This Is All a Lie

by Thomas Trofimuk

  “Sexual harassment? Are you serious, Jerry?”

  “It’s that woman and it’s nonsense. I wondered at the time, why she insisted on shutting the door at our last meeting and now I know. I’m temporarily suspended. The board had no choice.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Doesn’t matter. The stink of guilt attaches itself to accusations like this. She might be smart enough to have figured this out. Look, I don’t have your back anymore. You’re going to have to throw the Christians a bone.”

  “How about a 200,000-year-old fossil of a human bone.”

  “You know what I mean, Tulah.”

  “Can we fight this?”

  “Yes, of course we’re going to fight it, but in the meantime I’m suspended and there will be a replacement, and they’ll come after you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, I suspect this is all about you. You have to promise me to go strictly by the book for the next little while.”

  “By the book?”

  “Yes, you remember what the curriculum is, don’t you? Promise me you’ll stick to the guidelines. It won’t kill you to mention creation in your class. And be nice about it.”

  “Yes, it will kill me, but I promise.”

  “And when you mention it, you’ll steer away from sarcasm?”

  “Oh, you know me.”

  “Humour them, Tulah. And stay away from the fringe books. Stick to the approved list of books. Just stick to the curriculum. Be spotless.”

  He sounds tired – his voice is strained and pulled tight.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes. I’ll be fine,” he says. “Just protect yourself, Tulah. You’re on their radar. You have to stop tilting at windmills. They’re not going to change.”

  “Pick my battles. I know.”

  “You’ll be fine,” he says.

  “I still don’t understand how this could happen. I mean you’re suspended. What the hell is going on?”

  “It’s an elected school board. They’re doing the right thing – by the book.”

  “You’ll sort it out?”

  “Of course,” he says. “Let the dogs bark. It’s a sign that we’re on track.”

  Tulah hangs up. She feels sick to her stomach. This news about school hurts. Lauren Smith is succeeding in taking all the fun out of teaching. This is a failure of enlightenment, a personal failure against the darkness of ignorance. Tulah takes this news from Principal Hartman as a hard kick to the gut. She takes this disappointment and places it on a shelf with Ray’s elms. Maybe they can cling to each other and that will be some sort of solace against these losses. They can hold each other in the dark and feel safe, and eventually they will fight again. They can be light for each other.

  * * *

  Tulah looks up from her marking and sighs. The phone is ringing again. She picks it up and says nothing. The woman hesitates before saying anything and Tulah thinks it’s a machine trying to sell her something, but then a human voice jumps in. It is not some mechanical, recorded voice. And Tulah listens.

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Nancy.”

  “Nincy?”

  “No. Nancy.”

  Tulah is still not certain. “Okay, look, whatever your fucking name is, you should know, I am too old for jealousy. I’ve been there and I’m not interested anymore. What do you want?”

  “Did you actually hear me? I’m sleeping with your husband.”

  Tulah swallows. She wills her voice to be unwavering. “So?” she says. “Good for you. I do not own him. He is not my property. If he wants to spend his sex on some twit, I don’t care.”

  “You’re not angry? Because I would be royally pissed off. I would want to rip your fucking head off if you did this to me.”

  Tulah is angry, seething. Just on principle, she’s angry, but there’s no way she is going to show this woman her anger. Also, this is a surprise and its immediacy stings. She’s going to hold it together. “He sleeps with me, honey. He wakes up with me. He has a life with me. We have children together.” Tulah pauses. She holds her breath. She says a little prayer – please, please, please, don’t say you’re pregnant. That, I couldn’t take. Dear God, she thinks. Don’t let this woman tell me she’s pregnant. Please, God. Please.

  “But you’re married to him.”

  “And?” Tulah says. She exhales.

  “And when you’re married…” Nancy doesn’t finish. Either this woman is truly unaffected by this or she’s pretending – and she’s an amazing liar. There are rules in marriages, for God’s sake. “You’re the good wife, aren’t you?”

  “Well it’s better than being an amusement ride, honey. Because that’s all you are.”

  Nancy is silent. Tulah does not feel good about calling this woman an amusement ride. She knows it is hurtful but she is shocked and wounded and off balance. The words just tumbled out. But she is protective now, of her husband. This other woman is trying to hurt him, she’s betraying his trust in her, and this pisses Tulah off. She is not surprised Ray had it in him to fool around on her. But the jolt of hearing this woman’s voice takes her breath away. The realization that Ray actually did fool around on her shakes her to the core. But there is also a quiet voice reminding her she is not innocent. A voice that assures her that jealousy would be a meaningless waste. That she has already forgiven Ray for this, because she has no choice but forgiveness. She has no choice. She could pretend there was no Lover but that would be such a massive lie she’s not sure she could live with it. She does not want a no-fly zone in her own consciousness.

  “Okay,” Tulah says. “Are we done here?”

  “Don’t you want to know how long it’s been going on?”

  “No…” Hang up, she tells herself. Hang the phone up now.

  “…A year. I’ve been fucking him for a year. Thirteen months, actually. We were together yesterday.” Nancy rolls to her back and looks at the ceiling. She wants a reaction from the wife. That’s all. She does not care if she ruins Ray’s life. She wants the wife to break. She suspects this woman doesn’t know anything – that this is all a surprise. But she’s not showing any sign of being surprised.

  Tulah is quiet. This woman is lying about being with Ray yesterday. She knows this because they spent the day shopping, and shared a bottle of wine over dinner. They had Thai food. But the length of time this has being going on staggers her. Something lurches in her stomach. She did not know. She did not think Ray possessed that kind of craftiness. She fights the tears that want to come. In the past year they had made love three times, maybe. She did not blame him. Not entirely. They were busy having a life with two daughters, and jobs. Half the time she was exhausted, and the other half their sex felt awkward and forced.

  “I don’t care,” Tulah says. “You think you’re telling me something I didn’t already know. You’re dumber than I imagined.”

  “You don’t care that I’ve been fucking your husband?”

  Tulah can’t say the word ‘no.’ She knows she won’t be able to sell a flat denial. “If he wants to relieve himself with some bimbo, I could care less.”

  “Are you really that much of a heartless bitch?”

  “Look, you don’t sleep with him. He fucks you – that’s all. I know this because I’m the one he sleeps with, wakes up with and has a life with. You’re nothing but a fuck. Why don’t you go try and ruin someone else’s life.”

  Nancy does not say anything for a long time. Tulah can hear her breathing. “You two deserve each other,” she says finally.

  “Thank you, yes,” Tulah says, as if inside a slow realization. “Yes, we do.”

  “I don’t mean…”

  Tulah puts the phone down. She’s done. She does not want to hear any more. She curls into the brown leather couch and tries to sort out what she’s heard, what she belie
ves, and what she knows. She attempts to define the truth. She wants to nail the truth to the floor so she can make decisions about it. She doesn’t know if she’s numb, or her body is pretending to be numb, or if she’s so angry she doesn’t know anything at all about her own life. All the while, there’s a reservoir of tears that wants to break, but she won’t let it. Not until she knows what’s next.

  * * *

  Patience scored a goal in the game and they came home with rosy cheeks and frozen slushy drinks. It was a cool night for a game. Ray had looked at her and asked if she was all right.

  “Fine. Yes. Good. It was a peaceful night.”

  “Are you sure?” he says. “You look a little rattled.”

  “Just tired,” she says. “It was a hard night of marking.”

  The snow starts to come down after the girls are in bed and Ray is settled with a drink on the couch. The opening scenes of some Italian film are on the screen as Tulah bundles up in her down coat, thick scarf and boots. “I’m going out for a walk,” she says.

  He knows better than to question Tulah and her snow. But there is something off. Her voice is almost normal but there is a quiver that changes it slightly. “Do you and your snow want some company?” he says. “I happen to love the woman who loves the snow.”

  Her face is sad as she looks at him. She seems at the edge of something. “I know you do, but not tonight.”

  Tulah is vibrating on high as she steps out into it. She is one massive undulating wave of anger and forgiveness and hurt and acceptance. She takes a moment at the top of the front walk to catch her breath.

  The snow is a soft drift through streetlights. She is aware of her ritual, the pattern of paying attention to the snow but she is shaken off course by this woman’s phone call. She wants to shout and scream and demand to know her husband’s heart – all of it. She wants every hidden alcove, every tucked-away secret. She wants it to be over with this woman on the phone. She wants assurances and promises. She wants guarantees. She is disgusted and seething, and she knows she will do nothing but carry on. She does not want a confrontation. A confrontation will solve nothing. Tulah wants to not know about this horrible woman and Ray.

  She tries again to pay attention to the snow.

  When she is halfway up McVale Hill, Tulah realizes whatever was going on between Ray and the shrill woman is over. The phone call was the bitter end. It had to be. It was meant to hurt her and to hurt Ray. It was meant to hurt them, and it was desperate. That woman was trying to explode Ray’s life so she could pick up the pieces, or because she is spiteful and without hope. Tulah decides she will not let their life explode, or implode. She will not let that happen. She and Ray will prevail. They will abide as a family. She will not let this ruin anything.

  * * *

  Ray remembers having an argument with Tulah one night after a party. It was five, perhaps six, years ago. She’d accused him of flirting with a woman who was blatantly coming on to him. The woman had been in an argument with her husband before the party, and she’d gotten out of the car three blocks away. Her husband had driven off in a rage, in the opposite direction. Tulah kept calling the woman, whose name was Maureen, ‘that woman in the orange gunnysack.’

  “She was sad, and drunk,” Ray said. “She was depressed about the fight she’d had with her husband.”

  “That woman was a horny bitch who didn’t care that you were married, or that your wife was across the room. And what was that thing she was wearing? It was like an orange sack. Hideous.” There were rules of conduct at parties and flirting all night with Tulah’s husband was a transgression of these rules. In fact, rule number one was, do not attempt to seduce Tulah’s husband at a party.

  “It was harmless flirting,” he said.

  “It was foreplay.” Tulah slammed her wine glass down on the table and the stem broke. She gulped the remaining wine and placed the broken glass on its side on the table where it teetered back and forth. “Tell me you didn’t want to sleep with her.”

  Ray did not hesitate. “I did not want to sleep with her. That was the furthest thing from my mind.” Ray had absolutely wanted to sleep with her. The orange gunnysack woman was an attractive drunk with breasts like perfect melons. She was tall and witty, and kept touching his arm, and his hand, and his arm again. Apparently she wanted to sleep with him. They’d been talking about books. She’d started by saying she recognized the talent of Alice Munro but that she found Munro so dreadfully dull that she was unreadable. “Utterly unreadable,” she’d said. Ray jumped to Munro’s defence and then they were embroiled in a conversation about books, and writers.

  “I like to listen to you when I know you’re lying,” Tulah said.

  “What? Why would you say that? I’m not lying about this…”

  “…It’s because it’s beautiful and repulsive at the same time. There should be a word for when something is simultaneously beautiful and repulsive, don’t you think? A German word – like Weltschmerz or Lebensmüde.”

  Ray did not know what Lebensmüde was but he looked it up later and found that it meant you were tired of life, or life tired. When you or someone you know is about to do something so stupid it could kill you, or them, a German would say you are experiencing Lebensmüde.

  “What’s beautiful about knowing someone is lying to you?”

  “Because people will often lie to protect you, or shield you. Or maybe they’re saying something they wish were true. Or telling you something they think you want to hear. And if you know they are doing this, then, it becomes beautiful.”

  “And the repulsive bit?”

  “By accepting a lie and pretending it is not a lie, I am also lying. I am sucked into the deception and I feel shitty about myself, and about us. One lie, allowed to live, is always fruitful and it always multiplies. This is the repulsive part that happens simultaneously with the beautiful part.”

  “But I am not with that woman. I am with you. I am here with you tonight as I am every night. I will be with you in the morning, as I am every morning.”

  “I know.”

  “Did I embarrass you?”

  “No. Maybe you embarrassed yourself a little because she was so obviously coming on to you and you stuck around for it. Jesus, Ray, what were you thinking?”

  “Lie or no lie, here I am.”

  “And you want me to believe the lie that you did not want to make love with that woman?”

  “Yes. I want you to believe it,” Ray said. “Because it’s true.”

  “You see, if I know you are lying…”

  “…which I am not.”

  “…if I know you’re lying, and I really listen to you, I can understand the truth of the lie. I can know what it means.”

  “What does this one mean?”

  Tulah smiled. “It means you love me. It means you love me hard and with all your heart. You love me to the point of ruin.”

  And just like that, they were no longer fighting.

  * * *

  Madame Chernakov’s building is under renovation.

  “They found asbestos,” she says. “Horrifying. This room is fine, but the lobby? Not so much. They’re going to make a safe tunnel through the lobby.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you may have to step through sheets of plastic and there will be workers in the lobby and hallways. They might be wearing masks.”

  “I don’t care. We’re safe here, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Listen, I realized something last night. I was thinking about our conversations and I tried to put myself in your shoes.” Ray looks at her shoes, black high heels that are probably expensive. “Not those shoes but, well, you know what I mean. I’ve come to the conclusion that you must think I am an ass – a genuine asshole.”

  “You know my role is not to judge. I listen and we sort things out.”
r />   “Seriously, though, on some level, you must find me repulsive.”

  “Do you want me to find you repulsive?”

  “Really? We can’t just have a conversation?”

  Madame Chernakov shakes her head. “I am not perfect, Ray. I’m human, just like you. I make a ton of mistakes. I have regrets. I get confused in my own life.”

  “Well, for the record, you should know…my wife is not entirely innocent in this marriage. I want you to know something about her…”

  Ray wants to see if Madame Chernakov will go where he thinks she will go, which is the culpability of each spouse in the success or failure of any marriage. But she doesn’t bite. She waits.

  “She had an affair a few years back,” Ray says.

  “Okay,” the therapist says. “And how did you sort this affair out?”

  “No. It wasn’t like that. My guys were working outside a hotel downtown and one of them recognized her. She was going in.”

  “Does she know you know?”

  “What good would that do?”

  “Oh I don’t know. It would be honest and open. It must have hurt finding out like that. How did you feel?”

  “I felt, you know, loved, secure and happy…”

  “…I thought we talked about sarcasm.”

  “Sorry. I felt shitty. Worse than shitty. I mean, we’d lost our way sexually, and she had found someone else, sexually…yeah, I felt shitty. Hurt.”

  “Do you think it was a one-time thing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You could ask her.”

  “Again, why? I don’t want to know. It’s none of my business. She didn’t leave. We’re still together, in the fray. That’s the important bit.”