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pale arches of her blue eye-shadow. Mock stood in the doorway, trying not to look her in the face. He contemplated the innate elegance of her movements: as she coyly tipped the milk jug and admired the milk breaking up the black of the coffee; as she carefully raised the fragile cup to her lips; as she turned the knob of the radioa little impatiently in search of her beloved Beethoven. Mock sat at the table and gazed at Sophie.
“Never again,” he said emphatically. “Forgive me.”
“Never again what?” Sophie slowly ran her index finger up and down the handle of the milk jug. “Never again what? Alcohol? Violence? Attempted rape? Pretending in front of your brother that you are a real man who keeps his woman at heel?”
“Yes. Never again – any of it.” In order to avoid looking at Sophie, Mock stared at a painting, a present he had given her for her twenty-fourth birthday. It depicted a subtle landscape by Eugene Spiro and bore the artist’s dedication: “Many happy returns to melancholic Sophie”.
“You’re forty-four. Do you think you’re able to change?” There was not a trace of melancholy in Sophie’s eyes.
“We will never change if we carry on being alone, just the two of us.” Mock was pleased Sophie was speaking to him at all. He poured himself some mint tea and took a sandalwood box out of the sideboard. The metallic sound of cigar clippers and the grating of a match. Mock tried to chase away the very last mists of his hangover with the tea and the aroma of a Przedecki cigar. “We’ll both change when there are three of us, when you finally have a baby.”
“I’ve been longing for a baby ever since we got married.” Sophie ran her finger over the spout of the milk jug. Then she got up and, with a faint sigh, huddled next to the stove. Mock went to her and fell to his knees. He pressed his head against her belly and whispered: “You give yourself to me every night, and you will conceive. You’ll see, every night.” Sophie did not return his embrace. Mock felt her belly undulating. He got to his feet and gazed into her eyes, which in laughter had become even smaller than usual.
“Even if you drank whole tankfuls of mint tea, you wouldn’t be able topossess me every day.” Sophie wiped tears of laughter from beneath her black eye.
“What, does mint increase virility?” he said.
“Apparently,” she said, still laughing.
Mock went back to his cigar. An enormous circle of smoke drifted down to the deep-pile carpet.
“How do you know?” he asked suddenly.
“I read it somewhere.” Sophie stopped laughing.
“Where?”
“A book in your library.”
“One by Galen, perhaps?” Mock, as a would-be philologist of Classics, possessed nearly all the editions of ancient writers.
“I can’t remember.”
“It must have been Galen.”
“Possibly.” Sophie sat down and turned her cup in its saucer. Anger flashed in her eyes. “What do you think you’re doing? Not only do you mistreat me physically, but now you’re trying to torment me mentally as well?”
“I’m sorry,” Mock said humbly. “I only want to clear the air. Where were you today?”
“I don’t want questions or mistrust.” Sophie screwed a cigarette into her crystal holder and accepted a light from her husband. “Which is why I’m going to tell you about my day as if I were talking to a husband who is changing for the better and is curious to know how his dear wife’s day has been, and not to some furiously jealous investigator. As you know, Elisabeth and I are soon to appear in an Advent concert. She came to see me this morning, not long after you sent the roses. We took a droschka to Eichenallee, to Baron von Hagenstahl’s who is paying for and organizing the concert. We needed his blessing to hire the Concert Hall on Garten-strasse. We made a detour on the way and I left the roses at the church ofCorpus Christi – I was furious with you and didn’t want the flowers. Then Elisabeth and I rehearsed. I had