He dug up his materials on organic farming and started building a model of a farm, on the scale of 1 to 20, down in the basement. A house, a barn, a shed for machinery, a windmill, a paddock for horses, a lot of minor things…
His wife visited him in the basement and watched him work.
“Why, you’re good with your hands! Just when you think you know someone…”
He smiled happily.
“Listen, why don’t we hang out with anyone?” he asked his wife once. “Don’t get it wrong, I don’t want anyone else but you, but still it’s a bit strange. Did I have any mates?”
“You did…” She told him a couple of names. “But they… They didn’t make it back.”
That was true, he remembered them. Two hardened mercenaries, his right hand and left hand in every bloody mess. He even recalled the tours that had been their last. Damn, he should not be digging into the past…
“How about you? Do you have any friends?”
“I had some but they stayed behind where I grew up.” She named a town in the South. “You took me away from there, remember?”
That was true, he remembered: he had taken her away from her home town in order to snatch her out of her old milieu so that she belonged to nobody but him. He was in love and consumed by jealousy…
“And Margo, your mother? How is she?”
“Mother?… She’s all right, doing well. I spoke with her on the phone just the other day. She sends her love”.
Embarrassed, he did not pursue his questions. He was embarrassed because Elena had lied. Margo could not send her love to him. He remembered clearly: that shrew, his mother-in-law, had always hated his guts, called him a murderer, and even his high earnings could not mollify her.
He started running in the morning trying to regain shape. He did not recognize anyone in the neighborhood, and nobody gave any signs of knowing him.
“We’ve only moved here recently,” Elena explained. “Also, the people here are not very communicative. Anyway, you said you liked it when you didn’t have to spend your time on idle acquaintances.”
That he remembered: he could not stand it when people forced their company on him.
Still, he made the acquaintance of a neighbor. The man lived in a house across the street. One day, as he was running by, Kurt noticed that in the top window of the house was a telescope of the kind that school-age amateur astronomers used to observe the stars. Only the neighbor was no schoolboy, it was daytime, and the telescope was pointed not at the sky but at his and Elena’s house.
He could rightly get mad about such prying, but he did not feel any anger. He halted and waved in a genial way to the observer. The man disappeared and drew the blinds at once.
On another day, Kurt encountered the man in the street.
“Hello. We’re neighbors, I live right across.”
The man was clearly very embarrassed. Averting his eyes, he mumbled something like, “Yes, I know.”
“I see you have a large greenhouse,” Kurt went on. “You know, I take interest in the greenhouse business myself. I’m planning to go into it big time. Could you show me what you’ve got?”
The neighbor was obviously unhappy to hear the request, but there was no dodging it, it would be impolite to refuse.
“It’s an orangery… that is, a flower house,” he muttered. “You’re welcome.”
The orangery was a gorgeous one, with cascades of fantastic flowers and mind-blowing scents. And – roulades sung by birds in hanging cages. A little paradise.
Kurt eyed the middle-aged, nondescript man with respect.
“I envy you,” he said sincerely, shaking the man’s hand. “I hope one day I’ll have a piece of such beauty, too.”
The neighbor thawed a little and invited Kurt to come again, although he was still tense, averting his eyes. “Maybe he knows something about my heroic deeds as a hired gun?” Kurt thought. “No, how can he?”
Meantime, it was not all cloudless in his own conjugal paradise.
Elena was drifting away from him. It all started with minor things. It seemed there was less love in her look, and less joy in her voice. Or could it be just his imagination? Could it be that everything was as it had been, and it was he who was to blame for always expecting a feast which not even the most loving woman could create every day?