The Rose Gardener

by Charlotte Link

  The pounding in her temples grew stronger. It grew to a roar. A roar that cut her out from the other sounds of the world — the confusion of voices, the clattering of dishes, the seagulls’ cries. But also from the smell of the food and of the salt in the breeze. Even from the colors of the flowers, the sea, and the sky.

  Hopefully I’ve got my pills with me, she thought. I didn’t even look before we left.

  “Michael, I want a divorce,” she said.

  Maya appeared in the living room around one o’clock, unrested and hungover. Her face was pale, and her usually large, wild eyes had narrowed to small slits. She was looking a good deal older than her twenty-two years. She did not look pretty this afternoon, not sexy or attractive, and not like a cute, sleepy-eyed kid either.

  She just looks rather run down, thought Alan.

  She wore an oversized white T-shirt with a faded teddy bear print on the chest; her legs and feet were bare. She plopped down in her seat and cradled her head in her hands, groaning.

  “Oh God, I feel awful!” she muttered.

  “Do you want something to eat? Or to drink?” Alan asked. He put down the newspaper. He wondered at how normally he spoke with her, how even his voice sounded indifferent. Something was softly buzzing within him, a taut, irritated nerve. He was shocked at her impudence, how she flaunted her staying out last night, her unmeasured alcohol consumption. She didn’t even make an attempt to act like she’d come back late from some tea party at the nursing home.

  What does she take me for? he asked himself. Am I just a doormat? Some guy you don’t even have to pretend you have one speck of esteem for?

  “No, definitely no food,” she said, pained. “I think I’d vomit immediately. Can I have a cup of tea?”

  “The tea is cold,” said Alan.

  “Make me a new pot,” she muttered.

  The buzzing grew stronger. “Make it yourself,” said Alan.

  At least now he’d finally reached her in her disinterested state. She looked up in surprise, and her puffy eyes widened a little. “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “You can make it yourself,” Alan repeated. “I’ve been waiting on you with breakfast since early this morning. Since we didn’t see each other at all yesterday, or the day before that, today I cancelled all my appointments and didn’t go to the office. If you’re set on having to crawl out of bed at midday, you can’t expect that I jump up and start bringing everything to you for a second time.”

  “Everything! I want a tiny cup of tea, and I don’t even get that!”

  “You know where the kitchen is, you know where the tea is,” Alan said calmly. “No one’s stopping you from getting what you’d like.”

  She looked at him in disbelief, then she jumped up with a wild movement, took the cognac bottle from the sideboard, tipped the cognac into the glass next to her plate, which was actually meant for the orange juice, and drank in large, thirsty gulps.

  “So,” she said. “I guess I’ll just drink this then! Since I can take anything I want, you’ll hardly have anything against it.”

  “No, I don’t have anything against it,” Alan replied, “I just think it’s not going to agree with you all that well. You already look ten years older than you are. Cognac won’t make things any better.”

  She made a show of immediately pouring another glass, which she drank off a second time.

  “You know,” she said nastily, “to hear something like that from you of all people is just a bit funny. Which of us two is the alcoholic? Maybe I look older this morning than I am. So what? Tomorrow morning at the latest I’ll be okay again. I can brush off a night of drinking like it’s nothing. Quite different from you. You’re forty-three and look like you’re in your early fifties, and you won’t be able to change a thing about it. No matter what you do. You won’t be able to recover any more.”

  Every single word struck him like a blow. He had to make an effort not to flinch. The worst thing was: she was right. She wasn’t just spitting out poison at random, wasn’t just trying to hurt him in whatever way she could. They were the facts, what she was saying; there was no denying them.

  “No reason to hurry up and follow my example, though, right?” he said. He had to say something, and this was the only thing that occurred to him.

  She smiled. She was feeling as crummy as ever, but now she was wide-awake. And ready for a fight. And even if Alan hated himself for it: He was afraid of Maya when she was ready for a fight.

  “I’m not hurrying after you, don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll never be like you. I’m a whole lot stronger. I know when to hit the brakes.”

  “Many before you also thought they knew that. And they still missed the moment when it came.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t care what you think. You can just sit there spouting off warnings like an old lady. Will you make me some tea now?”

  “No,” said Alan.

  She sat down again and looked at him.

  “Ok, Alan, what’s going on? You’ve got this expression on your face this morning, you look like a governess, and the way you’re behaving is simply unbearable. What’s got you in such a foul mood?”

  Any strategy of restraint, of subtle, barbed remarks, of discreet insinuations — whatever strategy he might have had, he abandoned it.

  “Where were you yesterday?” he asked her directly.

  Her face was unchanged. “With Edith. I’d told you that.”

  “Until two thirty in the morning? I don’t think the visiting hours in nursing homes extend that long. It was quite late on Saturday, too, by the way, but for yesterday, I think, you should try and come up with a good explanation.”

  “Of course I wasn’t with Edith for that long.”

  “I see. At least you admit that. Where were you then?”

  She groaned softly and theatrically. “Do you know how gross you sound? Do you know how unattractive you are when you’re like this? Do you know I think it stinks, to be interrogated like this?”

  “If you don’t mind, we’ll continue with the interrogation anyway. I’d like to know where you were.”

  “What right do you have to know that?”

  “You live in my apartment. You live off my money. In accordance with your own wishes, we’re trying to develop some kind of relationship. I think that entails a certain measure of honesty.” Listening to himself, he was still amazed at how calmly he spoke. His arguments were matter-of-fact, and he weighed each word before it left his mouth.

  Wrong, completely wrong, an inner voice said to him: you’re explaining, you’re offering justifications. Yell at her! Lose your composure! Treat the little slut like you should have years ago! That’s the kind of woman she is. That’s the only kind of language she understands.

  The problem was: he could not speak that language. He knew it, but he didn’t know how to wield it. As a lawyer he could pull out every manner of threat, subtle or even outright, but that was something different: in his career he had access to weapons that he laid aside the moment he returned to the realm of his personal life.

  “I’m waiting for your answer,” he said. “Where were you?”

  “Good lord, you have absolutely no clue how annoying you are. Ok, I left Edith at seven o’clock. But I got on the wrong bus and ended up someplace god knows where, on the other side of the earth. What do I know which crazy dumps I rode through … so, yeah, and at some point I snapped to and realized I was in the wrong bus, so I got out, but then I had to wait in some godforsaken place till a bus came that would take me back to the old folks’ home, and there I had to wait till the bus to London came, and then …” She drew a deep breath and gave him an accusatory look. “It was a dreadful night. I was freezing and I was afraid. And then I had to get yelled at by you the next morning!”

  “There are three things tha
t aren’t quite clear to me,” said Alan. “The first is how you managed to get on the wrong bus after you’ve already been out that very way four times this week. The second is why you weren’t capable of finding a telephone somewhere and letting me know that you’d be late, or asking me to come pick you up, which, as you know, I would have done at once. And the third is, how you fixed it that during your ill-fated journey you drank so much alcohol that this morning you can barely see straight.”

  “As a matter of fact there wasn’t a telephone anywhere,” said Maya. “The home is in the country! It’s in the middle of nowhere. Am I supposed to run myself ragged in the meantime trying to summon up a phone booth?”

  “You didn’t have your cell phone with you by chance?”

  “I’d forgotten it.” She was lying, he knew it at once, but since he wouldn’t be able to prove what she said was a lie, he refrained from forcing the issue.

  “Ok,” he nodded. “There are still the questions about the wrong bus and the drinking.”

  “Have you never once, not even once in your life gotten on the wrong bus or taken the wrong train? Have you never once gotten lost? Have you never once …”

  “Alright, alright!” He waved it aside. “So an accident, a bit of bad luck, something that can happen to anybody. And what,” he leaned closer to her, gave her a piercing look, “what about the alcohol? When, for heaven’s sake, did you drink so much that you come in here this morning looking like a walking corpse?”

  Now she’d been driven into a corner, and she reacted in her typical way: She transformed, within seconds, into an angry cat.

  “You are some kind of mean, Alan Shaye!” she hissed. “Mean and vicious! You try and play the slimy lawyer, try to interrogate me, to beat me down, to pin something on me. But you won’t pull it off. I’m just going to stop answering your questions. You have absolutely no right to press me! You have no right to pry like this. It’s my own damn business what I drink and when! And who with!”

  He gave up the game. It was the right moment for it. He knew the signs indicating that the accused wanted to come out with the truth, that he was tired of lying. Maya was ready.

  “Let’s stop,” he said. “We both know what’s wrong, so we can stop with this demeaning back and forth. If you were ever at Edith’s yesterday, then you left there pretty early, but the way I see it, you weren’t ever there at all. You met up with some guy, went out to the bars and then most likely went to bed with him at some point. Am I right?”

  His calculations were correct. She had her back pressed hard enough against the wall that she gave up her usual caution. She no longer wanted to defend herself, she wanted to fight back.

  “Yes,” she said forcefully, “You’ve understood it perfectly, Alan. I slept with another man. And it was a hell of a lot better than it ever was with you!”

  He’d known already that she’d cheated on him, but it hurt all the same. It hurt so badly that for seconds he couldn’t breathe. As if from a long way away he heard himself saying, “And why are you still here then?”

  “What? What do you mean, ‘Why are you still here then’?”

  “There’s another man in your life, and he’s fantastic in bed. So I’d like to know what you’re still doing here.”

  She laughed, but her laugh sounded a bit insecure. “My goodness, Alan, this thing with Frank isn’t serious! You always left me on my own so I went and got a bit of comfort. That was all!”

  “Does Frank see it that way?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “How am I supposed to know how Frank sees it?”

  “The two of you have a rather intimate connection. Could just be that you talk about yourselves and your feelings sometimes!”

  She threw up her hands in impatience. She was angry, and it showed. She hadn’t wanted to bring Frank into this. She wished that she could take back what she had said, she wished that she hadn’t fallen so readily into the trap Alan had set. Alan realized that she was now concerned with playing down the encounter with Frank.

  “Frank’s really not important. He’s a nice boy, he’s okay. But he’s not the man for me, do you understand? If I hadn’t been so alone, this thing with him wouldn’t ever have happened.”

  Once again he was astounded at the blatant audacity with which she made excuses for her mistakes.

  “I see,” he said. “Am I supposed to understand that in the future as well, whenever you get bored or feel alone, you believe you are justified in taking up a quick affair with another man? To pass the time? Some people take a language class or go to the gym. You have a few quickies. And for you it’s just about the same thing.”

  “The way you put it …”

  “I think the way I put it is exactly how it is. Any other way would be dressing it up.” He went silent for a moment. The pain was raging within him. It wasn’t just pain over what had happened. The agony came from the awareness that he had to end the relationship with Maya if he wanted to retain even a sliver of self-regard. The point had finally been reached. If he missed it now he would never be able to look at himself in the mirror again for the rest of his life.

  “I’ve told you that I want to marry you,” he continued. “But as Mrs. Shaye you’d handle things exactly like you do now — right?”

  “How should I know! Alan, seriously, do I really now have to give a declaration from now until the end of time? Do you now want to know what I’ll do when, how, in which situation? None of us can say what’s to come! No one knows …”

  “Knock off the platitudes, Maya!” Say goodbye to this woman, Alan, it’s high time! “Stop beating around the bush! We both know what’s wrong. You can’t be faithful. Even if you absolutely wanted to, you couldn’t. You couldn’t if your life depended on it. That’s how you’re set up, and you probably can’t even be held responsible for it.” He looked at her closely. As horrible as she looked this morning, he still could not hold back the tenderness that filled him at the sight of her.

  I’m going to need a long time, he thought, and fear rose within him at the thought of all the long, sad, lonesome hours and days, when he would be trying to tear her from his heart piece by piece. I’m going to need a very long time until I’m over her. Maybe I won’t ever manage it.

  “But I can’t deal with this setup of yours,” he went on. “I’ve tried for almost five years. I hoped you would change, or I would find a way to bear this manner that you seem to just have. Neither has worked, and it was probably dumb of me to believe it could happen somehow. I would have saved myself a lot of time and energy if I’d sensed earlier how vain my hopes were.”

  He registered an expression of disquiet in her eyes. Apparently she noticed that something was different than usual. He had spoken to her like this before, from time to time. She had listened on these occasions, and he had seen it on her that she didn’t take him seriously, not for a second.

  But now she’s nervous, he thought. Still, this knowledge didn’t give him any feeling of triumph.

  “Alan, we should …,” she began, but for another time this afternoon, he cut her off.

  “We shouldn’t anything anymore, Maya. All we should do is break up. It’s the only thing that’s right and the only thing that’s sensible.”

  She leaned over the table, was going to take his hand, but he pulled it back and permitted no caress.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You’re really serious?”

  He returned her gaze, knew that there was a great deal of pain visible in his features, but also a great deal of resolve. “I’m serious, yes. And I don’t want to put it off any longer. After breakfast you’ll pack up your things and leave my apartment.”

  “Where am I supposed to go?”

  “To Frank.”

  “To Frank? Frank lives in a tiny pre-furnished room! There’s absolutely no space for me!”

  “Th
ere was obviously enough space for you to meet him there and go to bed with him. I think you’ll make it. You simply live for a bit of time in a ‘tiny, pre-furnished room.’ It’s possible. You’ll see.”

  Her hand clutched at the paper napkin next to her plate, balled it up, crumpled it.

  “Oh God, Alan,” she said softly. “You have no idea how happy I am to leave! How fed up I am with being with you! You’re boring and bourgeois and on top of that you look like an old drunk!” She slowly rose from her chair while she shot her poisoned darts. “Yeah, Alan, sadly, someone’s got to tell you, you’re not even good-looking anymore. You were pretty attractive once, but you’ve drunk all your handsomeness away by now. How could I be so dumb as to spend more than one day with you! And more than one night!” Her voice grew even quieter and even nastier. “You’re such a nothing in bed, Alan, such a nothing! Every second was wasted. But I’ll tell you one thing,” she leaned forward, her eyes flashing, “you’re going to scream for me! You will beg me to come back. Because you won’t find anybody else. Nobody! You’ll be so alone and so lonely that you’ll booze even more to be done with it. It’ll be so abysmal for you that you’ll be running after me with your teeth knocking together. My whole heart feels sorry for you, Alan!”

  She threw the balled up napkin on the table and left the room.

  10

  Though the evening was calm and the wind blew gently, the waves broke with impressive violence against the rocky coast, hit high against the cliffs, threw white, foamy surf over the boulders, pulled back with a roar and in the next moment hurled themselves with renewed fury against the resistance that confronted them. Down below you would not have been able to hear yourself speak amidst the furor of the surf. But up above it could be heard only as a gentle susurration, no louder than if a light wind had rustled the leaves of the trees.

  The sun on the horizon, a full, fire-red disc hovering just above the water’s surface, painted a copper-gold, broad road over the water and bathed the cliffs and the scant brown grass up above in a beautiful, otherworldly light. Even the clouds were illuminated as they sailed across the sky. The picture could have seemed kitschy had the landscape not been so raw, so severe and so unaccommodating.