The Silent Woman

by Monika Zgustova

  We looked at each other in silence. I noticed, for the first time, that Petr’s eyes were gray.

  After a second, I reacted, turning around so as to continue walking. Again, I tossed the skating boots into the air, as the mood took me.

  When I got back home, the phone was ringing. I picked it up; whoever was calling hung up. This happened three times.

  Two or three days later I woke up at night, suddenly alarmed. My husband was standing in front of me. Wearing a winter overcoat, a scarf, gloves, he was holding a hat in one hand. He was lit only by the faint reflection from the streetlamp.

  “You’re here?” I made an effort to talk in a light tone. Fear had puffed the last white feathers of sleep out of me.

  “I’m taking a holiday.”

  “A holiday?”

  “Yes. Because it does not look at all well, for the wife of an ambassador to go all alone.”

  “Are you such a stickler for etiquette?”

  He began to tremble a bit.

  “Sylva, I know everything,” he said with a grave air.

  Like the murderer in a cheap detective movie, I smiled.

  “What do you mean by everything?” I asked ineptly.

  It was the worst of all possible replies. Despite the seriousness of the moment, I realized that, when someone determines that you are guilty of something, no matter how innocent you might be, you end up feeling guilty anyway.

  “What do I mean by everything, Sylva? You know perfectly well what I mean!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. My conscience is quite clean.”

  What an idiotic thing to say, yet again!

  “I am talking about what happened on Friday evening in Valdštejn Square. The looks you gave each other. Well, at least now I am certain as to what is going on.”

  He was gazing at the gas lamp through the window, as if that muted brightness were going to bring him comfort.

  “No, Sylva, don’t look at me as if I’d lost my mind. Although it is true that this is driving me insane. I think of nothing else but you.”

  In the light of the gas lamp he looked like a corpse that had emerged from its tomb to say its piece. All of a sudden he took a few heavy steps toward my bed, on which he ended up stretching himself out, awkwardly.

  “All my efforts . . . everything . . . for you, Sylva. Everything, I have done everything for you.”

  I saw his all-but-lifeless expression. I wasn’t listening to him. I could learn more from reading his thin, exhausted face and his feverish eyes, instead of concentrating on his words.

  He stood up. He spoke in such a low voice that I only caught the last few words.

  “Sylva, I have no other way out.”

  What was he referring to?

  “I have no other way out,” he repeated, “the only one left is this.”

  He took a revolver out of his pocket.

  I froze. An absurd idea went through my head. Why, in novels, is it always, “The man took out a gun and the woman screamed until she woke up the entire household?” Now I knew that was impossible. Instead, you go all soft. Incapable of the slightest movement, let alone of saying anything. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. He wasn’t moving or breathing either.

  “This is my only way out,” he whispered, “I have to kill it. What’s inside me.”

  Kill what? I asked myself. Kill what?

  I couldn’t understand. He was talking to himself, “Kill him . . . him? If I do that, he will go on living in you and me . . .”

  We were in darkness. For an entire century we were in darkness. Then daylight broke. He got up slowly and went out. He didn’t look at me again.

  In the morning, he wasn’t at home. Nobody had seen him. Not the maid, nor the cook, nor the chauffeur. Had he really been here?

  Once I’d dressed, I headed for . . . No, I gave the Valdštejn Palace a wide berth. I walked toward Petřín Mountain. Every few steps I turned to check if anyone was following me. I made an effort to watch the leaves that had fallen from the trees, and were now mixed up with the snow.

  After a few days, the Minister of Foreign Affairs called me on the phone. He wanted to see me right away, he said in a grave voice that brooked no dissent.

  The tea I’d ordered from the maid still hadn’t arrived when he called at the door.

  This man, who was usually so friendly and smiling, was serious, stern, almost severe. He came straight to the point. A moment earlier he had received the following letter.

  Most Honorable Minister, my dear friend,

  The recent economic crash and the economic crisis that it had brought in its wake have ruined me completely. I am bankrupt. I have nothing left on the stock exchange, and my once considerable properties have vanished as if they were smoke. I cannot bear to show my face to my acquaintances or my wife, who, because of this situation, no longer has any protection. I did not want my wife to incur any debts. Everything that has happened has occurred against my will.

  I place my post at your immediate disposition.

  Above all, I ask of you, from the bottom of my heart, to explain all this to my wife in the most delicate fashion possible. I am unable to do so myself.

  I finished reading. Or rather, I finished running my eyes over those lines, unable to take in their full meaning. I sat in silence. The minister said, “Whether you believe the reason stated here by your husband, to wit, the financial crash, or whether you do not . . . at all events . . .”

  That normally decisive man could say no more.

  In a barely audible voice, he added that my husband’s dead body had been found that morning in our Paris apartment. He had died in the night from a single shot from his revolver. “Who knows why,” said the minister sadly, without looking at me.

  A few days later, together with other letters addressed to me, I received an envelope containing a bill for a very large amount of money. It came from a detective agency. After reading the description of the services rendered, I understood that for all those years, my husband had me followed around the clock.

  I walked back to Petřín Mountain. I don’t know why I turned around to see if anyone was following me.

  Under the soles of my boots, the snow, mixed with fallen leaves, squeaked from time to time. After a little while, I turned around again.

  No, nobody was following me. I was alone.

  Only the leaves beneath my feet were making a muted snapping sound.

  V

  JAN

  I’ve been walking around in the airport. On the first floor of the international terminal, I sat down in a café, at a table with a pink tablecloth. In my mind, I was looking for a solution to an equation, drawing figure after figure with my finger on that same tablecloth.

  I was distracted for a while by a quarrel between a foreign visitor and an Asian waitress. I tried to concentrate, but the voices in the café got disrupted with my figures; the noise kept me company, lonely as I was.

  For many years in the United States, after a long workday I would return to a dark, cold, and empty house, a house that was not a home.

  Every evening that damp, dark silence would grab hold of me. That silence drained my energy and filled my arteries, veins, and blood vessels with a mixture of revulsion and anguish and shame. That silence paralyzed me, right there in the house. Only after a while could I start to distinguish those sounds that are so typical of American houses: the creaking of wood, the scraping of window frames, the cracking noises coming from the ceiling, the knocking in the pipes, the sighs of the central heating. Which is why America is the only country where Edgar Allen Poe, who wrote so much about houses full of ghosts and spirits, could have been born. Don’t you think so, Mama? The fridge would raise its voice with its catlike purring and, once the reloading process was over, you could hear several kicks from it, as if a fat, sour-faced man had become frustrated working on the fridge’s motor and wham! was giving it a good kicking. As I took in those familiar sounds, little by little my anguish dwindl
ed and I could start to move around freely. I left the dishwasher humming away. The central heating brought a crowd of naughty children who wouldn’t stop hitting the pipes in the rooms and corridors.

  I had only liked silence when I was with you, Mama. Because with you, the Silent Woman, I didn’t need words to communicate. With you, I never felt alone.

  Every evening I switched on the TV just to hear some human voices. Do you remember how, in Prague, we used to make fun of that very same habit when we saw other people do it in their own homes? But automatically I put on one of the TV channels—which all more or less have the same name, WTHA, WTRD, WBAB, WBRJ, WFTY—and each one is specialized in something: one is a news station, another covers sports, yet another deals with newborn babies. Yes, Mama, on one channel children are born twenty-four hours a day in front of a TV camera. From the TV came those clipped, self-confident voices shared by so many Americans, voices giving opinions and verdicts that are far too brief, and conclusions and pronouncements that are so often too firm, too resolute. The TV would keep me company while I got my supper ready.

  Mama, you ask if I sought out any female company? Yes. To be honest with you, I get on just fine with women. I had a few relationships. I would love to introduce these ladies to you but of course I can’t. But I’ll write you some brief descriptions of them, as if they were snapshots or postcards.

  DAISY

  She vaguely reminded me of Helena, especially because of her long, swinging earrings. I invited her to restaurants several times just to be able to look at her and project the features of my Czech girlfriend onto her face. Eventually I stopped doing that, having become interested in the girl herself. One day she asked me, “What are your intentions as far as I’m concerned?” I didn’t understand the question. She explained, “You Europeans are too enigmatic for us plain-speaking, practical Americans. You never talk about your plans for the future.” But I didn’t know my plans for the future, or my intentions toward her. Nor did I want to think about them and neither did I want to know her intentions toward me. When there’s no mystery involved, a relationship just becomes humdrum. During one of our dinners, Daisy revealed her plans for our future together. I know it was a cruel thing to do, Mama, but I never called her again.

  WENDY

  Wendy, a fellow student at the university, invited me to a café for lunch one day. As we ate, she unbuttoned her jacket, cold though it was, and I couldn’t help but notice that she had a prominent cleavage. I even found it a bit vulgar, aggressively provocative, so to speak. Wendy told me that her husband had gone off on a business trip, and invited me over for coffee and dessert at her place. I got out of it by saying I had work to do. She asked me to drop by in the evening, adding that she’d never been with a man from a communist country before.

  CINDY

  Cindy, who wore her hair down to the waist, invited me to a dinner party at her place. There were a couple of friends and acquaintances of mine there. Cindy was a considerate, tactful hostess, very attentive to her guests. By the time the main course was served—chicken teriyaki—different kinds of social and political stuff were being discussed. On the subject of the death penalty, Cindy said, “Whoever kills, deserves to die!” Nobody paid any attention. When the dessert came along, we were arguing about what had to be done with countries that actively supported terrorism. Should we wage war on them? Would that be advisable? Or would it be better to avoid that? There was a wide range of opinions, backed by an equally wide range of different reasons. Cindy waited until everyone had their say to share her view on this subject, “Any country that supports terrorism should be bombed outright!” One of the guests objected that a country’s inhabitants did not necessarily agree with their government’s decision to support terrorists. But Cindy wasn’t having any of it, “Bomb that whole damn country! Destroy ’em all!” Spotting my alarm, she immediately changed the subject. She spoke of nothing else but ancient and contemporary art and classical music for rest of the night. But I didn’t accept any more of her invitations.

  JOANNE

  “Liar,” Joanne yelled at me on our first weekend together, when she caught me in the act of writing a letter. “Liar! You told me you needed more time to dedicate yourself to your scientific work!” She looked crestfallen. I’d spoiled the weekend. “You look really great,” I told her one day, after a dinner she’d prepared for the two of us. I was looking at her thoughtful profile, though Joanne was no textbook Hollywood beauty. “Liar!” came the harsh accusation. From her expression, I realized that this was the worst crime anyone could commit in her worldview: to affirm something that did not correspond to an objectively provable truth. A week later, I told her over the phone, “I’ve been trying to get hold of you all afternoon.” I said this to cover up an oversight of mine, not wanting to hurt her just because I’d forgotten to get in touch with her for a few hours. “Liar,” she said knowingly, “I haven’t had any phone calls at all up until now.” Her voice sounded like that of a prosecutor addressing the bench. Then it finally dawned on me that I didn’t belong to her culture. I was unable to behave according to its rules and, even worse, I was offending my girlfriend by ignoring them. I liked Joanne, with her intelligent face and thoughtful expression, but she drifted away from me.

  SAMANTHA

  We met at a party, where I didn’t know anybody except for the hosts, and she probably didn’t either. Samantha sat in a corner sipping Lambrusco from a glass that would have been better suited to a gin and tonic. I sat next to her with a bottle of beer in my hand. She introduced herself, saying she was a theater critic. Later on, she would invite me to various Boston theaters. After a performance, we would sit cross-legged on the carpet of a Turkish restaurant, cast into shadow. As we slowly sipped red wine from the Turkish coast, we would analyze the play we’d just seen. It fascinated me to see the way Samantha lived her job, the way she spoke about the actors and directors, the things she would tell me, such as how stage fright had been the driving force behind a good performance, or about the inspiration that can fire up an actor once he’s stepped onto the stage, or how a negative review can destroy an actor’s self-confidence. Between us the candle’s flame would tremble, as its dry light would illuminate our fingers and lips, which seemed to float in the shadowy atmosphere. Samantha invited me to the theater more and more often, but even so, every single one of our evenings together still felt like a celebration. After one performance, she asked me if I’d like to have some coffee over at her place. Like a chess player, I imagined the consequences of this move: I envisioned drawn curtains and dawn light filtering through, an unmade bed, Samantha’s hair, tousled, spread over the pillow and her smeared makeup. I said yes. But I left before I could see that woman’s face puffed up by sleep; I wanted to keep her in my mind in high heels when she walked along the carpeted corridors of the theaters, or with her lips painted the color of wine in the half shadow of the Turkish restaurant. That was the last invitation I got.

  MEI

  Mei, a small Chinese girl, had an important job in the Chicago headquarters of Citibank. She told me to come visit, so I took a week off and ended up spending an entire sabbatical year over there. While Mei was getting herself ready to go to work, I would prepare breakfast for both of us and serve it on the kitchenette counter in her small apartment. We’d sip orange juice, me in my pajamas, she in her gray pantsuit, with her short hair combed to one side, like a boy dressed up as a banker. A little white handkerchief stuck out of her breast pocket, like a spruced up gangster from Chicago in the twenties. Before she left, Mei would give me a kiss and ask about my plans for the day. Mei suffered from a baseless, illogical, and destructive jealousy. At the end of every working day—always a long one, like those of most high-ranking executives—as we had a glass of chardonnay in a bar, Mei would track my line of sight, making sure it didn’t wander over any of the elegant girls and ladies gesticulating with glasses of dry martinis or manhattans or margaritas in their hands. If I decided to check out the headlines
of the Chicago Tribune, Mei watched me like a hawk to see what news items I was really interested in. From the bar, or a restaurant, we would head back home in a taxi. Then too Mei would be on the alert in case my eyes drifted over to the sidewalk and settled on any of the pretty women who might happen to be walking there, with their long hair caressing their backs and breasts.

  One windy, sunny day I entered a shop on Rush Street that sold Asian products to buy a bottle of soybean oil that Mei and I used for wok cooking. Afterward, a Japanese woman asked me where I’d bought the bottle. We started up a conversation and continued it with a glass of wine in an Italian café next to the shop; the Japanese woman gave me some promising looks.

  That evening, I ate Chinese dumplings at Mei’s place. She asked me for all the details of what I’d done that day. I was in a bad mood, said little, and wasn’t hungry. Soon I realized that I was angry with myself, not with Mei. I was sorry I hadn’t asked for Kyoko’s phone number back there in the Italian café. Dinner with Mei dragged on. The next day I discovered I just didn’t have the stamina to keep on putting up with short, attractive Mei’s jealous scenes.

  KYOKO

  I had a tough time finding Kyoko. On the day of her piano concert at the McCormac Center, I had a front row seat. At the end of my sabbatical year in Chicago, we got married.

  When I had to go back to Boston, Kyoko decided to move to her parents’ home in Tokyo. A month later, I took a holiday as to visit her. She stayed at her parents’ house, and reserved a room for me in a hotel in the Ginza neighborhood, in central Tokyo. I didn’t miss a single one of Kyoko’s concerts: I always bought a front row ticket, and after each performance I’d bring her a bouquet of flowers. Afterward, she would head back to her parents’ place. One day, and this was unusual for her, she asked me to have a coffee with her. She unfolded a petition for divorce over the café table. I didn’t understand. What had happened? Was it because I knew nothing about the way Japanese people thought? Kyoko was stunned by my lack of comprehension. I signed the document, paid the bill, and walked Kyoko to the door of her parents’ house. I continued living at the hotel in Ginza and, as before, I went to listen to each and every one of her concerts, sitting in the first row and watching Kyoko, so slim, with her long hair, dressed in black clothes that clung to her well-proportioned figure. I admired her there on the stage in front of me, when she played Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” At the end of every concert I brought Kyoko a bouquet of white chrysanthemums. After one Sunday concert, I took a plane home and throughout the entire flight, I kept on seeing a fragile woman, her hair hanging curtainlike, as she bent over a black and white keyboard, concentrating, barely stroking it with her fingers. I knew then that I had married Kyoko because of this frangible, black-and-white image.