A Christmas Wedding

by Andrew M. Greeley

  You bet.

  “She will not be angry with you?” Trudi continued. “I imagine it was quite shocking for her to see a little boy who looked so much like you.”

  “My only red-haired child,” I said ruefully as I balanced the teacup in my hand, “so far.”

  “Yes, that is what Frau O’Malley said.”

  Did she now?

  There was no doubt that the cute redhead playing in the backyard was my son. He looked like me and was blessed with the O’Malley family zest in greater amounts, I dare say, than I ever was. He had bounced in from school, dropped his schoolbooks, shaken hands politely with me, and then vaulted into the yard with his soccer ball. His athletic talents had certainly not come from me.

  “She is angry? She was, as I say very sweet, but she seemed under great tension.”

  “Rosemarie is high-strung.” I sipped the tea. “She’ll be all right in a day or two.”

  I spoke with a lot more confidence than I felt.

  “It was foolish of me to come to the gallery. I had seen all your books. Including”—she smiled faintly—“my picture. I wanted to see the prints themselves.”

  “And perhaps see me?”

  She considered her teacup. “Perhaps. I hope I did no harm.”

  “Why didn’t you write me?”

  “I found I was pregnant.” She looked up and quickly averted her eyes again. “It was my fault. I did not want to be one of those women who seduced an American so they could go home with him. I thought that would be most improper. Magda and Erika—yes, we use our own first names again—agreed. You were so young and innocent and brave. Was that not correct behavior?”

  “I think you were pretty brave too.”

  She shrugged indifferently. “I did not intend to use you, Karl. I told myself that then and I still say it. I was so confused and so frightened. I did love you. Or I thought I did”—she was crying now—“or I told myself that I did… the confusion all returns when I talk about it.”

  Herr Weiss was a former Luftwaffe pilot. Together they owned an import-export company. They were “quite successful,” as she put it. Their detached house, spanking new, with a big garden in back and elegant Scandinavian furniture in every room, was sufficient proof of that. The house smelled of fresh varnish and was so polished and bright that I had the impression that it had just been unwrapped from clean brown packing paper. The German “economic miracle” writ small.

  Herr Weiss was a very good husband, I was told, kind and gentle and hardworking—not at all authoritarian like so many German men are “even today.” He loved little Karl like a child of his own and the love was returned. He knew who the boy’s father was. He too “admires your work greatly.”

  Magda had remarried, a surgeon at the hospital. She too was happy in her new life. Erika was a student at the university in Tübingen.

  Here were some recent snapshots.

  Magda looked twenty years younger than she had in Bamberg—a handsome woman in her late forties with an equally distinguished-looking husband. Erika was quite a young beauty. Herr Weiss was a genial giant, a bit overweight, with an instantly attractive smile. Karl looked like Charles Cronin O’Malley in his First Communion picture. Especially since it was his First Communion picture.

  They all lived happily ever after.

  “I will always be grateful to you, Karl, for my new life. And for little Karl too.”

  Was there any sexual chemistry between us?

  Not the slightest at first. I found it hard to believe that I had ever made love, at times wanton love, with this stilted, formal woman, the very model of upper-middle-class Teutonic propriety. I might not have even recognized her.

  Not that time had been harsh to my first romance. She was a handsome, self-possessed woman approaching her thirties with a mature attractiveness which would be well preserved by the best clothes and the most expensive makeup. But voluptuous she was not. Indeed, she could hardly be said to be beautiful. Had she ever been beautiful?

  The most that could have been said for the girl in the picture was that she was pretty.

  “I learned a lot from you too, Trudi.”

  “You have no regrets then?” She offered me a piece of fruitcake. I declined politely. I must return for the presentation of the prize.

  “No. You?”

  “But of course not.”

  I rose to leave. “Should we stay in touch now that I have found you?”

  She rose too, slim, fastidious, well groomed, polite. “What do you think, Karl?”

  “I will send you copies of my new books. Perhaps we can exchange Christmas cards.”

  “I think that will be very proper.”

  “If you and your family should come to America…”

  “We would have to think about that, wouldn’t we?”

  “I suppose so.” We were standing together at the door. My cab was waiting in the road. The name of the game was anticlimax.

  Then my emotions changed completely. I had loved this woman once, passionately if shallowly. She had loved me too. That was over, but the picture of us being in bed together again was still very attractive. In theory, not in practice.

  All right, that was better. Somehow.

  I kissed her, solidly but briefly. She replied in kind.

  “It is good to see you again, Trudi.”

  “It was most kind”—she faltered, suddenly close to tears—“of you to visit us. I am sure”—she regained control —“that Herr Weiss will be happy to hear you were here.”

  I wanted to say something significant. So did she. I still love you. I shall be ever grateful to you. I am happy that you are happy.

  None of the words came.

  Trudi had the last words.

  “God is good.”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  In the yard, little Karl was still kicking his soccer ball. Probably a little kraut with no wit or humor.

  Then he grinned up at me as he missed a kick. Ah, there was a little Celt in him after all. I picked him up, spun him in the air, and kissed him.

  The little brat loved it, just like his father had at the same age. And, unlike his father, he wasn’t afraid to show it.

  He took affection for granted. So I hugged him and kissed him again and waved goodbye to his mother, who had been watching us uncertainly from the door. He laughed and she smiled and for a moment she was the Trudi of old as she waved at me.

  “Auf Wiedersehen, Herr O’Malley,” my son said.

  “Till we meet again,” I replied in English.

  For a couple of moments I felt happy. And then I remembered Rosemarie.

  I had phoned home that morning, forgetting that Rosemarie would have been able to catch a plane out of Frankfurt only about the time I was calling. Why had I not gone up to Frankfurt, I demanded of myself, and brought her back?

  Because I was afraid of her, that’s why.

  I went through the pompous formalities of the award and the endless toasts of the big, heavy dinner thereafter with my mind elsewhere. What should I do? Let it blow over and then go back, or cancel the rest of the trip and go home right away?

  I was furious at my wife and became more furious every time one of the hosts expressed infinitely courteous dismay that the lovely Frau O’Malley had been called home because of an illness in the family.

  She’d run out on me at a critical time, damn her. She had reason to be upset, granted, but no reason to act like a spoiled child.

  Like her father.

  And I felt very guilty about that comparison. As I should have.

  Dear God, what might she do to the children?

  Was she really a killer?

  Maybe she had reasons before. What if she thought she had reasons now?

  In my comedy of errors, coming back to Stuttgart was the worse mistake of all, the most unpleasant surprise.

  I called her the next morning. She hung up as soon as she heard my voice. I thought about calling Peg and decided against it. She might be as
furious at me as Rosemarie was.

  So I called home.

  “I’m so glad you called, darling,” the good April murmured dimly. “Rosemarie flew home yesterday. She was quite upset. Had a wild story about your having a mistress in Germany all these years.”

  “Mom, have I been back in Germany since I was discharged from the Army?”

  “That’s what I said to her, darling. She didn’t seem to comprehend, poor thing.” Pause. “She’d had a little bit to drink.”

  I was sure that would happen. Damn the woman. “Probably more than a little.”

  “Poor child, she’s had a hard life.”

  “I’m tired of hearing that, Mom.”

  “Yes, darling, I’m sure you are. She is too, I think.” I looked at the phone. Mom had never said anything quite like that before.

  “I wonder if I should come back or stay here and finish my project. …”

  Her answer was prompt and decisive, most unlike Mom. “I don’t think you could be any help now. Why don’t you finish your work, dear, and then come home. Peg and Dad and I will keep an eye on the children and make sure nothing serious happens.” This couldn’t be my mother, could it? “Darling?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you still there?”

  “Yes, Mom, I was thinking about what you said. I suppose you’re right. I’ll finish the work. Keep in touch, will you?”

  “Certainly, darling.”

  “And Mom… take care of her if you can.”

  “Certainly, dear, until you come home.”

  What did she mean by those last four words?

  I was supposed to do something when I came home? What?

  Again the vision of our marriage loomed, dark and ominous in the twilight corridors of my brain, back alleys like those in Bamberg. It faded away, more slowly this time.

  I picked up the phone to call Trudi, laughed at myself, and put it back on the receiver.

  What did Mom expect me to do?

  I was afraid even then that I knew.

  32

  “He does look a little bit like you, dear, a very pretty little boy.”

  “That her husband?” Dad peered over my shoulder. “Nice-looking guy. My kind of man, I suspect.”

  “Probably,” Mom agreed. “Have another sip of port, dear.”

  Port glasses in hand, my parents were calmly and dispassionately considering pictures of my sometime mistress and my illegitimate son. Doesn’t one see pictures like that every day?

  “I have to say, Chuck”—Dad refilled my glass—“that I really didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “She really is quite an attractive young woman.” Mom peered closely with her trifocals. “Perhaps not your type exactly, but still stunning.”

  I could not believe my ears. These were my straitlaced, West Side Irish Catholic parents.

  “You guys seem proud of me.”

  “Well, we don’t completely approve,” Mom said as she put the pictures down, “but she is very attractive.”

  “And how could we not like that little boy?” Dad sipped his port, the best you could buy in Chicago now. “Even in your self-deprecating version of the events, you seemed to have acted, well… with courage and resourcefulness.”

  “And as I say”—Mom finished her glass of port—“all’s well that ends well. Isn’t that true?”

  In this best possible of all best possible worlds.

  The redheaded punk may have been a bastard, but he was their grandchild.

  They had met me outside of customs at O’Hare. Peg and the others had apparently been warned off. Things were not good on Euclid Avenue. Mrs. Anderson and the maid had been fired. Phone calls from Peg and Mom were not answered. The kids were crying. Mrs. Anderson wouldn’t leave. Peg had crept in every day to make sure that nothing bad was happening. Rosemarie started drinking early in the morning and was drunk by noon. She spent the day locked in her office, drinking, smoking, and playing records. She wouldn’t talk to anyone. Some nights she slept in the office. However, there were some signs that the drinking was tapering off. Last night when Mom had called, she had spoken for the first time. “Leave me alone. I wish I were dead.”

  “But, dear, she sounded almost sober.”

  And poor Mrs. Anderson reported that she had gone up to her own room.

  I was brought to the parental house on East Avenue with advice that I spend the night there. The place was as always awash in blueprints. How did anything ever get built?

  “I must say”—Mom was plucking at the harp, adjusting the keys—“that I think Rosemarie has behaved very badly in this matter. Very badly, poor thing.”

  “What a man does before he is married,” my father mused, “is his business.”

  My mother raised a delicate eyebrow. “And a woman too.”

  “Well”—my father laughed genially—“what’s sauce for the gander…”

  “The other way around, Vangie darling.”

  These two charming strangers were going to tell me exactly what they thought I should do. I’d better listen carefully.

  “The child”—Mom tightened a harp string—“has always been a little, uh, delicate.”

  I had not told them about Rosemarie and her father. That was a secret to be revealed to no one.

  “Small wonder”—Dad picked up a roll of blueprints, looked at them in surprise and then put them at the other side of his big worktable—“with those odd parents she had.”

  Mom plucked a string and frowned. “Mind you, there’s nothing seriously wrong with her. She just needs a firm hand now and then, that’s all.”

  “Firm hand?”

  Dad nodded his agreement. “Firm hand.”

  “The poor thing would probably welcome it. She did behave very badly this time, didn’t she?”

  “What is the content of this firm hand?” I looked from one to the other of my parents. They had rehearsed the whole scene. How many other scenes … ?

  “Content? Oh, you mean what should you tell her? Well, I think it’s really very simple. Isn’t it, Vangie dear?”

  “Very simple indeed,” Dad agreed.

  “And it is?”

  “Why, tell her, very gently but very firmly, that she has to see a doctor or you’ll get a divorce and take the kids with you.”

  “I see. You mean a psychiatrist?”

  “Well, yes, that’s what they call them, isn’t it? Like Ted?”

  “Rosemarie isn’t crazy, Mom.”

  My mother, who twenty years earlier would have talked in whispers about putting people away and about “Dunning” (the state mental hospital at the end of the Irving Park streetcar line), was now quite calmly prescribing psychiatric treatment for a daughter-in-law she loved almost as much as she loved her own daughters.

  “Well, I know that, dear. She’s probably not even an alcoholic, that’s what they call them isn’t it? She should really see a doctor, shouldn’t she? I mean don’t you think she ought to have a long time ago?”

  “With parents like those two”—Dad nodded wisely—“it’s a miracle she’s survived as well as she has.”

  “Poor sweet thing.” Mom began to play something pure and sweet.

  I said that it was time for me to get some sleep. It looked like I had a long day tomorrow.

  I woke up at three o’clock, as one usually does on the east-west jet lag, and tossed and turned for a couple of hours. Finally I got up, made breakfast for myself in the kitchen, read the papers, and made a few phone calls.

  Promptly at ten o’clock, I asked my parents to wish me luck and walked down Greenwood to Euclid. It was a glorious Indian summer day, a promise that spring will come once again.

  After a long hard winter.

  A day just like the one on which I took her to dinner in the Chinese place on Fifty-fifth Street. Or like the day I had won my first tennis set from her.

  I let myself into the house. April Rosemary, the complete oldest-child-fussbudget, embraced me and poured out the whole st
ory.

  In sum, “Mommy is real sick,” and April Rosemary had to stay home from school to help Mrs. Anderson with the kids. And she had made Kevin go to school because he was no help at all.

  “Fine,” I said judiciously. “But now that I’m home you can go to school at lunchtime, can’t you?”

  “Yes, Daddy, if you write me a note for S’ter.”

  They were still S’ter, were they? “Sure I’ll write a note. I better talk to Mommy first.”

  Actually, I went upstairs first to see Jimmy Mike and Sean, who were raising hell with Mrs. Anderson.

  “She sure is sick, Mr. O’Malley, real sick.”

  “We’ll take care of her, Mrs. Anderson, don’t worry. And thank you for staying.”

  “She was so sick, I just couldn’t leave.”

  Sick, huh? Drunk, that’s what.

  I knocked on the door of her study.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Chuck.”

  “Go ‘way, I never want to see you again.”

  “It’s your house and your door. You’re the one who will have to pay for it if I break it down.”

  Tough beginning, huh?

  What if she says go ahead and try? You’re in front of the house in the Bohemian Alps once again.

  I was at least as scared as I had been in the hotel in Stuttgart. My throat was dry, my hands were wet, my chest hurt. The ugly vision of our marriage was now visible all the time, not focused yet, but looming there in grim and silent accusation, like the stone statue in Don Giovanni.

  “Whatya want?”

  I scarcely recognized my wife. Her face was bloated and puffy, her hair snarled, her blue bathrobe dirty, her makeup heavy and smudged, her eyes bloodshot—a chronic alcoholic who looked as if she had been in a mental institution for a month. The room smelled of cigarette smoke, urine, and vomit.

  Elvis was singing on the phonograph; appropriately enough, the song was “Don’t Be Cruel.”

  “I want to talk to you, Rosemarie.” I turned off the power on the stereo system, causing poor Elvis to screech to a halt.

  I never did like the so-and-so.

  “I don’t want to talk to you. Go ‘way.” She tried to push me out the door.

  I refused to budge. “Nonetheless you are going to talk to me, understand?”