project.” Their debate was over about the same time the spaghetti was ready. Karl called to her to bring the fish, and she lowered the plastic bag into the tank, undid the strip that held it closed, and they watched the fish drift into their new world.
That night, the boys got to keep their bedroom door open so they could watch the fish in their aquarium. “But only for this first night!” Manfred had declared. In the silence of their bedroom, Emma waited for Manfred to question her, but it didn’t come. He undressed, hung his pants between a clothes press as carefully as always, climbed into bed, and turned his back to her—all in silence. She considered raising the issue herself but wasn’t sure she wanted to get into a fight. Instead, she got ready for bed, climbed in with her book, and listened to him settle into sleep. He drifted off quietly as always, lying on his side, tucked into himself with his hands under his head. The only reason she knew when he was asleep was because his breathing got slower and, if anything, more quiet.
A couple of hours went by. She was still very much awake, and the book wasn’t exactly keeping her enthralled. She listened once more to Manfred’s breathing, turned off the light, and lay still for a while. He turned over on his back and settled into serious sleep—the second phase of the night, when he often snored, more like a loud sighing than a sawing snore, and sometimes he spoke. She slid out of the bed, wrapped herself in her robe, and opened the door to the hall. There it was, brilliantly lit and quietly going about its life—a self-contained paradise. She closed the bedroom door behind her, closed the kids’ door as well, and slid down the wall until she sat with her legs straight out next to the silent, peaceful world. The pirate’s treasure glittered, and the seaweed swayed, while the small goldfish glided back and forth, back and forth.
“Mesmerizing,” she told Stacey. “A cool word … mesmerizing … isn’t it?” The California girl did not know about Dr. Mesmer, so Emma explained. “He was pretty famous for a while, here in Europe, convinced he could cure the world with dangling crystals and magnets and such. And neither his medical theory nor his remedy survived, only his name. I wonder if that’s worse than if you disappear all together?”
After a few minutes, she answered Stacey’s question and said, “Funerals. Yeah, they’re big here. Manfred bought a double plot for us, and twice a year we go visit and clean leaves away … a dismal, cold, and silent place from which there’s no escape.”
She wished Stacey were real so she could ask how they did funerals in California. She sat next to the bubbling water tank and saw herself in the coffin, heard the frozen clumps of dirt bang on the lid. Her breath caught. She promised herself she would write a will in the morning and would stipulate that they put a string on her finger with a little bell at the other end which she would be able to ring if she found herself in that situation.
“Like they do in New Orleans. It’s where they have all those ghosts and vampires. Not because they bury people alive, but … I actually don’t know why.”
New Orleans. It was so not-Bern! The coffee-table book in the bookstore showed a city of music and stately houses with ceiling fans and big verandas that went all around the house. It was a place of heat and moss-draped oak trees that loomed across roads and set everything in damp shade. People in New Orleans were looser. They walked free, relaxed, and slow in the heat. They had soft lips and got together and sang because life was good. There were stray dogs and feral cats, and musicians who sat on the ground in public spaces and nobody made them move. And all that music made the city hum. Not like here, where the silence after ten o’clock was mandatory, and the only noise was a solitary drunk yelling once in a while, or a police siren blaring. Here, the burghers were home, tucked in, and getting the required rest in preparation for their next day’s labor. Or, if they were not, like her they did their improper doings quietly behind solid walls.
“What are you doing?” a voice whispered. Manfred moved to stand in front of her, his pajama bottom sagging, and his fly buttons done up crookedly. His eyes were red-rimmed, and without his glasses, they looked naked and vulnerable, but his voice was a dangerous, disapproving hiss.
“Come and see,” Emma said and patted the floor next to her. He stood for another long moment and then, to her surprise, slid along the wall until he sat next to her. She looked over at him, and he looked as surprised as she was. She took his hand and said, “Peaceful, isn’t it?”
“I was going to ask you tomorrow, but … uh … whatever possessed you?”
“The aquarium was very cheap. From the secondhand store, you know?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So I’ve seen it there for weeks now, and today was so cold and gray. I just thought it … would fit here.”
“Well, the kids seemed to enjoy it. I guess it can teach them to look after a living thing. You must make them responsible for feeding the fish and cleaning it, so they learn something from it.”
Emma shrugged, surprised at finding herself feeling disappointed. She’d expected a fight and had been prepared to stand up for her right to … to what? Spend money? Buy a pet? She couldn’t have said, but she’d been ready to fight him for it. And then he’d simply come up with his thin educational warning.
“Are you feeling all right?” she asked.
“Why? Apart from the fact that I’ll catch pneumonia sitting here because of you … ” His words drifted off. He really wasn’t himself.
“How’s work going?”
He shrugged irritably. “Not worth talking about. I’m fine.”
He rose, climbed over her legs, and locked himself in the toilet. She could hear him pee, flush, then run water to wash his hands. He was a clean man, diligent in his personal hygiene. He reemerged, stepped over her legs again, and said, “Oh, by the way, I have invited Frank to dinner tomorrow. Are you coming to bed?”
8
And so she followed him, her dream of New Orleans tucked away; the urgency of writing a last will once again forgotten. They climbed into bed from either side and pulled up the sheets and duvet so the covers lay flat and even. Both lay on their backs, not touching, not moving. Emma stared at the plaster irregularities above her head that formed a sailboat and then a mountain range. She focused on the boat. It had only been recently that she had realized it was a tall ship—like the pirate ship in her aquarium!
She’d been on a boat once, long before she met Manfred. One of her boyfriends, whose name she couldn’t recall, had a small sailboat on one of the lakes, and he had invited her to sail with him. It had been a cool spring day with a light breeze. The lake had been dotted with sails, and it had looked enchanted. She had been nervous and excited at the same time.
The boyfriend had raised the sail and tightened the sheets, while she sat low in the boat, holding the tiller the way he told her to. Once they had cleared the marina, the boat started to slide through the water, fleet and weightless. It was exhilarating with a tingle of fear just below the surface of the skin.
The farther out they went, the more lost she felt and, in a way, the more liberated. She was afraid of the water, afraid of what lurked underneath the implacable, unbreakable brown-gray surface. She knew from experience that when you swam in these lakes, the bottom was squishy and unfathomable. If you were lucky, you could step on rocks until the water was deep enough for a belly dive. More often, you had to step blindly on rotten leaves and accumulated slime until it was safe to haul your feet back up. There were worms down there, and eels and … well, at the very least, glass shards and sharp pebbles to cut one’s foot on. Her fear, she knew, was primal: atavistic! She had looked it up once, and she liked the word. It contained the visceral truth of that fear, the hair-raising, gut-clenching terror that was caused by stepping blindly into the unseen.
They kept sailing straight out, heading for the middle of the lake. The wind had died, which it was apt to do. The boyfriend had prepared sandwiches and a thermos of tea, and they ate and drank, although Emma had a hard time swallowing. It was the pressure of being alone with anyone who was not family. She didn’t know what