Adultery (23 page)

If he asks me whether or not everything is fine, I’ll lie, because I don’t want to spoil his happiness. But the truth is that the wounds in my heart are taking a long time to heal. He
points out the bench where we sat to have coffee one morning and were approached by a couple of neo-hippie foreigners asking for money. We pass in front of one of the churches as the bells ring, he kisses me and I kiss him back, doing all I can to hide what I feel.

We walk holding hands because of the cold—I hate wearing gloves. We stop at a nice bar and drink a little. We go to the train station. He buys the same souvenir he bought last time—a lighter with the symbol of the city. Back then he smoked and ran marathons.

Today he doesn’t smoke and he thinks he gets more and more out of breath each day. He is always panting when we walk quickly and, though he tries to hide it, I’ve noticed he was more tired than usual when we took that run by the lake in Nyon.

My phone is vibrating. It takes me ages to find it in my purse. When I finally find it, the person has already hung up. The screen shows it was my friend, the one who was depressed and, thanks to medication, is a happy person again today.

“If you want to call her back, I don’t mind.”

I ask why I should call back. Is he unhappy with my company? Does he want to be interrupted by people who will spend hours on the phone engaged in irrelevant chatter?

He gets irritated with me, too. Maybe it’s just the effect of the bottle of champagne, coupled with the two glasses of aquavit. His irritation calms me and puts me more at ease; I am walking alongside a human being, with emotions and feelings.

Interlaken sure is strange without the marathon, I say. It looks like a ghost town.

“There are no ski slopes here.”

Nor could there be. We are in the middle of a valley, with very high mountains to either side and lakes at each end.

He orders two glasses of gin. I suggest we change bars, but
he is determined to combat the cold with alcohol. We haven’t done this in a long time.

“I know it’s only been ten years, but when we were here the first time, I was young. I had ambitions, I liked the open air, and I wouldn’t let myself be intimidated by the unknown. Have I changed that much?”

You’re only in your thirties. Are you really an old man?

He doesn’t answer. He downs his drink in one gulp and stares into space. He is no longer the perfect husband and, oddly enough, this makes me happy.

We leave the bar and walk back to the hotel. Along the way we find a beautiful and charming restaurant, but we’ve already made reservations elsewhere. It’s still early—the sign says dinner service doesn’t start until seven p.m.

“Let’s have another gin.”

Who is this man next to me? Has Interlaken awakened forgotten memories and opened up Pandora’s box?

I say nothing. And I begin to be afraid.

I ask if we should cancel our reservation at the Italian restaurant and have dinner here instead.

“It doesn’t matter.”

It doesn’t matter? Is he suddenly feeling everything I went through when he thought I was depressed?

For me it
does
matter. I want to go to the restaurant we booked. The same one where we exchanged vows of love.

“This trip was a terrible idea. I’d rather go back tomorrow. I had good intentions: I wanted to relive the early days of our relationship. But is that even possible? Of course not. We’re mature. We’re living under pressures that didn’t exist before. We need to maintain basic needs like education, healthcare, food. We try to have fun on the weekends because that’s what everybody does, and when we don’t feel like leaving the house, we think there’s something wrong with us.”

I never want to. I’d rather do nothing.

“Me, too. But what about our children? They want something else. We can’t leave them locked up with their computers. They’re too young for that. So we force ourselves to take them somewhere and do the same things our parents did with us, the same thing our grandparents did with our parents. An ordinary life. We’re an emotionally well-structured family. If one of us needs help, the other is always ready to do anything.”

I understand. Like taking a trip to a place filled with memories, for example.

Another glass of gin. He sits in silence for a while before replying.

“That’s right. But do you think memories can fill the present? Not at all. In fact, they’re suffocating me. I’m discovering I’m no longer the same person. Until we got here and had that bottle of champagne, everything was fine. Now I realize just how far I am from living the life I dreamed of when I visited Interlaken the first time.”

What did you dream?

“It was silly. But it was still my dream. And I could have made it come true.”

But what was it?

“Sell everything I had, buy a boat, and travel the world with you. My father would have been furious that I didn’t follow in his footsteps, but it wouldn’t have mattered. We’d stop off at ports, do odd jobs until we earned enough to move on, and as soon as we had enough money, we’d set sail again. Be with people we’d never seen before and discover places not listed in the guidebooks. Adventure. My only wish was
adventure.
”

He orders another glass of gin and drinks it at unprecedented speed. I stop drinking because I’m already feeling nauseated; we haven’t had anything to eat. I’d like to say that I
would have been the happiest woman in the world if he’d gotten his wish. But I had better keep quiet or he’ll feel worse.

“Then came the first child.”

So? There must be millions of couples with children doing exactly what he suggested.

He reflects a bit.

“I wouldn’t say millions. Maybe thousands.”

His eyes change; they no longer show aggression, but sadness.

“There are times when we should stop to take a look at the whole picture: our past and our present. What we have learned and the mistakes we made. I was always afraid of those moments. I trick myself, telling myself that I made the best choices and had to make a few small sacrifices. Nothing major.”

I suggest we walk a bit. His eyes are starting to get weird, dull.

He slams his fist on the table. The waitress looks frightened, and I order another glass of gin for me. She refuses. It’s time to close the bar because dinner will begin soon. And she brings the bill.

I wonder how my husband will react. But he just gets out his wallet and throws some money on the counter. He takes my hand and we go out in the cold.

“I’m afraid that if I think too much about everything that could have been, and never was, I’ll fall into a dark hole …”

I know that feeling. We talked about this at the restaurant, when I opened up to you.

He doesn’t seem to hear.

“… deep down there’s a voice telling me: none of this makes sense. The universe has existed for billions of years, and it will continue to exist after you die. We live in a microscopic part of a gigantic mystery, and we still have no answers to our
childhood questions: Is there life on another planet? If God is good, why does He allow suffering and the pain of others? And what’s worse: time continues to pass. Often, for no apparent reason, I feel an immense dread. Sometimes it’s when I’m at work, sometimes in the car, and sometimes when I put the kids to bed. I look at them lovingly, afraid: What will happen to them? They live in a country that gives us peace and security, but what about the future?”

Yes, I understand what you’re saying. I imagine we’re not the only ones to think that way.

“Then I see you making breakfast or dinner and occasionally I think that fifty years from now, or maybe even less, one of us will be sleeping alone, crying every night because once we were happy. The children will be all grown up and far away. The surviving one of us will be sick, always needing help from strangers.”

He stops talking, and we walk in silence. We pass by a sign announcing a New Year’s Eve party. He kicks it violently. Two or three passersby look at us.

“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to say all that. I brought you here to make you feel better without all the daily pressures. Blame it on the booze.”

I’m stunned.

We pass by a group of young men and women who are talking animatedly among the beer cans scattered everywhere. My husband, usually shy and serious, approaches them and invites them to have another drink.

The young people look frightened. I apologize, hinting that we’re both drunk and one drop more of alcohol might lead to catastrophe. I grab his arm and we carry on.

How long has it been since I’ve done that? He was always the protector, the helper, the problem solver. Now I’m the one trying to keep him from skidding and falling. His mood has
changed again, and now he’s singing a song I’ve never heard—perhaps a traditional song of that region.

When we approach the church, the bells ring again.

That’s a good sign, I say.

“I listen to the bells. They speak of God. But is God listening to us? We’re in our thirties, and life isn’t fun anymore. If not for our children, what would be the point of all this?”

I prepare myself to say something. But I have no answer. We arrive at the restaurant where we exchanged our first words of love and have a depressing candlelight dinner in one of the most beautiful and most expensive cities in Switzerland.

WHEN I
awake, there’s already daylight outside. I had a dreamless sleep and didn’t wake up in the middle of the night. I look at the clock: nine a.m.

My husband is still sleeping. I go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, and order breakfast for the two of us. I put on a robe and go to the window to pass the time while I wait for the room service to arrive.

At this point, I notice something: the sky is full of paragliders! They land in the park opposite the hotel. Most are not alone, and have an instructor behind them steering. First-timers.

How can they do such a crazy thing? Have we reached the point where risking our life is the only thing that frees us from boredom?

Another paraglider lands. And another. Friends film everything, smiling cheerfully. I wonder what the view must be like up there, because the mountains surrounding us are very, very high.

Although I envy every one of those people, I would never have the courage to jump.

The doorbell rings. The waiter enters with a silver tray, a vase with a rose, coffee (for my husband), tea (for me), croissants, hot toast, rye bread, jams of various flavors, eggs, orange juice, the local newspaper, and everything else that makes us happy.

I wake him up with a kiss. I don’t remember the last time I did that. He is startled, but then smiles. We sit at the table and savor the treats in front of us. We talk a bit about our drinking spree last night.

“I think I needed that. But don’t take what I said too seriously.
When a balloon bursts, it startles everyone, but it’s nothing more than that: a bursting balloon. Harmless.”

I want to say it felt great to discover all his weaknesses, but I just smile and keep eating my croissant.

He also notices the paragliders. His eyes light up. We get dressed and go downstairs to enjoy the morning.

We go straight to the front desk. He says we’ll be leaving today, asks them to bring down our suitcases, and pays the bill.

Are you sure? Can’t we stay until tomorrow morning?

“I’m sure. Last night was enough for me to understand that it’s impossible to go back in time.”

We head to the door crossing the long, glass-ceilinged lobby. I read in one of the brochures that there used to be a street here; now they’ve joined the two buildings that stood on either side. Tourism is apparently thriving, even without ski slopes.

But instead of going out the door, my husband turns left and approaches the concierge.

“How can we go paragliding?”

We? I don’t have the slightest intention of doing that.

The concierge hands him a brochure. It’s all there.

“And how do we get up top?”

The concierge explains that we don’t have to go all the way up. The road is very treacherous. All we have to do is set a time and they’ll pick us up from the hotel.

Isn’t it very dangerous? Jumping into the nothing between two mountain ranges without ever having done it before? Who is in charge? Are there any government controls on the instructors and their equipment?

“Madam, I’ve been working here for ten years. I paraglide at least once a year. I’ve never seen a single accident.”

He is smiling. He must have repeated those words thousands of times over those ten years.

“Shall we?”

What? Why don’t you go alone?

“Sure, I can go by myself. You can wait for me down here with the camera. But I need and want to have this experience in life. It’s always terrified me. Just yesterday we talked about when everything gets stuck in a rut and how we no longer test our limits. It was a very sad night for me.”

I know. He asks the concierge to set a time.

“Now, this morning, or in the afternoon, when you can see the sunset reflected on the surrounding snow?”

Now, I reply.

“So, will it be one person or two?”

Two, if we do it now. If I don’t have a chance to think about what I’m doing. If I don’t have time to open the box and let the demons out—fear of heights, of the unknown, of death, of life, of extreme feelings. Now or never.

“We have the option of twenty-minute, half-hour, and one-hour flights.”

Are there ten-minute flights?

No.

“Would you like to jump from one thousand three hundred and fifty or one thousand eight hundred meters?”

I’m already starting to back down. I didn’t need all this information. Of course I want the lowest possible jump.

“Darling, that makes no sense. I’m sure nothing will happen, but if it did, the danger is the same. Falling from twenty-one meters, or the equivalent of the seventh floor of a building, would have just the same consequences.”

The concierge laughs. I laugh to hide my feelings. How could I have been so naïve to think that a measly five hundred meters would make any difference?

The concierge picks up the phone and talks to someone.