Forbidden Passion

by Ruth Gogoll

“Sandra . . . Sandra is not –” Kim saw Sonja’s expression and knew what it meant. “I haven’t seen her all week,” she ended the sentence.

  “I actually believe you.” Sonja heard Sandra’s footsteps coming up the stairs. “But Sandra . . .” She swallowed. “She feels the same –” She broke off.

  “You’ve discussed it?” Kim asked.

  “We don’t have to.”

  The door swung open. Sandra looked at Sonja and Kim, who were standing right behind it. “Sonja?” She smiled slightly. “I could’ve bet you were here. I just had a feeling.”

  “Sonja only just got here.” Kim suddenly felt the need to justify herself to Sandra as she’d done to Sonja before. This could get interesting . . .

  “To go for a walk?” Sandra asked with the same mocking smile as Sonja.

  “Actually, no.” Sonja’s expression was serious, not mocking. “I wanted to discuss something with Kim.”

  Sandra grimaced. She didn’t believe Sonja actually meant discuss. “Then I might as well go.”

  “You can stay, too,” Sonja said. “That might even be better.”

  Kim looked from one to the other. The same face, one serious, one questioning.

  “I –” Sonja raised her hands. “Today is Sunday.”

  Despite all her twin-sense, Sandra didn’t know what to make of that. “Yes?”

  “Sonja has . . .” Kim cleared her throat. “Sonja has never been with me on a Sunday; she’s always had other . . . appointments.”

  “Not appointments,” Sonja said. “Obligations.”

  “Sounds like a long story,” Sandra surmised. “Shouldn’t we sit down?”

  “Yes, come into the kitchen.” Kim nodded. “I’ll make coffee.”

  “Good idea,” Sonja and Sandra answered in unison. Both of them laughed suddenly and looked at each other. The atmosphere had lost a great deal of its tension.

  All three of them headed into the kitchen. Kim filled the coffeemaker and turned it on. She sat down at the table with Sandra and Sonja. Sandra and she looked expectantly at Sonja.

  It seemed as if the tension that had dissipated just a moment ago was now returning to Sonja’s body. “I . . . I don’t know where to start.”

  Sandra tilted her head to one side. “Something bad happened,” she said. “Something very bad. I dreamed about it.”

  “You?” Sonja looked at her, perplexed. “Yes, of course,” she said then. “You can feel it.”

  Sandra nodded. “It’s been going on for years, hasn’t it?”

  Sonja took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Years.”

  The coffeemaker started to bubble. All three of them automatically looked at it.

  “Maybe we’d better wait until the coffee is ready,” Sandra suggested.

  “No.” Sonja took another deep breath. “It’s all right.” She stood up, went over to the window, and looked out. “I’m a criminal,” she said.

  Kim and Sandra gasped simultaneously, as if they were the twins.

  “You?” Kim stood up as well. She went over to Sonja. “I can’t imagine anything less likely.”

  “And yet it’s true.” Sonja turned around and examined Kim’s face, as though she were searching there for an explanation.

  Sandra arched her eyebrows in deep skepticism. “Excuse me, please, but if you are, then I would have to be, too.”

  Sonja sighed. “That’s not necessarily so. We grew up completely differently.”

  “You don’t mean to claim that your . . . our mother raised you to be a gangster’s moll. Or that she’s one herself.” Now Sandra stood up, too.

  “Her? No. But I am.” Sonja laughed sadly. “Although gangster’s moll is the wrong phrase. Murderess would be more accurate.”

  It was deathly still in the room. Only the coffeemaker still hissed out its last puffs of steam.

  “It was years ago . . .” Sonja repeated, staring pensively into space, lost in the past . . .

  “I won’t marry him,” a younger Sonja stated firmly. “Absolutely not!”

  “You’re pregnant by him.” Her mother pressed her lips together.

  “Those two things have nothing to do with each other,” Sonja replied. “Uwe is . . . not a man to marry.”

  “But he’s all right to fornicate with?” Her mother’s lips were still a single straight line. “My daughter – a slut . . . a whore.”

  Sonja flinched.

  “What did I do to deserve this?” her mother continued. “Is this why I brought you up, gave you food to eat and a roof over your head, let you go to college?” She laughed dryly. “College! A girl!”

  “Business administration isn’t exactly a long course of study,” Sonja said. “And on top of that, I graduated with honors, in the shortest possible time.”

  “That was the least you could do!” Her mother eyed her disparagingly. “After all, you were only there to bide your time until you got married. It would’ve been outrageous for you to draw it out any longer.”

  “I know.” Sonja’s hands clenched.

  “You’re altogether much too involved with your job. You don’t have any time to look for a husband. If I hadn’t introduced you to Uwe Kantner –” She broke off. Apparently, it was now occurring to her that the baby Sonja carried was the result of this introduction. “Well,” she finished quickly. “I think he’s a good man, he has a career ahead of him –”

  “I have that, too,” Sonja said.

  “For how much longer?” Her mother looked at her. “When the baby comes, of course you’ll quit working.”

  “I wasn’t actually planning to.”

  “And how are you going to take care of your husband then?” her mother asked. “Is he supposed to clean and cook for himself, or what?”

  “Why not?” Sonja asked in return. “Beside which, I’m not going to marry him. Like I already said. He is –” She broke off, seeming to remember something. Her gaze turned inward.

  “I think he’s very nice,” her mother said. “And besides, it doesn’t matter. You’re having his baby, so you have to marry him. No other man will take a pregnant woman – or a woman who already has another man’s baby.”

  “You married for a second time when you already had me.”

  “That was hard enough. I would’ve had a great many more opportunities if you hadn’t been there,” her mother said. “So I just had to –” She broke off. “Beside which, that was completely different. You were born to parents who were legally married.” Her face contorted with a shudder. “A single mother! Is that what you want to be? What will people think?”

  “That times have changed.” Sonja sighed. “Mother, don’t you understand? I can’t spend the rest of my life with a man I don’t love.”

  “Love!” Her mother practically spat out the word. “As if that had anything whatsoever to do with it.”

  “It does for me.”

  “You’re young.” Her mother looked at her with her head cocked to one side, as though she were a vase she was thinking of purchasing. “You’ll soon learn that love is just a word, nothing more. It has nothing to do with marriage.”

  “I can’t, mother.” Sonja took a deep breath. “You don’t know –”

  “Don’t you dare bring me a bastard,” her mother interrupted coldly. “If you have a child out of wedlock, then you’re responsible for it. I won’t lift a finger for the brat. My door is locked and barred, to you and to your –”

  Sonja looked at her. Not a muscle moved in her face. “You are making yourself quite clear.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” her mother asked. “You should be grateful for everything I’ve done for you. If you knew –” She sighed deeply. “But that’s how children are . . . especially daughters. What else did I expect?”

  “Mother . . .” Sonja went over to her mother. “Can’t you understand me at all? I . . . I . . .” She swallowed. “I love you. I couldn’t bear to disobey you, but I can’t –”

  “Of course you can. You just
don’t want to! Just to make my life more difficult. That’s all you want. You’ve always done that. You’re just like your father.”

  Sonja shut her eyes. That was always her mother’s final argument. She never spoke of Sonja’s father except in that context. “I don’t know him,” she said softly. “I’ve never seen him. How can I be like him?”

  “You are,” her mother insisted. “Just look at your siblings. They do what they’re told.”

  “I always have, too,” Sonja whispered. She felt tears rising in her throat. She had to hold them back. If she cried, she’d have lost. Her mother would take it as a victory. And she would accuse Sonja of using the tears intentionally, as leverage, to blackmail her mother. As if her mother had ever reacted to tears . . . They only made her tougher.

  “I can’t, mother,” she repeated in desperation. “It’s my life.”

  “Then go live your life,” her mother hissed furiously. “But on your own. Without me.” She left the room.

  Sonja stayed behind and felt that she could no longer hold back the tears. She cried, tears running down her cheeks, whose hot tracks she could follow on her face.

  She wiped away the tears as they cooled and drew herself up. There was no sense in crying. It wouldn’t soften her mother, and she didn’t get anything out of it, either. It didn’t even offer her any relief, because it didn’t solve the problem. She was pregnant, and it was too late to get an abortion.

  She had thought about that, but it didn’t seem to her to be the way she wanted to go. Children hadn’t previously been part of her plan for her life; she wanted to devote herself first to her career, which was so much fun for her. She’d only just gotten a promotion.

  She knew that her career would be affected by the child, whether she wanted it or not, but she’d manage.

  This child ought to have a good life.

  Not like Sonja’s.

  The car skidded around the corner, out of control. The man standing on the sidewalk was struck by it, hurled around, and run over. The sounds were hideous. A woman’s scream echoed through the night.

  “I hereby pronounce you husband and wife.” The registrar bowed to the bridegroom with a smile. “You may now kiss the bride.”

  “Sonja?”

  The voice came up to her from below. She didn’t want to hear it, but she couldn’t ignore it. She bent down, intending to brush a fleeting kiss across his cheek, but he pulled her down and thrust into her mouth, taking almost violent possession of her.

  She tried to get away from him and managed; she straightened up. She mustn’t let her disgust show. He was her husband. They were married now. She tried to smile. She took a step behind him and pushed his wheelchair out of the bridal chamber.

  “Now you’re a respectable woman. Just in time.” Her mother glanced at Sonja’s slightly swollen belly, which clearly showed under the tight, white dress.

  “Yes.” Sonja’s lips were tight. “You got what you wanted.”

  “And so did I.” A hand reached for her, a strong, masculine hand. Uwe smiled at her. “You’re my wife. I’ve always wanted that.”

  “Not too long ago, you didn’t want to get married,” Sonja said. “As I recall.”

  “Yes, this kind of accident changes your life,” Uwe Kantner replied, giving her a peculiar look.

  Sonja seemed to stiffen even more. “We’re finished here. We should go.”

  Sonja hung the house key on a hook behind the door.

  “Unfortunately, I can’t carry you over the threshold,” Uwe said.

  “Don’t make a fool of yourself. No one expects that.” Sonja seemed irritated.

  “A little while ago, I still could have.”

  “Please . . . Uwe . . .” Sonja clenched her hands together. “I did what you and Mother wanted. We’re married, and we live together. Isn’t that enough?”

  “You had no other choice,” he said. “Did you?”

  “No.” Her voice was very quiet.

  “Come here,” he said.

  She closed her eyes and didn’t move.

  “Come here,” he repeated more insistently.

  She opened her eyes again and walked slowly over to him.

  “Kiss me,” he ordered.

  “Uwe . . . please . . .” Sonja stood next to him, but still at a slight distance.

  “I want to sleep with you.” He looked her up and down. “It’s just not as easy as it was before, when we put that little thing in your belly.” He stared at her belly. “I hope you don’t get too fat. It’s ugly enough already.”

  Sonja seemed to tremble. “The doctor said you shouldn’t overexert yourself yet,” she said wearily.

  He grinned. “The doctor said, if my wife does all the work, it’s no problem.”

  “We . . . Uwe . . . please . . . not today . . .”

  “It’s our wedding night. Did you forget that, my . . . treasure?” he asked spitefully.

  “That means nothing to you,” Sonja said. “I mean nothing to you. I’ve never meant anything to you. Our marriage hasn’t changed that.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” He didn’t dispute her statements. “I want to sleep with you. I don’t have to like you for that.”

  “But I do,” Sonja said. “It won’t work.”

  “Must I remind you why you married me?” He watched her keenly, waiting for her reaction.

  She hesitated, then walked over to him.

  He reached for her, pulled her onto his lap, pressed his lips hard against hers, and ran his hand up under her dress.

  “And I’ve been happily married ever since,” Sonja concluded bitterly. “Today makes five years, three months, and one day.”

  Kim and Sandra gaped at her, speechless.

  “But . . . but why did you marry him if you don’t love him?” Kim stammered at last.

  Sonja looked at her. Her eyes seemed empty. “I . . . I’m responsible for his condition,” she said flatly. “I ran over him. He’s been in a wheelchair ever since.”

  “You . . . you ran over him?” Sandra frowned.

  “I . . . I was drunk. I can’t remember anything. I was at my mother’s, we had a fight – we had frequent fights then, because I didn’t want to get married. At any rate, we were both drinking, and at some point, I stormed out of the house and got in my car. I must’ve driven to Uwe’s. He was right there on the street, he said; he was about to come see me. My car went into a skid, it hit him – he almost didn’t survive.” She threw her hands over her face. “I almost killed him. If he hadn’t been rescued by the doctors’ arts, I’d be a murderer.” She looked up. “I am, because that’s what I wanted.”

  “You wanted to free yourself from him, because your . . . mother,” Sandra paused. She was talking about her own mother, but she could hardly believe it, “wanted to force you to marry him,” she said. “Psychologically explicable, but –” She gazed into the air. “Somehow . . . I don’t know . . .” She looked at Sonja. “What I dreamed was something else. It was threatening, but . . . different.”

  “You weren’t there,” Sonja said. “A dream is not reality.”

  Kim took a deep breath. “So that’s it. You can’t leave him because of your guilt.” At last, she had an explanation for Sonja’s peculiar behavior.

  Sonja laughed dryly. “I would’ve left him a long time ago if that were it! At first, that was true, yes, the guilt was overwhelming. I took away his . . .” She swallowed. “. . . his life, as he knew it. But after a while . . . no, after a while, even that wouldn’t have been enough. I’ve atoned for my guilt – every day. He’s made sure of that.”

  “Why, then?” Sandra asked.

  Sonja stared blankly into space. “He threatened to report me to the police. He was critically injured, and I committed a hit-and-run while drunk. You can get quite a bit of jail time for that,” she said. “He enjoyed destroying my life, the way I’d destroyed his. But he got the most pleasure out of threatening me . . . with the fact that he had me in his power,
that I couldn’t get away, that I had to do everything he said.”

  Sandra shook her head. “Wouldn’t jail be better than being at his mercy like that?”

  Sonja took a deep breath. “If only it were just jail . . .” she said. “I could get through that. But afterwards . . . what comes next? Do you believe that anyone would ever put me in a position of responsibility again, that any company would ever hire me? I’d have a criminal record. How would I support myself?”

  She took a couple of steps.

  “I worked like a crazy woman. I’d only go home to sleep. He . . . he insists that I come home at night,” she added softly. “That’s part of our agreement. As long as I do that, he won’t turn me in.” She looked at Kim. “Sometimes, I’ve sat in my car outside your door for a long time,” she said tenderly. “Wanting never to drive away. I wished so much I could stay.”

  Kim could barely comprehend all of this. “And Sundays?” she swallowed. “Sundays, he also demands –”

  Sonja laughed bitterly again. “Oh, no! On Sundays, we go to my mother’s and play the perfect family. She demands that. She knows about the accident. She followed me in her car and found Uwe on the street. She brought me home, so that the police –”

  “I thought your mother was supposed to be so moral?” Kim asked, astonished.

  “Not in that respect,” Sonja said. “The family’s reputation is more important than anything the police might be concerned with.”

  Sandra shook her head. “I don’t get the feeling that I really want to meet my mother.”

  “You don’t have to,” Sonja said. “I don’t even know how she’d react. She still doesn’t know –”

  “You haven’t told her anything about me?” Sandra looked at Sonja.

  Sonja shook her head likewise. “I’m sorry. I know I should have.”

  “Under those circumstances . . .” Sandra said. “Introducing you to our father was vastly easier. I knew that he’s a good person.”

  “Mother is also –” Sonja protested.

  “She is not,” Sandra interrupted her. “I find it awful to have to say that about my own mother, but what I’ve heard from you doesn’t prejudice me in her favor, and I’m glad that I didn’t have to grow up with her.”