Sascha Arango - The Truth and Other Lies

“But she was sitting in my car.”

“Yes, that was a mistake. It must be the last one we make.”

Betty pressed herself up against the chair back, her arms folded in front of her chest. “What mistakes can we make now?” she asked in a quiet voice.

Henry pushed his plate aside and made an unsuccessful attempt to take her hand.

“ Everyone will think I’m your lover if you have a baby with me.”

“So what? Aren’t you my lover?”

“Of course I am. But the timing. It would be fatal if it came out shortly after the death of my wife that you’re pregnant by me.”

“What are we to do?” Betty asked, hardly audible. Henry lip-read the words.

“No one needs to know that the baby is mine.”

Betty got up from the table and raised her hand. “You scare me, Henry. You’ve always scared me. But you can depend on one thing: your baby is going to be born. It’s going to be born and you’re its father whether you like it or not. Make up your mind where you stand in all this — I’m not going to make any difficulties for you. I’ll even keep it a secret if that’s what you want.”

“Now you’re being unfair, Betty. I want it. I already love our baby.”

She opened her handbag. Henry ducked to avoid being shrouded in pepper spray. But she only looked into the bag, rifled through it, and then closed it again.

“What are you up to?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m going to go and puke.”

“The police don’t know anything. There’s absolutely no problem as long as we don’t do anything. Not a thing, do you understand?”

“Henry…”

“Yes?”

“Your wife knew everything. Not from you; you didn’t tell her about us. Of course you didn’t. You never tell anyone anything.”

Betty pushed a strand of hair off her forehead. She looked ravishing in her anger and disappointment. Why is it that I always want her the most when she’s about to leave? Henry wondered.

“Do you know what, Henry? As she was leaving, your wife said to me: We have to love Henry without knowing him. I don’t know how that’s possible and I don’t believe I can do it.”

Betty turned and left. He watched her go without regret, but not without respect, because she did have class. He wasn’t interested in where she was going or whether she’d come back. Was it really possible that Martha could have known about his affair with Betty all along without letting on or making any changes in her life? Who could endure such a thing? Right up to the last moment, their love had remained warm, their daily routine unchanged. And then suddenly she visits her rival for afternoon tea? Can you guess how it ends? was Martha’s last message to him, written in pencil under the chapter she had just completed. Was it a warning, a threat, a prophecy? Henry didn’t know the answer. It exhausted him, endlessly thinking about this kind of thing. The bullet was out of the barrel, and pondering got you nowhere. Aggrieved, he flicked a half-eaten french fry onto the carpet and looked around for the waiter.

Sitting in her armchair next to a stout column, Honor Eisendraht saw Betty hurry through the foyer and head for the marble stairs that led to the women’s restroom. She had an impossibly garish handbag under her arm. Her face was decidedly pale. Gone was the usual provocative swing of her hips; she almost staggered down the stairs. Something must have happened, no doubt something unpleasant.

Honor had just left the stuffy, overfilled seminar room on the second floor of the hotel to have a cup of liqueur coffee. The so-called numerology seminar had been a complete farce, a rip-off. For that kind of money you deserve more than a porky woman with a pointer blathering on about trivial mathematical patterns, cosmically connected phone numbers, and hidden traits of character. Who believes in such nonsense?

Honor had hoped to meet someone who knew a thing or two at the seminar, some spiritual person with whom she could discuss the full significance of the Tower, the sixteenth card of the Major Arcana in the Tarot. The card had come up for her twice already; it had to mean something. But there were only know-it-alls and half-wits in the seminar.

As all initiates are well aware, the Tower is a drastic card. Lightning strikes from a black sky, and a young man and his sweetheart plunge, burning, to their deaths. The card heralds annihilation and rebirth or, equally, solitude and the end of things. It is culpably reckless to ignore it. But sometimes the signs of an imminent event remain hidden, and it is impossible to foresee the full extent of their significance. That is why you have to be prepared for anything, and sharpen your senses to find the vital clue in the shapeless mass of everyday life.

Honor left her coffee and a big tip on the table. She took her handbag and crossed the azure-blue carpet in the direction from which Betty had come. If it’s Moreany, she vowed to herself, then the thing with the Tower card is settled and I shall hand in my resignation.

At the window table in the wood-paneled bar, Henry Hayden was fiddling with his shirtsleeve. The poor thing looked pale and pain-stricken. How unbearable his wife’s death must have been for him. There’s no one who’ll grieve for me when I’m no longer around, and I have only myself to blame, she thought. She wanted to go up to him and hug him, but the waiter approached his table. Henry paid the bill. Honor saw something in his look that stopped her from offering him her condolences.

Of course there’s no connection between the sum of the digits in a phone number and hidden traits of character. On the other hand, there’s no such thing as a chance encounter in a hotel; there are only inattentive observers. In the corner of the Oyster Bar, Honor realized that the fateful turn of events heralded by the Tower card was already under way. Before Hayden could spot her, she returned to the armchair next to the column, from which vantage point she could survey the entire foyer, her face concealed behind a newspaper.

Henry came out of the bar. He shook hands, signed one of his novels at the reception desk, and exchanged a few words with a hotel guest, glancing discreetly toward the restrooms as he did so. Betty didn’t emerge. Shortly afterward he left the hotel alone. He didn’t turn around again.

How energetic he was, Honor thought. His predator’s gait and his athletic, broad-shouldered physique had impressed her from the start. Heart, yield or break, she had read in Aggravating Circumstances . Until she saw Henry she had always believed that men of letters walked with a stoop, weighed down by the burden of their thoughts, propelled by an inner force or dragged through the world by a dark hostility. The true artist is sick — so thought the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, and he spent all his life waiting for the carriage from the abyss. A blind Borges wrestled with God’s irony in the infinite library of symbols — but Henry Hayden was sporty, disciplined, always in control. And ever the artist. Quite fabulous.

Her tip was still lying next to her coffee cup. She did some quick math to work out how many hours it had taken to earn that much, and exchanged it for a smaller amount.

Gagging noises were coming from the third stall on the left. There was flushing, then more gagging. Honor could smell lily-of-the-valley perfume and saw the hideous bag through the gap at the bottom of the door. She went into the next-door stall, lifted the lid, and pulled up her skirt so as to produce an authentic sound. Between individual gagging attacks she heard a soft sobbing sound — strictly speaking, a whimper.

It was a gift, a sweet reward, this chance to be privy to such an intimate moment with her rival. She nearly forgot to flush. The death of Hayden’s wife could hardly have grieved the hussy to this extent; she wasn’t capable of genuine feelings. Something must have happened between the two of them that was dramatic enough to make her cry and him leave. Honor listened in delight as her rival coughed — blood perhaps — and then left the stall to rinse out her mouth at the sink.