Our Contract of Distrust

-- 9 --

When I return home the light in the guest room is on. It strikes me as odd, suspicious even.

I quietly crack the door open, half expecting to find Feodor scribbling away in code or concocting strange poisons. But everything is still.

Feodor is curled up on the reading chair like an oversized child, knees tucked up to his chest. The sight is so awkward it's almost endearing. But I quickly banish that thought. It's probably an act. An odd scheme devised to make me let my guard down.

His brows are furrowed and the corner of his mouth twitches as though he's dreaming of something unpleasant. A most convincing act.

He shudders and somehow manages to hunch up even more. He must be cold.

Maybe I ought to pretend I'm trying to be a real wife, fetch him a blanket or something. Maybe I should wake him up.

He'd likely 'wake' easily, since it was an act.

I shake him gently. "Feodor."

Nothing.

I shake him again, harder.

His eyes open once but refuse to focus and his eyelids soon slowly drop back into place. I shake him once more.

"Feodor, wake up."

This time he blinks repeatedly.

"Nadia?"

Then the inexplicable happens. He smiles at me. Sleepily, sloppily, sincerely.

"You're finally home?" He seems genuinely pleased by that fact.

"You can't sleep here." I tell him, ignoring his uncharacteristic behaviour.

"What? Where?" He looks around confused, evidently still half asleep.

I hate to admit it, but he'd have to be one heck of an actor for it to be fake. His every move speaks of a clouded, disoriented mind. His eyes have that odd spark that only surfaces when woken from deep sleep.

"Oh," he says, "together." He half-smiles again. "We have to sleep together."

"What? No. That's not what I-"

He's not listening, but rather nodding to himself and awkwardly unfurling from the chair.

Once he's on his feet he reaches a hand towards my shoulder, but soon thinks better of it.

"Let's sleep." He says as he sluggishly moves for the bed.

"I have to change first."

"Oh," he nods again, mostly to himself.

He's asleep once more as I slip under the sheets.

I can't help but watch him. His contented face. The even rising and falling of his chest.

What the heck was with that? Did he mistake me for someone else?

____________________________

Feodor is his usual self again the next morning; wallowing in his cloud of severity.

"What time did you come back last night?" He asks. Is this the start of an interrogation?

"Oh, not too late, 10 maybe. Don't you remember?"

"Remember what?"

"Well, if you don't that's probably for the best."

He takes a long swig of his tea and swallows hard.

"Tell me." He says.

"If you don't remember it obviously wasn't that important to you."

He swallows again, this time without liquid.

"Did I do something to you?"

"To me? Not particularly."

I don't even know what I'm meant to be implying, but whatever his mind has supplied as an answer to my vagueness discomforts him. It's strangely satisfying watching him squirm.

I can't resist. "But I don't think I can look at you the same way as before."

His perpetually glum expression solemnises even more, with eyebrows almost joined into one.

He stares at me hard, until I almost feel as though he can peer into my soul. As though his unwavering gaze can peel back the layers of my charade.

After what feels like far too long, he returns his attention to his tea. The extra moroseness dissipates and I conclude that he must have concluded nothing really happened.

It's too bad, really.