The officer read the papers, and as he read the final one, he suddenly straightened, and saluted. “Apologies,” he said to David. “I didn’t know, sir.”
“No apologies necessary, officer,” David said. “You’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the officer. “Do you need help getting him back home?”
“That’s very generous of you, officer, but no,” David said. “You’re doing a fine job here.”
The officer saluted again, and David saluted back. Then he took my place at my husband’s left side. “Oh, you silly man,” he said to my husband. “Let’s get you home.”
None of us spoke until we had crossed Sixth Avenue. “Who are—” the blond man began, and then, “Thank you,” and David, no longer smiling, shook his head. “If we pass another officer, let me handle it,” he said, quietly. “If we’re stopped, no one should look worried. You have to seem—exasperated, all right? But not scared. Charlie, do you understand?” I nodded. “I’m Charlie’s friend,” he said to the blond man. “David.”
The blond man nodded. “I’m Fritz,” he said. “I’m—” But he couldn’t continue.
“I know who you are,” David said.
The blond man looked at me. “Fritz,” he said, and I gave him a nod to show I understood.
We reached home without being stopped again, and once he had closed the front door behind us, David handed me the thermos and then picked my husband up in his arms and carried him up the flights of stairs. I didn’t understand how he did this, as they were about the same size, but he did.
Inside, he took my husband to our bedroom, and even through everything that was happening, I felt a burn of embarrassment, that both David and Fritz should be seeing how we slept, not touching, in separate beds. Then I remembered that they already knew, and felt even more embarrassed.
But neither of them seemed to notice. Fritz had sat next to my husband on his bed and was stroking his head again. David was holding my husband’s wrist and looking at his watch. After a few moments, he gently laid my husband’s arm down by his side, as if he was returning it to him. “Charlie, will you get me some water?” he asked, and I did.
When I returned, David was kneeling by the bed as well, and he took the water I gave him and held it to my husband’s lips. “Edward, can you swallow any? Good; good. A little more. Good.” He set the mug on the floor next to him.
“You know this is the end,” he said, though it was unclear to whom he was speaking: me or Fritz.
It was Fritz who answered. “I know,” he said, quietly. “He was diagnosed a year ago. I just thought he’d have a little more time.”
“With what?” I heard myself ask. “Diagnosed with what?”
They both looked at me. “Congestive heart failure,” Fritz said.
“But that’s treatable,” I said. “That can be fixed.”
But Fritz shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not for him. Not for relatives of state traitors,” and as he said this, he began to cry.
“He didn’t tell me,” I said, when I could speak again. “He didn’t tell me.” And I began to pace, to flap my hands, to repeat myself—“He didn’t tell me, he didn’t tell me”—until Fritz left my husband’s side, and grabbed my hands in his own.
“He was trying to find the right time to tell you, Charlie,” he said. “But he didn’t want to worry you. He didn’t want you to be upset.”
“But I am upset,” I said, and this time it was David who had to take me and sit with me on my bed, and rock me back and forth, just the way Grandfather used to.
“Charlie, Charlie, you’ve been so brave,” he said, while rocking me. “It’s almost over, Charlie, it’s almost over.” And I cried and cried, even though I was ashamed to be crying, and ashamed to be crying for myself as much as for my husband: I was crying because I knew so little, and because I understood so little, and because, although my husband had not loved me, I had loved him, and I think he had known that. I was crying because he did love someone, this someone who knew all about me and about whom I knew nothing, and I was crying because this someone was now losing him as well. I was crying because he had been sick and he hadn’t thought to tell me or been able to tell me—I didn’t know which, but it didn’t make a difference: I hadn’t known.
But I was also crying because I knew that my husband was the only reason I would have stayed in Zone Eight, and now my husband was dying, and I would not stay either. I was crying because we were both leaving, to different places, and we would be doing so separately, and neither of us would ever return, back to this apartment in this zone in this municipality in this prefecture, ever again.
* * *
We waited the rest of the night and all day Friday for my husband to die. In the early morning, David had left to register all three of our absences from work at the center. Fritz, who was unmarried, also lived in Building Six, just as David had said he himself did, and so we didn’t need to worry about his spouse missing him, as he had none.
When David returned, he gave my husband a little more of the liquid in his thermos, which made my husband’s face relax and made his breaths deeper and longer. “We can give him more if he really begins suffering,” he said, but neither Fritz nor I said anything in response.
At noon, I made some lunch, but no one ate it. At 19:00, David reheated the lunch in the oven, and this time, all three of us ate, sitting on the floor in my husband’s and my bedroom, watching him sleep.
None of us said anything, or not much. At one point, Fritz asked David, “Are you from the Interior?” and David smiled, a bit, and said, “Something like that,” which made Fritz stop asking questions.
“I’m in the Finance Ministry,” he said, and David nodded. “I guess you knew that already,” Fritz said, and David nodded again.
I suppose it would be natural to wonder if I asked Fritz about how and when he and my husband had met, and how long they had known each other, and if he was the person who had sent my husband those notes. But I did not. I thought about it, of course, over many hours, but in the end, I didn’t. I didn’t need to know.
I slept in my bed that night. David slept on the sofa in the main room. Fritz slept next to my husband in his bed, holding him even though my husband couldn’t hold him back. When I heard someone saying my name, I opened my eyes to see David standing over me. “It’s time, Charlie,” he said.
I looked over to where my husband was lying, very still. He was breathing, but barely. I went and sat on the floor next to his head. His lips were a faint purplish blue, a strange color I had never seen on a human. I held his hand, which was still warm, but then I realized that it was warm only because Fritz had been holding it.
We sat there for a very long time. As the sun began to rise, my husband’s breathing became harsh, and Fritz looked over at David, who was sitting on my bed and said, “Now, please, David,” and then looked over at me, because I was his wife, and I nodded, too.