by Donna Huxley
Anna heard the unfamiliar sound of Marsh's key in the lock just as she had finished her preparations for dinner. It had been a busy, happy day. After a restful sleep, she had had coffee with Marsh this morning and then journeyed to her old apartment. Its bland, forlorn furnishings, which for so long had been the scene of her loneliness, had the look of relics. The patina of time seemed already to have marked them with a prehistoric aura. They were the personal effects of someone who no longer existed: Anna Halpern, solitary working woman. Now she could move among them with easy confidence, picking out an item here and there to take across the city to her new home, her new life. The rest would soon fade into oblivion as the old flat was rented to a stranger.
It was a heady feeling, tinged with the childish excitement of a holiday. Even the rays of sunshine streaming in the window had lost their faded look, and seemed to radiate from that high place across the city where life had begun anew for her. After gathering her clothes in suitcases and filling a box with the things she needed most, she had helped the friendly cab driver carry it all downstairs. How strange it felt to ride a cab through the Loop! The city seemed so elegant, so vibrantly metropolitan, that Anna could not help experiencing a tourist's excitement as theatres, department stores, famous Chicago landmarks passed by.
After putting her things away in the large bedroom closet and bureau, she studied Marsh's kitchen.
Although the refrigerator was nearly empty, the cupboards and spice rack confirmed the impression made by the meal he had cooked at her flat. He was indeed a good cook, and had had occasion to buy most of the ingredients needed for gourmet recipes. Sitting with a cup of coffee before the magnificent picture window, Anna made a short list of groceries to buy. She wanted to make him something special tonight, to welcome him home to his first evening of married life.
For a few precious moments she sat gazing at the urban vista outside the window, allowing herself to savour the novelty of the situation. She was actually to live here, in this apartment, with the handsome man who had swept her off her feet from the first instant she had seen him. It all seemed too good to be true.
At last, afraid her bubble would burst if she dwelt too long on her happiness, she had gone out to an unfamiliar downtown grocery store and bought what she needed. And now the preparations were finished.
'Welcome home,' she smiled, rising to greet him.
His kiss was less than passionate as he rested his hand on her shoulder before throwing his briefcase on a chair.
'Hard day?' she asked, imagining the busy schedule he had left in abeyance during their honeymoon.
'In more ways than one,' he grunted.
'Would you like a drink?' she asked, feeling her happy mood dissolve under a nameless trepidation.
'I'll make it.' He disappeared into the kitchen. She heard the sound of ice being dropped into his glass.
'I'm making you something special tonight,' she called. There was no answer. Instead, she heard cupboards being opened and closed, the muffled thump of the refrigerator door. After a moment he crossed to the bedroom, drink in hand, without saying a word.
After two minutes that seemed an eternity to Anna, he emerged dressed in slacks and a sweater, and sat down with a sigh in the chair facing her. His expression was pained, distracted.
'You look tired,' she said tentatively. 'Had a lot of work piled up while we were gone?'
Marsh grunted. 'You never know,' he said darkly, 'what's going to pop up when you turn your back for a second.'
'Is it still the hard case you mentioned last week?' she asked.
'They're all hard,' he said without looking at her, his jaw set in a rigid, unhappy look. 'The hardest part,' he went on, darting her a significant glance, 'is trying to get people to tell you the truth. Everyone is always hiding something.'
Silence fell again as he finished his drink and strode to the kitchen to get another. It was clear something was wrong. Anna had never seen Marsh's accustomed cheerfulness disappear in so total a manner, and she was forced to reflect that she had not known him long enough to be familiar with all his moods. On the other hand, his demeanour seemed far too enigmatic and even dangerous to be explained by a mere mood. Something must be seriously wrong.
He returned to his chair, giving her an inscrutable glance as he sat down.
'Is something the matter, Marsh?' she asked, unable to bear this stony silence a minute longer. 'You don't seem to be yourself.'
'A lot of people,' he retorted with ill-concealed anger, 'are not quite themselves, I discover. Not quite what they seem.'
'What do you mean?'
'You think you know someone,' he said. 'You think you understand a situation. Then you find out you've been ignorant of the real facts of the case, because someone has been misrepresenting himself, in order to try to hoodwink you. It isn't fun being a dupe, Anna, believe me.'
'I don't understand,' she said. 'What case are you talking about?'
'It's a little closer to home than that, my love,' he said darkly.
'Why don't you tell me what you're getting at?' she asked, flushing under his accusing stare. 'Must you talk in circles?'
'I've been going around in circles for quite some time,' he said, arising suddenly and seizing his briefcase. 'If it hadn't been for one little break, one little accident, I might have gone on that way for ever.'
'Marsh,' she pleaded, genuinely frightened by his words and his scowling aspect, 'what are you talking about?'
'There,' he said, throwing the letter on the coffee table before her. 'Read it for yourself, Anna. Then explain it to me, if you can.'
Fearfully she opened the envelope, although the sight of the N.T.E.L. logo and address already sufficed to tell her that something grave had happened.
At first the impersonal message, headed by her name, Social Security number, and address, seemed merely strange—a curious eavesdropping on her identity, intended to be passed among others. Then the horrifying words of the file began to sink in.
A great chill went through her limbs as she saw the monstrous extent of Porter Deman's chicanery. It had been one thing to realise that she was not finding a new job because Porter had done something, some obscure thing to harm her. It was quite another to see her name vilified, her character assassinated, in the text of this official document. It was as though the whole company, the gigantic N.T.E.L. corporation, had acquiesced in this malignant plan to spread evil lies about her to any employer who would listen.
'My God,' she thought, feeling faint from the shock of seeing the file. 'My God!' But she said nothing. Over and over again, she read the words in stunned disbelief. Distantly, she heard the sound of the ice clinking in Marsh's glass. He had gone back to the kitchen, probably to make himself another drink.
'No wonder,' she thought. 'After what he must think of me now.'
Her emotions seemed to have retreated to a faraway corner of her mind, and warred chaotically with each other. She felt so cold that she thought she must be pale as a ghost. In her numbness she did not notice the tears which ran silently down her cheeks.
She heard his voice as though across a gulf of shadow.
'See what I mean?' he said cruelly, triumphantly. 'You never know what you're going to find out about someone you thought you knew pretty well.'
'Where did you get this?' she heard herself ask.
'What difference does it make where I got it?' he shot back.
'No, I meant… I mean…' Her words came out chaotically, uncontrollably. She had to struggle to determine what she wanted to say.
'It isn't true,' she said at last. 'It isn't true.'
He sat in silence across the room.
'Then what is true?' he asked at length. 'Just what the hell is true about you, Anna? You've been lying to me for so long, hiding things from me for so long, I think it's about time you said one true thing to me.'
'I haven't lied to you,' she protested lamely.
'That's a good one,' he laughed bitterly. 'The first ti
me I ever met you, you claimed you were quite ignorant of your company's inner workings. A small cog, you called yourself. Apparently you understated your expertise.'
'That was true,' she said, acutely aware that the document before her contradicted her words.
'But that was only the beginning,' he shrugged off her denial. 'You saw fit to tell me that you left N.T.E.L. because things "weren't working out", as you put it. At the time, I saw no reason to suspect there was anything more to it. I let myself believe that you and the company had simply become incompatible, for some reason of convenience or personality, or whatever. Are you going to tell me that was true as well?'
Anna shook her head. 'No,' she admitted, 'that was not true.'
'Well,' Marsh smiled ironically, 'at least we've made a step in the right direction. Where shall we go from here? Let's see… I've seen your sister, so I know she really exists. There's no point in wondering whether you made her up along with your other lies. And the cheque I put in the mail for her tuition this morning was real enough. As soon as the university cashes it, I'll be able to set my mind at rest on that score. How about your parents? Are they really dead? Are you really from Bloomington?'
'Don't be cruel, Marsh. Please!' The tears inundating her flushed cheeks belied her expression of stunned panic. 'I've never lied to you. I just couldn't… talk about what happened.'
'You'll talk about it now,' he warned. 'And you'd better talk straight, Anna.'
Shocked into momentary silence by the enormity of the situation, Anna tried desperately to think. But the obscene success of Porter Deman's evil design seemed overwhelming. After having cost her her job and preventing her from finding another one, he had managed to come between her and the husband she loved. It seemed every bit as futile to explain herself to Marsh as to convince a prospective employer that the file was full of lies. The letter was official. It carried the weight of the company itself, and emerged from the endless banks of computers which made up not only N.T.E.L., but the whole business establishment of the city, the nation. How could she bluntly deny what was there in black and white, for all to see?
'I'm waiting,' said Marsh, a sardonic smile curling his lips.
'All right,' she began miserably, 'I'll try to explain.' Every corner of her body, only recently cleansed and purified by her intimacy with Marsh, suddenly curled up on itself, stung by the nausea of her memory of Porter Deman. The evil she had seen incarnated in the file seemed to penetrate her like a poison, making her feel unclean and violated, as though in this very moment Porter Deman's vile hands still reached out towards her. And in truth, had he not found a way to invade the very privacy of her marriage, to transform her loving husband into the hurt, accusing figure who now stared at her without trust?
'None of it is true,' she insisted. 'I can't understand how he… how this happened. They know, at N.T.E.L., that this isn't true.'
'They know,' he mimicked pitilessly, 'that what they themselves have attested to in your personnel file is a lie? You must be kidding, Anna.'
'I mean,' she persisted, 'they assured me there would be nothing in the file, even though they had to… fire me.' Her hand rose to her knitted brow as she tried to sort out the confusing facts thronging her mind.
'But that's exactly what the file says,' Marsh taunted her. 'That you tried to convince them not to make any of it official. You have a lot of explaining to do, Anna.'
'Please,' she sighed, 'let me finish.' But she could hardly find words to describe the miasma of misfortune created by Porter Deman. Though she knew the truth was her only ally, her shame and disbelief paralysed her. How could she explain away so complex and convincing a web of lies?
'I'll tell you,' she said, turning pale, 'what I told the Vice-President when this whole thing began. I never saw the file they claim was in my desk. I never pulled it from the computer. It was… it was all the work of one man. He did this to me. As for the part about attempting to… to seduce…' Her eyes filled with tears once more, and she could not suppress a sob of pain and exasperation. 'That is a lie—a horrid, awful lie.'
'What man?' asked Marsh. 'What are you talking about? Your own Vice-President's signature is under this text. Are you trying to tell me he's framing you?'
'No.' She shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs caused by this complicated dilemma about which Marsh knew nothing. 'Another man. Someone from N.T.E.L. He tried to force me to… do something improper. When I wouldn't, he told me I'd be fired. The next day I was fired—because of this classified file business. I knew he was behind it, but there was nothing I could do. Mr Robbins didn't believe me, but he said he wouldn't mention the incident in my personnel file, so that I would be able to find another job in the field. Then I couldn't find a job, and… and this is obviously why. He did this— the other man. He even told me…'
'What man?' asked Marsh. 'What was improper? What do you mean when you say he told you? How could Robbins not know about this, since it's over his own signature? You're not making sense, Anna. You'd better start telling a more coherent story. Or is it too hard to make up a thing like this on the spur of the moment? Is that it?'
A curious sensation stole insidiously through Anna. How loathsome it was to be a victim, a prey. The passivity of the role seemed to penetrate to one's very bones. Trapped, immobilised by the staring eyes which demanded that she submit, that she do the will of someone else, or suffer the consequences… A profound, resentful anger began to alloy her terrified sense of guilt. How long was this bondage to continue? How long must she continue to cower under the imperious stares of severe, demanding men?
'I'm waiting, Anna.'
For a cruel instant Marsh's deep voice brought back the memory of Porter Deman speaking the same words as he sat rocking in his desk chair under the painting on his office wall. 'I'm waiting, Anna…'
She looked up at Marsh. Even the power of her love was not sufficient to dissipate the sudden suspicion she felt. Just like Porter Deman, like Charles Robbins, like all the polite but demanding personnel managers she had had interviews with, Marsh was immured within his prideful man's preoccupations. He sat there, in his wounded masculinity, turning all his energies to his accusation of her. His pride was hurt by the revelation that he did not possess every shred of information about her private life. He was making no effort to listen or understand, but only to accuse.
'I didn't tell you about this,' she said firmly, 'because it was too horrible, and upsetting, and…' she searched for the word which would describe her state of mind, 'unjust. Perhaps I was wrong, but I wanted to leave it behind me. The charges are false.
They were concocted by an executive who had a personal grudge against me. I know for a fact that he is responsible for this file, as he was for the original accusation.'
'Who?' Marsh asked, his black eyes glittering with a light so dangerous that Anna felt a shudder of real fear before him. 'Who did this? What personal grudge? What improper thing?'
Anna shook her head, tormented by his stabbing questions. A great surge of impotent anger possessed her. She could not bear to. be humiliated further by the web of lies surrounding her. And even though she knew her resentment against Marsh was not entirely justified, she felt that her agony of useless self-defence must stop somewhere.
'He wanted me to go to bed with him,' she said at last, feeling darkly indifferent to the consequences of her revelation. 'I wouldn't do it, so he took his revenge.'
'Who?' The menacing intensity in Marsh's voice was almost unbearable to hear.
'I told Charles Robbins the man's name,' said Anna, feeling suddenly, pridefully alone. 'I suggested that he investigate the situation for himself. But I see no reason to tell you his name, Marsh. To be frank, it's none of your business. He's the company's problem now. If they let him get away with an ugly thing like this,' she glanced at the tear-stained document, 'so be it. I'm finished with them.'
'But you're not finished with me,' said Marsh. 'Not yet, anyway. If you expect me to believe this stor
y— which seems, by the way, a little less credible with every detail you add—you'd better make a clean breast of it. And I'd suggest you start with the name of the man you say is your accuser.'
His taut limbs seemed coiled in a lethal readiness for action as he sat before her. Anna dared not speculate on what he might do if she gave him the information he wanted. Again she had to remind herself that she did not know Marsh well enough to predict what extremities his anger could force him to.
Besides, she reflected, the important thing was his relationship with her. The punishment of Porter Deman was the affair of N.T.E.L.
'No,' she shook her head determinedly. 'I've told you the truth. You don't need his name. It's not your place to get involved in this, Marsh. I don't know how you came by this file, but…'
'I had my secretary write to N.T.E.L. for it,' he interrupted. 'Before our marriage. I knew you were having some sort of trouble, and since you weren't forthcoming about it, I decided to find out for myself.'
'I see,' she shot back angrily. 'As though it wasn't bad enough to know that there were slanderous documents circulating about me behind my back, now I find that my own husband has been spying on me, as well! You had no right, Marsh.'
'Normal rules were suspended,' he shrugged ironically, 'since the woman I was about to marry lacked the confidence in me to reveal that she was in bad trouble. I thought I might be able to help you.'
'No one could help me,' Anna insisted. 'He'd planned it so that I would be accused of breaching security before I had a chance to complain about his behaviour towards me. There was no way for me to convince my superiors I was telling the truth.'
'There would have been,' he corrected, 'if you had been telling the truth. You could have taken legal action to force them to prove their accusation against you. And when this personnel file came out, which you now claim you were aware of, you could have produced it as clear evidence of malice. That alone would have convinced a judge that you were the victim of a deliberate plot, and had been deprived of your job illegally. They would have been forced to take you back, regardless of what they believed—assuming they were prejudiced. But you did none of these things, and two things resulted.'