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Erzsébet always checked the forecast before she went out for a run. And the forecast had not, as of ten minutes before she’d left her house, said anything about rain. But here she was, tucked in the corner of a little cafe with surprisingly good espresso to keep her company while she waited for the downpour outside to stop.
At least her shoes were mostly dry. Erzsébet took another sip of espresso and watched two raindrops race each other down the windowpane. Their trails drew a shaky, narrowing V down the glass before merging and rolling down twice as quickly from the vertex. In the triangle outlined by their path she could see people hurrying along the sidewalk, couples huddling under shared umbrellas and store awnings, small children taking shelter under the jackets of their companions. She pursed her lips and looked into her coffee, idly searching for faces and flowers in the wisps of steam that rose up warm against her face.
The coffeeshop door chimed open, Erzsébet glanced up, and suddenly she was sixteen again—young, naïve, and reckless, falling into striking violet eyes without any care in the world. A ghost of his voice, half memory and all low, sultry contentment, curled up her spine and settled in her skull, warm and quiet:
“Lieblingsmensch…”
That whisper was all it took; memories bubbled to the surface of Erzsébet’s mind, flashes of the past bursting before her in vivid color and sound.
And then Roderich turned away, wet hair gleaming, and she sat alone once again, staring out at the shine of rain on the pavement.
A hot shower washed the chill from her skin but did nothing to shake Roderich’s lingering presence from Erzsébet’s mind. Hair wrapped up in a towel and hands still slightly damp, she rifled through her vinyls until she found what she was looking for: Lehár’s Die Lustige Witwe , the paper record sleeve slightly battered and worn at the seams, its contents carefully preserved despite it. She lowered the needle down gently and sank into the couch as the waltz began to play, spreading her arms and tipping her head back to rest against the wall.
She’d been surprised when Roderich had suggested it for their first dance—morbid jokes weren’t quite her brand of brash humour, even less so during that period of their engagement, just after Roderich’s diagnosis and the beginning of his acclimation to a life of chronic pain. But he’d insisted, citing the very Roderich argument that Lehár was the perfect composer because he was Austro-Hungarian (What would you have us play instead, Erzsi? Liszt?! Over my dead body will my first dance as a married man be to Liebestraum, I swear to God! ).
When she’d pointed out that having the first dance at their wedding be a waltz from an operetta titled The Merry Widow would perhaps send the wrong message to their guests, Roderich had only smiled and looked down at the knees that, according to his doctor, would fail to serve him in approximately three years.
Erzsébet remembered swallowing past a sudden lump in her throat and nodding. Lehár it is, she’d said. But you can’t get mad if I end up punching one of the Beilschmidts in the course of clarifying misunderstandings.
He’d laughed, and she hadn’t needed to punch anyone, in the end. Roderich had called Ludwig and Gilbert beforehand, when he thought she’d still be out at dress alterations.
The orchestra played on cheerfully, trumpets lifting the melody as Erzsébet sighed. She did miss Roderich, sometimes—not being married to him, necessarily, but there was something in her that yearned for the quiet comfort of sitting and reading while he played piano in the evenings, in filling the house with the aroma and gentle bubble of morning coffee rather than just making a single cup, in sharing the unspoken warmth of a home.
With so many years since she’d last had Roderich’s ring on her finger, it was too easy to remember how he’d always gotten the sugar just right in her tea and far more difficult to recall how much they’d grated against one another, trying to fulfill expectations neither of them really wanted to, until there was nothing left to scrape off but sparks.
It had been good to see him, she supposed. Good to know he was doing well. Erzsébet cracked one eye just enough to look at the manila folder containing her copy of the divorce decree. They’d only had one fight during the filing—different days, times, sure, but every single shouting match had been over the same thing. Erzsébet figured that counted as one, drawn-out argument.
Looking back on it, she couldn’t fathom why she’d cared so much that their divorce be finalised before his birthday. She certainly couldn’t remember why she’d been angry enough to storm out and go stay at Lili’s house for two weeks. Whatever her reasoning, she’d been livid the day they’d signed the last of the papers.
Somehow, she’d thought it would feel liberating, maybe even a little victorious, to push past him, see him crumble and fall without her support, but she had been wrong. So unbelievably, incredibly wrong.
“You’ll have to look after yourself now,” she had said, and the words had tasted not of savage satisfaction, but hollow, disappointed sorrow. In the moment, she had told herself that the ache blooming in her chest was imaginary, even as the breathless hurt in Roderich’s eyes did its best to convince her otherwise.
Erzsébet drew in a deep breath and pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose without opening her eyes. Her wedding waltz finished with a triumphant fanfare of brass and timpani before fading into soft static.
She ought to get up and lift the needle, before the record ran out of dead wax space and the needle risked fracture. Roderich had always been so insistent on taking proper care of the vinyls. So dedicated to his music and the neglect of himself.
Erzsébet’s lips quirked up dryly as she remembered the phone call she’d received from him a few days after their divorce was finalised. He’d tried to sound more irritated than panicked, but she knew him too well.
I can’t find the mop. Did you take it with you?
She’d swallowed a pointed question about what use she could possibly have for a nearly five-year-old mop and said instead, It’s by the floor polish, next to the regular broom.
The line had gone silent save for a few shuffling noises. She could hear him trying to search as quietly as he could. From the sound of it, he wasn’t even close to the hall closet. Erzsébet had waited a few seconds, worrying her lower lip with her teeth before saying softly, I’ll be there in twenty minutes.
...thank you.
She’d hesitated, trying to think of something to say, before surrendering and simply hanging up. She couldn’t entirely blame him. In the good-as-five years their marriage had lasted, she’d refused to let Roderich do any of the cleaning or household chores, directing him instead to go play something while she worked. It was a choice she’d made—she couldn’t very well turn around and blame him for the consequences.
On the drive to Roderich’s (she’d successfully trained herself out of thinking of the house as hers), Erzsébet tried to keep the turmoil in her chest from bleeding into her accelerator foot. It wasn’t entirely his fault, but neither was the blame all hers. Compromising with Roderich always left her so angry, though she could never pinpoint exactly at whom.
Erzsébet saw a stop sign slightly too late and slammed her foot on the brake, screeching to a hard stop. She checked for passing traffic and, finding none, took a moment to force a slow exhale through her clenched teeth.
Yes, she loved him; no, she didn’t want to be a housewife; yes, this was something she offered freely; no, he had no choice in forcing her hand; yes, she saw this as her hand being forced; no, he probably didn’t know that anyway.
She’d found him drifting off in the music room, plinking out a drowsy scale in an attempt to stave off the sleep that had obviously defeated his efforts.
...play for you , he’d mumbled as she hauled him into bed. It had hurt in so many different ways to shake her head and tell him to sleep. But Erzsébet had done it anyway.
The rattling static coming from her turntable grew more insistent; Erzsébet let her hand drop heavily to her side before pushing herself up off the couch and silencing the machine with a sloppy twist of her fingers. Its sudden absence magnified the echoing emptiness of her living room and Erzsébet found herself suddenly wondering if it had always felt quite so cold.
“Twelve years,” she said aloud, if only to fill the silence, “and it takes one look to shake sky and earth.”