Chapter 3

This was Annette’s pre-New-Year’s gift. She knew you loved old-school protest rock, especially The Signal Fires. She herself was not, on principle, a fan of loud concerts, so she had bought a ticket just for you.

After the trip to the old cathedral town, you wanted to rest at home, but you forced yourself to go. The concert would shake you up, knock the unnecessary thoughts out of your head.

The energy in the hall was astonishing. It was strange, in December, in the center of the City of B, to sing along with the whole crowd:

“If you hear us, write our names below:

We are the ones who want this war to end!”

Or:

“I love my country with all my heart...

and hate the state that speaks in its name!”

It was a gulp of real freedom. The chance to speak, to shout the truth! You regretted not getting a floor ticket, not ending up in the center of that raging crowd that was not afraid to speak against the war while remaining at home, without renouncing it. You noted to yourself that among the old protest-rock bands you listened to, only one aging frontman from that whole scene had openly fallen in line with the invasion. Many of your favorite bands were now quietly blacklisted in the City of B because of their position, and that made every concert by bands not yet silenced feel special, “possibly the last.”

And still, the concert did not have the main effect you had wanted from it. You could not stop thinking about your wife’s betrayals, about the situation your family had found itself in by the end of the year. At most, you softened a little, looked at the situation from a slight distance. There had always been only one model of relationships for you: a man wins a sexually attractive woman in order to possess her as property, alone. If, meanwhile, the woman has relations with another man, it is perceived as a world tragedy. The possessive male sobs, his world collapses. And now you either had to change your view or suffer forever. You cannot give Annette up; you do not want to, you will not! She is your eyes on the world. You look at everything through her, as through a spyglass, or through a gun sight...

Thinking of Anna, during a slow song, you opened the feed from the hidden cameras. At once, the lead that had been slightly melted by the concert thickens in you again. Anna is sitting in front of an open laptop in an extremely, EXTREMELY shameless top, with only panties below the waist!

But that was not the important thing. What mattered was that, dressed like that, she was clearly talking to someone by video call! You could tell from the movement of her lips. At once, the music around you seemed to vanish. With disobedient hands, you took out your earbuds, shoved them into your ears, and quickly left the hall.

It was much quieter in the corridor. You sat down on one of the empty chairs.

“All right,” your wife says. “Your girlfriend doesn’t want to study, but what does that have to do with you? I remember how you were burning with desire. What happened?!”

You switch on the two-camera view. On your wife’s laptop, you see the student you yourself had prompted her to call. Why had Anna dressed like that to talk to him?!

“Well ... my girlfriend, basically, is against me taking lessons with you. I had to choose: arguments with her, or lessons with another teacher.”