The 158-Pound Marriage

'Told you what?'

'Edith told Utch what happened out there,' I said.

'Oh, ja,' he said. 'Bender really blew it.'

'Be honest with me, Severin,' I said. Then I told him the story I'd heard. He denied it, but of course he would deny it.

A little later Edith called Utch and said that Utch had betrayed her. Apparently Edith had told her not to breathe a word to me - knowing Utch would breathe right away, of course. Utch answered that Edith had betrayed Severin's confidence by telling the story in the first place. Then I called Edith and told her I knew it was a lie.

'Of course it is,' she said. But she meant that Utch had lied.

'No, you lied,' I said.

'Fuck you,' Edith said.

We didn't see the Winters for weeks and when they invited us to dinner, we weren't sure what the dinner was for.

'They're going to poison us,' I said, but Utch didn't smile. 'Severin likes to make everything official,' I said. 'He needs to hold a banquet to announce that everything is indeed over between us.'

'Maybe they want to apologize.'

'For what?' I said. 'For using us? I'm sure they're not sorry.'

'Shut up,' Utch said. 'Maybe they want to try the whole thing again.'

'Fat chance.'

'And if they wanted to try it again,' Utch said, 'you'd jump at the chance.'

'Like hell I would.'

'Ha!'

'Shut up.'

When Severin greeted us at the door, he said, 'Edith's given up cigarettes, so we're not going to have a very long cocktail hour. That's when she feels most like smoking.' He kissed Utch on the cheek the way I'd seen him kiss his children and shook my hand. For a wrestler, Severin had a very weak handshake, as if he were trying to impress you with how gentle he was.

Edith was eating a carrot stick in the living room; she turned her cheek and let me kiss her while both her hands clutched her carrot. I remembered the first evening we had eaten with them; they were both much freer with themselves.

'We're having squid,' Severin said.

'Severin spent the whole day cooking,' Edith said.

'Actually, it's cleaning them that's the most time-consuming,' he said. 'First you have to strip the skin off. It's sort of like a film - a membrane - very slimy. Then you have to take the insides out.'

'Squid are like prophylactics,' Edith said. 'It's like turning a rubber inside out.'

'Edith helped me do it,' Severin said. 'I think she gets her rocks off turning squid inside out.' Edith laughed, and Utch snapped a carrot between her teeth like the neck-bone of a small animal.

'How's the work coming?' I asked Edith.

'I've just finished something,' Edith said. She was eating one carrot after another. I wanted to smoke but there were no ashtrays.

'Have you put on weight since you stopped smoking?' Utch asked.

'I only stopped a week ago,' Edith said. I couldn't tell about her weight; she wore a

shapeless peasant dress, the kind of thing she never wore. I felt that Severin had dressed her for the occasion, making certain that the outline of her taut body was not visible to me.