Eleven year slip

By Dewi Anggraeni

When his finger hit the wrong key for the hundredth time, Warren pressed "exit" in rage, turned off his computer, pushed his chair away from the desk and stood up. He paced up and down his small office with quick, restless steps, his left hand rubbing his forehead as if wiping away imaginary drops of perspiration. He swore before collapsing into a chair. Then, as suddenly as he had dropped into it, he got up, strode to the door, went out, reached into his pocket for his keys and locked the door.

Sticking his head into his secretary's office, Warren said, "I won't be here for the rest of the afternoon, Kate."

Kate looked up from her typewriter and asked mechanically, "Will you be here tomorrow morning?"

"Yes. But not for the students."

He avoided the cafeteria, and walked past the back of the post office where he'd be least likely to meet any students he knew. The car park was a five-minute walk away. He needed the walk and fresh air, without having to talk to anyone.

His wife Letty had betrayed him. Warren was still stunned because he had thought she was devoted to him, just as he was to her. His chest felt hollow when he recollected how it had started.

"That was Ari," Letty said as she came back to her paper and spread it across the table, almost upsetting Warren's cup of coffee.

"Ari? Ari from Bandung?" he asked, buttering his toast.

"Yes," Letty half smiled, showing the dimple on her left cheek. "My old flame." Her eyes hardly left the paper.

Warren chuckled before putting the toast into his mouth. "Where's he? In Melbourne?"

"Hmm."

"What brought him here?" Warren didn't really relish the idea of having Ari's company for dinner. He was exhausted and looked forward to a quiet evening with family.

"He's on his way to Canberra for a convention. He's invited me to lunch."

Warren felt relieved. "Oh that's alright then. I thought for a moment you were going to invite him here."

Letty closed the paper slowly. "I might do that, if he flies back to Melbourne before leaving Australia."

"At least that's a week away, I guess."

He had left home not giving it another thought. When he rang home at lunch time he got no answer, he remembered and joked about it with Rob Wurth, "My wife's gone to lunch with her old flame from her hometown."

Warren cursed as he opened the car door. He'd left his wallet in his office. He felt his other pockets and found about five dollars in coins and a five dollar note. That damned plastic note. He turned the ignition on, then off. Not knowing where to go, and having no motivation to go anywhere, he sat back in his seat and wished he hadn't given up smoking.

Letty was particularly quiet that evening, which he had been too tired to notice. When their two girls had gone to bed he also prepared to retire.

"By the way, how was your lunch? Romantic enough?" he asked after cleaning his teeth.

Letty was drying herself, seemingly deep in thought. She looked up abruptly before answering, "Hmm."

"Where did you go?"

"The Windsor."

"Is that where he's staying?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm going to bed. Goodnight, sweetheart."

"Warren!" Letty called before he disappeared into the bedroom. He stopped and came back.

"Are you tired?" asked Letty.

Warren mustered up enough strength to hold her in his arms, but before he could kiss her, Letty had wriggled free.

"I don't mean that. I want to talk."

"Can't it wait till tomorrow, love? I'm dog tired."

She followed him to the bedroom quietly. Then, without warning, she said, "Warren, I slept with him."

Exhaustion temporarily shielded him from the assault. Warren turned around and though he had misheard his wife.

"I slept with Ari, Warren."

Stupefied, Warren gaped but was speechless. Letty began to cry.

"But Letty, why?" was all he found himself saying.

"I don't know," she started to sob. "I thought about it all afternoon before you came home. But I still don't know why I did it. No, don't touch me. I don't deserve comforting. I'm a slut, Warren. That's what I am!"

His mind and emotions became entangled like a litter of snakes. He slowly removed his hands and looked blankly at Letty.

"If you don't leave me, Warren, I will leave you. I don't think I can face you any more. And the girls. What'll they think? Their mother is a whore."

"You were... probably a bit... a bit tipsy..." Warren stammered.

"You know me Warren. I don't drink. I wasn't drunk. I was sober. There's no excuse."

She made herself a bed in the living room, and refused to listen to him try to justify her. Suddenly the absurdity of the situation struck him. His wife had wronged him, yet he was trying to justify her. What was he? A saint or a wimp? No, he was simply trying to soothe his wounded male pride, and patch his broken image of her.

Warren didn't know where to go. He drove instinctively toward their home in Camberwell, but changed direction several kilometers from his street. He headed south. He didn't want to go home unexpected. He feared everything. He feared the discovery that Letty had left. He also dreaded seeing her.

He woke up at four o'clock in the morning, turned around to give her a customary early morning hug and had found only a cold, empty space beside him. When the truth finally penetrated his sleepy haze, he got up and was driven by compassion and forgiveness. He was determined to carry Letty back to their bedroom. Maybe she had got over it.

The half light in the hall showed Letty lying sideways in a fetal curl. Warren knelt beside her, hesitating. She looked so peaceful he didn't want to disturb her. She had been crying. She probably cried herself to sleep. Overcome with tenderness, Warren lifted his hand, ready to caress her cheek. Then he saw her face move. The dimple was showing. What was she dreaming about? Her romantic escapade with Ari? Warren's hand stopped in mid-air. And what's that on her shoulder? He bent over to have a closer look. A bruise. A love bite? Was it his or mine? Warren only spent a second or two agonizing over this thought. He rose quietly and returned to his bedroom, shivering with cold and anger.

He found himself driving along St. Kilda Esplanade, where he had taken Letty on their first drive together. Wherever he went, he was still in the radius of his life with her.

For three days his close colleagues noticed Warren's distraction. He failed to attend a department meeting. Kate couldn't find him when his students gathered outside his office for a tutorial.

"What's up, Warren? It's not like you. You're usually so correct, so prompt? Is the work getting on top of you?" asked Rob Wurth.

While he was concerned, Rob was however unprepared to hear Warren, the private Warren, telling him about his wife's unfaithfulness. Still bewildered, and feeling partially burdened by this unexpected tale, Rob asked carefully, "How's she now?"

"Pretty depressed. She's still talking about leaving me. The only thing that's stopping her is the children."

Rob looked nervously at Warren's computer, then at the window.

"Maybe you should seek professional help, Warren. Look, I know an excellent marriage counselor. She's a qualified psychoanalyst. Very busy, but I'll put in a word for you. She'll be happy to see you, I'm sure."

Warren came to stand beside Rob by the window. "Letty needs it too, Rob. How am I going to persuade her to go?"

"Try to talk her into going, Warren. In the meantime, I'll give Elizabeth a call."

Letty agreed to go. At first they had separate sessions with Elizabeth Heller. Then Elizabeth asked to see them together. In the session they were asked to swap roles and explore each other's emotional reactions. Letty was surprisingly calm and it was hard for Warren to tell how she was taking it. He was preoccupied with the effect of all these sessions on Letty. Deep down, all he wanted was for his wife to abandon her desire to leave him, to let him love her again. He was willing to forget and start over again. But Letty, who continued as a mother to the girls, still refused to return to their bedroom.

During his last individual session, Dr. Heller told him her assessment.

"Dr. Fowley we're both professional people, so I don't have to speak in euphemisms," she said in perfect Queen's English with only the slightest Teutonic slant. Slowly arranging her bangles, she continued, "You've been married for eleven years. Your wife stopped working after your second child was born, at her own free will. Despite her professional background, your wife still holds strong traditional values, which dictate, among other things, that women should stay home to look after the children. Don't interrupt me please, Dr. Fowley. We can have a discussion after I finish, if you like. Now, your wife. Having been brought up in an Asian country, where traditional values are still strong, your wife found herself in a cultural conflict. She had learned from childhood conditioning, that woman is inferior to man. Then living and working in Australia, she learned the Western concept. She learned of sexual equality. I know... When you married her, she appeared liberated, and you didn't think of her as a traditional sort of woman. All through your married life you loved her and idolized her. But because of her Asian upbringing, your wife has a low self-esteem, albeit subconscious. The more you idolized her, the more you brought this low self-esteem into the forefront of her consciousness. She couldn't handle it. She sought to stop it, but didn't know how. This old flame of hers, he was only an instrument, a catalyst, let's say. She had been wanting to do something to stop you idolizing her. Self- humiliation was the obvious way when this man came on the scene. So she let herself be seduced, to punish herself for letting herself drift too far from her natural makeup. At the same time, she hoped to stop you idolizing her."

Warren was dumbfounded. He had a feeling that Dr. Heller's assessment was inaccurate, yet he couldn't really put a finger on where she strayed from the truth. So he asked instead, "Then why does she want to leave me?"

"That's part of her self-punishment." Rearranging her bangles, she continued, "I don't think that deep down she really wants to leave you. She still loves you. I'm sure you'll be able to work on your relationship together."

Dr. Heller then asked to see Letty.

On the way home they were both quiet and pensive.

When Letty went to the kitchen to make coffee, Warren followed her. "Well, what do you think, Letty?"

Bending down to get some mugs out of the cupboard, Letty replied, "She did crap on, didn't she?"

"So you don't think she got the right picture?"

Straightening herself, Letty laughed silently. "All this crap about dormant inferiority complex just because I am an Asian woman! You Europeans think you got all the answers by collating all problems concerning Asian people against their cultural background! Warren, don't tell me you bought that too!"

Warren smiled uncertainly. "Not really. But do tell me what you think."

"Warren," Letty came to sit opposite him at the kitchen table. "I've never had inferiority complex. There was nothing wrong with you idolizing me. It was just a moment of weakness, Warren! When I realized what I'd done, I couldn't get over the shock, and I admit I dreaded the prospect of not being idolized any more. That's why I'd rather not face it. Yes, I know you said you'd forget it. But how could you? How could you erase something as hurtful as that from your memory? Be realistic, Warren!"

The kettle boiled and Letty got up to turn it off. The phone rang. Warren went to answer it.

"Oh Ari!" Letty heard her husband say, "How was the convention? Heaps of reports to write? Yes, now the work begins. Well, I'm afraid she's not available at the moment. When are you leaving? Sunday? Well... we won't be free until Monday. What a pity, yes. Sure, I'll do that. And cheers to your wife and children back home. Bye."

Walking back to the kitchen, Warren saw Letty stirring her coffee. "That was Ari. He's flying back to Indonesia on Sunday."

Letty didn't look up from her cup. Her dimple was showing as she half pursed her lips.

"Hmm," was all she said.

Dewi Anggraeni was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, and lives in Melbourne. She was the Australian correspondent for Tempo and now writes for The Jakarta Post, Forum Keadilan and other publications in Indonesia and Australia. She has had three books published in Australia -- two novels, The Root of All Evil (1987) and Parallel Forces (1988), and a trilogy of novellas called Stories of Indian Pacific (1993).