The Truth and Other Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

wife.
    Listen, my love, he had begun, I’m going to leave you, because I desire another woman and no longer desire you. I can’t stand this woman, but that’s beside the point just now. I love you, but you’re not a stranger to me anymore, and for that reason our love is only friendship. It always was. I never could despise you enough to desire you—there’s no thrill between us anymore, never really was, in fact. Besides, the other woman’s younger and more beautiful than you. We’ve known each other for a while, this woman and I. You know her—it’s Betty. Yes, Betty, of all people. She is my trophy, my muse, my slave—and I despise her. We are accomplices. My base instincts arouse her, I idolize her feet, and I’m to tell you from her that she’s sorry. I’m really sorry too. Please don’t get me wrong, I have the fondest of feelings for you. I worship you as if you were a saint. I’ve always wanted to protect you, and I have protected you, as best I could, but now matters have become somewhat complicated. Betty’s expecting my child. You didn’t want one. I don’t want one either. Bringing up a child’s the last thing I want to do—you know how much screaming babies get on my nerves, and it’s bound to scream all the time—but that’s just the way things are. Thank you for all you’ve done—I’m going to feel bad for the rest of my life, I can promise you.
    Martha had quietly cried out his name when he’d mentioned the baby. Then the sea had poured into the house and swept her away.
    Henry got up from the leather sofa, his right foot still asleep. He massaged it until the blood returned to his toes, and looked dazedly through the glass out onto the fields. The sea had vanished.
    He hobbled into the kitchen to make himself a ristretto. The damned sea should have carried him away, not her. He was really sorry about what he’d said to Martha, and it was all so completely wrong! Why hadn’t he spoken of respect and gratitude, of admiration and of love, which he felt for her like no other man could? But no, he had torn out her heart like a weed. She’d never get over the pain, that was for certain.
    He stood on one leg next to the coffee machine, waiting for the water to get hot. It was clear that the whole thing had to be broken to her more gently; it would be better if he didn’t mention the baby at all; it might drive her clean out of her senses. But if he kept that quiet, why confess to anything at all? Wasn’t everything in fact fine just as it was? The longer Henry pondered, the clearer it became to him that he must spare his wife and tell Betty the whole truth instead. Betty was tough; she’d come to terms with it more easily than Martha. She could start a new life, find a new man for the baby; she was made for survival.
    With an elegant creak of the cherrywood floorboards, Martha came down the stairs. She was wearing her silk pajamas and Japanese straw sandals; her dark hair was pinned up with an ebony hair slide. As always, she beamed at Henry when she saw him. Martha hardly made a sound when she walked; she was still as petite and light-footed as ever. In the past years she hadn’t put on a single ounce. For a long time now they had been sleeping and working separately, Martha upstairs, Henry downstairs. She still only ever wrote at night, and slept, as she had always done, until the afternoon. He saw to everything else. They could have had servants, chauffeurs, and gardeners, but Martha wouldn’t tolerate anyone except Henry around her. While he watched the late-night news or sat up until dawn working on his enormous matchstick drilling rig, he would hear her walking round in circles upstairs. Then he would go into the kitchen and make chamomile tea. He would carry the teapot up and put it down outside her door. Sometimes he listened at the door without touching it. Then he went quietly back down again. At some point the typewriter would begin to clatter. The demon inside her had