“It was an awful shock, of course. I suppose we thought that if he could beat the typhoid, he was invincible. I thought we would all grow old together.”
Maybe he notices that her voice grows raspy on that last sentence. He says, in a kind voice, “But you didn’t really want that, did you? To grow old together?”
“I don’t know. But that was what I expected. It was the future I imagined.” She pauses. “He was a good man. He should have lived longer.”
“Should he? I suppose none of us is given to know how long we’re marked to live on this blessed earth. Well, God rest his soul.” Wilfred nods to the stairs. “Everything quiet upstairs? The children are well?”
“Yes. Charlotte’s nursing the baby. She’ll put her to bed when she’s finished.”
“And then collapse in a stupor?” he inquires dryly.
“Something like that.”
“Elfriede. You deserve more than this, you know.”
The kindness in his face is too much. Elfriede’s shot through with nerves, with shock, with an anticipation she cannot describe, like fear and desire combusting together under her skin. He’s going to leave now, he’s going to return to his hotel. Or is he? In the corner of the drawing room, the phonograph scratches away uselessly. Elfriede starts forward and turns it off, and for a moment stands there with her hand on the edge of the table. She starts to shake her head—but really, what’s she denying?—and Wilfred, coming up behind her, puts his hand on her shoulder.
“I thought we might take a stroll in the garden, before I return to the hotel.”
It’s June, and the days are long. Twilight’s just settling across the sky, a hazy indigo, and the air is hot and rich with the scent of blossom. Wilfred sticks his hands in his pockets. They stand about a hundred yards from the house, just beyond the perimeter of light from the windows, where the grass starts a long, gentle slope toward the bottom of the garden. Beyond that, Elfriede doesn’t dare venture. There’s a pond somewhere in the middle of all that tangled vegetation, and she’s heard stories about snakes and alligators. She mentions this to Wilfred.
“Haven’t you seen any?” he asks.
“Not yet. But I don’t want to push my luck.”
He pulls out his cigarette case and fiddles with it, as if unable to decide whether to smoke or not. “There were all sorts of predatory creatures in South Africa. I never realized how benign the English fauna really is until I went abroad.”
“When do you have to go back?”
“To South Africa? Never, I hope.” He turns to her and smiles. The moustache startles her anew. “My regiment was called home two years ago. But if you’re asking how long until I have to report back to duty . . .”
“Well?”
Wilfred turns back to the shadows. “Next month. Four and a half weeks, less ten days on the liner.” He opens the case and pulls out a cigarette. “I’m sorry about these. I was only an occasional smoker until I joined the army.”
She watches him light the cigarette. She loves the way he closes his eyes as he draws in a long draft, the way he savors it. “You don’t have to stay at the hotel, you know. We’ve got three spare bedrooms.”
“That would be decidedly improper, I imagine.”
“There’s nobody to care.”
For some time, he remains silent. Elfriede’s transfixed by the orange flare at the end of the cigarette, by the choreography of fingers and lips. “I’m afraid I’m not as strong as you are,” he says at last. “There have been other women since I saw you last.”
“Yes.”
“That’s the trouble with falling in love with a married woman.” He pauses. “Falling in love—my God, what a stupid phrase. When I think of what I felt upon learning that the good baron had recovered, against all probability, from an illness—I’m ashamed to admit—from an illness I expected and even hoped, yes, hoped would prove fatal. When I realized not only that I wasn’t going to have you after all but that I didn’t even deserve you to begin with. And then. Then. Then what I felt a year ago, when I first heard the shocking news, quite by chance, that Elfriede von Kleist was free at last.”
He falls silent, implying that Elfriede should make some response, but she can’t. Maybe she won’t. There’s just no reply possible, is there? Maybe an honest one, but not a decent one.