Evil Eye (3 page)

In Mariana's family, men rarely prepared meals. It was touching to see this man in his kitchen, taking time,
taking care
.

They ate outside at a wrought iron table on the deck of his house overlooking the glittering city of San Francisco, the Bay and bridges. Mariana had never tasted such delicious wine—a Spanish wine, Austin said. A chardonnay.

The wine, the exquisite food, the view of the glittering city framed by eucalyptus branches—Mariana had to shut her eyes, the sensation of joy came so strong.

Maybe. I will live after all.

Austin drove Mariana back to her rented apartment, miles away. He walked with her to the door, steadying her. He didn't come inside but gently gripped her shoulders. Mariana lifted her face, prepared her numbed lips to be kissed—but Austin only brought his lips to her forehead, lightly as one might kiss a child.

“Good night, my dear Mariana! This is a beginning.”

All that night she felt the invasion in her blood, as of a virulent infection.

A small fever beginning to rage. But of course this was not an invasion of malevolent bacteria, but love.

Within a week, Mariana was having dinner with Austin Mohr each night, usually alone with him.

Within six weeks, Mariana spent most nights at Austin Mohr's house.

And within six months, they were married.

2.

“Mariana. What the hell have you
done
.”

She'd been so taken by surprise, so unprepared for a sudden flaring of anger in her husband of just a few weeks, she'd thought at first that Austin must be joking.

Mariana had been preparing the house for an evening reception following a film screening at the Institute, moving furniture, repositioning chairs, making a wider pathway to the outdoor deck. She'd carried the lacquered Japanese screen to another part of the living room, placed a set of Catalan bowls on a wall shelf where there was less chance of their being broken, and moved one of the more savage-looking African masks to a less conspicuous corner of the room. Several exquisite orchid plants in ceramic pots she also moved out of harm's way. But when Austin saw what she'd done, instead of being pleased with her as she'd hoped, he'd stared at her in disapproval.

“I suggested that you help prepare for the reception, before the caterers arrive. Not that you dismantle my house.”

My house
. Mariana was too shocked to fully absorb this.

“I'm sorry. I didn't—I thought . . .”

Mariana stammered an apology but Austin seemed not to hear.

“Have you been thinking, since you moved in here, that the way this house is furnished hasn't been carefully considered? Does it look to you as if things have been randomly thrown together? With no aesthetic logic? That my taste is inferior?—inferior to
yours
?”

Austin spoke in a voice heavy with sarcasm. Mariana was frightened, disoriented: it was astonishing to her that her husband, normally so civil and good-natured a man, a man with an effervescent sense of humor, should fly into a rage over her having moved a few things in the living room—such a trifle!

Murmuring
Sorry, sorry
Mariana hauled the Japanese screen awkwardly back to its original position. The lacquered screen had seemed to her a beautiful artwork, ebony-black stippled with small cream-colored butterflies and birds, at six feet just slightly too tall for its position in the room, but now Mariana could scarcely bear to look at it. Austin continued to rage as Mariana returned the Catalan bowls, the African mask, the exquisite orchids—(she was terrified that orchid petals would fall, being jostled. For some of the flowers were past their bloom)— ignoring the alacrity and humility with which his young wife undertook to correct her mistake.

Even now a part of Mariana's brain assured her
He isn't serious! He can't be serious. This is so petty
. . .

“I'm sorry, Austin! So sorry. I wasn't thinking . . .”

“Obviously. You weren't thinking.”

How was it possible, Austin was still furious with her? After she'd apologized profusely and returned everything to its original position? Yet his eyes glared with a piggish intensity, his fleshy-ruddy face was suffused with blood. Austin couldn't have been more angry, more disgusted, if Mariana had defaced and broken his precious possessions—yet nothing had been damaged in the slightest. Why did he continue to be so angry? Mariana shrank from him, afraid that he might hit her. For the thought came to her, a swift warning
If he hits you once, he will hit you again. It will be the end.

Badly she wanted to turn and run from the room, and out of the house—she had her own car, she could drive away. . . . The marriage had been a mistake: she must escape. But she knew she must not turn her back on this furious man, she must not insult him further. Though she'd never had any experience quite like this in her life she understood that Austin's fury had to run its course, like wildfire. If she did nothing further to provoke it, but maintained her attitude of abject apology and regret, the fit would subside, eventually.

She tried to recall quarrels she'd had with men. Young men: lovers.

But none had been anything like this, provoked by something so innocent and trivial. None had been so one-sided.

None had left her feeling so frightened and helpless. So alone.

Austin went to examine the orchids. There were six plants of about twenty-four inches in height, in ceramic bowls. In a small atrium in the living room were other exquisite plants—bonsai trees, a jade plant with glossy leaves, a three-foot lemon tree. Initially Mariana had wondered if these beautiful living things had been left behind by her most recent predecessor or whether they were Austin's; since she'd moved into the house, care of the plants seemed to have fallen to Mariana.

Finally, Austin stormed away, into his study. And Mariana was left behind trembling.

He hates me! That look in his eyes.

He doesn't love me after all. It has all been a masquerade.

“Stupid! But I will learn.”

She was the
fourth wife
. She could not bear to think that there might one day be a
fifth wife
.

The variable
y
in the equation in which
x
was the invariable.

It had been reckless of her, unthinking, stupid—to have provoked her normally good-natured husband to such a display of temper. She had herself to blame, wholly.

And that unnerving look in Austin's eyes, as of sheer loathing: no recognition of the young wife whom he'd claimed to adore.

Just that look of murderous fury—this was quite a surprise.

Yet, set beside the terrible surprises of her parents' deaths, it was hardly devastating.
I can live with it. I will!

Austin's previous wives had failed to accommodate this temper, Mariana supposed. But their expectations of marriage had to have been far different from hers.

Of course Mariana understood, when she thought about the situation more calmly, that there had to be
another side
to Austin Mohr. No one can be universally admired all of the time, as Austin seemed to be at the Institute; no one can be continuously
good, rational. Sane.

When Mariana had first arrived at the Institute she'd been impressed with how everyone seemed to admire Austin Mohr. He'd acquired a kind of mythic status:
generous, kind, brilliant.

She'd half-expected to hear that yes, of course, Mohr was ­“flirtatious”—or worse—with young women at the Institute; he'd been involved with theater and filmmaking all of his adult life, surrounded by attractive, ambitious young women, so this had seemed inevitable. Yet, Mariana hadn't heard anything disturbing about Mohr; he had no reputation for exploiting women, and no reputation for flying into fits of rage; though it was said of Mohr that he could “lose patience”—he “didn't suffer fools gladly”—these were very minor qualifications.

Presumably, Mariana's predecessors had felt the sting of his terrible temper. Very likely, his children.

Which is why they've fled him. All of them.

It was the unpredictable nature of Austin's moods that disconcerted Mariana. She'd vowed not to provoke him—she would not ever make such a mistake again, interfering with his possessions, in his house; but there were other, equally trivial errors she might make, addressing him in a way he interpreted as overly familiar, in the presence of others; in the kitchen, when they were preparing a meal together, making a suggestion to Austin about the recipes he was considering—innocently and naively as if she and Austin Mohr were on a par, and Austin Mohr not the more experienced cook.

And a terrible blunder she'd made, naively preparing a side dish of spinach one evening without consulting Austin, because spinach was a food Mariana thought might complement the seafood marinara recipe Austin was preparing; Austin had been furious, as if Mariana had insulted his judgment—“The meal I'm preparing is complicated, and complete, without any need of a ‘side dish.' I can't imagine what you're thinking, Mariana. Why you would want to
interfere.
”

It was very like tossing a lighted match into flammable ­material—a sudden explosion, a fire burning out of control.

Mariana offered to throw out the spinach, which enraged Austin all the more.

Mariana felt ill as Austin raged at her in the close confines of the kitchen that was, to Mariana, usually so warmly attractive a room, with a wooden butcher block table, dark red floor tiles, framed posters of Picasso and Matisse lithographs on the walls. Arteries stood out in Austin's sweaty forehead like writhing worms. Though Mariana apologized repeatedly, desperately, yet Austin continued to rage at her. She was baffled why such petty incidents made him so furious—she couldn't help but feel that possibly he was joking—but of course Austin wasn't joking but was deadly serious, slamming pots around, grinding his teeth in fury. That very day at the Institute there'd been an open debate about a controversial project and Austin had spoken calmly, clearly, and forcibly, without any suggestion of irritation or annoyance, still less childish rage. As if, in the intimacy of private life, in the close physical intimacy of marriage, another Austin Mohr flourished, reveling in excesses of infantile emotion, not to be repressed.

It must be all women he fears and loathes—I am only the current woman.

And sometimes, in their lovemaking—in which Austin was invariably dominant, always initiating lovemaking and always designating when lovemaking was completed—Mariana's husband exhibited a willful, even reckless impulsiveness, which left Mariana baffled and chagrined rather than hurt. (For lovemaking was so much
less personal
than other forms of engagement. In lovemaking, Mariana had no doubt but that her widely experienced husband scarcely recalled which wife, or which mistress, he held in his straining arms.) But their lovemaking passed almost entirely in silence and so the particular hurt might be more readily forgotten.

If Mariana whispered
I love you!
to Austin, often he'd drifted into sleep and could not respond. His sleep was heavy, sweaty, labored; his breathing was hoarse and irregular; like a waterlogged body Mariana thought him, floating just beneath the surface of the water. . . .

The thought of Austin's death terrified her. Her throat closed up, the thought was so awful.

Oh but I love you! I love you.
. . .

Yet how strange it was to Mariana, that Austin seemed deaf to her apologies. She had never met anyone who seemed so resolutely
not to hear
. It hardly mattered if Mariana gave in immediately, admitting her mistake and apologizing, as if in his fury Austin was remembering previous experiences with women in which he'd been thwarted, insulted, betrayed.

She wondered if he blamed the first wife, Ines, for the son's death. Maybe that was it: he could not forgive the woman, he was not even aware of his rage for her, that spilled over onto Mariana.

She was so lonely sometimes! The mad thought came to her, she would become pregnant, despite the man's precautions: she would have a baby, that she would be less lonely.

But now, how wounding it was to Mariana, a soft-spoken young woman who had never learned to assert herself, still less to defend herself—the way in which her husband glared at her as if he loathed her; the very man who, in the early weeks of their romance, had gazed at Mariana with eyes soft with love.

That love she'd believed—-she'd
known—
to be genuine.

Now she didn't know what to believe. Her husband would “love” her again—but could she believe him?

It was as if Austin saw, in Mariana's place, an ever-shifting female form, diaphanous, unpredictable, and untrustworthy, that fascinated and enraged him by turns. He did not see
her.

Already in this first year of marriage Mariana had thought several times that the marriage must be over. Her husband had had enough of her—was finished with her. He'd looked at her with such disgust, dismay, incredulity, rage—he'd actually clenched his fists as if he'd have liked nothing better than to strike her.

She'd wanted to flee the house. It was a beautiful house in a beautiful setting and yet—Mariana was coming to hate it.

Flee the Berkeley hills, so beautiful and yet so treacherous—the tight-curving narrow roads, hardly more than single lanes, rising into the steep misshapen hills, in which more than one center of gravity seemed to draw one downward, vertiginously; all of Panoramic Hill, as it was called, a fire hazard, obviously—for no fire trucks could make their way on such twisting roads.

It was earthquake terrain, too. When Mariana mentioned this fact, Austin laughed dismissively.