I Confess Read Free Page A

months we had known each other. She wasn't as pretty. I noticed several places on her body . . . This happened to me with all women, but usually it took longer. The best thmg might be to call it quits.
    "You know very well that this timetable, as you choose to call it, is the result of the difficult situation in which I find myself. After all, I'm married."
    "And you just sleep with me."
    "At your friendly invitation."
    "You're a louse."

    **It always gave me great pleasure." I got up and went over to her. She resisted when I put my arms around her, but I held her close, pressed her body to mine. For one short moment I felt something akin to desire move me. Then I could smell the beer and let her go. "Wasn't it perfectly clear from the beginning what our relationship would be?" I said. "Or have you suddenly fallen in love with me?"
    "By God, no!" She said it softly, and her green eyes glittered angrily.
    "Well, then—why all the excitement?"
    She walked up to me and looked me in the eye. She spoke hastily. "I'll tell you why, dear Jimmy. Because it has suddenly occurred to me that there is such a thing as dignity, a woman's dignity!"
    "Oh, come on. . . ."
    "Be quiet!" Now she was standing close to me, her body was touching mine, and I could smell not only the beer but also her hair, her perfume. "I'm not finished. I am of the opinion, dear Jimmy, fhat the pleasure I give you gives me certain rights. Rights of a social nature. The same rights as your wife. More!"
    "Yes, yes...."
    "You don't agree? What does she do for you? Give you pleasure? Help you?"
    "No."
    "But I did. Or didn't I?"
    **Yes, Yolanda. You did."
    '*We may not have loved each other, but we understood each other. From the very first moment. You could come to me whenever you liked. I was always there for you. I was faithful, although I didn't love you. And your wife? Was she faithful?"
    "No."
    "But you've got to pick her up."
    "Yes."
    Suddenly she was very far away, as if T were looking at her through the wrong end of an opera glass. Her voice

    too came to me as if through a wall of cotton wadding. Only the rain remained loud. And the blood pulsating in my temples. Pam-pampam ... pam-pampam...
    "You have to keep up a front."
    "That's right."
    "Nobody must notice."
    "Right."
    "Because you have social obligations.**
    "That's right."
    "Although you haven't loved her in years. Although she hasn't loved you in years."
    "Yes, Yolanda."
    "And why?"
    "Because she's my wife."
    I walked away from her. I could feel how the conversation was wearing me out. I had listened to it so many times, not only from Yolanda and not only in Munich. In other cities too. With other women. I was sick to death of the conversation as of so many other things.
    "Because she is your wife. That's all?"
    "That's aU."
    "That's why you can't leave her?"
    "No."
    "Then why not?"
    "Because I don't want to."
    I could just as well have said because I wanted to avoid a scandal. Or because I was a coward. But I didn't. These things were none of Yolanda's business. And my head ached.
    "But me ... me you want to leave.**
    "I don't want to leave you."
    "But you're going to."
    "What do you mean? When?"
    "Now. You're leaving me to go to her.*'
    "Yolanda, don't be childish. I'm picking Margaret up at the house of friends and taking her home. Tomorrow I'll see you again."
    "From four to eight.**

    "It's the best I can do."
    "It's not the best you can do. You could do something about the people who are saying filthy things about me. You could do something about the fact that we have to sit around in coffee shops and bars like college kids. You could see to it that this idiotic game of hide and seek comes to an end. That's what you could do. But you don't want to. Because she's your wife."
    All I could do was nod; it hurt me to speak.
    "Why don't you say something?"
    "Because my head aches."
    "Stop talking about your head."
    "I didn't start this. I have bigger and better worries."
    "Yes. Your poor wife."
    "Among