Our son was sound asleep in his room. By the way, he turned eight two days ago. I was sitting at my desk, numb from who knows how many hours of reading and writing. My wife was sitting on the couch in her study. From the crack under the door, the knob of which was within the reach of us both, I knew that she had turned off the lights two hours ago. The silence became obvious and oppressive. She was not even crying, as she had been doing virtually every evening for three or four months. This evening, on my birthday, I got up, pushed back my armchair softly, turned around, paused, knocked at the door, and entered without waiting for an answer. There would not be any answer, anyway. I sat on the couch beside my wife. She was crouched sideways, and she was looking toward the wall. The room was filled with cigarette smoke, just like mine was. I closed the door, moved closer to her, and squeezed her shoulder in the dark. After a couple of minutes I said: “Give me your hand.” She remained immobile and silent. “Do you want me to leave?” I asked after a minute or two. “Whatever you want,” she replied calmly and promptly. I could barely see the curvature of her forehead, her face still pointed toward the wall. I removed my hand from her shoulder. I sat with her a while longer, and then I got up, opened the door, closed it behind me, paused, and walked quietly to the kitchen. The floor creaked violently, no matter how gentle my step was. In the icebox I found a bottle of beer, opened it, and returned to my desk. I sat quietly, surrounded by brightly lit ashtrays, coffee cups, books, and pens. The bottle is now staring back at me, without comprehension, either half-full or half-empty. Soon I will have to go back to the kitchen, to fetch another one—the last bottle in the icebox. But there are more in the pantry, as my wife has brought home an entire crate some time ago. She takes care of the household. Our son is coughing from time to time. It is nothing serious, though. Our life goes on and on without interruption.

Addendum I (May 1, 1995)

Although we were still together, since February or March our agreement was to split up as soon as she found a reasonable job. Marko and I were to spend the summer in Yugoslavia, and Elise was to find a job by the time we were to return in late August. As it turned out, she finally found a job to her liking only when I already moved out in early November. She kept claiming there was nothing to be found out there, but I knew she gambled that I would not leave her in financial straits. Notwithstanding her pain, which was no doubt genuine, she milked me financially as long and as thoroughly as she could. By the way, she has continued milking me to this very day. And it has never ceased to amaze me how thorough she has been. For some reason I have always found her pursuit of my money to be at odds with her leftish politics.

Addendum II (September 6, 1998)

When I call Lauren in the States I sometimes get the accursed answering machine: “You have reached Lauren’s summer residence.” The voice is Elise’s. By mid-November, when Lauren and the children will return to London, they will have lived together in the suburbs of Boston for more than three months. Stranger than fiction…