Page 70 of The Square

“Yes, well… at the time, I sort of told myself that what I was doing was giving you time to rest. Allowing you time to grieve. And continuing on with life as usual because that would be the best way to help you move past.”

“That’s fucking bullshit.”

“Indeed it is. It is. One hundred percent bull kak. Yes. Because what I was doing was avoiding the fact that not only was I impotent to do anything to help you—because I couldn’t protect you from what happened—but that I had my own feelings about the matter. And I just couldn’t allow myself to feel them.”

“But—”

“Yes?”

“But you could have. You could have helped me. You could have been there for me. You could have done a million things. But instead you fucked someone else. And, honestly, I don’t really give a shit about that. Jealousy is for girls.” Again, I can’t suppress a tiny smile. “But you got someone else pregnant. Someone else got to carry your baby. The baby you made with them. The baby that should have been ours…” She spins her finger around to indicate all three of us. “And that only even happened because of what happened with me. Is that not true?”

She looks at me, imploringly. Danny stares a hole right through me.

“Perhaps. Probably. I mean, the arrangement I had with Eliza always had certain parameters. One of them involved seeing to it that nothing like a child could ever happen.”

“So why did it? Was it to…?”

She chokes off. Presses her lips together.

“What? Was it to what?”

She closes her eyes, shakes her head, and says, “To punish me somehow?”

I can’t stay seated any longer. I kneel forward and go to take her hand. She pulls away. Retreats into Danny. There is a greater volume of vulnerability currently in the back of this car than could be held inside Ellis Park Stadium, and the air is thick.

“Nunu… no. The last thing I would ever want—ever—would be to hurt you.”

“But you did.”

“I fokken know I did. I know. What I started to say is that when I woke up back there in that house, I assumed that I must be dead. I must be. Because I know that if there is a Hell, that’s where I’ll be spending my eternity. And for me, the truest definition of Hell would be to spend all of time in the one place where I most hurt the only person on the planet that I would never want to hurt.” Danny shoots me a look. “Fine,” I add. “One of only two people I would never want to hurt.”

She looks as though she remains unconvinced. I go on.

“Look. Christine. Christine Keene. My whole life, I never wanted a child. Never. I couldn’t even imagine it. I mean, my childhood, while having the appearance of being all one could want, was far from it, to say the least. You and Danny? Your childhoods? Well… I couldn’t even begin to think what a wretched cunt of a father I would be. But then… finding out you were pregnant. You. With our baby… All I wanted, all I wanted, in the blink of an eye, was to be that baby’s father. And to love it. And protect it. And give it a picture-book life. Even if that picture book was drawn using extraordinarily garish colors that spilled well outside the lines. But still. One thing that child would never have had to question is that it was loved.”

She is no longer sobbing, but a single tear does drop down her cheek.

“And,” I continue, “when that was unable to happen… When not only did I fail you, but I failed that baby that was to be ours—because I couldn’t protect it either—I could see no reason to go on. So I got into situations that I knew might very well kill me. I wanted, desperately, to test Death. To see why she comes for some but not for others. To see how far I could push the boundaries. And that extended to Eliza. I think… I think I wanted to see how far I could push the boundaries there before I broke everything into an irreparable deconstruction. And I think it’s very possible I found my answer. It didn’t come as swiftly as I might have thought. But it certainly seems to have arrived. So…”

I trail off. Because words are words are words and can only accomplish so much. Apologies are generally worthless. An apology is almost always for the one offering, not the recipient. People do not want apologies. They want penance. They want to know that the person who has wronged them is going to pay. Is going to suffer. At the least, they want to know that the person who has wronged them is going to change.

There is an argument to be made that I have paid my penance. What has happened between us would be, for most, enough. But the cost to her has been greater than any cost to me. She was robbed once. Then she was robbed again. Then she was robbed of her memories and fooled into believing that there was a happy ending to be had. And when her memories returned, she was robbed of that illusory happiness yet again.

No. Whatever I have suffered is a pittance compared to what Christine has endured. And so… I don’t bother to say, “I’m sorry.” I don’t ask for a forgiveness that I very likely do not deserve. I just let my explanation for my role in the whole, miserable failure of fortitude stand on its own and wait to see if there’s any chance that Humpty fokken Dumpty can be put back together again. Someday.

She tried to kill me. She took up with my little brother, and for God knows how long, plotted to bring my world to an end. I should be pissed.

No, Alec van den Berg. You shouldn’t be.

That sounds about fair.