Divided by Two - truth told

The story starts the same...

...
“Don’t you think they should at least have gone to us and said: Look here, you! We are putting up this boundary, see? You keep to your side of these markers and we will keep to ours, understand?” Belle asked.

“Do you really think that?” I asked.

“Yes, I do,” Belle said. “Distinctly, don’t you?”

“I don’t know.” I said. “I haven’t thought about it.”

“Well, then,” Belle said, “think about it. You can start thinking about it now.”

I wondered why now the words kept ringing clear to me. Then I felt and sensed that the piano had been stilled. Suddenly the night was silent, suddenly the air was still.

I rose from the lounging chair. I left my favorite book and went back to the bedroom. “Belle, where’s my favorite book?” I asked.

“It’s in the drawer near our bed” Belle answered.

As i opened each drawer top to bottom, on the second drawer I saw these notes and letters addressed to Belle. I kept quiet as Belle keeps on talking and nagging about the neighbor’s project. I opened the letters and found out that it all came from the mathematician next door.

“what’s all this? why do they have this? sweet words, conversations...” I asked myself. I browsed through all of the letters and notes from the mathematician while Belle was still in the sala “talking to me”. After seeing all the notes, I returned it inside the drawer and got the book on the 3rd drawer, then I went back to the sala and sat back on my lounging chair. I acted like I did not see the letters and continued to calm Belle down. The mood of reading the book was gone and I just placed the book on the small table next to my chair. Belle is still talking.

“They haven’t divided the lawn fairly,” Belle said.

“You mean the halves are not equal? The halves are not halves? I asked.

“What’s the matter with you?” Belle said.

“What’s the matter with him?” I asked. “Isn’t he a doctor of mathematics or something? A fine doctor of mathematics he’s turned out to be if he can’t even divide by two!”

“What’s eating you?” Belle asked.

“Maybe he should have brought a survey team with him and used a transit, a plumbline, and a pole,” I said. “Maybe he could divide by two then. Maybe he could even divide by ten.”

“Don’t tell me,” Belle said, “Tell him. Tell them.”

“For crying out loud.” I said.

“Go ahead,” Belle said. “Go over. Tell them off. Tell them where to get off.”

“Get off, Belle,” I said. “Get off them.”

“If you won’t, I shall,” Belle said.

“Get off me,” I said.

“If you don’t, I shall,” Belle said. “I shall right now.” She started for the door.

“For crying out loud, Belle,” I said. “I don’t know them well enough to speak to them. I shall write them a note.”

“All right,” Belle said.

I took the typewriter was under our bed and started to compose the letter for that mathematician. Belle didn’t know that what I typed was telling the mathematician that I know their (Belle and the mathematician) “affair” and asking if he could come here in the house. I did not date the note, nor signed it. it was a simple note, just like the ones they used to send one another behind my back. Talk about childish style eh?


I sat up erect in my chair and watched him head bob up and down as he walked out to Finchshafen road. When he turned up the road and I knew where he was going, I stood up. I walked up to the screen door and watched him walk up the concrete walk to the porch steps. He stopped at the foot of the stairs. I looked down through the wirescreen at his upturned face.

“goodboy” I said

“you said you wanna talk?” he asked

“yes. come in” I answered

“No,” he said. “I’d much rather talk to you on the street.”

I know this guy is shaking and scared of what I might do to him. But I remained calm and quiet. He was also quiet and didn’t utter a word. There was pure silence. We walked down Finchshafen road. I looked at him. I had never spoken to him before. He considered a long time, long enough for me to be able to look back at the house to see if Belle was at the window watching.

When he spoke, his first words were: “Have you and Belle been fighting?” It was not only words, it was also the way he said them: my left cheek was twitching so badly it was almost spastic. He had spoken so softly and in such a low-pitched voice I barely heard him. It was as if he didn’t wish either his house or my house to hear; as if we were conspirators both and we were plotting a conspiracy together.

“Fighting?” I asked. “What about? What for? What are you talking about?” I sought his face for the guilt that could only be the mirror of the guilt in my own.

“the letters...” that’s all what he said.

“yes! I know about what;s going on between you and my wife! I found the letters!” I shouted, not even thinking that the other neighbors might hear what we’re talking about.
“Don’t raise your voice,” he said.

“Why shouldn’t I raise my voice?” I asked.

“Don’t shout at me,” he said.

“I shall shout at you if you please,” I said.

“I want to end it, but your wife won’t let me, that’s why I’m having a wall built. My wife is getting suspicious and I don’t want to lose her, so building and putting up the blocks was the only thing I thought of to prove to my wife that I really really love her” sacred, the mathematician explained.

Belle wasn’t on our porch when I looked; I didn’t hear her go down the porch steps, down the concrete walk, out to and down Finchshafen road. I didn’t feel Belle around until I heard her voice rising shrill and clear and above the snarl of our voices. She was standing beside me and before him and shouting in his face.

“Belle!” the mathematician said

“I know everything about you and this mathematician Belle!” I told Belle.

“No... it’s not...” Belle uttered “NO! you lied to me!” I immediately followed.

“I’m leaving you... If that’s you like, then I’ll leave” I said

I left the two alone and ran inside the house and took some of my stuff, I took the car keys and got in the car with a few clothes inside a black bag. As I drove away, I can still see in the rear mirror Belle and the mathematician. Belle was kneeling down, crying. While the mathematician tried to be strong and just looked down at Belle.

I found myself spending the night in a motel a few miles away from home. I went in my room, placed my black bag near the bed and lied down to think and reflect on what just happened. My phone then rang, it’s Belle calling.

end.