Great House: A Novel - By Nicole Krauss Page 0,135

the darkness at the back of his throat seemed to me even more foreboding than before, and a little shiver ran through me. I don’t mean to give the wrong impression. He was very supportive, and did his best to cheer me up. In a way I can’t explain, said Mrs. Fiske, the darkness I saw there had nothing, or very little, to do with John himself and everything to do with me; the back of his throat just happened to be the place where it dwelled. I began to turn away when he laughed so as not to see it, and then one day I heard his laughter switch off like a light, and when I turned back his mouth was clamped shut and there was a look of shame on his face. I felt awful then, cruel, really, absurd and self-absorbed, and soon afterwards I made sure that things began to change between us. By and by a kind of tenderness was allowed in that had not been before. I learned something about controlling certain kinds of feelings, about not giving in to the first emotion that presents itself, and I remember thinking at the time that such discipline was the key to sanity. About six months later we decided to adopt a child.

Mrs. Fiske leaned forward and stirred what was left of her tea as if she might drink it, or as if the words for the rest of her story were resting among the bits of tea leaves at the bottom of the china cup. But then she seemed to think better of it, returned the cup to its saucer, and leaned back again in her chair.

It didn’t happen right away, she said. We had to fill out endless forms, there was a process. One day a lady in a yellow suit came to our house. I remember staring at her suit and thinking that it was like a small piece of sunshine, and she an envoy from a different climate where children thrived and were happy, and that she had arrived at our house to shine herself and see how it looked, how so much light and happiness might reflect back off of our colorless walls. I spent the days before her arrival on my knees scrubbing the floors. I even baked a cake on the morning of her arrival so that there would be the smell of something sweet in the air. I wore a blue silk dress and made John wear a houndstooth jacket that he’d never have chosen for himself, because I thought it had an optimistic flair. But as we sat waiting uneasily for her in the kitchen I saw how the sleeves were too short and how the jacket, the way John sat hunched in that ridiculous jacket, instead gave away our desperation. But it was too late to change, the doorbell rang, and there she was with her patent-leather bag containing our file tucked under her arm, this bright yellow guardian from the land of tiny fingernails and milk teeth. She sat down at the table and I put a slice of cake in front of her, which she didn’t touch. She took out some papers for us to sign, and proceeded to conduct her interview. John, who was easily intimidated by authority, began to stutter. Embarrassed and insecure, cowed by the power she had over us, I lost my way in the answers I tried to give, became flustered, and made a fool of myself. As she looked around, an artificial little smile pulled tightly at her lips, I saw her shiver, and I realized that the house was cold. I knew then that she would not give us a child.

After that I entered into what I suppose is called a depression, though I didn’t know it then. When I emerged many months later, I’d accustomed myself to the idea of a life without children. Then one day, visiting my sister who had moved to London, I was reading the paper and my eye happened to catch a small ad near the bottom of the page. I could have easily missed it, it was just a few words in small print. But I saw it: Baby boy of three weeks available for immediate adoption. Below it was an address. Without hesitating, I took out a piece of paper and wrote a letter. Something took hold of me. My pen hurried across the page, trying to keep up with