Chapter 10
"Iza, I wonder if I could meet with you. I've just had some news from Helen and I'd like to talk to you about it. Of course, I'll pay you for your time. I just need some advice and no one else knows my situation as well as you."
Iza was glad to hear from Darek. It had been three weeks since she had heard from him. She had often wondered how things had turned out between him and Helen but had never expected to hear from him again. "I'd love to talk to you", she said.
They planned to meet in the same coffee shop that they had met in when Iza worked for him. Darek felt a painful feeling of nostalgia, as he sat within the dark confines of this upscale underground café waiting for her to arrive. Memories of their conversations came back to him with memories of the hopes he had once had. He was surprised by the unexpected surge of happiness that he felt when he saw Iza come through the door. He had actually missed her. He had forgotten how pretty she was. She smiled broadly at him as she walked towards him and, for the first time since they had known each other, she greeted him with a hug and not a handshake.
"Iza, you look great, as usual", he said in earnest.
She gave him a sarcastic smile. "I'm not sure absence makes the heart grow fonder, but, apparently, it makes the eyes grow weaker." She sat across the table from him and looked at him. He had changed, she thought. He looked tense and somewhat distracted. "What's wrong?" She asked, getting directly to the point.
"I didn't sleep much last night, for one thing. For another thing, I got a call from Helen yesterday. It was the first call I got from her since…well, you know. I was a wreck worrying about her and not hearing from her all this time, but I was afraid to initiate any contact. I wanted her to contact me only when she felt ready, you know? I thought that if I contacted her first, I'd only be putting pressure on her."
"Yeah", said Iza, "you did the right thing. So, what happened? How is she?"
Darek shook his head. "I don't know. Better? Worse? I just don't know. That's why I called you. The whole situation just confuses me. I can't think my way out of it."
"Well, explain it to me", said Iza, unable to control her curiosity.
"Okay, here's the story", Darek began, taking a deep breath. "You were right. She found out about her husband by checking his phone. She described you as 'some woman he met in a bar when he was drunk.' Apparently, that was his story."
Iza laughed. "But if she saw all the messages, she knows this isn't true. There were several about how much he loved me and wanted to be with me. Didn't she tell you about that?"
"No", answered Darek. "It may be that he only kept certain messages. Those that made it look like a casual affair, or messages from you which made it look like it was you who were chasing after him."
"That bastard", Iza said in a low tone, "he was smarter than I ever gave him credit for. Nonetheless, he still cheated on her. She still knows what kind of guy he is. He still broke his promise to her, right?"
"Yeah, well, that's how anyone else would see it, I suppose", Darek remarked.
"Are you seriously telling me she doesn't see this as evidence of his character?" Iza asked, somewhat astounded.
"She said that he admitted he had a problem. He was sorry. He cried. He begged. Finally, and this was the key, I think, he asked her to help him; to get him professional help. And in her words, 'how could I turn my back on someone that I've lived with for all these years, who I've had children with. How could I not help him?' And so that's what she's decided to do." Darek said with a shake of his head.
"Ah, yes", Iza said with a wry smile, "the old 'I need you' card; an appeal to a woman's mothering instincts. It's always a good move. So what's she doing?"
"Apparently, they're in some kind of couples counseling. She says it's working, that they've never been closer. She says her husband has completely changed." Darek reported, looking sad and resigned about the way things had turned out.
"Really?" Iza remarked. "Changed completely? Suddenly he's become the perfect husband? Hmm, that's really very interesting; very interesting." And with that she took her cell phone, punched a few buttons, and handed it to Darek. "Read this." She said.
Darek read the message on the cell phone. "I love you very much. I miss you every minute of every day. Please, tell me we can meet again. I know you must want that, too." Finally, he looked back at Iza. "Is this from him?" He asked.
"Yes, now look at the date."
"This is today's date. He wrote this to you today?" Darek asked in complete disbelief.
"Yes, this morning", Iza said. "I can show you a number of these. That counseling is sure doing a wonderful job…a wonderful job in strengthening her denial."
"But this is incredible! How is the guy able to do something like this?" Darek said, shaking his head as if in a daze.
"Because he can", Iza said. "He's relying on her denial. He has been for some time. She's giving him a free ticket and he's using it." She then looked Darek directly in the eye. "Darek, she'll never leave him. You must understand that now."
"But she loves me. I know she loves me." Darek stated with waning conviction.
"That's neither here nor there for women like her", Iza observed. "Love plays no part in her decision making. If it had, she would have left her husband when she first met you. I think you have to face the truth, Darek. It's easier for her to hurt you than her husband."
"But she's not that kind of a person", Darek protested. "She doesn't want to hurt anyone."
"Darek, don't you go into denial, too. She simply doesn't love you that much. You have to learn to accept that. My guess is that she never did. My guess is that she's a product of your imagination. You imagined she loved you and she let you imagine it for whatever reason she needed. Maybe it helped boost her ego. I really don't know. I'm just an outsider looking in. You asked for my opinion and that's it. I don't expect you to agree with me, at least not right now, but I want you to think about it, okay?" Iza looked into his eyes with a sincere, concerned look.
Darek knew she meant no harm by what she had said, but the words had hurt him. "My invention? She never really loved me?" He said, almost inaudibly to himself. He could feel the world and his concept of what was real slipping away from him. He thought that if this were true, then his life had little meaning. She was everything for him. The hope of one day being with her was the only reason he got out of bed in the morning, but, if Iza was correct, for Helen, he had been nothing more than a diversion, an amusement, a break from the tedium of everyday existence. It was a thought too hard for him to take.
Iza saw the pain her words had caused him. "Darek, I may be wrong. Sometimes…sometimes something happens; some revelation or something. Maybe she'll see the light." Iza didn't really believe this, but she wanted to give Darek some hope, at least for the moment. Soon, he would understand all of this for himself.
"But I just don't understand why she would stay with him after all of this? It just doesn't make any sense?" Darek said in exasperation.
"It's hard for me to understand women like this myself. Why do women stay with alcoholics? Why do women stay with men who abuse them? My guess is it's got something to do with low self-esteem. They may question their own value. Maybe they think they can't get anything better. Maybe, they somehow think they deserve it. Maybe they enjoy the idea of being a martyr. I really don't know." Iza continued, shaking her head. "It could be any number of things, but, in the end, I think they must be getting something out of these relationships that people from the outside just can't see. They have to deny the truth because to see it would cause the whole bizarre world they've constructed to collapse. I see the same behavior every day in the girls I work with."
"What do you mean?" Darek asked, curious about whether Iza herself was in some state of denial.
"Oh, a lot of these girls justify what they do by saying they have a kid to support and they need the money, or they say it's just a job like any other job. They deny the emotional toll that it slowly takes on them." Iza said, in a way to b
rush aside Darek's question.
Darek studied her a little more closely. "So how did you avoid living in denial? What did you do that the others didn't?"
Iza laughed. "I think I was no different than they were. You asked me once if my choice of jobs hadn't given me a twisted view of life. That idea stuck in my head. I wondered if my work was taking a toll on me that I didn't or didn't want to recognize. Was I in denial? Maybe I was, at least partially. I really felt this conflict between my job and my self, I mean who I really claim to be, when I had to kiss Michael because I knew kissing him was part of the job you hired me for."
"Jesus, Iza", Darek said, shaking his head and looking dejected. "Don't tell me I ruined your life, too?"
"No, no, just the opposite. That moment woke me up. I had to ask myself what I was doing. I had never kissed a man I felt nothing for let alone someone who I positively detested."
"You destested him?" Darek asked, rather surprised at this admission.
"More than any man I've ever known. To me, his behavior represented pure evil. That he could hurt anyone he wanted in the pursuit of his own selfishness, and that he felt no remorse for anything he did… I mean, lying, cheating, pretending, it didn't matter to him, as long as he got what he wanted. And yet, I had to kiss him." Iza confessed. "Anyway, that was the last job as an escort I ever took."
Darek looked stunned by Iza's words. "But you came here today to help me?"
"Only as a friend, Darek. My escort days are behind me now."
"But what are you doing for money?"
"Oh, I still live with my aunt. Only now, I do her accounting. It's challenging, but I like it. Numbers don't have hidden agendas. Besides, she pays me well and throws in a place to live on top of it. I think I might even go into accounting when I finish my studies."
Darek smiled. "Wow, you as an accountant." He shook his head in disbelief. "This world is full of surprises."
"So, you see, Darek, you didn't hurt me, you actually helped me. Actions which may seem bad at the time may have a brighter side to them in the future. I think you should tell Helen what you did. She may not like it now, but she may thank you for it someday. Besides, what do you have to lose?"
"Maybe. I'll consider it. But if what you say is true, that we never really know the final results of our actions so that what seems bad at the time may, in years to come, yield positive results, then you can say that about any action, even the most vile, can't you? I mean, isn't that like saying that anything is permitted because good can only be assessed from a future perspective? In this case, Michael's behavior might really be good."
"Yeah, well, maybe ethics exist only in the context of the present. Maybe you're right. Maybe there's no absolute ethical behavior. What once was bad is now good and what once was good is now bad. It's a constantly shifting playing field, I guess." Iza said as she thought aloud about what Darek had said. "Only religion believes it has all the answers. At least they have to pretend they do or they'd be out of a job. What if they admitted every moral behavior they prescribed held the possibility of an immoral outcome? Love thy neighbor but don't get caught doing it. The Inquisition was moral, right? Well, it was at one time. That's what God wanted at one time. I guess he changed his mind after a while. I guess even God isn't perfect. Anyway, sure, if Michael's behavior led to Helen being with you, you would have to conclude that his behavior was good, right?"
Darek wasn't convinced. However, Iza had, again, surprised him. She had effortlessly given a discourse on morality that would have impressed many experts on the topic. He wondered if she even understood the extent of her own intelligence. Maybe she did. He recalled a quote attributed to Socrates, "I know that I am intelligent because I know that I know nothing." He knew that if he complimented her on her intelligence, she would dismiss the compliment.
"If Michael's behavior led Helen back to me, I would probably conclude that his behavior was bad but that it just happened to lead to a good outcome." Darek finally said. "People are judged by what they do in the present. If I kill someone today, I'll be put in prison for it. Nobody cares that I may have killed someone who would have fathered a cruel dictator years from now, had he not been killed. I'm not happy with the way I behaved in all of this. I was stupid. I acted without considering the ramifications of my actions. I was only thinking about my own happiness. At this moment, it doesn't matter if these actions will one day lead to positive results."
Iza laughed. "Of course, you acted in your own interest. That's what everyone does. If you acted to make yourself miserable, you'd be a patient in a psychiatrist's office. You'd be considered self-destructive, just like Helen."
"All I'm saying is that if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't." Darek replied.
"Really? Then where would you be? I'll tell you. You'd be sitting back hoping for a miracle. You'd be hoping that her husband cheated on her and that she found out. You'd be hoping that that would bring her back to you. So I ask you? How moral would it be to let the woman that you loved just slip away from you without fighting for her? Wouldn't that be cowardice? Wouldn't that be even more immoral?" Iza looked at him seriously. "Darek, do you know why I took that job with you?"
Darek shook his head.
"Because I wanted to learn if there was something more to this love thing than just a biological drive to have sex, because that's all I believed this idea of love was. Dress it up in as much pretty language as you like, it all boiled down to sex, at least for men. But you seemed different. You seemed to be driven by something else, something I couldn't understand. I was curious to know what that was." Iza explained.
"And? Did you find out?" Darek asked, anxious to hear her conclusion.
Iza only gave him a smile, which told him that she knew, but that she had no intention of giving him an answer to his question.