Ben Stroud - Byzantium - Stories

We arrived at Rothenburg and found the place already filled with tourists, half of them American: I spotted their SUVs in the parking lot, imported Explorers and Escalades with Frankfurt or Munich plates, the owners army officers or expat bankers. We squeezed the Opel between twin Denalis and walked in through a gate in the town wall; I pushed Macy’s empty stroller while Amy held her. At the platz a brass band played in the Christmas market and crowds swelled like tides beneath the high old buildings. We bought sausages and glühwein from a booth, then started the cycle through the tidy medieval streets. A couple of times Amy took pictures of me and Macy in front of a fountain or one of the leaning, half-timbered houses. I wasn’t sure what to do with her — I’d only seen Macy a couple of times since that day in Langgasse — and I held her awkwardly against my chest or rested my palm on her head as she squirmed next to my leg. By the third picture I began to get nervous. I said something to Amy about it and she gave me a blank look and said, “I just want some pictures.” I let it go.

“Jason would have loved this,” Wesley said, stopped in front of a shop selling souvenir knives. Jason was Amy’s ex-husband, from whom, she’d told me, she’d divorced a year ago. It was through him Amy and Beth had met, army wives at Fort Bragg. But Wesley’s eyes were red. I looked to Amy and she was teary, too, and at that I felt the bottom of my stomach sink open. Amy caught me looking and said, “Please.” I stayed quiet and we left soon after.

WHEN THE RED OPEL PULLED UP TO MY APARTMENT, Amy got out. She kissed the still-sleeping Macy on the forehead, then asked Beth, “You’re sure you don’t mind?” and Beth waved her toward me.

Once inside she told me what I’d already figured out, that Jason was dead, not divorced. He’d been killed a year ago in Afghanistan, she said. I started to say something, though I had no idea what, and she stopped me before I could.

“I needed to talk to you about all this tonight anyway. You get to stay ninety days without a visa.”

“Okay,” I said.

“My ninety days are about to run out.”

I was a little stunned. “Really?” I said.

“I’ve got ten days — I have to leave a week from Monday. But if we got married—” She broke off, glanced away.

“I’m already married,” I said.

“You could divorce.”

“That would take time.”

“Only thirty days in Michigan. I looked it up. I could go home, then come back once you were divorced.”

I felt the blood drain from my body. The newly risen ghost of Amy’s husband sat in the corner of the room. “My visa’s only good until August,” I said, to say something, even though she knew I’d been offered an extra year. Despite myself, I’d kept the university here happy. Unlike my predecessors, I had resisted throwing stacks of student essays in the toilet or claiming that people in the department were passing secret messages to me in their lectures.

“It’s not just about staying here,” she said. “I like you. I’ve been thinking about us, together.”

She seemed her prettiest then, looking up at me. She shook with a slight tremor — she was fighting hard. And the truth was, I liked her, too. But as I stood over her, the twelve years that usually disappeared when we were together returned. All I could see was her watching her old reality TV shows dubbed in German, Macy throwing a fit, and me, who liked a silent apartment filled with nothing but the noise that drifted from the street, trying to read behind a shut door.

I told her she was being ridiculous, this wasn’t what I’d wanted, and how could I trust her after today? For a moment her face remained still, but then she bolted up, hand jerked to hide her eyes, and rushed out. I stood there and watched her go.

NEARLY A MONTH LATER, the week after Christmas, I flew to London, summoned by Clara. Her sister lived in the Surrey suburbs, and Clara had flown over to visit. She asked me to come for a day, and there wasn’t a way for me to say no. I took a late flight and spent the night in a bland, business travelers’ hotel near Heathrow that Clara’s sister’s husband, still technically my brother-in-law, booked for me with his points.

In the morning I took a cab to Windsor Great Park, where I was to meet Clara beside Virginia Water. The cab driver dropped me off in a parking lot, and beyond the lot spread the park, or one corner of it. People were out, walking dogs they’d dressed in raincoats and plaid quilted capes. The trees were lifeless, their bare limbs seemingly all that kept the gray, pressing clouds from tumbling to earth.

Clara was up ahead, her back to me as she watched the swans floating in the lake. I called to her, and she turned. There was her auburn hair, spilling out of her parka’s hood, there was her dainty pointed nose, red with cold. Seeing her, I felt the last months erased, as if I’d just come up from a dream.

“Do you want anything?” I asked, nodding at the concession cart a hundred yards away.

“Tea,” she said.

I’d been nervous ever since Clara called to ask me over, and as I waited for the tea and my hot chocolate I studied the cart’s case of British snacks and tried to think through what I might do next. I had a suspicion of what was happening, but still my mind refused to work.

After I gave Clara her tea we took the path that went to the right, up the eastern branch of the lake. For a while we said nothing and watched the trotting dogs. Then, as I was testing my hot chocolate — still scalding — Clara said, “Do you plan to move back in with me next summer?”

That had been the plan once, the idea that Germany would be a cure.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

There was a pause. Then, with a changed, efficient tone I’d never heard from her before, she said, “Good. That’s all I needed to hear.”

I stopped, but she kept walking. I jogged to catch up with her. “What do you mean?”

“I’m going to file for divorce.”

As we walked she kept a few inches between us. I sipped my hot chocolate. It was cooler now.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll let you know what you need to do.”

In that moment I decided the last thing I wanted was to cause her more pain, so I told her I’d agree to whatever she asked.

We passed through a part of the path lined on both sides with chain-link fence. Behind the fence workmen had left tools and some kind of tractor.

“What have you been up to, anyway?” she said.

“Fucking a war widow,” I answered. I tried to smile, like it was some kind of joke, and only when I kept walking did I notice that this time she’d stopped. I turned and saw she’d started to cry. I went to her, but she batted me away. Dog walkers passed us, shifting their eyes.

“Really?” she said. “That’s what you’re going to say?”

I tried to put my arm around her, but she backed from me. “You don’t deserve anything,” she said, and the words cut like broken glass.

I FLEW BACK TO FRANKFURT. On the plane I tried an exercise whereby I emptied my mind bit by bit. It didn’t work.

From the airport I took the S-Bahn to Wiesbaden, and as we came to the Main I looked up, as I always do for rivers. I’d taken an early flight. The Main was still and narrow, and as the train turned to cross it the morning sun shot through the windows and the river suddenly glistened. Across from me two plump girls with spiked raven hair giggled over their cell phones, indifferent, their thick thighs stretching the weave of their matching leopard-print tights, their stout pimpled faces held close together. In the aisle a Turk or Romany, accordion folded shut and slung over his shoulder, shook his knitted change purse. I closed my eyes and listened as the bridge clacked beneath us. I felt Clara’s words, Amy’s silence, wounds beneath my skin. But the winter sun shone on my face and I said to myself: I am blameless. I said: I owe no one. I said: Surely something better has been promised me.