As you recall, last week Anastasia’s husband came home…
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“You have to see him; you have to tell him about it,” George says at last, looking down at Anastasia again.
She looks up at him with a look of horror in her eyes, shaking her head slowly, tears forming and threatening to spill down her cheeks. She gives a tiny gasp when she sees Novak come around the automobile, determined to see her.
“He’s mad—Collette’s told him—I know she has,” Anastasia says, throwing her hoe down and stepping away.
“No, she didn’t. Even she can’t be that callous—”
“Yes she can. You don’t know her,” Anastasia says, forcing a laugh. “She’ll do anything she can to hurt me.”
"Why?" George asks. He reaches out a hand, but she turns away, pulling her arm back like he’s a leper, and looks at him with what he thinks amount to a deep sense of loathing. She looks back at Novak—a frightened animal—and turns to George with a plea.
“I can’t see him. Not yet,” she says, running into the house as Novak calls out after her.
The children run in after her, calling out to their mother. Dieter stops at the edge of the garden and looks up at his father, not knowing what he should do. Collette calls the children and puts her arms around them, comforting them, drawing them to her, but Dieter refuses to go to her, and lets his grandmother comfort him while his cousins stand beside him, looking confused.
"Why did she leave?" Novak asks George as he works his way across the garden, with Annette following. “What did you say to her?”
“Me? I didn't say anything,” George says, looking to Annette for help.
“Then why did she run away? I’m her husband, goddamn it!”
“She’s afraid,” George says with a simple shrug.
“Afraid? What? Of me?” Novak says, his voice weakening.
“She’s afraid of a lot of things,” Annette says, consoling him; putting a hand on his arm, she looks at him.
“Why? What did you say to her?” he asks George again, sternly, stiffening, as he pulls himself upright on his crutches. “Is it seeing me like this? Half a man?”
“No,” George says a little too quickly. “It has nothing to do with you.”
“Nothing to do with me?” Novak laughs, and a cough shakes through his body. “Do you think I’m going to believe that? Don’t you think I’ve been dreading this day? What use am I to her like this? What use am I to anyone? I'm not even a man anymore, am I?”
“It’s not you—not this time,” George says angrily, and turning away from him he picks up the hoe. “If you want to believe it’s you, then go ahead, believe it if you have to. That’s fine by me. It’s not up to me to tell you what happened. That’s up to her,” he says.
“Is it the rape, then? Is that what she thinks it is? That I won’t love her anymore because she was raped?”
George looks at Annette. “You told him?”
“Of course I told him. He has a right to know.”
“Don’t you think that was your sister’s choice?”
“I think she made her choice,” Annette says sadly.
“She’s afraid you won’t forgive her for what happened,” George says, looking at Novak. “She blames herself for it—like it’s her fault.”
“She thinks I blame her for being raped and beaten? Or that I won't understand?” Novak asks. “Why?”
“You’ll have to ask her that yourself. I don’t have the answers you want,” George says testily. “But if you ask me, I’d say it’s because of the man you were when you left. You’ll just have to be patient with her.”
“Patient? I haven’t seen her in four years. I’ve come back half a man, less than that even. I’m not even a man. I didn’t just lose my leg,” he says, forcing a smile. “She doesn’t have to fear me,” he adds sadly, “she just has to love me.” He turns away from them slowly, awkwardly.
“Where are you going?” Annette asks with a note of alarm.
“I have to take my things into the house...if I’m going to stay here.”
“I'll bring them in,” George says, forcing a smile. “We have to hide the automobile anyway.”
George watches Novak as he hobbles across the garden. The ends of his crutches dig into the overturned dirt so deeply, he’s sure the man’s going to fall. Novak appears to be adept at walking; he’s probably had a lot of time to practice on the long trek back from the Russian Front, George thinks.
“Did she say anything else to you?” Annette asks him almost as soon as Novak limps up the stairs.
“Just how she thought Collette would be the one telling him about the rape—but out of spite, not compassion,” he adds, looking down at her with a smile.
“You don’t think I should have told him, do you?”
“What's done is done. They have to deal with it—as if they don’t have enough to deal with,” he says with a shake of his head.
“She’d have never told him,” Annette says defensively.
“Yes, she would have. It may have taken her some time, but she’d have told him eventually,” he says, opening the door of the automobile and sitting down.
Annette is on the other side of the automobile; she pulls the door open and sits down with a heavy sigh. She leans back in the seat, fanning herself. George pulls a cigarette out of his pocket. It’s bent and twisted—the golden fibres hanging out of both ends—and it flares up as he put the match to it.
“Do you have another one of those things?”
“I thought you didn’t like smoking them? You just liked rolling them?”
“Do you have another one, or not?” she asks.
“Just one. But it’s my last one. We can share this one if you want?”
“You won't give me your last one?”
“And what will I smoke tonight? After?”
“After what?”
“After us?”
“What makes you think there’s going to be a tonight?”
“You don’t want me in your bed because I won’t give you my last cigarette?”
“Something like that,” she says, looking up at the ceiling and putting a foot on the dashboard. She begins scraping at a clump of mud on her shoe.
“And what if I don’t accept that?”
She looks at him closely. “Do you have a choice?”
“What if I force myself on you?”
“Will you beat me, too? Like they beat Anastasia? Why is it that men always think rape is an answer, or an alternative? Is that what you think I want? I bet you think that will endear you to me?"
He reaches into his shirt pocket, holding the cigarette out for her.
“Take it,” he says with a sigh.
“I don’t want it now,” she says. “You can’t buy my body for a cigarette! I’m worth more than that. Even whores charge more.”
“I didn’t say you were a whore—and I'm not trying to buy you with a cigarette. It’s just that I don’t have any left, and I don’t know where I’m going to get more. I’m down to two a day. I used to smoke two dozen a day before the war!”
“Yes, and before the war I would have never slept with you; I suppose it all works out, doesn’t it?”
“Works out?”
“You get to keep your cigarette, and I keep my virtue somewhat intact—rather than selling it for a cigarette, I mean,” she adds.
“Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?”
“Why are you bickering with me?”
“Bickering? Is that what you think I'm doing?”
George smiles. “Maybe it wasn't the best choice of words,” he concedes.
“Am I too much like a wife for you then, George? But I’m not your wife, am I? And no mistress would speak to a man like that—”
“You’re not my mistress—” George says.
“I’m not? Then what am I?”
“You’re the only woman for me; the only woman I’ve ever wanted to love.”
“Am I a possession, then? A conquest?”
“Have I done something to offend you?” George asks finally.
She’s silent for a moment, looking at her shoe and the dust covering the dashboard where she has scraped at it. She looks at him.
“And what makes you think you've done something, George? Is it the fact that you don’t want to give me a cigarette—your last cigarette—or do you feel I should’ve never told Novak his wife was raped? You feel it’s something she should tell him herself. Even when you know she hasn’t breathed a word of it to anyone—unless she told you about it? You don’t strike me as the man a woman would confide in. Or do you think you know what’s best for my family—being intimate with me, means you can be intimate with my family?”
“I never said anything like that,” George says, trying to defend himself but not knowing where the attack is going to come from, or why. There’s a feeling of loss that creeps into his voice, and he tells himself that she’s ending it with him. They haven’t even started. Why do that? He thought she loved him as much as he loved her. Is Novak’s return a reminder of her own husband?
“Are you saying good-bye?"
“Good-bye? Good-bye to what, George?”
“Each other?”
“Are you leaving?”
“I thought you were sending me away? Do you want me to leave? Is that why you’re pushing me away like this?”
“Oh George,” she says, reaching a hand out to him and looking at him. “I don’t want you to leave, and I’m not pushing you away, either—as least, not intentionally. I’m sorry if you feel that way, but you can’t think to know what’s best for us, without asking first. It’s not fair to the rest of us.”
“I didn’t say I knew what was best,” he says. “Look: I’m sorry if I handled Anastasia wrong, but she was going to run the moment she saw you. She’d already decided not to confront him. She’s afraid he’ll want to sleep with her tonight. She doesn’t feel she should have to do that. Again: I’m sorry.”
“Well, she won’t have to worry about any of that now, will she? He’s already said he can’t. Whatever that means.”
“And what about you?”
“Me?”
“Are you going to accept my apology?”
“Why don’t we just drive away, and find out? Do you still have that cigarette?”
“Yes. Why? Do you want it now?”
“I might be willing to play the whore for it,” she smiles.
“Just tell me where you want me to take you,” he laughs.
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