Lawrence Block - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, No. 6. Whole No. 790, June 2007

It was still back there now, he knew, abandoned for the evening, and he wondered once more what had been running through her head as she made that decision — him watching from just down the street as the two of them exited the restaurant together, the rest of the evening determined, she must have known, by whatever happened in that moment. She’d held her head low, looking down at the sidewalk; Buddy had leaned his face down to meet her eyes better, gestured for her to stay there, walked around into the parking lot. Catherine alone in front of the restaurant. Her head held low with regrets? with shame? lost in her thoughts? lost in anticipation? Philip imagined for a moment that she had been drinking, that she was drunk, that Buddy was taking advantage of her condition. Didn’t it seem she was struggling to maintain her equilibrium? But no, her balance had been complete, her stance never swayed. He could almost smell the scent of her new perfume behind her ears, along her neck. She had looked up the moment he thought that. In the direction of Philip and the rented car? No, toward the tip of the Land Rover, waiting to turn out of the parking lot.

And now they had entered the house together, the story unfolding not as Philip would have chosen but, unfortunately, as he expected. He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, its surface sticky with the sweat of someone else’s hands.

A song ended on the radio and the announcer came on. Bob Rogers. WSHA. “The blues is the blues is the blues,” Rogers said, his tone folksy, soothing. Philip thought of evening deejays in empty studios, alone with their passions. He thought of the people who listened to those deejays and about the shape of such a shared solitude. He had always felt apart from people — shy and self-aware — but Catherine had been patient with him, indulged his eccentricities. And what had he given her in return? What had he failed to give her that had sent her away?

He picked up the cell phone and dialed their home number.

“Hello, beautiful,” he said when Catherine answered, careful to keep his tone light, determined not to betray his emotions.

“Hey,” she said. “Are you almost to Charlottesville?”

“Almost,” he said, pulling up the car a few feet, watching which lights went on in which rooms. “I’m driving into the city limits now. What have you been up to this evening?”

“I’ve been out, just got back in,” she said. “I got a call soon after you left and ended up meeting some people down at 518. But about halfway through the meal, I felt sick to my stomach and ended up just coming home.”

An internal complaint, Philip thought. How ironic. How fitting.

“Well, I hate that I’m so far away,” he said. He searched for the shadows of movement between the half-closed blinds. “I hate for you to be sick and all alone like that.”

“Yeah, I really do feel awful,” she said. “But I’ll be all right. Buddy ended up driving me back here, and Miriam said she’d come over and stay the night if I wanted her to.”

“Buddy’s there?”

“Yeah, he said he’d stay with me for a few minutes to make sure I’m okay.” A light went on in the room where Philip worked. “And he hadn’t seen the house yet, so this gives him a chance to see our place.” The light went off again.

“Do you want me to come back?”

“You’re hours away, hon,” she said, her silhouette appearing at the living room window. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll be fine.”

“Well, do you want me to call you back in a little while?”

“I’ll be fine,” she repeated, and he watched as she shut the blinds tightly. “Don’t worry. It was just something I ate. You’re almost there and I know you want to catch up with Mike. I’m just going to turn down the ringer and go to bed in a few minutes, just as soon as Buddy leaves.”

Turn down the ringer. Go to bed. Catch up. Half-truths easier to tell than lies.

“So.” His mind scrambled in vain for a new strategy. “I guess I’ll just talk to you tomorrow, then.”

“All right, hon. I’ll give you a call on the cell when I get up, okay?”

“Okay,” he said. And he saw the light in their bedroom come on. “Well, good night.”

“Hey!” she said then. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?” he asked.

“How about ‘I love you’?”

“I love you too,” he replied, relieved that she had said this in front of Buddy. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Feel better. Good night.”

But his hopes gradually faded as the minutes stretched on. And it was more than an hour before the other man left the house. When the Land Rover pulled away from the street, Philip followed, dutifully.

Zhmuhin began to send letters after that, penned in his own awkward hand, bearing information about Anna Sergeyevna’s indiscretions: how she had retired with the stranger to the sanctity of her hotel room; how the couple had shared a cab to Oreanda, where they had sat near a church and held hands as they stared at the sea; how they now took their meals together regularly; how they stole kisses in the square.

Zhmuhin was fastidious in his details: There was cream in the crab soup they shared at lunch on Tuesday; the wine they drank after dinner on Thursday was a Madeira, uncorked just for them. Zhmuhin had walked past them near the church in Oreanda, but had recognized no remorse in the man’s eyes; the couple’s kiss in the square was fleeting, the one in the garden approximately half a minute in duration. Gone was Zhmuhin’s insolence, but his cold precision and simple matter-of-factness were perhaps more brutal, giving Evgeniy’s grief little room for relief. Evgeniy wept like some sniveling child. His eyesight became bleary with tears and his face turned so red that he stayed home from the office. He caught the servants exchanging glances when he passed them in the house. What a poor excuse for a man he had become!

And what a poor choice he had made for handling this crisis. He should have traveled to Yalta at once, he would think later. He should have challenged the other man to a duel. He should have punished his wife for her indiscretion with the same firm justice with which he might forgive her for it afterwards. But instead he had written her a letter. There is something wrong with my eyes, he had explained. Please come home as quickly as possible. A weak lie to avoid a scandal. A coward’s choice. He had signed it Your husband as if he needed to remind her of the fact — a thought whose shame he would also long bear.

Even as he dripped the wax onto the envelope and reached for his seal, he knew that any choice he made was a mistake. If he didn’t confront the situation now, he would be unable to do so later. How could he admit to her in years to come that he had known all along, that he had borne her adultery in silence? And yet what ramifications would ensue if he acted rashly? His public might acquit him of any action he took now in defense of his home, but could they avoid looking upon him differently once they’d discovered him a cuckold? How would they ever trust him as a leader if they suspected that some mismanagement of domestic affairs had sent his wife into the arms of another man?

Such was simply not possible. He sealed the wax.

WSHA had gone off the air at midnight, and hours of cold, dry static had whispered from the speakers as Philip drove restlessly through the night, haunted by images, miles of worry accumulating. The Land Rover at the curb, the light in the bedroom window, the cigarette in the street... the stale aftertaste of tequila from Catherine’s kiss, the feel of her lips light on his forehead several nights before... the passions in her painting, the pizza in the microwave... her admission that Buddy was there when he called, her admission that she had slept with him before. Another man’s hand rested on her hip, caressed her breast. Her fingers wandered in the hair of his chest, their lips met, their bodies twined...