A Beautiful Young Wife Read Free Page A

place in Friesland called Bozum, and pulled up by a newly built house at the edge of the village. Her father’s silver Mercedes was in the carport. The back of the house faced onto pastureland that was vacant and glistening. This was where she had grown up. A life without major breakage — prosperity and the influx of information had burgeoned steadily here, just like everywhere else, but life had retained its pastoral quality.
    They were standing on the sun porch. He saw a spire in the distance — a vanishing point between the soft grey of the sky and the monotony of the grassland below.
    â€˜Look, a hare,’ Edward said.
    â€˜Plenty of those around here,’ said her father, from where he was sitting behind him.
    He was a contractor — he had built the house himself. He took a cigarette from the dice cup on the table, ticked the filter against his thumbnail a few times, and lit it with a flame he cupped in his hand. A man acquainted with wind and rain. Edward remembered how, on a few occasions, his grandfather had offered him a cigarette from a cup like that. He was proud then that the old man had viewed him as the kind of fellow who smoked.
    Her father leaned forward in his easy chair, elbows resting on his thighs, his head hunched down a bit between his shoulders; a labourer during his break.
    They drank coffee from fragile porcelain cups. ‘Do you use milk?’ the mother asked. His coffee went white from the dash of condensed.
    â€˜They’re called Fryske dúmkes [hazelnut and aniseed biscuits],’ the mother said. ‘Ever had them before?’
    Try as she might, the echo of Frisian rang from every word. He shook his head, his mouth full of cookie.
    Later, Ruth and her mother disappeared upstairs to sort things out — what could be disposed of, what could not.
    Edward looked at the photos on the dresser: Ruth as a child, a creature woven of light and gold filigree; riding a horse, petting the powerful neck of a bull in some farmyard; smiling into the camera with big, strong teeth, her little brother on her back.
    Her father came and stood beside him, a bottle of aged gin and two glasses in his hand. ‘The old clock on the wall has almost reached five. You do drink now, don’t you?’ He poured for both of them. ‘ Tsjoch , that’s what we say around these parts. Do you know what that means?’
    â€˜Cheers, I guess?’
    â€˜Exactly.’
    â€˜ Tsjoch ,’ Edward said.
    â€˜ Tsjoch .’
    They drank. Her father tapped his index finger against one of the photos. ‘Do you know who that is?’
    Edward looked. ‘Ruth?’
    â€˜No, this fella here.’
    Edward moved his face up closer, trying to look as though he might know something about cattle. ‘No idea,’ he said at last.
    â€˜Sunny Boy. Still a young one then, not nearly the champion he became a few years later. But what a power he had in that body already … A million offspring, no less.’
    A pair of champions, the bull and the girl. The animal was awesome, but Edward couldn’t stop looking at Ruth. She was barely twelve, thirteen. Even back then, he would have desired her desperately.
    â€˜And what plans do you have, if you don’t mind my asking?’ her father said with a force that made it seem as though he’d been holding back till then. He was shorter than Edward, but with the immovability of a wrestler. He had broad, strong fingers with cracks that had never come completely clean.
    â€˜Plans?’ Edward said.
    â€˜With Ruth. You’re a bit older, if I’m correct.’
    Edward wondered about the connection between the question concerning his plans and the stud bull her father had just pointed out to him. ‘There’s a few years’ difference, yes,’ he said. ‘It’s not ideal, but … I regret that I had to turn forty before meeting her …’
    â€˜Forty-two, that’s what she