Dangerous Obsession

by Natasha Peters

  I nodded. “It’s been two months.”

  “Damn.” He stood up and drained his glass. He crossed the room to the sideboard and poured himself another. “You always drink when you’re upset,” I said quietly. “My drinking' is none of your bloody business,” he snapped.

  “And you always get angry when I talk about it.”

  “I get angry when anyone tries to interfere in my business!” Defiantly, somewhat childishly, he emptied his glass.

  “Everything you do is my business now,” I told him. "You are the father of my baby.”

  “Are you sure of that?” he demanded.

  “Please don’t talk like that,” I said sorrowfully. “You know I have never been with anybody but you.”

  “I don’t know anything.” he carried his glass to the window and watched a rag and bone man making his way down the elegant street. “Of all the damned nuisances. Why in hell didn’t you do something to prevent it?” I gave him a blank, puzzled look. “Damn it,” he said loudly, “you lived with that old harlot Odette Mornay for nearly a year. Didn’t she teach you anything? How do you think women like her avoid conception? Do you think they’re just lucky?”

  “I don’t understand.” I felt queasy and I folded my arms around my middle. “I am not to blame, surely. It is a good and natural thing to have a baby, no?”

  “You’ll just have to get rid of it,” he said.

  I felt cold. My stomach knotted. “What do you mean?”

  “Get rid of it!” He strode over to me and loomed over me like an angry god. “There must be a dozen doctors in this part of the city alone who do this sort of thing. Five or six times a week, if not more. Damn it, Rhawnie, don’t you know anything?”

  How could I know? No one had ever told me anything.

  “They cut it out, like a tumor!”

  My hands flew to my breasts and I jumped up. “No! No, I won’t let them do it!”

  “You have no choice,” he informed me coldly. “Do you think I want to be saddled with both you and a brat? This is one of your tricks, isn’t it? You’re trying to get me to marry you. Well, you’re out of luck, lady. I’m not interested in marrying you, or in playing daddy to your bastard. Our relationship is business, nothing more.”

  “Yes,” I said, “last night was a business meeting, I suppose. What a fool you are sometimes. You have persuaded yourself that you hate me, haven’t you? Why? I’ve done nothing to hurt you. You have had your way with me, in everything. You’ve made plenty of money with my help. I just don’t understand you. I think you must hate all women, not only me. And most of all you hate yourself. That’s why you soak your brains in whiskey and why you need things like gambling and travelling. Because you think you can get away from yourself. But you can’t.”

  “Shut up,” he said. “I won’t have you preaching—”

  “I’m sorry for you,” I said softly. “Your spirit is as crippled as your leg!”

  He slapped me, hard. Tears of surprise and pain flooded my eyes.

  “I wish we’d reached that Gypsy camp one day sooner,” he said tightly.

  I stared at him. He wished me dead. As well as my baby.

  I turned slowly and walked regally out of the room. I closed the bedroom door gently and turned the key in the lock. I needed to get away from him.

  I felt sick and sad and so full of pain that I could hardly endure it. My life was over, finished. He wanted to cut the baby out of my body and I couldn’t stop him, I knew that. I couldn’t escape him. Or perhaps I could.

  I searched through my things for a white nightgown that a dressmaker had delivered by mistake. I had wanted to return it but Seth had told me not to bother. It was very beautiful, soft and silky and dazzling white, like death. I took off my blue things and put it on. It was the first time in my life that I had worn white. It felt cold, like snow.

  I opened Seth’s shaving kit. On the velvet lining inside lay two straight-edged razors, beautifully sharp. I ran my thumb lightly over one of the blades and I shivered.

  No further preparations were necessary. I went to the window, where the light was good, and I made a deep, firm cut on my left wrist. It didn’t hurt at first, so sharp was the razor. But immediately crimson blood welled up and gushed out of the wound. It dripped on the floor, like red rain. Awkwardly, with my left hand, I cut into my right wrist. I thought absurdly that I should have done it the other way around. Blood flowed onto my hands and I dropped the razor. The blood came in uneven waves, driven by the pumping of my heart.

  I wasn’t afraid to die. I felt free of the sorrow that had burdened me since I had been living with him. And free of shame.

  The ribbons of blood were beautiful. I felt weak and lowered myself to the floor. I clutched the windowsill for support while blood ran down my arms and soaked my white gown, my shroud. A sweet heaviness possessed me, not unlike the feeling I got when Seth made love to me.

  I heard a voice. It was Lyubov, and he was laughing. “The Gypsy who runs from danger is no coward; the one who stays to be eaten by wolves is a fool!”

  “You are Gypsy!” My father, teaching me. “Be brave!”

  “Rhawnie!” A younger voice. A boy’s voice. “Rhawnie!”

  “Django,” I whispered. “Ah! I thought I’d never see you again!”

  Then I saw broad green fields rimmed by wooded slopes. Daisies, violets, and buttercups were everywhere. The sun warmed the earth. Gypsies, delighted that the winter was over, danced in circles over the fields, their garments more colorful than any flowers. I saw myself, wearing a wreath of daisies in my hair. I ran up a steep slope to meet Django, but he kept receding as I approached him. I feared that I would never reach him.

  The sun went behind a cloud. The world was suddenly dark and I felt cold.

  A black horse was running up a charred hillside in the pitch darkness. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear the pounding of his hooves on the ground. Pounding. And Django, calling my name.

  “Rhawnie! Rhawnie, open the door!”

  I heard voices, one familiar and one strange. But my lids felt heavy and I didn’t open my eyes.

  “Those cuts are deep. She wasn’t joking. Good thing you had the wits to apply tourniquets. A few minutes more and it would have been too late to save her. Your wife? No. I’ve seen so many of these. She’ll be an old woman by the time she’s twenty-five, if she lives that long. A taxing profession, hers. Disease and violence take their toll.”

  “Shut up. You don’t know what she’s like.”

  “They’re all the same, son. High-class courtesan or street whore. All the same. We’ll keep this quiet. Bad for business, this sort of thing.”

  After a while there was quiet and I opened my eyes. Seth was standing at the end of the bed.

  “Hellow, gorgio,” I said faintly.

  “Hello, Gypsy.”

  “You look terrible,” I said. “So pale. And you need a shave. Are you sick?”

  “No, I’m not sick.” But his eyes were big and haunted-looking.

  I looked down and saw my hands, bandaged in white. I remembered then. “Ah.” I felt slightly embarrassed. “So I—failed.” I looked up at him again. Two red patches burned on his cheeks and there was a look in his eyes that I knew all too well. “You are angry with me.”

  “You’re damned right I’m angry,” he said in a low voice. “If you ever try a stunt like that again I’ll break both your arms.” We were silent for a while. I found I couldn’t meet his gaze and I turned my face to the wall.

  “You really hate me,” he said.

  “Oh, no!” I said quickly. “No, Seth. I don’t think I ever hated you. I just resisted—my fate. I love you. And I know that you love me. I suppose we couldn’t help falling in love, we were together so much, and we are so much alike. Two Gypsies. You know what I would do sometimes? I would pretend that we were married. In my heart I promised to be faithful to you always, and then nobody could call me a—” I found I couldn’t say the word. “It didn’t seem t
o be so bad, what I was doing, when I pretended that. But then, with this baby, I knew I couldn’t pretend any more. He will have no father. You called him a bastard, and so will the world. It’s not fair to him. A child should grow up with a father and a family, and he will have no one. I have no one, and nowhere to go when you leave me. And I knew in my soul that I could not live with my shame any more. And that’s why I did it. But not out of hate. Only sadness—and love."

  He didn’t say anything, just glared, and his eyes grew brighter.

  “You saved me, didn’t you?“ I whispered. “You shouldn’t have done it, Seth. If you had waited just a few more minutes—I heard the man say so. Why didn’t you wait? You wished me dead and I wanted to be dead. Why?“

  “Get some sleep,“ he said sharply. “We’ll talk later.“

  But we didn’t talk. I was young and strong and I healed quickly. Or my wrists healed. My spirits remained very low. I had no laughter and little inclination to talk. I felt impatient and fretful and anxious, as though I were waiting for something. For death? No, not just yet. I was waiting for the inevitable, for Seth to leave me. Waiting for the morning when I would wake up and find that he had gone.

  He was very careful to keep his razors locked up. The little scissors in my sewing kit disappeared, and he watched me like a hawk when we dined together, fearing that I would slide a table knife up my sleeve, I guess.

  The first time I gambled after that, I lost heavily, nearly three hundred pounds before Seth persuaded me to quit.

  “You see,“ I told him later, when we were back in our rooms. “It is hopeless. I’m not good for anything any more. It’s crazy.“ I rubbed the scar on my left wrist with my right thumb. I did it unconsciously, and habitually. “Yes, I think I am mad. I have always been mad. Those visions of blood and death, they are not normal. And you have said that you’ve never known anybody who could see cards before they were played. That’s not normal! You see, I am crazy. You can have me locked away in one of those places—asylums? Oh, I wish I knew what will happen to me. If I knew—“

  He watched stolidly from his chair as I paced the floor.

  “I must know,“ I said to myself, “I cannot live like this much longer. If I could see the future, just a glimpse—!" I knelt in front of the gas fire in the sitting room. “Nothing. I see nothing! Where is my crystal? 1 need to look at something—” I went to Seth and grabbed his hand. "I'll read your hand—” He tried to pull it away but I clung to it tightly. “So dark, so dark.” I rubbed my eyes feverishly. “Why can’t I see?" I wailed.

  “Stop it,“ he said gruffly, shaking me by the shoulders. “You’re hysterical, getting yourself all worked up over nothing. What’s the matter with you, Rhawnie?"

  I fell forward into his lap and cried, “I am frightened, so frightened! Just like a little gorgio child!"

  “Shh, it’s all right," he said soothingly in his rich voice. He smoothed my hair gently. “There’s nothing to be frightened of, Rhawnie. You can have your baby. And you’ll get your skill at cards back. Everything will be fine."

  I gazed up at him. “And what then?” I asked in a harsh whisper. I broke away from him and ran to the bedroom.

  I undressed myself with difficulty. My wrists were still very stiff and I had trouble manipulating the strings and buttons on my costume. My hands were trembling. What a fool I had made of myself, I thought disgustedly. To fuss about the future like that! It was getting harder and harder to be strong, to be Gypsy. But I couldn’t tell him that the thing I feared most was his leaving me. I had already told him once that I loved him, and he hadn’t listened. He was my life. All that time I was trying to escape him, I was falling deeper and deeper in love with him.

  I put on my nightgown and brushed my hair. It was long, below my shoulders, but I would never forget that I had cut it off once. Perhaps that had been the start of my bad luck.

  Seth came into the room. He stubbed out his cigar on an enamel tray on the dresser and looked at me. Our eyes met in the mirror over my dressing table. I looked down.

  “I’m sorry I made such a fool of myself in front of you,” I said. “It won’t happen again. I know how men hate it when women get like that.” I threw down my brush and went to the open window. The soft breeze from the river billowed my silky skirts out behind me. “Forgive me, Seth. This business has made me weak-minded and stupid, I guess.”

  He came up behind me and draped a robe around my shoulders. “You ought to find yourself a husband,” he suggested brightly.

  “Oh, that’s a brilliant idea,” I said with heavy sarcasm. “Who would marry me now?”

  “I’ll marry you,” he said. He turned me around and cupped my chin in his hand. I gaped at him. “Didn’t you hear what I said, Rhawnie?”

  “I don’t think that’s a very funny joke,” I said quietly, pushing his hand away.

  “It’s not a joke. I mean it. I want to marry you.”

  “No, you don’t. You can’t. Marry me? A Gypsy girl with only one name, who doesn’t even know how old she is?”

  “You’re old enough,” he grinned. “I’ll vouch for that.”

  “But it’s wrong, Seth!” I cried. “You just feel sorry for me and you’re afraid that I’ll try to kill myself again and you don’t really love me—”

  “I do love you,” he said firmly. “You know it. I know it. We belong together. Two Gypsies, remember? Now come away from the window before you catch a chill—”

  I couldn’t move. Feelings boiled up inside me and tears streamed down my face. He held me close and kissed them away and said my name over and over again.

  “I love you! I love you!” I whispered ecstatically. “You will never leave me now and our baby will have a father and a name! Oh, I am so happy!”

  We were married in Scotland, where there was no waiting time, no bans. Seth had to translate everything that was said into French for me because my feeble command of English deserted me. I think Seth was nervous, too. When we joined hands, his felt icy and bloodless.

  When it was over the minister’s wife beamed at us and said something in garbled English that I just couldn’t understand.

  “What did she say?” I asked Seth when we were outside again.

  “She said she’d never seen a bonnier couple.”

  “Bonny? What does that mean?”

  He kissed the tip of my nose. “It means beautiful, and she was speaking of you, not me.”

  “No,” I said, “you are beautiful, too, today. I shall always love you.”

  “Yes.” He mopped his forehead even though the day was cool and misty. “Well, now I know why I’ve never done that before. Let’s go. I need a drink.”

  He presented me with a matching pair of filigreed bracelets for my wrists. They were exquisite, like little cuffs made of gold lace. He had had them specially made in Bond Street, before we left London. We celebrated by dining out in a stuffy Edinburgh restaurant, and I disgraced myself by drinking too much champagne and laughing loudly. We went back to our hotel and Seth picked me up and carried me over the threshold.

  "Do you think we’ll be invited to the Delacroix Ball when we go back to Paris?” I wondered. “I am a married lady now, very respectable. I must try to be sedate. Do you think I can ever learn to be sedate. Oh, I love you so!” His lovemaking that night was very gentle and sweet, but lifeless.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked jokingly. “Don’t you like making love to a married woman?”

  “I’m sorry you weren’t satisfied,” he said a little stiffly. “I’ve never been married before. It’s a new experience, making love to my own wife and not somebody else’s.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” I promised. “I am. Nothing has changed, not really. We are still the same Seth and Rhawnie as before. What are a few words, a gold ring?”

  “You weren’t so cavalier in your attitude towards marriage before you got it,” he observed. “You were even willing to die if—”

  “Ah, hush,” I warned him. “We
must not speak of that. It was very wrong of me, very foolish. But it is past.”

  “It’s past and you got what you wanted,” he grumbled. “Go to sleep, Gypsy. We’re going back to London tomorrow.”

  Seth refused to let me gamble in London. He said he didn’t want me to play until after the baby was born, in December. Maybe he was afraid our child would look like a face card, like a knave of hearts. But whenever he gambled, he lost. He said it was the dealers in London, that they were all crooks, and he decided we should go to Switzerland for the summer. But Switzerland proved unsatisfactory for one reason or another and we went to Austria, then Hungary, then Romania.

  In Bucharest we hired a maid for me, a mute girl named Anna. I suppose Seth felt a little guilty about leaving me alone so much when he went out to play cards. I chattered to her in a mixture of Russian, Romany, and French, and she always seemed to understand. She was very small, with a pitted complexion and warm brown eyes, and her hair was unbelievably coarse and frizzy. But she was quick and obedient and loving, and of course, quiet. She seemed wary and frightened of Seth. I think he reminded her of someone who had been cruel to her. I never found out.

  I knew that Seth wasn’t happy about being married. It wasn’t so much being married to me, but he felt that he wasn’t free any more, that his life wasn’t his own, that I was controlling him somehow, even though I rarely opened my mouth to argue with him and willingly went with him wherever he wanted to go. Travelling was hard for me, for the first time in my life, and I was often sick. But I never complained, never suggested that we stay in one place until after the birth.

  1 closed my eyes to his unhappiness for a long time, until I couldn’t ignore it any more. I tried to humor him, to lighten his spirits, but he was cold and unresponsive.

  We were in Budapest, staying in a lovely little hotel. It was November. Seth gambled every night. I always waited up for him. He came in one night, looking grim.

  “You’re back!” I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. “Did you win?”

  He detached my arms and poured himself a drink. His clothes reeked of cigar smoke and liquor and cheap perfume.