November Sky (20 page)

He’d told me there was never anything between him and a film partner during a shoot, even before he met me. He played intimate scenes professionally; after a cut, he defused the situation at once with a wisecrack. His aloofness seemed to spur Ellen on. But despite her soulful eyes, Nick didn’t ask her to dance even once. At some point, she threw in the towel, stood up, and announced she was going to the gambling tables.

Before she finally delivered us from her presence, she fired a poisoned dart in my direction. “If I were you, I would keep a watchful eye on Nick. You surely know that a man that good looking and charming can’t belong to only one person over the long haul.”

I looked at her, unfazed. “Thanks for the tip, but I don’t see anyone here who could jeopardize our marriage.”

Robert and Nick thought that was hilarious as she sashayed off in a rage.

Yes, she was right. Nick was unique, wonderful, seductive—and yet I was the only one who saw the invisible sword of Damocles hanging over him.

When we got back home at two in the morning, we crept upstairs so as not to wake Hanna. In the bedroom Nick stopped me as I started to pull my dress over my head.

“Stop, sweetheart. Let me do it. I’ve been looking forward to this all evening,” he murmured seductively.

We were both exhilarated and not a bit tired. He nibbled playfully at my lower lip, and I readily let his tongue play with mine. His intense kiss and the two glasses of bubbly I’d drunk made me feel more lighthearted than I had in an awfully long time. After a while, he let his lips trace a path down to my deep décolletage. I groaned softly as his palms brushed the tips of my breasts, and he sucked them one after the other, and then gently blew over them. His hands wandered under my dress and fondled the naked, soft skin of my thighs between my panties and my stockings. He impatiently coaxed me onto my back on the bed, took off my clothes piece by piece, and spoiled me passionately with his mouth and hands. My extra pounds didn’t seem to bother him at all. His touch and his caresses were as ardent as they were when I was slimmer, and I reacted to them uninhibitedly. In no time, he was inside me, and my unending love for him was mirrored in his face. When I moved under him impatiently, his eyes were veiled with lust and desire. I wrapped my legs around him, arched my back, rose up to meet each of his thrusts eagerly. I turned off everything else around me and concentrated on the sweet glow inside me. When the unbearable tension suddenly turned into hot waves of release, I screamed loudly and heard him groan my name in an echo. We lay in a tight embrace afterward. I savored his body’s warmth, listened to his regular heartbeat, and felt perfectly safe and secure for the first time in a long while. There was nothing I had to fear at that moment. Nick was sleeping with me. And if I had one wish, it would have been to feel him this close to me, full of warmth and life, for all eternity.

Chapter 17

Four weeks later, I missed my period. I didn’t think anything of it at first; after all, I took the pill regularly. But since I needed a new prescription for it anyway, I made an appointment with my gynecologist. I didn’t mention it to Nick, because after every simple, routine examination he worried about my health.

I stared at the doctor in complete bewilderment when she told me I was pregnant. “That can’t be. I’m on the pill.”

When she quizzed me further, it occurred to me that a few weeks earlier I’d caught a gastrointestinal virus and had thrown up. Stressed as I was, I’d completely forgotten to take precautions for conception. The passionate night after the film party loomed up before my inner eye. In spite of my shock and doubt, I was pleased at the idea that we’d conceived a child during those marvelous hours.

Confused thoughts still spun around in my head when I returned to the office. Chris had been on the phone and was just hanging up. She was back to her old self in many ways, and was working like a dog, seeing to it that our clientele was constantly growing and our commissions rising. For now she was avoiding male friendship like the devil does holy water.

She even poked fun at herself about it. “I never realized it was so liberating, not having to please anyone. And all of a sudden I’ve got more time to myself!”

Now she sized me up attentively. “Laura? Is something the matter? You look so peculiar.”

I carefully sat down in my chair and absentmindedly turned on my PC. Then I pulled myself together. “I’m pregnant.”

My colleague looked at me, baffled. “Then why in the world aren’t you happy? Doesn’t Nick want a baby?”

Oh, yes, he’d certainly be delighted about it. But I was ambivalent. Just when I’d decided—with a heavy heart—against having a child for his sake, I got pregnant. Was that a sign from above? It was possible I was wrong to think I had to choose between Nick and a baby. Maybe his uncontrollable death wish would go away if he had the responsibility of a child. I took a deep breath. This child flowed from our love. Abortion was off the table, so I might just as well be happy about my condition.

“He does want to be a father. We’ve already talked about having kids. I
am
happy, but it was a slip-up with the pill, so it’s quite a surprise. I’ve got to get used to the idea. Actually, we wanted to leave ourselves a little time as far as kids go,” I said, bending the truth a little.

Chris laughed. She got up and gave me a hug. “If everybody thought that way there’d be no kids at all. Congratulations! I only hope you don’t leave me completely high and dry here in the office because of your maternal obligations.”

I could say a hearty no to that. I’d be working less, but I’d have Hanna as a babysitter. Plus, I could do a lot of things from home and bring the baby to the office when necessary. The only wild card in this scenario was Nick.

“We’re really going to be parents?”

Nick jumped up and lifted me out of my chair, hugging me and smiling from ear to ear.

“How far along are you? Can we already know the sex? Did you hear any heart sounds? From now on I want to go to all your examinations and I’ll be there at the birth, of course!”

My last remaining doubts about how he’d react to the unexpected news melted away. I loved seeing his joy.

“I’m in my fifth week. You don’t hear heart sounds until later, and you don’t know the sex until the embryo’s bigger,” I responded, delivering my newly received wisdom. “And you’re welcome to be at the birth and hear my rude language if the pain is unbearable.”

Nick was over the moon and already planning the labor. I wasn’t sure it would be as idyllic as he imagined. Anna had told me with a laugh that during the last phase of labor she’d told Lars rather rudely to get back to Hamburg so she’d never have to go through this torture again.

I had to rein Nick in. He wanted to call a builder immediately to get started on renovating the first floor without delay.

“Put the phone down,” I said. “Before we call anyone, we need to figure out what we want to change. And I’ve no desire to live in the middle of a gigantic construction site in my ninth month. At the start, the baby can sleep in our bedroom.”

Hanna was thrilled when she learned that in a matter of months she’d be taking care of us
and
a baby.

“Perfect timing,” she said. “Now I can turn down the marriage proposal I got from that guy in my hiking club with a clear conscience.”

I felt just a twinge of guilt because she was sacrificing her personal happiness for our needs, but Nick gave a naughty grin and shook his head.

“Hanna, Hanna. You’re a total hypocrite. You know you have no desire to get married! You don’t want to have to bow to some guy.”

She snorted, half laughing and half in disgust. She looked at me. “Well, now! What kind of bizarre ideas about marriage does your husband have?”

Before I could reply, Nick said with conviction, “I’m a modern man. Equal rights are the rule with us. But I can imagine that men of your generation see it differently.”

Hanna grinned at him and winked at me. “Oh, right, completely equal! Dream on. But you’re right that I’m not interested in getting married—particularly to some old man. Gerald’s in good shape for sixty-five, but that can change quickly. I’m not interested in being a nurse.”

After she’d gone to her apartment to break it off with Gerald, my husband looked at me thoughtfully. “We do have equal rights, don’t we?”

I was lucky; I didn’t have morning sickness or any other discomfort. I was riveted to every little change in my body, like the tenderness in my breasts, the occasional slight pull in my tummy, and I was delighted with my expanding bosom that pushed me from a B- to a D-cup—a size Nick also found fascinating.

With each week the baby grew inside me, I felt better and on a more even keel. Maybe it was the hormonal changes of pregnancy that spread a wonderful inner satisfaction and serenity through me. I managed to push all unsettling thoughts firmly aside and concentrate on beautiful things.

Nick wanted to wrap me in cotton wool for the coming months and spoil me rotten. He kept bringing me flowers or some delicacy or other. And he spent every free minute reading books on infant care or parenting guides or devoting himself to finding potential names. He made no bones about wanting a daughter, while I didn’t care one way or the other. Like all budding parents, my only bias was for a
healthy
baby.

“Our child is going to be so special. If it’s a girl, we should call her Talisha, Driana, Salome, or Balbena—a name that shows right away how exceptional she is!” he suggested on one of our evening walks.

I rolled my eyes, knowing you got nowhere with Nick with a flat refusal. “If our baby’s to have an exotic name, then why not go with Pippilotta Vittalsia Shutteria Pepperminta Dominicdaughter Vanderstätt?”

He stopped, took me in his arms, and looked into my eyes in feigned reproach. “Sweetheart, can it be you’re not taking me seriously? What can you have against Balbena, for instance?”

I could see our daughter, as soon as she was of age, going to court and suing us for damages for all the pain and suffering we caused because of her name. I had to laugh.

“It sounds like a skin cream or a sexually transmitted disease. Nick, our child has to be comfortable with its name all its life, so nothing too offbeat, please. I like the girl names Karina or Isabell, for example. Those go well with her family name.”

He shook his head. “I see that as a numbers person, you have no imagination. No way she’s going to be baptized ‘Karina.’ That was my archenemy in elementary school. She beat me up in first grade because I didn’t want to kiss her on the mouth.”

I commiserated with him and asked if I was supposed to beat him up or get a spontaneous kiss. We put the subject of naming off to a later date.

As promised, Nick went with me to my next checkup and was as overwhelmed as I was that ultrasound could clearly show the fetus. We even saw the heart beating. He confiscated the thin ultrasound image and carefully framed and mounted it square in the middle of our photograph wall, where each of us hung our most treasured pictures. No one except Hanna and Chris knew that we were about to become a family, and we’d sworn them both to secrecy. My big sister was my role model: She didn’t announce her pregnancy to her family until the twelfth week.

When I’d last talked to Mama, she told me that Anna, Lars, and especially little Elizabeth were all well. With relief, she told me that the suspected heart defect was not confirmed by several tests. Her proud granny informed me that not only was the little girl bright as a button, but she was also way ahead in her development.

Chapter 18

Nick surprised me by announcing his parents would be coming to Munich in two weeks and staying for a while.

“They didn’t say why. Maybe it’s business. You’re almost in your twelfth week. Do you think we can officially announce that we’re having a baby?”

I didn’t see any reason to keep the news from the future grandparents. It was the perfect occasion for a large family reunion since we’d be celebrating our first wedding anniversary and Nick’s birthday in the same week.

“Perhaps we can meet for lunch somewhere, both sets of parents and brothers and sisters. Then no one would hear the news before the others, which might hurt someone’s feelings.”

“Practical as ever. You’re the Grimms’ valiant little tailor. Killed seven flies in his jam, all in one blow.” Nick grinned. “Good idea. We’ll do it.”

The Friday before Angela and Jürgen arrived, I left the office about six. Chris had left shortly before four, and Iris, our new employee, didn’t work on Friday. I was alone for the last few hours. For the first time during my pregnancy, I didn’t feel well. I was dog-tired, had had a headache since early morning that worsened during the day, and felt a latent nausea. I’d probably just eaten too little. My ravenous, stress-related appetite had disappeared. I was making an effort to eat healthy food, by and large, and gave sweets, Turkish kebabs, and other fast foods a wide berth. I took a lot of fruit snacks to work. Bananas were my absolute favorite; I scarfed them down by the pound. This craving had led my husband to call me Cheetah.

Nick had announced he wanted to cook for me that evening. Hanna and her friend Gerald were going to the movies. The guy was shrewd. He’d taken her refusal of marriage in good humor and told Hanna there was nothing standing in the way of their still spending time together.

“He’s reeling her in, slowly but surely,” said Nick. “At some point she’ll be stuck in his emotional trap, and then she will end up being his caregiver.” Nick related his prophesy in a voice too low for her to hear.

Emotional trap! What an appropriate phrase for the dilemmas we women find ourselves in because of the men we love and unwaveringly tolerate.

I shivered as I walked to my car. My light summer pants and short-sleeved shirt were too flimsy for the temperature. I was looking forward to our cozy, warm home. After an unusually warm Indian summer, autumn had suddenly marched in. It was raining heavily, and cold gusts had been tearing leaves off the trees since noon. The leaves gathered into wet little piles in the gutters and on the sidewalks. The sky was filled with dark, heavy, scudding rainclouds that increased the quickly gathering dusk.

I stopped by a supermarket on the way home to top up my banana stash, and pulled out my cell phone while I was in the fruits-and-vegetables section to ask Nick, who was sure to be in the kitchen by this time, if I should get something. It took him forever to answer. Right when I was about to hang up, I heard a soft crackle and a rustling sound.

“Nick? Can you hear me?”

I went a few steps nearer the exit because we apparently had a bad connection. More rustling, and then I finally heard Nick’s voice.

“Laura? Where are you?”

I told him where I was. Nick asked me to come home on the double, adding that he had everything he needed and the meal was almost ready. All that was missing was me.

I walked up the front steps twenty minutes later and wondered why the front door was wide open. The lights were on in every room, and I was touched to see the beautifully set table with our best dishes, glasses, and white napkins along with a dark-red candle waiting to be lit. There was an alluring scent of rosemary, garlic, and roast meat coming from the kitchen.

“That smells absolutely delicious,” I uttered as I walked into the empty kitchen. A perusal through the oven window showed that the lamb was almost done. Roast potatoes were on the stove, with a mixed salad on the counter beside it. My mouth watered.

I hummed as I walked through the house to wash my hands in the bathroom. I expected to find Nick there or in the bedroom, where he might be changing his clothes. But the house was empty. There was nobody on the first floor. When my eyes fell on the basement door, I tensed up.

In a flash, all my fear for Nick returned. Silly as a sheep thanks to my blissful hormones, I’d thought I was in a safe place and seriously believed I’d never have to be fearful again. I searched the basement rooms, shivering from cold and anxiety. After not finding Nick or any alarming objects after several minutes, I felt better. Maybe he’d just gone to get some ingredient he’d forgotten. There was a supermarket a few streets over that stayed open till midnight. It was of course careless of him to leave the oven on when going out of the house; then again, he knew from our phone conversation that I was coming straight home. A look in the garage told me that Nick had taken his car. The lamb was done, so I turned off the oven, and waited for a few minutes more. Still no Nick.

Where the hell was he in this dreadful weather, and why hadn’t he left me a note? I prayed he had his cell with him, and ran upstairs to call him.

While I was entering his number, I shouted into the phone in desperation. “Nick, please don’t do anything stupid. Think about the baby . . . about Salome or whatever you want to call her.”

I paused and heard him breathing heavily. “Tell me where you are. I’m coming.”

Still on the phone with him, I ran downstairs and out into the pouring rain to my car. I felt like I was in a horror film as the noise of a train grew louder and louder through my phone. I shouted Nick’s name without stopping. I pictured him throwing himself onto the tracks, the tons of steel rolling over him. A block of ice formed in my belly. But then the sound of the train died away, and my knees turned weak with relief when I heard Nick’s voice more distinctly.

“I’m on the bridge, where our love locks are hanging.”

Paying no attention to traffic laws, I made it there in barely ten minutes, sending prayers to heaven the whole time. I saw Nick’s car in the parking lot with the driver’s door open. I stopped next to it. My gut seized with fear. I leapt out of the car and ran to the bridge entrance, where the bicycle and footpaths began. The railway tracks ran directly over it on the second level. It had stopped raining, but everything was glistening wet. There were puddles in the uneven asphalt walkway, and I almost slipped on the wet leaves in my haste. It had grown dark in the meantime, and the usually busy bridge was empty: no pedestrians, no cyclists, and, at the moment, no passing train. Only the rustling in the trees could be heard.

I kept calling for Nick. And then I saw him. He’d climbed over the railing of the pedestrian bridge. He was standing about twenty-five feet from me on the narrow projection beyond the railing, clutching the rail from the outside with both hands.

He didn’t respond to my shouts and stared without moving at the gravel about a hundred feet below. I had to get closer to him so he could even see me. Without a second’s thought about how dangerous it was, I got my legs over the lower railing and then inched closer to the concrete pier, hand over hand, until I came to the entrance to the barrier; outside of it was the narrow concrete projection on which Nick stood. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of inches wide.

My hands clawed at the rough stone, and my smooth-soled ballerina slippers made me lose my footing several times. To reach Nick, I’d have to take a giant step from the upper end of the sloping embankment to get to the bridge. Everything inside me fought against doing it, but I had no choice. With the hypnotized look on Nick’s face, I was terrified he would let himself go.

Again and again, I shouted his name. I somehow managed to get my foot on the projection, and I clung tightly to the steel. I felt like throwing up.
Just don’t look down,
I told myself. Instead, I alternated my gaze between the grille and the wooden planks inside the footbridge, while I slowly felt my way to Nick. My breathing was rapid and shallow, my heart was pounding like a blacksmith’s hammer, and my hands were cut and bloodied from the rough stones and the sharp-edged grille. I fought the feeling of vertigo and struggled to keep breathing deeply and calmly. It seemed like an eternity before I reached Nick. His hand clutched the grille on my left. I took two tiny steps sideways, got very close to him, and ignored the fact that we were many, many feet up over a huge drop. I carefully got my balance, and then loosened my grip on the grille brace I was holding on to with my right hand. I put it on Nick’s hand. His fingers were ice-cold. Relieved, I felt him respond to my touch. He slowly raised his head and turned it toward me. The glazed look in his eyes disappeared. He looked at me with confusion, and then he came to. His pupils dilated with horror, and I was again seized with the fear that he might suddenly let go.

I screamed, “Come back with me. You have to help me, or I won’t make it.”

In that moment he realized the danger he’d placed us in. He pressed his body onto mine and instructed me how to work backward by hand and foot, slowly and carefully toward the embankment that would save us. He stayed close by my side. When we had managed to get halfway back, a rushing noise suddenly increased in volume. I closed my eyes and felt the vibrations from the approaching train. The floor under our feet swayed as the train roared just a few yards overhead. I felt like I was going crazy. Panic seized me, and my right foot slid down. I clung desperately to the grille. Nick threw an arm around my waist and held me close until I regained my footing.

“Stay calm; it’ll be over in a second,” he yelled. The wheels on the rails above created a deafening rattle. And the completely irrational thought ran through my mind that if anyone saw us, they’d think Nick was saving
me
from an act of madness. The bridge’s shaking finally died away as the train noise subsided in the darkness.

We somehow managed to work our way back to the concrete bridge footing and the steep embankment. Completely out of breath, we stood there for several moments, gasping for air. My hands, feet, and stomach hurt from the tension, and I felt like an iron ring was closing around my head. I saw a flickering before my eyes, and I couldn’t utter a word. Not that there was anything more to say. After this terrifying experience, all my hopes for a rosy future free from fear—for a normal family life—were dashed like a ship on a cliff in a storm. Nick looked at me with desperation in his eyes, but I felt empty inside. When he opened his mouth, I lifted a feeble hand.

“I don’t want to hear a thing. No professions of gratitude, no apologies, no false promises. I’ve had it and just want to go home and go to bed.”

Arduously, like an old woman, I climbed over the lower railing and walked back down the path, refusing to take the hand he offered.

We went back in his car, leaving my car there. I was shaking and vomited violently before we got in. Nick sat silently at the wheel and kept giving me intensely worried looks.

I didn’t say anything when we arrived home. Nick started to speak several times and tried to help me take off my wet things, but I ignored him, stubbornly shaking him off whenever he tried to touch me.

“Leave me alone. I don’t feel well. I just want to go to bed.”

When I undressed in the bathroom, I discovered some slight bleeding. But I was too physically and emotionally spent to worry about it. I sank onto my bed, completely wiped out, and turned away when Nick lay down beside me and reached for my hand.

“I’ll go get your car right away in the morning.”

My car was of no concern to me and neither was anything else. I pointedly turned my back to him and drew my knees up to my chest like a fetus seeking protection. I pulled the down duvet around my shivering body. I paid no attention to Nick’s presence and didn’t say one word about the blood in my underpants or the aching pain below my navel. Nick finally gave up trying to get me to talk and left me alone. I half heard him tossing around restlessly on his side of the bed and sighing softly. For the first time in our marriage, I was perfectly detached from how he felt or what was going on inside him. I’d reached the stage where I could only think about me and my baby. I had no interest in anything apart from my hurting body and tortured soul.

I made it through the following day as if in a trance. The cramps in my lower abdomen and the bleeding got worse by the hour, until Nick called an ambulance. I lost my baby shortly after arriving at the hospital. I spoke to no one. I felt like I was standing outside myself with no emotional involvement, looking disinterestedly at what was happening to this woman, Laura Vanderstätt. I watched how she was lifted onto a stretcher, taken to the ER accompanied by a wailing siren and flashing red lights, and examined by a doctor. I’d withdrawn to a place deep within me. A place so buried that no one could find me, and nothing could hurt me. After the curettage, I was placed in a private room. Alone, I stared straight ahead, seeing nothing. When somebody came in, I closed my eyes and only opened them after the person had left. I didn’t care who it was. I resolutely blocked out the sound of crying babies each time the door was opened.

The doctors and nurses who treated me came and went and tried to provoke some reaction out of me. I heard voices and understood what they were saying, but I didn’t show it through any movement. There was talk of a severe depression resulting from miscarriage, and that I might have to be sent to a psychiatric hospital. Nick furiously protested that. When he was alone with me, I heard the crackling of some cellophane wrapping, and the sweet scent of roses spread throughout the room.