The Swan Thieves

When Robert came home, I didn't mention the attic to him. He was tired from a day of teaching, and we sat in silence over the lentil soup I'd cooked, with Ingrid bubbling applesauce and carrots cheerfully down her front. I fed her and wiped her mouth over and over with a damp washcloth and tried to get up the courage to ask Robert something about his work, but I couldn't. He sat with his head propped on one hand, deep rings under his eyes, and I sensed that something had changed for him, although I didn't know what it was or how it was different from anything else. Every now and then he glanced past me to the kitchen doorway, his eyes flickering hopelessly, as if he expected someone who never arrived there, and I felt again that shiver of confusion, apprehension, and willed myself not to follow his gaze.

After dinner he went to bed and slept for fourteen hours. I cleaned up the kitchen, got Ingrid to sleep, got up with her in the night, got up with her in the morning. I thought about inviting Robert for a walk, but when I came back from my stroll to the campus post office, he was gone, the bed unmade, a half-eaten bowl of cereal on the table. I went up to the blossoming attic to be sure and caught a glimpse again of the kaleidoscope woman, but no Robert.

The third day I couldn't bear it any longer, and I saw to it that Ingrid was down for her nap when Robert came home from his afternoon classes. It would make her sleep too late and stay up too long in the evening, but that was a small price to pay for the chance to set the world back on its feet again. When Robert came in, I had some tea waiting for him and he sat at the table. His face was weary, gray, one side of it drooping a little as if he might be about to sleep, or cry, or have a mild stroke. I knew he must be tired and I wondered at my own selfishness in putting him through a big discussion. Of course, it was partly for his own good--something was really wrong, and I had to help him.

I put our cups on the table and sat down as calmly as I could. "Robert," I began, "I know you're tired, but could we talk for a few minutes?"

He glanced at me across the tea, his hair partly on end, his face sullen. I realized now that he hadn't been bathing--he looked greasy as well as tired. I would have to remonstrate with him about overwork, whether it was teaching or painting attic walls. He was simply overtiring himself. He set his cup down. "What have I done now?"

"Nothing," I said, but the lump in my throat was already growing. "Nothing at all. I'm just worried about you."

"Don't worry about me," he said. "Why should you worry about me?"

"You're exhausted," I said, keeping the lump in place. "You're working so hard that you seem exhausted, and we hardly see you."

"That's what you wanted, wasn't it?" he growled. "You wanted me to work a good job and support you."

My eyes began to fill despite my best efforts at composure. "I want you to be happy, and I see how tired you are. You sleep all day and you paint all night."

"When am I supposed to paint except at night? Anyway, I'm usually asleep then, too." He ran his hand angrily through the front of his hair. "Do you think I get any real work done?"

Suddenly the sight of that unkempt, greasy hair made me angry, too. After all, I was working just as hard. I never slept more than a few hours at a time, I did all the dull work of keeping the household going, I had no chance to paint unless I skipped even more sleep, and I couldn't do that, so I didn't paint. I made it possible for him to do whatever work he did get done. He never had to do the dishes or clean a toilet or make a meal--I had freed him. And I managed to wash my hair now and then anyway, thinking that might make some difference to him. "There's another thing," I said, more curtly than I'd planned to. "I went up in the attic. What is that all about?"

He leaned back and fixed his eyes on me, then sat very still, straightening his powerful shoulders. For the first time in our years together, I felt afraid of him--not afraid of his brilliance or his talent or his ability to hurt my feelings, but simply afraid, in a subtle, animal way. "The attic?" he said.

"You've been painting a lot up there," I tried more cautiously. "But not on your canvases."

He was silent for a moment, and then he spread one of his hands on the table. "So?"

I had wanted above all to ask him about the woman herself, but instead I said, "I just thought you were getting ready for your show."

"I am."

"But you've done only a canvas and a half," I pointed out. This was not what I'd wanted to discuss. My voice was beginning to tremble again.

"So now you have to keep track of my work as well? Do you want to tell me what to paint while you're at it?" He was suddenly sitting bolt upright in the small kitchen chair, his presence filling the room.

"No, no," I said, and the cruelty of his words, and the cruelty of my own self-betrayal, made tears spill down my cheeks. "I don't want to tell you what to paint. I know you have to paint whatever you need to. I'm just worried about you. I miss you. I'm scared to see you look so exhausted."

"Well, save your worry," he said. "And stay out of my space. I don't need someone spying on me, on top of everything else." He took a sip of his tea, then put it down as if the taste disgusted him, and left the kitchen.

Somehow his refusal to stay and talk shattered me as nothing else had. The sense of a bad dream broke over me in one bitter wave. I thrashed my way through it and found myself jumping up after him. "Robert--stop! Don't just walk out!" I caught him in the hall and grabbed his arm.

He shook me off. "Get away from me."

My self-control gave way completely. "Who is she?" I wailed.

"Who is who?" he asked, and then his brow darkened and he pulled away and went into our bedroom. I stood in the doorway, watching, my face running with tears, my nose dripping, my sobs humiliatingly audible, while he lay down on the bed I had made that morning and covered himself with a quilt. He shut his eyes. "Leave me alone," he said without opening them again. "Leave me alone." To my horror, he fell asleep as I stood there. I stayed in the doorway, muting my weeping and watching as his breath slowed and then became soft and even. He slept like a baby, and upstairs Ingrid woke with a cry.