The Carpenter's Wife Read online

  Skimming the passage in Genesis 19 again, he shook his head.

  Perhaps they were so used to ever-changing partners that satisfying their desire for offspring with their blood-relative was no big deal. After all, they could have easily returned to Abraham’s group. The patriarch would have taken them in; he’d rescued them before. Instead they—

  Theirs was one of the worst stories in Biblical narrative. And it had found a replication of sorts in today, wishing that away didn’t work. Those stories were in the Bible for lessons to be derived. So, what were they?

  Stark scratched his head with all ten fingers. Then he pulled on a strand of hair until it hurt.

  Bollinger was a hard-drinking man. Like Lot in the cave that became his own personal Sodom.

  Gina was weak, dependent on men’s compliments. She was weak because he hadn’t played his role as father; she idolized him, and he’d take advantage of her—of the weakness he’d created.

  Bollinger lived in progressive Sodom, Gina in sweet Gomorrah; they had rolled on a meadow full of butterflies and—nothing had happened.

  Stark huffed; he didn’t believe a word. Of course they’d gone all the way. No doubt about it. She’d almost admitted it herself. He felt sick; a glowing brick sat in his stomach and no amount of rationalizing and explaining her behavior could expel it.

  In the course of the evening he’d skimmed through relevant works of Adams, Mitscherlich, and Skinner, even Freud’s various treatments of his sexual theory, until he hit pay dirt in a 1997 monograph by W.E. Wunderlich, professor of theology, philosophy, and psychiatry at the University of Erlangen.

  The triple-doctor had explored the famed Frankfurt netherworld with a team of his students, returning with the news that virtually all polled prostitutes had had at least one carnal encounter with a close relative, usually an uncle or brother or, yes, a father. The majority of those women entered into that life not by plan or design—not all were beautiful enough to land with ease by a majority of men—but through their own ever-expanding promiscuity, from which they finally chose to derive their livelihood, combining pleasure with utility.

  Wunderlich referred mostly to Western European women—former-East Bloc immigrants and Africans didn’t, couldn’t talk—and he was a little difficult to read. But Stark understood perfectly. He thought about calling the good doctor right then and there, which was downright ridiculous, of course.

  Tom ran his hands through his hair again.

  If the professor was right, and Stark had no reason to doubt him, then Gina was a player, and Tom was in the ring. Her defect made her available. The taboo was broken, the pattern clear. Sooner or later she would have an affair. The question that remained was: with whom? And with whom after that?

  Slowly but surely she’d transform into a something like a harlot.

  Stark pulled on his hair again; forebodings washed through his soul.

  Only an experience as dramatic as the New Birth could detain her now; only an encounter with God could keep her from wrecking her bourgeois life—and that of her children. And Ralph’s, but he’d get over it.

  His hand moved across his damp face, then crumpled his shirt. Dropping down in front of his computer, he groped for the mouse and opened his e-mail program.

  “I copied this from your mail,” she wrote back the next day. “You said, ‘If the reasons for your behavior in America aren’t clear to you, the same thing will happen to you again.’”

  Correct, he thought.

  “Tom, I’m afraid we started e-mailing too late. We have come to know one another too late. I would have already needed your help months ago. Too bad that it wasn’t supposed to be. Too bad.”

  Anxiety clawed at Stark’s nerves.

  “All I can say is, your fears concerning my future have already come to pass. I don’t want to say anything else right now. Oh, Tom. You are smart enough to combine one plus one and make it two.”

  He felt betrayed.

  “Perhaps the day is near when I can talk to you about it.”

  Father God, he thought when the screen blurred before his eyes. I feel cheated. And I’m not even married to her. Stabs with a cold dagger pierced his heart. She was already at it. Lord God, have mercy.

  “Right now I can’t talk. Not yet.”

  Not yet.

  “Tom, you don’t know the burden I carry. Every day is a tremendous struggle. I need strength. This is why I was so frazzled yesterday. Please pray for me. You said that you believe I’m someone who knows what she wants. Do you really think so? I don’t know. Please pray for me. I agree, I should come to one of your services, especially now that I’ve opened up to you completely. I don’t know why I did that sooo quickly. Wasn’t my intention. Feel led from ‘above.’”

  Stark blinked.

  “But because I’m so open right now, I am terribly afraid of getting hurt again. My soul is laid bare before you. Please don’t talk to Romy.”

  Don’t worry.

  “I probably shocked you again today. Sorry. XOX.”

  Stark felt inclined to fire back a message right then, about empirical data proving the detrimental effects on the psyche of breaking faith with society—of breaking taboos—about acute self-doubt sublimated into self-loathing which led to searches for love in all the wrong places. He wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her, pounding into her the knowledge that promiscuity, by definition illicit, was a poisoned well, never quenching the thirst but leading to ever-increasing promiscuous conduct. To whoredom. That was the diagnosis. Only legitimate wells produced lasting satisfaction, the absence of guilt making all the difference, and—

  Stark tried to relax; he exhaled. Wunderlich. Smart guy.

  But what would writing her these things achieve? She wouldn’t understand. Plus, no sick person ever got healed by a recital of the diagnosis. She needed medicine.

  Another thought flashed into his mind. What if her behavior in America was really an act of revenge? Her father had left her, had betrayed her; she grew up without male input. Alfred Gillich didn’t count; she’d said so herself. So, what if the issue was power? What if Gina was trying to dominate the one who’d implied by his actions that he didn’t care for her by seducing and thereby making herself precious in his eyes. As an added bonus, she’d be destroying the self-image—such as it was—of him who’d ruined hers those many years ago?

  Revenge.

  According to this thought-model, Gina played with men to prove she had power over them, which provided her with a compensating sense of superiority—and security, in a weird sort of way.

  In any case, the medicine for man’s depraved heart was the same. She needed to get born again.

  After another ten unquiet minutes of ruminating and walking around, he sat back down and began to type. “Gina,” he wrote, “I had a hard time to keep from crying today.” He re-read the line.

  This was unprofessional.

  He deleted it and went on with, “Your revelation shook me quite a bit…” which was an understatement. But she didn’t need to know that.

  He hammered on.

  23

  Friday, 18 July 2003, Night, 25°C

  “Look at these eyes.” The man held up a portrait of Jesus to the woman next to him. “Look at them. They are full of… mercy, of understanding. And you believe somebody with such eyes will damn you to hell? Never. Never! He can’t. God is love, you know. Remember what they say, God protecting lovers? He’s protecting us; everything has worked out so far.”

  The woman remained quiet and stared ahead through the windshield.

  “Look at those eyes. C’mon, look.” He lifted the picture again.

  She didn’t move.

  They sat in a black Audi A4 parked in the Wehranlagen lot, where at 10:30 PM tall trees and shadows obscured all forms. The windows were down and a faint breeze played with her hair. Crickets chirped. In the footwell on her side stood a small box with all the items he’d presented her over the last nine months, among them t
hat picture of Christ. He’d given it only days ago. Now she was giving it back.

  “Bert, I can’t go on.”

  “After all we’ve experienced together?”

  “Now is different. You don’t know Tom…”

  “Tom, Tom!” he said impatiently. “You’re trying to make me jealous.”

  “Noooh.”

  “He’s your new man. Is he? Huh?”

  “He’s not. You’re not fair.” She looked away from him.

  He shifted in his chair. “What has he that I don’t have? Huh? Tell me.”

  “You don’t understand; you’ve never met him. He’s a man of God.”

  Bert Müller giggled. “I bet.”

  “Don’t laugh. He’s different. He knows God, he really does.”

  He waved her off. “He’s a Jehovah’s Witness.”

  She stared at him. “What makes you think that?”

  “His church is in the harbor?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed.

  “Have you ever been in it?”

  She hesitated. “No.”

  “Gina, there are no churches down there. It’s where the cults go.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because they can’t get decent real estate anywhere else; nobody wants them in their neighborhood, so they go to the industrial area where nobody cares what they do.”

  “Who says?”

  “Everybody knows that.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Hey! They do weird stuff there.”

  Her eyes widened momentarily. “How do you know?”

  He swirled his right hand. “You can read it in every newspaper.”

  She sighed.

  “Of course, you don’t know this, because you don’t read. Plus, you’re slightly naïve.”

  “Hey, you.”

  “Gina.” He groaned. “Think! I’d hate to lose you to some goofy American. He’ll take your money and then what? They’ll leave you high and dry.” He cupped his hands around his face. “I can already picture you in an orange sari. Head shaved, rice bowl in hand, you’re pestering people downtown.”

  She balled her fist and hit him.

  “Ouch.” He rubbed his shoulder. “Okay, maybe not.” Silence filled the cabin for a moment. “But one thing’s for sure, they will want money, your money. They don’t draw taxes like real churches and they have bills to pay too. They take donations. Or do you think your Tom lives off air and love alone?”

  She digested that. “You don’t know Tom,” she said slowly. “What he says to me makes sense. I feel so much better since I met him. Met him,” she gestured; her head lolled from shoulder to shoulder, “if you can call it that; we only mail. And—”

  “He wants your money.”

  She reflected for a few seconds. “Perhaps… I’d give him some.”

  “He wants everything.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Gina, God made you—the one true universal God,” Müller said. “And you”—he stabbed her with his index finger—“need to understand that God loves you as you are. With your faults and your sins. He made you the way you are; he wants you to be happy. Jesus doesn’t want his children to suffer. He wants their needs met. He is love. Or does Tom see that differently?”

  “No,” she said after a while. “Tom agrees to that.”

  “Fine,” Müller said. “You’ve always said that Ralph doesn’t turn you on—or does he now?” He looked at her. “Now that Tom prayed for you.”

  She sighed.

  “I thought so. Gina, God brought us to one another to fulfill—”

  “Tom says, it wasn’t God who brought us together.”

  “How does he know? Huh? What’s this clown know about us—?”

  “He’s not a clown,” she said sharply.

  “Okay, okay.” Müller’s hands went up. “Sorry. But what does he know about us, about that bond that we have? Remember that night by the lake? How the stars laughed at us—laughed with us? You’re a part of me, Gina; your soul is my soul. You live in me. And I live in you. I’m the only person in the world who knows who you really are. And you know me. Wouldn’t you say that’s precious? We can’t just throw this away. It’s like ditching diamonds.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Gina.” His index finger circled her kneecap. “You’re the awesomest woman I ever laid eyes on. But right now you’re a candle in the wind, like Diana, and I can’t bear losing you.” Müller’s voice became brittle. “I just can’t.” He stared out the window on his side.

  Hesitantly, she reached over and caressed the back of his head.

  “Gina, we made a covenant.” He faced her again, eyes gleaming. “We have a bond. We tied ourselves to one another with an oath, remember?”

  She reached down into the footwell and brought the box to her lap.

  “We’re God’s gift to one another. Every morning when I get up I bless the day when you first answered my mail.”

  “You deleted it, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said irritably. “But I haven’t deleted anything since I moved out in April.”

  She tensed. “You should, you know. You should delete everything.”

  “How can I? It’s the food of my soul.”

  For a while they sat in silence.

  “How often do you see your children?”

  “Remember our plans for outings together?”

  She stared ahead silently.

  “We’d have seven kids to lug around.” He laughed hoarsely. “We wouldn’t all fit in one car and we’d have to—”

  “That’ll never happen, Bert.”

  “Gina.” He exhaled. “You’re martyring me.”

  She bristled. “Come on now. I’m doing what’s right.”

  “If you leave me, you’re destroying me. Don’t do that, Gina; it’s not God’s will. He brought us together by design. We’re made for one another.” He whispered the last word. When she didn’t reply, he sat up. “But okay, if that’s the way you want it, I guess there’s nothing I can do.”

  She shifted and looked at him.

  “I release you. It’s over; I let you go. Good bye.”

  “Bert…”

  “You don’t appreciate me any longer. Okay. But you were a blessing to me, more than you’ll ever know.”

  She lifted the box and said, “I brought everything I remember you giving me. Your ring is in there too.”

  Müller groaned and closed his eyes. He heard Gina breathe next to him.

  “Bert, you think this is easy for me?” She was chiding him. “Well, it’s not! I’m just as torn as you are—”

  His head snapped up. “So you still love me?”

  Her head swayed sideways, indicating a residue of emotion for him.

  “I can’t live without you, Gina.”

  “You’ll have to,” she said coolly.

  “Gina, what we’ve been doing wasn’t sin, it was—”

  “Adultery, Bert. Tom says—”

  “Tom! Tom!” His fist slammed the steering. “I can’t stand that name.”

  “Tom says, adulterers don’t inherit the kingdom of God. They go to hell.”

  Müller held the picture up to her face again. “Gina, look at these eyes…”

  “We’ve been over this, Bert.” She pushed him away. “In the end we’ll go down, you and I.”

  “Nonsense! There is”—he waved his free hand—“there’s an instance in the Bible where Jesus blessed a woman found in adultery. Religious nuts, like your Tom, waited and then tore her away and hauled her to Jesus. But he!” Müller sneered happily. “He forgave her and blessed her.”

  Gina’s eyes got wide. “He blessed her?”

  “Yes,” Müller said. “He blessed her. Gina, you don’t go to hell for getting your needs met. Hell doesn’t exist anyway; hell is other people, like this French guy said. Those people who put her before Jesus, he sent them away; they were the true sinners. Jesus told them to drop their stones; but her—Jesus ble
ssed. Oh, Gina, come on, say you’re mine.”

  She reflected for a while before she said, “I can’t, Bert.”

  He pounded his forehead with his fists, crumpling the picture of Christ in the process.

  She reached over. “Don’t do this.”

  “I can’t believe this; all because of this idiot—”

  “Tom’s no idiot.”

  He shook his head violently. His car door flew open. “I’ll go and die!” He got out.

  She scrambled out too. “Bert!” The door closed with a thud.

  He staggered toward the trees. In the shadows she could hardly discern him. “Bert! I’m dying myself!”

  He stood by a tree, panting. When she reached him, he had tears in his eyes. She embraced him and he responded in kind. He kissed her. “It’s over, Bert,” she said when they were done.

  “Please come, Gina,” he pleaded. “So I can remember you forever. You want this too.” He bit her ear with soft passion.

  She giggled, broke free, and ran down into the park.

  Müller’s heart began to thump. “Wait!” he said. “Let me lock the car.” But she didn’t respond. Her blonde tresses vanished in the darkness. He stood undecided for a second. Then he ran after her, leaving his Audi as it was.

  24

  Sunday, 20 July 2003, Noon, 34°C

  “This is really weird,” she said. “I was almost half an hour late—on my first visit! How did I manage that?” She stirred her coffee, looking at him out of bright green eyes. “Must have been sleeping.”

  “You’re not used to getting up on Sundays,” he said.

  She wore too much makeup, Tom found, standing opposite her by the tall table in the church’s café. The service had just ended, and the Bistro’s two connected rooms were now overflowing with chattering parishioners eating home-made cake and sipping coffee, all available for a nominal donation.

  His gaze returned to her. Beside layers of mascara and rouge Gina wore a white summer jacket, a blouse with a stand-up collar that gave her an austere appearance, and high heels. But those were hidden in long pant legs.