The weight of water - Anita Shreve [80]
He began to rub the underside of his chin with his forefinger.
“That is to say, the beginning of my monthly curse…”
He suddenly took his napkin from his lap and put it on the table. “These are not matters of which we should speak, Maren,” he said, interrupting me. “I am sorry to have brought up such a private subject. It is entirely my fault. But I do want to say to you that there can be no possible cause and effect between the events of that time and the state of your” — he hesitated at the word — “womb. This is a subject for doctors and for your husband at the very least. Also, I think that sometimes such difficulties may result from a state of mind as well as a state of bodily health.”
“Are you saying I am barren because I have wished it so?” I asked sharply, for I was more than a little piqued at this glib remark on a matter he can have known so very little about.
“No, no, Maren,” he said hastily. “No, no, I have no authority to say such things. It’s just that I…” He paused. “Your marriage to John is a happy one?”
“We have managed,” I said.
“I mean,” he said, with a small, awkward flutter of his hand, “in the matter of a child…”
“Do you mean, does my husband put his seed into me with regularity?” I asked, shocking him, for he colored instantly and darkly.
He stood up in a state of confusion, and I was immediately remorseful and angry with myself for causing him this discomfort. I went to him and put my arms about his neck. He separated my hands from behind his neck and held my arms by their wrists, and I leaned against his chest.
My eyes filled with tears. Perhaps it was the proximity of his familiar body and the smell of him that allowed me to weep. “You have gone on,” I cried. “You have gone on, but I… I cannot go on, and sometimes I think I will go mad.”
His smell was in the fabric of his shirt. I pressed my face into the cloth and inhaled deeply. It was a wonderful smell, the smell of ironed cotton and a man’s sweat.
He pulled my wrists down so that they were at my side. Anethe came into the room. Evan let go of me. She was still in her nightdress, and her hair was braided in a single plait down her back. She was sleepy still, and her eyes were half closed. “Good morning, Maren,” she said pleasantly, seemingly oblivious to her husband’s posture or the tears on my cheeks, and I thought, not for the first time, that Anethe must be short-sighted, and I then recalled several other times in the past few weeks when I had seen her squinting.
Anethe went to her husband and coiled herself into his embrace so that though she was facing me, his arms were wrapped around her. Evan, unwilling to look at me any longer, bent his head into her hair.
I could not speak, and for a moment, I could not move. I felt raw, as though my flesh had torn, as though a wild dog had taken me in his teeth, sunk his teeth into me, and had pulled and tugged until the flesh and gristle had come away from the bone.
“I must go,” Evan said quickly to Anethe, giving her one last quick embrace about the shoulders. “I must collect the nets.”
And without a glance in my direction, he took his jacket from the chair and left the room. I knew then that Evan would take great pains never to be left alone in a room again with me.
I turned around and brought my fists close in to my breast. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to contain the rage and longing within me so that no unwanted sound would slip through my lips. I heard Anethe walk her husband to the door. Evan would take the nets, I knew, to Louis Wagner’s room to mend them, even though it was colder in there. When I heard Anethe come back to where I was standing, I made myself relax my eyelids and put my hands on the back of a chair. I was trembling.
“Maren,” Anethe said behind me, reaching up to tuck a stray lock of hair into my bun. The touch sent a shiver through my back and down my legs. “I am hopelessly naughty for sleeping so late, but do you think you could forgive me and let me have some of the sausage and cheese from yesterday’s dinner for my