Grażyna Plebanek - Illegal Liaisons

“To which I’m not invited,” he fumed. “From which, in fact, I’m going to be excluded! And along with me, my wife.”

It took Stefan a few seconds to assess the situation accurately.

“So, you’re not going to have it off with Andrea any more?”

Jonathan moved his lips closer to the receiver and said, almost begging, “She’s false and evil, do you understand?”

“Well, she’s a fibber, that’s for sure.”

“Imagine if it was you she’d treated like that, not Megi. Should I go on seeing her? What about loyalty to friends?”

“Well, yes, I forgot that you and Megi are so close.”

“That’s not the point, that we’re close,” bridled Jonathan. “Wouldn’t you ditch a woman if she’d treated Monika like that?”

There was silence on the line.

“No,” said Stefan finally.

Jonathan lit a cigarette although he held to the firm principle of not causing a stink in the apartment.

“I think you’ve done the right thing,” said Stefan after a while. “You’ve broken off with her, and … well, and good.”

“ ‘Good,’ what do you mean ‘good’? I can’t even be happy I’ve ended it. I’m not in the least bit relieved.”

Stefan started tapping something on his side of the line. Jonathan was just about to tell him to stop when Stefan said, “Remember when we were going to the Masurian Lakes, a policeman stopped us once and demanded a fine?”

“I remember, you bribed him.”

“And he, being grateful, said to me, “Keep your eyes open on the bushes twenty kilometers from here. They’re there, too. What if you come across an honest officer?” ’

Jonathan stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette.

“You’re a decent officer,” declared Stefan. “You’ve broken off and stick to it.”

“But I can’t go on without her.” Jonathan hardly understood what he was saying himself.

Stefan put his hand over the phone and answered something to somebody in French at the other end.

“What am I supposed to do?” asked Jonathan.

Something scraped in the receiver.

“Maybe fuck her one more time …”

THE CAR RAN ALONGthe motorway zipping western Europe away and unzipping its central-eastern part. Jonathan watched the receding landscapes in the mirror; the children, in the back seat, made a racket, then after stormy negotiations agreed to watch Home on the Range .

“Lord, what blissful silence!” sighed Megi now that Antosia and Tomaszek, headphones on, were staring at the small televisions attached to the headrests in front of them. “My neck was beginning to hurt with all that turning round passing juices.”

“Best leave them in peace,” muttered Jonathan.

“They’ll kick up hell! I’ve got to shut them up somehow.”

Megi pulled out some CDs and switched one on.

“Don’t drown us out!” shouted Antosia.

Megi, resigned, pressed “stop” and inclined the seat.

“Racket or no racket, we’re off on vacation.” She stretched out her hand to stroke Jonathan’s hair.

He shuddered, torn from his own thoughts.

“And you’re still stressed with the city,” sighed Megi and gazed through the windscreen. “Hardly surprising. We’ve had a difficult year. The move, a new job for me, and for you the children at a new school. You’re brave to have taken such good care of them.”

Jonathan nodded and slipped into a slower lane.

“I really appreciate it,” continued Megi. “You’ve proved your masculinity.”

“Masculinity?”

Instead of German valleys outside the car, he momentarily saw Andrea’s shoulders revealed in her red dress.

“Any guy can take his children for walks at the weekends but not many can spend the afternoon with them, help with their homework, read to them, put them to bed.”

“You think so?” mumbled Jonathan.

Andrea was now leaning her butt on the table edge. In nothing but stilettos; he’d already removed her Dress …

“… that the story’s becoming clear.” Megi’s words reached him.

“Sorry, what did you say?” He leaned toward her, his alarmed eyes assessing the road. He shouldn’t let himself get so distracted.

“It’s great that your story’s becoming clear! It’s extraordinary how we live together, sleep in the same bed, yet you’ve got a life of your own like that.”

The wheels scraped warningly along the white strip marking the road from the wayside.

“Shall I take over?” asked Megi. “Pull into a gas station. There ought to be one in five kilometers.”

“No, there’s no need. I thought the jerk behind was going to pass us.”

Megi fell silent; after a while she settled her head on Jonathan’s jacket, which she’d squeezed in between her shoulder and the window. Without her daily make-up and with strands of hair falling on her cheeks, she looked like yet another child in his car. Suddenly he thought that moments like these were necessary in order to be happy with one’s lot, brief moments of separation beneath which lurks valuable intimacy. He wanted to say it out loud – he knew Megi would understand – but she was already asleep.

Again he saw Andrea. She lay beneath him on the crumpled bedspread. (She’d succumbed in the end, allowing him to make love to her where she slept with Simon, but refused to remove the spread so their smells wouldn’t mix.) A huge wave of tenderness swelled up in Jonathan, flooded his nose and mouth; from his throat emerged a sound that was neither a cough nor sob. He glanced at the rear-view mirror: the children were avidly following the animated adventures of cows and bulls. He wiped his eyes with the outside of his hand and shielded his right cheek with it so that his wife, should she awake, wouldn’t see it was wet.

By the sea, where Megi spent most of the time with the children so that Jonathan could have a break from daily responsibilities, he felt a little like a country dog that, let off its chain, doesn’t dare venture far from its kennel. He ran along the coast trying to shake his head free of unwanted thoughts, but whether he jogged against the sun or left it behind him, Brussels – and the woman with whom he’d fallen in love – was always in front of his eyes.

He was tormented by the thought that his lover was not chasing after him as he was after her. Admittedly, she was tender when they met, admired – in text messages – his sense of humor, intelligence, the charm of an outsider, contagious sexual enthusiasm, and sophistication. And yet Jonathan sensed an imbalance in their commitment.

When it had dawned on him, he began to probe in an effort to extract as much as he could from her: he inundated her with compliments, provoked confessions, screwed her until she was breathless. He even dug his heels in a couple of times to keep her “on hold” and make her miss him – he didn’t reply to a message, sometimes two, and waited. But when he let it go and stopped contacting her, Andrea also remained silent. She didn’t ask, didn’t sweet-talk him but accepted his decision. Then he was the one who couldn’t stand it any longer and ran to her. He had once asked her why she did this, why she let him go. She hadn’t answered. The worst thing about all this was the calm certainty that he was at her mercy. She kept dancing in front of him, the bitch in a red dress.

Only once did she come after him – after she’d omitted to invite him and Megi to the party in which mutual friends had been included. She’d apologized, written about some misunderstanding or oversight. But he’d lost his temper and remained unmoved in his silence for two weeks. “No, sixteen days,” he corrected himself and accelerated his trot along the Baltic shore.