A Beautiful Young Wife Read Free

go to the ladies’ room together, their secret domain; after they came back, his position always felt compromised.
    During their first summer together, she invited Henri and Diederik to their house: two friends she had met during her freshman year at college.
    â€˜You have a lovely place here, Mr. Landauer,’ Henri said.
    Edward grimaced. ‘Please, call me Edward.’
    Ruth came into the kitchen for an ashtray. He couldn’t find one. In the doorway she turned, a saucer in her hand. ‘Can I help with anything?’
    â€˜I’m almost done. Just go out and entertain them.’
    From the garden, their voices sounded like those of passing cyclists. Had she done it with one of them? If so, then it must have been with Diederik. He had a broad, shapeless mouth, but the body of a water polo player. He had given Edward a powerful handshake. That’s what it was all about, how you enfolded the other person’s hand in yours; some handshakes were in equilibrium, but you also had those where your hand landed awkwardly in the other’s, so you could apply no counter-pressure. There was no undoing it, you couldn’t withdraw your hand and start all over again; you were under the other’s sway. The boy’s strong hand had taken him unawares.
    He arranged scallops on a bed of chard, and took the plates to the dining room.
    Ruth and Henri were outside, cocooned in the late-evening light. Wine and cigarettes and her sunglasses were on the table. Diederik was standing away from them, a bottle of beer in hand. What was he seeing? Peat-moss paths between the borders, pergolas of rose and passion flower. Edward stood between the sliding doors to the garden. He removed his apron and said: ‘Dinner’s ready.’
    â€˜Let’s eat outside,’ Ruth said. ‘It’s lovely here.’
    â€˜It’s going to get colder soon.’
    â€˜We won’t be that long,’ Ruth said. She stood up. Edward went inside, taking the plates from the table.
    â€˜Wait, Mr. Landauer, let me help,’ Henri said.
    Behind Ruth and Diederik, the sun went down. Diederik stuck a whole scallop in his mouth. He doesn’t even chew , Edward thought. It could just as well have been a hamburger, for all he cared. He probably would have enjoyed that more.
    Henri had tickets for a dance party. He’d ordered a few extra, so they could both go along if they liked. ‘Fantastic,’ Ruth said, but Edward shook his head. He remembered the parties of the 1980s, how everything went on and on, and how morning came with a mouth full of grit. He wasn’t familiar with the music and drugs that were prevalent these days. That life had passed away; now he went to cafés, places where you could hear each other speak.
    Henri asked about his job. ‘Of course I know who you are, Mr. Landauer, but —’
    â€˜Please, call me Edward.’
    Ruth laughed.
    â€˜I saw you on the news once,’ the boy said, ‘but I don’t really know exactly what you do.’
    Edward told him about his virus research. He had just come back from a World Health Organisation mission to Hong Kong. All the poultry had been culled; the sky had turned black.
    â€˜Couldn’t you be infected yourself now? How does that work?’ Diederik asked.
    â€˜H5N1 doesn’t transmit to humans,’ Edward said. ‘But influenza viruses mutate like lightning. So, who knows, at this very moment, somewhere in my lungs …’
    He longed to be alone with her. The boys were an intrusion. Through their eyes, he saw what the two of them were: a young woman with a much older man, a forty-two-year-old man of whom they asked, ‘Are you still planning to have children?’
    And Ruth, does she want children? Edward wondered. The subject had never come up. They’d been together for such a short time.
    â€¢ • •
    One day in late January, they drove across the big Zuyderzee causeway to a