November Sky

by Marleen Reichenberg

  Her next words made my blood run cold. She faced me in abject misery. “Laura, you’ve got to help me. I took the forty thousand from a new client who asked me to invest her savings wisely. The detective says that Richard’s nowhere to be found. He took off for Brazil two days ago with his ill-gotten gains once he saw he’d blown his cover. And the woman is breathing down my neck because I haven’t sent her the documents for the deposit I was to invest, as agreed. She’s giving me until the day after tomorrow. If her money’s not back by then, she’ll take us to court.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. Chris had not only painted herself into a corner financially but was about to ruin the business we’d built together. We’d adamantly refused to invest clients’ money ourselves because of the liability laws, sticking just to investment tips, and Chris had deliberately broken that rule.

  Two hours later, I hung up the phone, took a deep breath, and leaned back in my chair. I’d had a lengthy conversation with Chris’s client and had returned all her money electronically. With profuse apologies, I was able to avert an embezzlement charge. Chris was still sitting at her desk, staring out the window like a sad sack. All her dreams for the future had been blown up. And I, as far as my savings were concerned, was flat broke. My entire cleverly invested, profitable stock account was dissolved and turned into cash. I’d saved a fixed amount every month from the time I started working and bought securities with it. Then I made a risky speculative investment three years ago and quadrupled my personal fortune. That was my private insurance and, most important, it made me financially independent. I didn’t think Chris understood what I’d sacrificed to save her ass and our partnership.

  When I ventured to tell her we’d both have to work harder to get more clients, and she’d have to pay me back, she just looked fatigued.

  “You’ll get your money, not to worry,” she said. “But it’s not like you’re in such bad shape. Nick earns fabulously well. What am I supposed to do with my high rent and my old folks on my hands?”

  I resisted remarking that she could move out of her grand four-room apartment in trendy Haidhausen and find something smaller. Or saying that I never wanted to be dependent on my husband’s money.

  Of course, Nick was doing great right now, but he had no regular income. He had to rely on being offered new roles. Competition was tough, and God only knew if his face would still be popular in a few years. Or would he even be alive then? His parents’ film company was also a high-risk business. If they financed an expensive film that was a box-office flop, their investment was gone. Jürgen told me that when they started up as producers they’d used their house as security. I’d always been happy to know I had a financial cushion and a healthy, regular income.

  I told Nick the whole story one evening, but he saw it from another angle. “Dumb move, Chris. But that guy Richard was a perfect dissimulator. I never would have guessed that dude was not the genuine article. Since you don’t have to worry about money, maybe you should think seriously about whether you should still work with her. After all, she put her personal interests first and nearly ruined both of you. And when you were dealing with my problems, she didn’t exactly show much understanding.”

  But I couldn’t bring myself to end our partnership. That would have felt like pushing her off a cliff. She was suffering like a dog, hating herself at the same time she mourned the man she thought Richard was. We’d agreed not to report him to the police. If he was actually caught, which seemed unlikely, Chris would have to be a witness, but then he could turn the tables on us and destroy our business reputation. She’d stupidly told him the source of her money to explain why she needed it back as fast as possible.

  Nick understood just how much the loss of my savings and the whole affair had saddened me. Three days later, he surprised me at the dinner table with a huge bouquet of white roses. An envelope leaned against the vase. Although I was full of self-pity, the sight and delicate scent of the full, velvety blossoms cheered me up. I beamed at Nick and threw my arms around his neck.

  “Thank you, they’re gorgeous. But why? Is there something to celebrate?”

  He smiled enigmatically. “I think it will be a joyous occasion for you. C’mon, open the envelope.”

  A minute later I was gasping for air. Nick had sold his beloved Corvette. I found the agreement and a check for a substantial selling price.

  “I think that car’s something for an unattached bachelor. When our family gets an addition or two, we’ll need safer transportation. Tomorrow morning we’ll go out and buy a solid used car, and you can invest what’s left in your name.” He laughed. “Anyway, you wanted me to sign over the”—he mimicked quotation marks—“ ‘pimpmobile’ to you before the wedding. When I told Hanna I’d sold my wheels, she was over the moon. She declared me a certified adult.”

  A warm wave of joy spread through my midsection. I was ecstatic. I knew it was hard for him to part with that car. He did it for my sake. Although he didn’t make a fuss about money, he could relate to my feelings and did what he could to give me pleasure.

  The first day Nick drove to work in a dark-blue Mercedes Variant, he had to put up with his colleagues’ wisecracks, but he instantly retorted that his puberty phase was over at last. A few days later, he casually informed me that he wouldn’t be going parachuting for the rest of the year, just to please me, and he had canceled the next planned event.

  I had the feeling that our difficulties were finally over, and I seriously toyed with the idea of going off the pill.

  Chapter 16

  I’d just arrived home from work and was happy to see his car in front of the house. Hanna, who was headed out to meet a friend on this beautiful summer evening, told me that Nick had taken off for his regular jog fifteen minutes before. I was surprised, because we’d agreed that morning to go together. For a split second, I was ready to whip on my jogging outfit and go after him, but Hanna shook her head.

  “He expressly said he wanted to run alone and would soon be back.”

  So I didn’t go. Instead, I listened to my weaker self, which told me to go upstairs, change, and wait for him on the patio with a cool spritzer. But a vague uneasiness prompted me to run after him just as I was, in a silk blouse and linen skirt. I put down my drink and I took our usual path along the Isar, though in the opposite direction to be sure to meet him. Umpteen pedestrians and joggers came at me, but not Nick. The evening was wonderfully warm and mild, but I was not heeding the beauty of nature. My unease grew from minute to minute, and I increased my pace. Not finding him, I returned to the house completely out of breath. The front door was unlocked and I heard scraping noises in the basement, like something being dragged across the floor. Burglars? I thought briefly about calling the police. But I screwed up my courage and shouted as loudly as I could, “Hello, who’s there? Nick, it is you? I’ll let the dog loose.”

  I heard the strange scraping noise again. Burglars would have been long gone by now. It must have been Nick down there. I ran down the basement stairs and into the furnace room. I found Nick standing on a wobbly stool, a noose swinging from the heating pipe in the ceiling. I’d arrived just in time, and I wrapped my arms around his hips, pulling him with all my strength off the stool before he could put his head through the noose. We fell to the floor—he was right on top of me—and I almost fainted from the stabbing pain in my ankle.

  I fought off the rising nausea but couldn’t hold back cries of pain. As he always did when I saved him from disaster, he came around to his usual self. He hugged and squeezed me, thanked me countless times, and promised, as he so often did, never to scare me like that again. And, seeing his obvious desperation and gratitude, I couldn’t get furious at him. But try as I might, I couldn’t get up. I whimpered in pain at the attempt.

  He immediately carried me upstairs, put me in his car, and rushed me to the nearest emergency room. My foot was X-rayed, and luckily it was only a bad sprain. I go
t a bandage, painkillers, crutches, and further instructions. I could hear my good-natured husband, in athletic shorts and a T-shirt, cracking jokes with the doctor about me twisting my ankle on the stairs while he was out jogging.

  “What else was I supposed to tell him? Who’d have believed the truth anyway?” he said defensively once we were home. He’d arranged covers and pillows on the couch to make me comfortable.

  Baffled, I looked at my high-spirited husband. “Nick, why?”

  “I don’t know. Honestly. I wanted to wait for you as agreed. I turned on the TV. But after I changed, something pulled me powerfully down to the basement. I thought if I could just get out and run I’d get over it. But then the urge got worse.”

  As he put a cold compress on my raised ankle, he looked me in the face contritely. “I turned around halfway, got the towrope out of my car, and . . . then you came.”

  As with every other incident, I had the feeling he was relieved after it was over. “But everything’s OK now. Your foot will be better soon. Don’t worry, my love.”

  But of course I was worried—and the last thing I was worried about was my sprained ankle. But I didn’t show it. The last time I’d done that, the guilt had put him into a depression, which had led to that futile hospital stay.

  As always, he quickly recovered his good mood. It was sweet how he took care of me and did everything he could to make me feel better. Every night when he got back from the studio he brought with him flowers, the latest bestsellers, and TLC. Hanna looked after me during the daytime.

  Nick had told her about my fall down the stairs and he’d erased all the telltale signs of what had really happened before she got back from her outing that evening. Virtually immobilized up in the apartment, I was half crazy with fear until he finally came up. Who knew if his death wish wouldn’t come over him again down there, given the preparations he’d made.

  But he was once again the charming, happy, and lovable man I’d come to know, and he moved me to tears with a song he’d burned to a CD for me. It was an oldie, a one-hit wonder by a Dutch band, Ten Sharp, simply titled “You.” He said that the lyrics spelled out his feelings for me exactly. I was snuggled down into the corner of the sofa with my foot elevated. Nick was close beside me, holding my hand as we listened to the wonderful piano intro. I had to struggle with an overpowering flood of emotions when the singer’s haunting voice crooned that he was all right as long as his girl was by his side. Nick sang along softly with the refrain, and I couldn’t hold back my tears at his amorous gaze. When the last sounds faded away, he clasped my head between his hands and gently brushed away the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs.

  “Please don’t cry, Laura. I’ve been searching for you my entire life, exactly the way the song says. I feel secure with you, and I live for you.”

  But even with these words, his hands weren’t enough to still the flood of my tears.

  With his loving care, my foot soon healed, but my soul was in rotten shape. I once again buried my ever-increasing wish to get pregnant. How was I supposed to cope with a helpless baby, keep an eye on Nick, and go on working? I’d heard a mother’s constant anxiety and uneasiness wasn’t good for an unborn baby’s delicate psyche, and I expected it was even less healthy for a baby once it was out in the world. Besides, I wanted our child to grow up with two parents. How was I supposed to explain to my son or daughter that Daddy took his life for no apparent reason because I wasn’t on the scene fast enough? I also put my house renovation plans on the back burner.

  All tentative endeavors by Mira and me to try to get Nick to another therapist made him blow a fuse. He accused us of branding him a “psycho.” He said he wasn’t about to see any of those half-assed headshrinkers. One night when the three of us were dining together, Mira tried with her tongue of an angel to get it through his head that there were indeed capable psychotherapists.

  “You just had bad luck with that hospital.”

  She brought out a slip of paper. “I’ve got this address from a friend. This man’s both a doctor and a hypnotherapist, and they say he’s had great success with traumatic experiences. You could at least go and talk with him.”

  Nick refused to even look at the paper. “Wouldn’t think of it. I’d rather die,” were his last words on the subject—unfortunately, they were ambiguous.

  Through necessity, I’d learned to live with my fear of his dying. It came at the expense of my figure, though. After the knife episode, I gained fifteen pounds. The consequences of my rescue operation in the cellar brought an additional unneeded seven pounds. I was one of those people who, when stressed and anxious, try to cushion their thin-skinned souls with food. I felt perpetually hungry and I tried to satisfy my urges during the day with quick snacks. Then there were Hanna’s calorie-rich, home-cooked meals.

  At night, I had four hours sleep max; the rest of the time I spent speculating about how much time together we might have left. The words from our marriage vows, “until death us do part,” took on an increasingly dark meaning. Nevertheless, I took great pains to conceal from Nick the gloomy notions and fears plaguing me. I didn’t want to conjure up new catastrophes. Worst of all was the feeling of helplessness that I was condemned to. I could only wait until “the enemy” struck again, hope to be at the right place at the right time, and then try to prevent the worst.

  I was at the point that I actually wished that Nick were involved with another woman instead of having these life-threatening behavior patterns. At least then I’d have a concrete threat to combat, or so I thought. Every time I heard about friends divorcing, I resented them for splitting over a few trivialities. It was clear to me that most people, if they knew about our problems, would urge me to leave Nick—a thought I’d only entertained once. I loved him and was profoundly grateful to him for freeing me from my self-imposed ivory tower and loneliness. And he needed me. Had it become unfashionable to stick with your married partner through the bad times as well as the good times?

  After discussing it with Mira, Nick announced he was leaving his TV series; this would be the final season. It ended, of course, with a satisfactory conclusion between him and his on-screen boss. Once the final season was shot, he began a three-part miniseries about the rise and fall of a developer in Munich during the Roaring Twenties. Nick’s role was the happy-go-lucky son of the patriarch, and whenever I went to see him on set, he was dressed as a dandy, with hat, vest, and pinstripe suit, which I found fascinating. His intensive dance training had made him a master at bending and twitching to Charleston and Swing beats. I couldn’t help thinking he looked like he’d stepped on an anthill. He also dragged me to a theater party in the style of the twenties, “so you can catch a bit of the pizzazz of the age.”

  My ankle injury was six weeks behind me, and the joint had recovered perfectly. I couldn’t think of an excuse to avoid a party, even though I didn’t feel like going. The dress code for it was “elegant 1920s style.” So I went to a costume rental store and picked out a sequined black-and-white flapper dress, and I combined it with a finger-wave hairdo, headband, long knotted string of pearls, feather boa, buckled dancing shoes, and dramatic makeup. I almost didn’t recognize myself in the mirror, that’s how dissolute and sophisticated my costume looked. As a bonus, it covered up my extra pounds beautifully.

  We partied, danced, and laughed with the film crew all night. I was able to put my worries on hold and enjoy the conversations. Nick introduced me to Robert, a colleague some years older than Nick; they’d become friends during the shoot. Robert, with his raven-black hair and dark, melancholy eyes, was good looking in a gloomy way. He was much in demand as a film and stage actor. I could see him being a brilliant, destructive Heathcliff, when he told me this was his next stage role.

  After we danced and Nick excused himself to go dance with other ladies, Robert kept me company, entertaining me with partly sarcastic insider info about the people there. I found his dry
manner refreshing. Later in the evening, he confided in me that things weren’t going too well for him at the moment because his wife and two kids had moved out.

  “She complained I wasn’t home enough.” He looked at me miserably. “Of course, I travel a lot when I’m shooting or on the stage. But between jobs I’m home for weeks on end. But that’s not enough for her. She wants me with her every night. Her current boyfriend is a civil servant.”

  His eyes looked infinitely sad, and I felt sorry for him. Although I didn’t know his wife, I took a profound dislike to her. Splitting up because of a few lonely, boring nights? But before I could speak, Nick hugged me from behind, kissed my cheek, and asked jokingly if Robert was behaving himself.

  Robert laughed. “You know how enormously lucky you are to have Laura? She’s attractive and charming, yet is still a good listener.”

  My husband sat down beside me, took my hand, and looked at Robert. “You don’t have to tell me that. She makes my life worth living.”

  Nick was in his element. He bubbled over with fun and geniality, and was in great shape. I heard frequent praise from his colleagues, particularly women, about what a wonderful and uncomplicated guy he was. One of them was Ellen, a very attractive black-haired woman who played Nick’s lover in the film. She scrutinized me the whole time. In her purple, close-fitting sheath dress she looked like a young Elizabeth Taylor. My female intuition told me that she’d love to have carried her film role over into real life and was now calculating the odds. But I knew from our nighttime chats that Nick thought her self-absorbed, overwrought, and arrogant, even though he kept it well hidden from her to avoid arguments during the shoot.

  He’d told me there was never anything between him and a film partner during a shoot, even before he met me. He played intimate scenes professionally; after a cut, he defused the situation at once with a wisecrack. His aloofness seemed to spur Ellen on. But despite her soulful eyes, Nick didn’t ask her to dance even once. At some point, she threw in the towel, stood up, and announced she was going to the gambling tables.