The Children's War (114 page)

“What? You’d go against Adam’s wishes?”

“Adam’s dead,” she replied rather coldly. “It was unfair of him to ask such a thing and stupid for me to agree. After all, I had no right to determine Joanna’s fate like that. It should be her choice, and she has already made her opinion abundantly clear.”

“Oh, Zosiu, that would mean so much to me!” He hesitated. “But are you sure you want to defy Adam’s wishes? After all, Joanna and I sorted it all out for ourselves.”

“Yeah, I heard. But it’s important we make it legal whatever you and Joanna think. During the wedding, when I was talking to my parents, I realized that they would be very likely to take Joanna to the NAU if something happened to me. They assumed it would be the best thing for her, you know, a normal life, a family, et cetera. I mentioned that she should stay here with you and Marysia, and they were rather dismissive of that idea. I think they think raising their kids here was a mistake—maybe I’m to blame for that—and they would want to remove Joanna from this environment.”

“Oh, God, I hadn’t thought of that. I just assumed she would stay here with me. Or at the least with Marysia.”

“Yeah, I sort of assumed the same. But what with my father in government there—well, he’d be sure to get his way. The only way to make sure they don’t get custody is for you to adopt Joanna legally. Then if I get wasted on a mission, she can stay with you. And that, I’m sure, would be Adam’s preference as well—he would have never guessed that she might be taken away to another continent because of his stupid request.”

“It wasn’t stupid. I understand what he must have felt.”

“Stupid or not, it’s currently impractical. So, unless you have a problem with it, I think we ought to make the adoption legal.”

“No problem. No problem at all,” he responded happily.

Zosia reached out and touched his cheek. “You know, we have a whole evening and a night to ourselves, and I haven’t noticed any empty bottles recently.”

“I haven’t needed any recently.”

“And I’m probably fertile, ready to be plowed, so to speak.”

He smiled in response, but the smile faded as a last bitter thought disturbed him. “You’re not afraid to be with me? I mean, I feel pretty polluted, Zosiu. I’d understand if you were a bit put off.”

In answer to his question she crawled on top of him and began unbuttoninghis shirt as she kissed him, starting at his forehead and working her way down.

Two weeks later, Barbara and Olek were beginning to comment openly about Peter’s frequent absences from work. They had not found out anything more about the test done on him, but he seemed reasonably unconcerned—certainly he did not work late trying to unearth more information. Indeed, he barely found time to work at all. He would leave midmorning and sometimes return before lunch, then he would leave again in the middle of the afternoon and sometimes he came back to finish the day, sometimes not. Whatever he was doing, it seemed to leave him in a thoroughly jovial mood. He joked and laughed and folded the coded documents into paper airplanes, which he sent skimming over their heads, then he would get up, stretch, mutter something about having something to do, and would disappear again.

Zosia was suffering from similar illnesses or appointments and was unable to attend meetings, turned down two assassinations that would have taken her out of the encampment, and never did quite get around to hacking out some data that she was supposed to unearth. Her dereliction of duty seemed to leave her in similar high spirits, and the two of them were often seen strolling arm in arm through the woods, calf deep in mud and slush, grinning giddily like two lovesick teenagers.

Several days before the expected onset of Zosia’s menses, Peter began asking as soon as she awoke, “Anything yet?” The answer was no, not yet.

Half a week later when he asked, Zosia said, “Apparently not,” with something bordering on hope.

Three days later both of them were walking around with an air of expectation: Peter would simply raise his eyebrows in query and Zosia would simply shake her head. With each passing day, she shook her head more emphatically and smiled a broader smile.

By the time she was a week overdue, neither of them could contain their hopes any longer, and Zosia went to see the physician. It was the gnomelike fellow with the nervous habits. He reported the news to them without any apparent idea of its significance: Zosia was pregnant. They accepted his brief congratulations with a dignified thank-you and left his office to go celebrate properly and in private.

They spent the weeks following their good news in a state of ostentatious happiness. They had dinner parties and invited their guests over to hear their news in person—gossip was such that it was unreasonable to expect anybody not to have already heard, but they had fun making a presentation of it in any case. Even Tadek had a wonderful meal cooked for him—and it wasn’t that Zosia had suddenly learned how to cook. Peter was feeling that great about the world.

42

E
AT IT
,
the voice intoned. This time he did not hesitate, he knew better than that. He immediately grabbed the capsules and threw them into his mouth, forcing himself to swallow before he could lose his nerve. Rough hands grabbed his face, forced his jaw open, and probed expectantly. He retched involuntarily and someone hit him for that.
Don’t you dare!
the voice warned. The fingers found nothing, he had indeed swallowed the pills, whatever they were, and now he waited in dismay for the inevitable effects, whatever they would be.

Peter opened his eyes to the soft darkness of their bedroom. He cast a longing glance at Zosia and Joanna as they slept undisturbed, then with a sigh of resignation,
he rose from the bed and went into the kitchen to pull out a bottle of whiskey. His abstinence over the past weeks had cost him dearly in terms of sleep, and he did not hesitate now to pour himself a tumblerful and end the charade. However happy his state of mind during the day, there was still only one way he could face the nights, and as he drank the fluid, he felt the nightmare dissolve back into the past where it belonged.

“Good morning.” Zosia yawned from the doorway. “Rough night?” she asked, glancing at the bottle and his glass.

“It’s all right now.” Peter studied her as she leaned sleepily against the jamb. It had been only three weeks since the doctor had confirmed her pregnancy, yet already he could not help but look at her and see their child within. Their little miracle. It would be nearly six weeks old—a minuscule lump with tiny arm and leg buds. Visible fingers probably, the brain just beginning to develop. He glanced up at the clock. “You’re up early.”

“I have a lot to do today.”

“So do I,” Joanna said as she slipped past her mother into the kitchen. She greeted her father with a quick kiss, grabbed some bread and a slice of cheese, and headed for the door. “My class is going out on a morning excursion!” she explained as she waved good-bye.

Both Zosia and Peter laughed. “My God, but she’s growing up fast,” he commented.

“So busy!” Zosia agreed.

“Well, that makes two of you,” he said, wishing she would take more time off. She really needed her rest. He had done everything he could; it was up to her to work the miracles from now on, and she just worked too much, ate irregularly, and there was too much stress in her life. “Anything happening today?”

“Not really. I did talk to Ryszard yesterday.”

“Any news?” Peter got up to put the kettle on for some tea.

“Just a bit of gossip. I found out something about your friend Karl.”

“What?” he asked, wondering momentarily what Karl would think of being referred to as his friend. He would probably be horrified.

“He’s had another kid since you left. Or, I suppose, his wife has.”

Peter spun around in surprise. “What! That’s impossible! Are you sure it’s not an adoption?”

“No—clearly a birth. At least from what Ryszard heard. But why’s it so impossible? She’s young enough.”

“I didn’t think so,” he responded with a little more control.

“Well, I was curious so I checked. She’s only forty. She had Uwe quite young, just after her marriage, in fact.”

“But she had her menopause years ago. She told me Gisela was definitely her last,” he replied casually.

Zosia looked at him as if wondering something, but said, “Well, how old was Gisela?”

“Eight when I left.”

“Hmm. Maybe she simply meant that she intended Gisela to be her last.”

“No. She said she couldn’t have any more. She lied,” he said as though it surprised him.

Zosia tilted her head. “So?”

“She lied. Outright lied,” he repeated despite himself.

“Why were you even discussing it?”

He hesitated, turned to put the tea into the teapot. “No reason,” he said, his back to her.

Zosia disappeared into the bedroom to get dressed, but called out, “Well, I can’t imagine you wouldn’t know anyway. I mean, you did all their laundry and cleaned all the garbage, didn’t you?”

“You know I did,” he answered, trying not to sound bitter. He hated when she mentioned things like that—her words always had a patina of disgust.

“Then you could not have missed when she had her periods.”

“I did. I guess she was discreet,” he replied, as he painstakingly wrapped the tea back up. “At times she was a very private person. Anyway, they have these little disposable things—tampons I guess they’re called. I gather Teresa and Ulrike used them and just flushed them away; maybe Elspeth did the same.”

“Really?” Zosia said, amazed. “I never saw anything like that in Göringstadt.”

“Maybe you should ask Kasia about it. They’re imported and I guess they’re at least available in Berlin.”

“That would make life a bit easier, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, especially for whoever does the laundry around here.”

“Oh, I do my share!” Zosia protested as she reemerged from the bedroom.

He turned to look at her, not even bothering to show disbelief.

“Well, I’m busy! Damn it, I hold down three jobs!”

“Yes, I know you are. And you know I wish you would cut back on what you do, at least now,” he said gently. At least they had managed to change the subject.

“I’ll think about it. But I really must dash. See you later!”

With that she left, but he noticed that she turned to the right, toward Communications, rather than toward the meeting room.

Once she was gone, he poured himself another drink and sat at the table staringmiserably at the amber fluid. Elspeth had lied. Outright lied. Clearly it had been for a reason. The only question was, how old was the child?

He sipped the whiskey, letting his mind wander back to those days. Did he even recognize that man? Could he really have been like that?

“I got you something,” Elspeth had said as she dropped her packages onto the table in the hall. She selected one of the parcels and handed it to him.

He opened it and looked at the contents. Leather work gloves.

“Your hands are rough.”

He nodded, studying the gloves as though they were incomprehensible. Work gloves.

“What’s the matter?”

“Am I permitted to wear these?” He fingered the leather absently.

“Of course!”

Of course. His hands were too rough for her, so he could wear gloves when he worked. It was permitted. There was no law against his wearing gloves.
There was no law!
Yet they had let him burn his hands on those chemicals for months.

“What’s wrong with you?” Elspeth asked, quite angry. “You should say thank you!”

“Of course,
gnädige Frau,”
he responded from habit.“Thank you,
gnädige Frau.”

“No, come upstairs and thank me properly.”

He carefully set the gloves back on the table. “It will be my pleasure,
Gnädigste.”

His pleasure. Such lies! He brought his hand to his mouth, nearly sick with the thought of what he had said and done. How long had they done it? More than three months. More than three months. Nearly every day until he left. Without protection. They did not need it, she had said, she was past her childbearing years. Well past.

There had been a pattern to it all, he could see that now. They had had sex, or rather she had had sex nearly every day, sometimes twice in a day. She paid him enough attention, was sufficiently patient for him to grow excited and erect so that he could serve her needs, but he rarely came. His exhaustion and incessant pain and fear made it physically difficult, the remnants of his pride and dignity argued against participating in such sham pleasure, and she rarely bothered to give him the time to overcome these obstacles. Her efforts were diverted to directing him how best to please her, and as soon as she was satisfied, she pushed him away, leaving him stranded to cope, on his own, with whatever emotions and physical desires had been ignited.

Then, overnight, it had all changed. She had grown solicitous, friendly even. She had treated him with some dignity and respect, even when they were not in bed together. She showered him with little gifts, food, and kind words. His workload eased; pointless jobs that he had done for years suddenly became unnecessary. He had thought that perhaps she had finally learned to view him as a fellow human being and to like him for who he was, not for what he could do for her. She had given him time and encouragement and tenderness in bed, and he had responded to his newfound humanity by coming time and again, day after day. The frustrations of the prior weeks only served to ignite his passion, and he had responded like a well-trained dog to her commands.

Just as it had begun, it had all stopped. If he had not been drugged by despair, it would have been obvious that he had clearly served his purpose, and that he had simply been demoted back to his natural, inferior status. For that week and some, he had been completely and blatantly used, and he had been utterly blind to that fact. The next month the pattern had repeated itself, and yet, he had
blamed it on her moods without giving it any further thought. And now there was a child.

He groaned and buried his head in his hands.

Zosia returned while he was still sitting at the table. “Peter,” she called out rather brusquely.

He looked up at her, saw that she was only barely managing to contain her fury.

“Is there something you’d like to tell me? You know, your wife, your close comrade, the mother of your child?”

He turned away to rub his face with his hands so she could not see his expression and shook his head slightly.

“I went back and checked,” she said coldly, “after that little discussion about Elspeth’s fertility. Do you know what I learned?”

He shook his head again.

“The babe is a year old next month. That means Elspeth was pregnant when you left. Two or three weeks gone, I’d guess. Did you know that?”

He shook his head.

“Is that why you left?”

He shook his head.“No. I didn’t know.”

“How could you?”

“I didn’t know!” He had never meant to abandon his child!

That was not Zosia’s meaning. “How could you
sleep
with her?”

Oh, there was that, too. He should have told her long ago; now it was too late to explain. All he could say was, “You weren’t there, Zosiu, you can’t know what it was like.”

“But I do know what collaboration is like!” she said coldly. The accusation did not surprise him. It was exactly what he had expected and exactly the reason why he had not told her earlier. Quietly he asserted, “I wasn’t collaborating.”

She was unconvinced. “You slept with the woman!” she yelled. “You can’t claim she raped you, not like . . . Or was that voluntary, too?”

“Zosiu!”

“Do you just throw yourself at any of the master race who deigns to want you?”

“Please, enough!”