They all fall into easy happy chatter and settle down to open the gifts before dinner.
“We know that gifts should come after dinner,” Melusine says to Nika, “but Jonas switched things up years ago.”
“I was so excited to get to my presents that I couldn’t concentrate on the food,” Jonas admits, grinning. “So it just made more sense to open them first. Here, Mami, this is for you, from Nika and me.”
Melusine unwraps the gift and her hand flies to her heart. She is speechless.
“Do you like it?” Nika is anxious.
“I love it!” Melusine gives the girl a big hug and grabs Jonas. They too have bought her a copy of Herzzeit Briefwechsel.
“I had a look through,” Nika says, “I hope you don’t mind, I couldn’t resist.”
Melusine has an inward chuckle at the echo of Gunther’s words. “Of course I don’t mind,” she said. “What did you think?”
“So much pain. If being a genius means you have be in that much pain, I’ll pass.”
Hans has bought Melusine a brand new computer, a shiny new laptop. “I’ll configure it for you,” he says, “you can’t write a book on that old piece of rubbish of yours.”
She is delighted.
Nika is amazed. “You’re writing a book? So am I.”
The two fall into a passionate discussion but Melusine is uneasy; she cannot tell Nika the truth about her subject matter because her novel has evolved even further, with a dark plot she had no idea she was capable of writing.
Isolde and Yvonne are now having a full-blown affair, meeting each day in the stairwell to make frenzied love. Yvonne tells Isolde that she wears her tiny mini skirts especially for her and more often than not, Yvonne is without panties. But Yvonne is complicated; she has a young son and a boyfriend, the father of her child who wants to marry her.
“He is a crazy jealous man,” Yvonne says. “I worry that if I try to leave him, he’ll hunt me down. He’s that crazy. I live in fear all the time. If I’m late coming home, even five minutes, he gets so violent, I can’t tell you.”
“Come away with me then,” Isolde says, rubbing Yvonne’s buttocks, her fingers slipping into the smooth soft crack and lingering in the warmth of the girl’s most private place. She draws Yvonne close and kisses her neck and bites her ear. Isolde has become adventurous; she is bold and takes the lead.
“Come with me,” Isolde says again, “we’ll go to Berlin. We’ll take Ralf with us. I’ll take care of both of you. I won’t let him find us.” Ralf is Yvonne’s son.
Yvonne pulls away. “He’ll find us. He’ll bring us back. I will never escape.” Her voice is small. “He’s evil, Isolde, I’m telling you, evil. You’ve never met anyone like him. He seems so normal but he’s not, he’s dangerous. You have no idea how often I feel as if my life is in danger.”
Isolde has heard Yvonne say this dozens of times before. “So then all the more reason to leave with me,” she says but Yvonne shakes her head and her large eyes fill with tears.
At the supper table, and loading a plate of food for Jonas, Melusine forces her attention away from Isolde and Yvonne and back to what Nika is saying.
“We can read each other’s work if you like,” Nika says. “I find that helps me a lot.”
“I’m a bit stuck right now,” Melusine lies, “but maybe this new computer will help me. Here you go, Jonas, this should do, for round one anyway.”
They all laugh and Jonas nods enthusiastically. The food is delicious and Melusine is relieved that since their return from Vegas her baking has returned to its former perfection.
Later, she slices her version of Beigli, the Hungarian poppy seed pastry; she has added extra raisins and a touch of rum.
She looks around, marveling at how life can seem so perfect, while the knot in her stomach spoke a different truth.
“Let me get a photograph of you and Nika,” Jonas tells her and Melusine hugs the girl close, glad when Nika relaxes into her embrace. Melusine is startled by how tiny Nika is; her shoulders are narrow and bony and she is short enough to fit underneath Melusine’s arm. Melusine feels a rush of protective warmth towards the girl.
“Now, family photograph, with the self-timer.”
“I’ll get Mimi from the kitchen,” Hans says, “she must be in the picture too.”
As Melusine smiles into the camera, with her feet puddled in discarded ribbons and torn gift wrap, she thinks about Gunther and she misses him so badly that it is hard to hold back the tears. She tries to be grateful for all the good in her life and she tells herself that she has so much to be grateful for: a husband, a son who loves her, and a wonderful home. But her heart craves the man she loves, a man who feels a million miles away.
And when New Year’s Eve comes, she stands next to Hans and Ana and Dirk and a host of others at a party, and she feels a premonition of doom; nothing good will come of this next year, of that she is certain.
She disappears into the kitchen and is followed by Ana.
“You okay?” Ana asks.
Melusine nods, holding herself tall, and then without warning she folds into Ana’s arms and cries.
Ana is startled. Her friend has never done this, not in all the years they have known each other.
Melusine is much bigger than Ana and she bends over awkwardly, crying, with Ana stroking her back and murmuring hushing sounds.
“Ach, it’s just New Year getting to me,” Melusine says, and she straightens up and blows her nose loudly.
Ana looks at her. “It never did before.”
Melusine shrugs. “As one gets older, different things make you sad.”
She wonders how Gunther is. In his last letter, he had said that he had made the decision; he could not stay with his wife any longer and he was applying for jobs in Australia and New York.
She hopes he will go to New York — Australia is so far way. Much further than London, and she cannot bear to think about it.
“Sorry to be a party pooper,” she says with a watery smile. “I’m fine, let’s get back to the others.”
“Let me fix your face first.” Ana pulls a make-up bag out of her purse.
“You and Hans okay?” she asks casually.
“Never better, why?”
“Nothing, just asking. He looks good. Just asking.”
They change the subject and return to the party where no one has noticed their absence and when midnight comes, they raise their glasses high and drink to the New Year but Melusine cannot help but think harder days are coming. The loan of borrowed time will be due on the horizon…
22.
IT IS NOT LONG before things start to go wrong. One cold day in early January, Melusine is hunting through Hans’s desk for the warranty for her new computer; she needs the serial number to register some software that she has purchased.
She roots through all the drawers to find the warranty, finding the bank statement from their trip to Vegas instead, with a sum for the Desert Rose Motel.
And, in addition, a close-to-equal sum for the Plaza Hotel.
And a huge sum of money to Healing Lives Ministries.
Melusine is dumbfounded. She stares at the statements for a long time. Then, using Hans’s computer, she logs onto their shared bank account and checks the recent activity.
She sees that a horrifying sum is being paid each month to Healing Lives Ministries by cheque; the same monthly sum ever since their return from Las Vegas.
She has no idea what to think. The first thing she does is try to find Healing Lives Ministries on the Internet but she cannot find anything. She sits back in the chair, feeling as if the axis of her world has tilted and everything is about to slide irrevocably off the table of her life. She holds onto the edge of the desk, as if that will help.
A thought occurs to her and she does an online search for all the conventions that were held in Vegas when she and Hans were there. There were 153. She carefully scrolls down through each of the listings and there was not an optometrist�
�s convention in sight. There is, however, an International Certified Psychic Convention that was held at the Plaza Hotel.
Melusine chews hard on her lip. Hans and psychics? It does not compute; he’s a man of science. But he is also a man who’s never recovered from the loss of his sister. Perhaps he went to see the psychics to try to find Kateri? She can see how that would make some kind of sense.
She goes through all the drawers again, trying to find something to explain Healing Lives Ministries but she comes up empty. She searches his computer but cannot find anything.
She is still sitting at his desk when he comes home.
“Hello!” he calls out. “I finally found a bottle of great wine that I’ve been trying to hunt down for ages. It’s very rare! You’re going to love it. Where are you?”
“In the study,” she answers. “Wait, I’m coming now.”
She finds him in the kitchen, opening his wine.
“I see dinner isn’t ready,” he says, “but we can have a glass now anyway. I’ve been reading about this wine for a while and now I’ve found it!” He is happy, oblivious to her quietness.
She sits down at the big wooden kitchen table where Jonas did his homework and where she arranged her ingredients and pots and pans for the meals she had prepared over the years. She looks at her husband who is holding the glass to his nose; his eyes are closed and he is smiling.
“Why did you pay the bill for the Plaza Hotel in Vegas?” she asks flatly and his eyes fly open and his jaw drops. But he recovers quickly.
“For Bill,” he says smoothly. He had this lie prepared, in case, and just as well he did. Bill is a fellow optometrist who often attends their dinner parties.
She shakes her head. “No you didn’t. Because there wasn’t an optometrists convention in Vegas that month. There were 153 conventions but not one for optometry.”
“For god’s sake Melusine, have you gone mad? Of course there was a convention. You’ve lost your mind, woman.”
He leaves the kitchen and she follows him into the living room. “You went there to find Kateri.” She confronts him and he blanches. “You booked the Plaza Hotel because there was a convention of psychics there and then, when I said I wanted to come along, you booked the Desert Rose Resort at the other end of the Strip to keep me out of the way. Admit it, Hans.”
His face is deathly pale and his skin appears to be pasted to the bony outline of his skull. He stands up and throws the glass of wine at the wall.
Yes, and then you didn’t miss the opportunity to get fucked by some other man, did you, Melusine, did you?
He wants to shout at her but he doesn’t say a thing, he just stares at her. Melusine is startled by his violence and for a moment they both watch the red wine drip down the wall like blood.
“And,” she says, continuing, “you’ve spent a fortune on some Healing Lives Ministries — a fortune.”
“What I spend my money on is none of your goddamned business,” he spits out at her.
“It’s our money, Hans. Yours and mine. How would you feel if I did that? If I lied to you like that? If I used our money like that?”
He comes up close to her and she can see the red veins in his eyeballs. His nostrils are flaring and he’s breathing in small sharp gasps. “Like you’ve never lied, Melusine? Never? Tell me that. Tell me that my precious wife, go on. Tell me a lie right now.”
She backs away. This is not what she expected. Does he know about her and Gunther? But how can he know? She sits down. “Listen,” she says calmly, “let’s talk about this. I was just very hurt that you never told me. Why did you think you couldn’t tell me?”
He goes back to the kitchen and pours himself another glass of wine. He returns and sits down. “Because,” he says, “it was a crazy thing to do. But I had to do it. I was losing my mind. I had to try this thing. But what would you have said, Melusine? Honestly?”
He, like her, does not want to open up the can of worms that is Gunther.
“Fine, so I would have said you were crazy and wasting our money and being foolish. I would have said that. But Hans, so much money? And I see it’s still going on, every single month; you’re paying this person, or this place. How long do you plan to carry on doing this?”
He swallows half the wine in the glass. “As long as it takes,” he says shortly. “And you can accept it or you can leave.”
“Leave? I’m not going anywhere and I’ve got a piece of advice for you. Tell me when you’re done with this craziness and we’ll resume our marriage, all right? And remember one thing, the house is in my name. And I’m going to go to the bank tomorrow and make sure I’m not culpable for any of your debts. You’ve lost your mind and you’re going to lose all your savings too. I can’t believe you’re being this stupid, this gullible. The man I married would never have bought into such bullshit.”
She shouts the last word as loudly as she can. “Imagine what Jonas would say if he knew? Or your business partners? Everyone will think you’ve been taken for a ride.”
He looks at her calmly. “You, and everyone else, can think whatever you want, Melusine. This is my life and I’m finally doing what I want with it.”
“Yes, well, good luck with that,” Melusine says and she marches out of the room.
Her heart is beating so strongly she feels sick and there is a ringing in her ears. She goes to her study and sits down. What on earth to do next? She wishes she could tell someone but her pride stops her. She is too embarrassed to tell Ana that her respected and intellectual husband has fallen prey to some cult who have led him to believe they will help him find his sister.
She buries her head in her hands. What a mess. She has been so stupid to think that their make-believe marriage could work.
Back in the living room, Hans reclines in his chair, drinking wine and looking at the stain on the wallpaper.
He feels very serene, removed from all anxiety and it is a wonderful feeling.
He wonders how Melusine will clean the wall. He is sure she will find a way. She likes things to look perfect on the surface. Then he chides himself for the thought since that was the very reason he married her; so she would make his life look perfect.
He thinks back to his conversation with Juditha earlier that day. She had, in a recent dream, sensed Kateri again. She had asked Hans if he could send more of Kateri’s items to her, as the connection was getting stronger — she could sense it. He is overjoyed at the thought. His lost sister is returning to him, so what does he care for an unfaithful wife?
He finishes the bottle of wine and falls asleep in his chair.
Melusine, moving her items from their bedroom to Jonas’s old room, is puzzled by her husband’s lack of concern over the state of their marriage. This cult must have more of a hold over him than she had thought. The Hans of the old days would have reassured her and told her that his crazy dalliance was over and that he had things in control. But the Hans of the old days would never have lied, and he would never have sought out a psychic.
She is also concerned by his aggressive attack on her, telling her that she lied. What did he know, and how did he know it? She wishes Gunther were near and that she could talk to him. He has accepted a job in New York and he has already left his wife. He has a whole new life, a life in which she has no real role except that of a pen pal.
She tries to work on her novel. The story has evolved to the point where Yvonne is trying to convince Isolde to help her kill her boyfriend.
“I can get you a gun, no problem. We live in a bad area, lots of gangs. Then all you have to do is wait for him, I’ll show you the exact way he comes home, he always comes home the same way. There’s a building you can hide in; I’m telling you no one will see you. And I’ll make sure the gun has a silencer, I know people Isolde, I’m telling you, we can do this.”
“It’d be me doing it, not you. There’s no ‘we’ if I kill a man. And I still don’t understand why we can’t just leave and go to Berlin. Honestly, Yvonne, you’re bein
g crazy.”
They are stuck in an impasse; they still meet daily in the stairwell but their passion has turned to rows, they argue about their future. Yvonne is sulky and then tremulous. Isolde is at her wits end.
“I can’t go on like this,” Yvonne says. “I’m going to run away from both of you. You’re just like him. You both want to keep me trapped like an animal in a cage.”
Isolde is desperate. “But I can make you happy,” she says, “he can’t. You know he can’t.”
Yvonne buttons her blouse closed. Her breasts are straining at the fabric and she sees Isolde eyeing her with hunger.
“You can’t have everything without giving me something,” Yvonne says. “Think about it. I’m only asking for one thing. One thing.”
She leaves Isolde in the stairwell and Isolde leans her forehead against the smooth concrete wall. She has no idea what to do next.
Melusine looks away from her computer. She is distracted; she can feel Hans’s anger through the walls. She can feel Isolde’s longing and Yvonne’s frustrated fury.
It seems as if everything is falling apart for everyone.
23.
WHEN JONAS COMES TO VISIT in mid-February, he finds his parents living in separate bedrooms and he is upset to see that his father’s brief spell of good health has vanished; Hans is gaunt, thin and preoccupied.
“What on earth happened?” Jonas whispers to Melusine. They are in the kitchen and Hans is lying in his chair with a bottle of wine next to him and Mimi asleep at his feet.
Melusine frowns and thinks about what to tell him. Jonas is her son and he is still only a child and she cannot tell him the whole brutal truth. It would not be fair to burden him.
“It’s very complicated,” she says. “Your father’s struggling right now. It seems he hasn’t come to terms with losing Kateri and it’s wreaking havoc with our lives. I’m sorry, my sweet boy, I really am. I can only imagine how upsetting this is for you. Trust me, it is for me also. I have always been able to rely on your father but right now, the man I married, the man who fathered you, well, I’ve got no idea where he is.”
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