A Beautiful Young Wife by Tommy Wieringa Read Free Book Online Page B

the ladder on the slide on his own; Edward swings him up onto the platform, and Hunter shrieks as he slides down. In terms of motor skills, he’s far behind the other, much younger children. He waggles around between the playground equipment on his fat little legs, never losing sight of Edward. Generally speaking he is withdrawn, but he occasionally throws little tantrums in which he takes shovels and spades away from other kids. The children are called Sophie or Olivier, they have learned that violence is reprehensible, and so they submit passively and with forbearance, victims of their parents’ strategy. Edward silently eggs the boy on; a few moments later, he returns the toys himself.
    Ruth comes over to meet them. She’s wearing an orange woollen shawl — it’s one of those summers that just won’t show up. Above the treetops hangs a motionless grey sky: igneous rock.
    She has never thought of herself as a mother ; in fact, she is still living in a long, drawn-out girlishness, but lately, when her hands are busy and her thoughts roll around aimlessly, she sometimes sees a child in front of her. It has no face — it consists only of light, soft material, the essence of the childlike. They are daydreams, but sometimes the images crowd forward in her consciousness and become thoughts , their specific gravity increases. Edward sits down beside her on the bench, she sees drops of sweat along his hairline. He smiles, ‘What do you think, shall we make one of these, too?’, and at that moment she is so desperately in love with him that tears come to her eyes.
    There is another thought inside her that barely owns up to words: with a child, her relationship with this introverted man will gain more meaning — the dynamics of Dritte im Bunde , the third in a chord. The prospect of being with him all her life, without someone else to disturb the peace, makes her feel trapped. They will gradually become covered in ice crystals, tiny white spangles in his beard and on her face, around her eyes and her mouth, and slowly harden into a friendly pose; in a frozen state, waiting for the end.
    He throws his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into the lee of his body. Hunter looks at them, afraid of losing Edward’s attention, then goes and sits alone on the seesaw.
    That evening, with the boy asleep in the bed they bought for him at IKEA, she suddenly says: ‘Ed, maybe I do want a child.’
    He is silent for a moment, then says: ‘That’s what I was afraid of.’
    She examines his face, but sees that he is well disposed and not cynical. She comes over and stands in front of him, kneels like a slave before her master, and slips her hand into his. ‘Could I ask what else you’re thinking?’ she asks, half solemnly.
    He gives a little nod upstairs, where Hunter is sleeping. ‘Is it because of him?’
    She shrugs.
    â€˜I think,’ he says then, ‘that we should just do it … Our lives, everything, it’s all going to change, but … I mean, the whole world has children, so why can’t we?’ And, a little later: ‘What’ll we have, a boy or a girl?’
    Refilling his glass, he thinks about the effect of alcohol on the quality of his sperm — about that, and the dwindling desire for sex that he’s experienced lately, which he blames on drinking.
    â€¢ • •
    They marry in the spring of 2005, in Saint-Valery-sur-Somme. A gentle rain had fallen earlier that morning, but the clouds above the ocean have now been driven away. The chapel is in the fields above the village, and a small group of guests has assembled in the wooden pews. Of the important people, only Friso and Hunter are missing. Ruth had called her brother a few times the night before, but he hadn’t answered.
    â€˜Maybe he’ll just show up later on,’ she says. ‘Hey, hello, here I am …’
    Edward lays a hand on her cheek and