The Children's War (121 page)

“She’s napping,” Peter interjected worriedly.

“Oh, I guess we shouldn’t wake her. What do you think about them going out alone? You know the turf better than me.”

“It’s not usually done that way. Besides I’d feel a lot better if one of us went along.”

“That means me,” Zosia sighed.

“Why can’t Dad come?” Joanna whined.

Zosia grimaced slightly.“Nice to know I’m so welcome!”

Joanna threw her arms around her mother’s thighs and said, “I meant both of you!”

“I might be recognized by someone in the neighborhood, sweetie,” Peter answered, “so, I’m afraid I’m housebound.”

“What would they do?” Joanna asked, suddenly serious.

“They’d kill me,” Peter responded just as seriously.

Joanna’s face dropped, but then she remembered her original request and said, “So we can go?”

“Yes, you and Genia get ready while I get my papers together,” Zosia answered.

Feeling lonely and abandoned, Peter watched out the window as Zosia walked with the two girls in the direction of the park. As he stood there, he absently swept his fingers across the windowsill. They came away covered in dust, and he shuddered with the knowledge of what would have happened if Elspeth had ever discovered such an accumulation.

49

“S
O YOU THINK
Uwe is depressed and that’s what’s prolonging his illness? Is such a thing possible?”

“Yes,
gnädige Frau.
The mind is very powerful,” Peter answered, wondering if a cigarette was possible.

Elspeth nodded to herself. “Interesting. I hadn’t really thought of things that way.” She looked at him and smiled kindly. “It was rather nice today, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was,” he agreed without having to lie. He glanced at the time and decided not to try for the cigarette today. Maybe next time. He climbed out of the bed and pulled on his clothing. “I guess I should get back to work.”

Elspeth glanced at the little clock on the bedside table and smiled provocatively. “There’s plenty of time, come back to bed.”

He hesitated to answer as he contemplated how he could say no without offending her.

“Oh, don’t give me that miserable look!” she snapped, exasperated.

It was too late, he would never be able to summon up enough enthusiasm to make up for his faux pas. “Forgive me,
gnädige Frau,
but I have so much work that must be done . . .”

“Oh, I don’t know why I expect any response from you. You have no appreciation of what I do for you . . .” He recognized the beginning of a tirade and there was nothing to do but wait it out. Though it was no worse than usual, he felt inexplicably hurt by her words, but he did nothing, said nothing, until she was finished, at which point he apologized and asked permission to leave to return to his work.

“. . . you must have so many wonderful stories to tell about her!” Kasia’s voice floated into his perception.

He peered through the gap between the curtain and the window frame into the garden below and watched the two women as they sat there sipping their tea and eating their tiny sandwiches.

Elspeth picked a bit of lettuce out of her teeth, then motioned for Zosia to refill her teacup before saying, “We’ve just changed caretakers, so I’m afraid I haven’t heard anything amusing recently.”

Bad enough that Elspeth had not brought Magdalena with her, despite an explicit invitation to do so, but now Kasia couldn’t even wring a story out of her! He turned away to look into the darkened bedroom and sighed his exasperation.

“Oh, did you have trouble with the last one?” Kasia asked.

“No, she was just a schoolgirl on a month’s course. Like the others. I’m afraid Magdalena hasn’t really taken to any of them much.”

“Maybe she’d like more interaction with her mother, or her father,” Kasia risked saying.

Elspeth’s face darkened for a moment. Her thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. Then she smiled, sipped her tea, and shrugged. “Frankly, my husband never took much interest in the girls. And as for me, well, just between us, I’m a bit fed up with children.”

“I understand,” Kasia murmured, and nodded her head. “I understand.”

The obvious truth came out in bits and pieces in the conversation. The child was an irrelevancy. She had served her purpose by being born; she was a number—number eight, a quota fulfilled. Peter stared down at Elspeth’s dark roots
with growing dismay. His poor little Magdalena, whom he did not even know. She was fated to be an extra mouth to feed, a burden on the family, a nonson. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily. How could Elspeth feel so cold toward her own child? Was she mad? And if so, how had he ever managed to maintain his sanity in her household?

Maybe he hadn’t. Could a sane man have accepted the verbal and physical abuse she meted out one minute and make love to her the next?

“. . . so you were able to get another servant besides the nannies?” Kasia was saying.

“Oh, yes, I wasn’t going to try and manage all on my own! That house, oh, there’s just so much to do!”

“I know.” Kasia nodded agreeably. “It’s so hard to get the help to do anything right. I thought, though, you would have had trouble given, er, that little incident?”

Elspeth blushed.“No, no problem. We, well, it was obvious that it was not our fault and that his training was defective. We had problems—mind you, nothing serious, but still—we had problems with him from the first.”

“Oh, really?” Kasia exuded sympathy.

“Yes, terrible. He was an asocial. Never fit in, never showed proper respect.” Elspeth shook her head. Her words sounded almost memorized and did not match either her tone or expression. To Peter her tone sounded as though she felt betrayed; her expression was one of poignant, perhaps even fond, memories. It sickened him, and he placed his head on his arms on the windowsill and listened to the rest of the conversation without looking at her again.

Elspeth finally left, and Zosia came to the bedroom door, pushed it open, and slipped inside. She stood silently contemplating him in the dim light, then she asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he answered, resigned to hearing a diatribe about his cowardice. With her? How could he? She was even worse than expected. Such a Naziette! Not even pretty. And so on.

“You look . . . are you sure you’re okay?” Zosia asked as she came to stand by him.

He nodded. “I guess I forgot how much I hated her. Or maybe I never really realized it at the time.”

“I’m sorry she didn’t bring the baby,” Zosia soothed as she stroked his hair. Without meaning to, he pulled his head away, then realizing what he had done, he turned his attention to her. She was so loving, how could he possibly shy away from her? He stood and reached toward her and they kissed passionately. He would make it up to her, make amends for that moment of defensiveness, and besides, it would feel good to purge the emotions of the afternoon. They continued to kiss and embrace and stroke each other, moving slowly toward the bed.

They undressed each other, rolled onto the bed together, and continued their passionate kissing. He began kissing her body, moving down the smooth skin to
nibble at her breasts, to run his tongue over her hardened nipples. He moved downward kissing her stomach, stroking between her legs with his hands, caressing the curves of her waist with his lips, exciting her to groans of expectation.

When she seemed thoroughly excited, he began to raise himself, but she stopped him. “Go down on me,” she pleaded as her hands convulsively stroked his face. “You’ve never done that.” Ever so gently she guided his face farther down.

He let her hands guide him so she would not recognize his hesitation. He bent his head toward her, but stopped. “I’d rather not,” he said simply, and moved upward in the bed.

“Oh, why not?” she groaned with disappointment. “Really, we’ve never . . . I just wanted to try it with you.”

“Please. No.” He kissed her on the lips.

Something in his tone woke her out of her dreamlike state. She opened her eyes and stared at him.
“That woman!”
she accused. His silence was the only acknowledgment she needed. She rolled onto her side putting her back toward him. He raised himself up and reached for her, but she pushed his hand away.

“Zosiu . . .”

“Is she all you think about?”

“No, no! It’s not like that.”

Zosia’s eyes narrowed with frustrated anger. “What is it like, huh? Tell me about it. Tell me all about it.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yes, I do; you couldn’t be bothered to tell me before.”

“It’s humiliating!” His voice was strained.

“And it’s humiliating for me, never knowing when I’m going to cross some unseen boundary!” she retorted angrily. “If you cared about my feelings, you would at least let me know where I stand!”

“Can’t you just respect my privacy?”

“I do. But when your memories interfere with our lives—then I have a right to know about them.”

“It’s not the memories that are interfering. My response to your request was not out of line.
Was it?
Or do you expect unquestioning obedience to your every whim?”

“That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about—everything gets blown way out of proportion by you!” she accused.

“It isn’t
me!
You’re the one who can’t let go. Ever since you found out about Elspeth, you’ve jumped on every mistake I’ve made, the slightest wrong move, the smallest gesture. You can’t get over her and you’re blaming me! Ever since you’ve found out about her, you’ve been faking with me—we haven’t had any real sex since then. You’ve completely shut me out of your life.”

“Well, then, include me back in,” she suggested coldly. “Tell me all about it.”

He did not reply. He was emotionally exhausted, and there seemed no easy
way to refuse without escalating the hostility, but still he could not tell her. He could not let her wallow in his humiliation, and especially he could not bear to think she might tell her friends. He had already provided them with far too many laughs. Simply and with finality he said,“No.”

Zosia did not respond. She remained silent with her back toward him. He lay back in the bed, closed his eyes, and tried not to think about it, about Elspeth, but of course he was unsuccessful. He would lie next to her, trying not to think, trying not to understand. He would lie there until a decent interval had passed, keeping his eyes closed because he did not want to see. It had been useless though; she did not let him go so easily. She made him see, made him understand. At some point she made it clear she wanted oral sex from him. She began with subtle hints, which grew increasingly unsubtle as time progressed. He knew what she wanted and shuddered with revulsion at the idea. It was one thing to climb on top of a woman he did not love and pretend she was someone else, but to do that . . . He determinedly ignored the hints, and eventually Elspeth was forced to instruct him directly.

When she told him what she wanted, he turned his head to look at the wall and muttered, “I’d really rather not.”

There was a long silence as she seemed to be deciding what to do with his refusal. He turned toward her, reached for her face, stroked it gently. “You’re a beautiful woman,” he said not altogether untruthfully, “and I like to see your face when we make love.”

Elspeth smiled slightly, and he thought perhaps he had salvaged the situation, but then she said, “So why do you always look away?”

“I’m overwhelmed by your beauty,” he lied egregiously.

“Do as you’ve been told,” she responded, unmoved.

Somewhat hopelessly he tried, “Please, Elspeth, let me take the initiative. Allow me that much self-respect.”

“Self-respect?” she snorted derisively. “You?” She sat up and twisted around to lean over him. “You’ve always had an inflated sense of your worth, haven’t you? You’re a worm! And now, just because I let you crawl into my bed, you think you’re my equal! Do you have any idea what my husband would do to you if I let him know about us? Do you?”

“And what would he do to you?” he asked, afraid that she might impetuously carry out her threat.

“Not much. He knows how it would reflect on him,” she answered as though speaking from experience. “But you—your life wouldn’t be worth living!”

“It isn’t now,” he muttered to himself.

“What? What did you say?”

“I said . . . I said it wouldn’t be worth living without you,” he replied desperately. “Please, let’s not fight. You are my beautiful, merciful lady,” he said, returning to addressing her with stiff formality, “and it breaks my heart when my lady is unhappy with me. Please let me make it up to my lady.”