. It swelled in Anna’s throat. Christ, what a hypocrite I am, Anna thought.
But even hypocrites have moments of clarity. Anna could live with the hypocrisy. It was the clarity she couldn’t dodge.
NEAR THE END OF their walk that day, Anna and Mary herded the children into a café near the Schiffstation and across from Greifensee Castle, a twelfth-century tower house. They ordered orange sodas for the boys, coffees for themselves, and Anna pulled out a small container of animal crackers and placed two on the snack tray that snapped onto Polly’s stroller. Polly picked them up and began banging them against the plastic. They crumbled into immediate bits. “No, Polly.” Anna grabbed two more cookies and put one near Polly Jean’s mouth. Polly took the animal cracker in her chubby fist and tapped it against her lips as if to eat it, then smashed it, like the others, on the tray. “I give up.” Anna handed over the remaining cookie. Sometimes that’s what Anna did: she just gave up.
Mary offered sympathy. “Oh, they’re like that sometimes, you know. Willful. Girls, I think, especially.” Anna would have to think on that before she agreed.
When the drinks came Anna reached for her wallet. “No, no—I’ve got this,” Mary said and Anna backed down. Mary carried a large, unwieldy purse. When she reached inside the bag for her wallet, she tipped it and some of the contents fell out, including a travel-sized container of hand sanitizer that landed in Mary’s lap and a paperback novel that fell to the ground. “Oh shoot!” Mary reached for the sanitizer as Anna nabbed the book.
“His Illicit Kiss?” Anna was amused.
Mary blushed. “Just something to read on the train.” Anna thumbed to a dog-eared page and read a paragraph aloud. “Her stubborn fingers sought the flesh under his shirt. His pleasure was evident. ‘I want you,’ she purred as she stepped even farther into his space. She gyrated her hips against his groin and the protuberance between his legs caused her to sigh, knowing that soon he would be atop her thrusting and moaning in the agony of desire …”
Mary yanked the book away. “Anna, the children.”
The children were absorbed in their own childishness. They weren’t listening. “Protuberance? Why are you reading this?” Mary put the novel back into her bag and sighed. “Oh. Because. You know.” Anna shook her head in a way that meant both yes and no. Mary tried to explain away her embarrassment. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t settled down. So soon I mean.” The admission shamed her. “I missed all my chances to be … more sensual.” Anna’s heart dropped for her friend. Mary hooked her bag on the back of her chair. “But. It doesn’t matter because I did settle down and I am incredibly happy and I would not trade this life for any other. So, I read these. It’s a small indulgence against … I don’t know what.”
Anna knew what. “I’m sorry, Mary.”
Mary pretended not to hear her. “And anyway. These books? They’re full of nonsense.”
“How so?”
“They all end happily. The heroine gets everything she wants. An amazing job. Loads of success. Fame, money. She’s always beautiful and her fella is the man she’s dreamed of all along. An absolutely perfect life.” Mary’s wistfulness was palpable.
“Wow. If only.” Polly Jean gurgled and kicked against the stroller, scattering cookie crumbs everywhere.
“I know, right?” Mary blew on her coffee, then took a tentative taste. Anna drank hers hot. It hurt her mouth, though she pretended it didn’t.