She was fastening her hair in an updo as she walked into the living room. She’d considered leaving it shaggy that she might better hide behind it. What good would that do? she decided in the end. I’ve nothing left to conceal. Bruno stared through the window at Hans and Margrith, who stood in front of their barn talking to the man with the sheepdogs, who had by then returned from his walk up the hill. Bruno turned around when Anna entered the room. He cleared his throat. “You look nice.”
“Thank you.” The mood was marked with politesse and grace. Both were nervous. Like blind dates at a prom. He had complimented her appearance and she thanked him. Will he offer me a wrist corsage? Will we ride to the dance in a limousine? But Bruno was not her date; he was her husband and she was his wife, and what Anna wanted most in that moment was to apologize, to explain, then to apologize again. For everything. And she did mean everything: every snide or damaged thought she’d had since the moment she stepped from the airplane into terminal E nine years ago. Every grudge she’d nursed while traipsing the hill behind their house in the middle of the night. Every lonesomeness, every terror. Every petty wound. Every social fear. Every desire. Everything, everything, everything. Every inevitability. Every mistake. The trouble with mistakes is that they rarely seem like mistakes when they are made. Sleep had set her right. She was prepared to name names. What use were secrets now? All had been knocked down. She stood in the rubble, ready to rebuild.
Bruno read this in her posture. “No.” He interrupted before she even spoke. It was a sad, smooth no. “You have to leave.”
Anna heard but didn’t hear.
“You have to leave now.” Bruno was calm and sad. His face was red, his expression complicated. He looked as if he’d cried all night. Anna turned her own face away. Next to the table was a small overnight bag that Anna only ever used when she’d be gone a day or two. She’d brought it to the hospital when the children were born. She hadn’t gone anywhere since. It was zipped closed. Bruno had packed it.
“Oh.”
Bruno took a step toward the bag and picked it up and handed it to his wife. It was light. He doesn’t want me gone for long. That’s what this means. For nine years Anna had fought against calling this house home. That morning the very last thing she wanted to do was to leave it. Irony of ironies. Neither Bruno nor Anna knew what to say next. Anna’s window of apology had closed, and it seemed pointless to ask him to narrate his side of the story, from the general suspicions to the absolute facts. Anna broke the strained silence. “Are we … done?” “Done” wasn’t really the right word. But it was the only one she could find.
Bruno answered truthfully. “I don’t know.” His voice was clothed in neutrality.
“The children?” Victor must have gone to school straight from Ursula’s. But Polly Jean.
Bruno shook his head. “They don’t need to see your face.”
“Where will I go?”
Bruno sighed in a that’s-for-you-to-decide way. It was a candid reaction. There was no flippancy here. The paradox of Bruno’s frankness confused her. Everything about this moment was yielding and humane. This was the Bruno she’d wanted all along. But she had to betray him to get it.
“Oh,” she said again but with less surety.
A second time Bruno cleared his throat. “Now, Anna.” He moved toward her, put his hand on her shoulder, and guided her with slow ceremony to the door. He helped her with her coat and handed Anna her purse. And then he took her busted face cautiously in his hands and leaned into her and gave her a kiss. It was tender, meaningful, and it overbrimmed with grief. Anna didn’t—somehow couldn’t—kiss back. “Goodbye, Anna.” His farewell landed with a heavy thud. A steel door closed behind it. He said he didn’t know if they were done. But Anna knew. The kiss told her.
They were.
Bruno stepped back into the house and shut the door without locking it. He didn’t look back.
GERMAN NOUNS ARE CAPITALIZED. WHY? I don’t know. They just are. Zürich is not the capital of Switzerland, Bern is. Bern and burn are near homophones. Capital also means money. Bruno works with money. You can’t write Bruno without a capital B. The German alphabet has an extra letter called an Eszett. It looks like a capital B and sometimes it replaces a double s. In 1945 Germany’s SS was banned, though this hardly has to do with grammar. Or does it? What, after all, is a grammar but a governing law? Order upon order, rule upon rule. Switzerland is so clean it even launders its money. Knock knock. Who’s there? Alpine. Alpine who? When you’re gone, Alpine for you. Said Wagner of Zürich’s Grossmünster’s towers: They look like peppermills. Wagner left Zürich when he fell in love with a woman who wasn’t his wife. The Nazis loved Wagner. The Zürich Polizei wear their rifles like Gestapo. The standard issue Swiss Army rifle is a SIG SG 550. Dietlikon’s standard, its coat of arms, is a six-point star on a banner of blue. The German word for star is der Stern. A star is stern, a moon is strict, the sky is serious business. Heaven is often unkind. You should never rely on the kindness of strangers. The kindness of strangers. They come in all sorts, like licorice. Das Kind. The German word for child.
I miss them all. All of them. Every one.