***
Solomon could not quite clearly remember how he got into his car or started the engine, automatically driving on the well-known road to his office. It was fascinating and at the same time disturbing how his brain worked at that very moment. The whole world around him seemed to slow itself ten times, while a litany of separation tasks were rushing through his head. The divorce lawyers’ names, the sums in his bank accounts (already collectively divided in two), an estimated alimony. How can such a little boy possibly need that much money?!, he thought. He ruminated on questions such as whether he would have to leave the house at once and look for cheap hotels, or if, perhaps, Molly-stupid-cow-Gleemors would take money and keep her China-Wall-wide mouth shut. All these thoughts were screaming and raging in his head. In a morbid moment, he imagined his head exploding unto the dashboard any minute due to the tumult and strain inside. That would be such a pity because the car compartment shone right now from the recent service, his morbid self continued.
But what really threw Solomon Fray off balance (metaphorically speaking) on this sleepy road was an enormous leaden ball that steadily rolled from his chest deeper and deeper down his stomach. He drove past coffee shops and dull pedestrians holding coffee cups and fresh newspapers. No matter how he tried to stay on top of the situation with his preemptive separation thoughts and generous prospective divorce proposals, the leaden ball of fear and remorse was working its way through his intestines. He felt like releasing the steering wheel and wrapping his arms around himself tightly so that he could restrain the feeling that he was falling apart. He tried instead to console himself with the thoughts that, for God’s sake he had not done anything to be killed for, that million of husbands around the world were cheating on their wives, that he alone should be responsible for what he did with his free time! Moreover, perhaps Moly Gleemors had not really see him with his paramour the day before but that she had only, by some diabolic coincidence, decided to break her silence of years exactly today.
To be absolutely honest, his utmost fear was not a possible divorce – he had enough lawyers to handle this for him and enough money not to miss a large chunk being swallowed by separation and alimony. Unfortunately, the fate of Janine, his wife, and David, his son did not bother him that much as well. What was so excruciating and hopeless at that moment – was the idea that he, Solomon Fray, would have to endure public disgrace, that the well polished respectability and public image he worked on over many years would ripped apart. His facade of the genial family man and successful business genius that made him extremely successful at the young age of 33 was going out of the window. He enjoyed a client favouritism in business circles and therefore an intellectual superiority over the markets, that is somehow tied to his outward civility. He could not bear losing a face. Was there something more important in life than one’s public face? The idea that somebody might find out that he can also have faults and sins and weaknesses was disgusting.
He was so self-absorbed with the ordeal of possible shame and regret that Solomon Fray quite forgot about the reality around him. And reality, not being able to stand such a careless offence, struck back. To be precise, he struck into reality by accidentally bumping his car right into a grey Mercedes waiting quietly for the green at the traffic lights.
***
When he finally arrived at the office, Solomon Fray was not in the mood to be told that he was late by his ever-strict secretary. His coat was immediately taken from him and he got a heap of papers and folders, which sent him directly into the battlefield of bank stocks, mandates and rates of interests – while his own private interests were kept far, far away. It was not a big surprise that a business meeting he had thereafter was a catastrophe. He was not able to follow more than three words in a row and spilled half of his coffee on the contract. He kept thinking over and over again about the glances from people around him today. In fact it was in every face he met that day – the unlucky Mercedes driver, the police guys and insurance agents – even his secretary and the business partners sitting right now in front of him. It was a gaze of total reproach that seemed to have nothing to do with anything as concrete as the road accident earlier, the spilled coffee or his lateness. As in a nightmare they all seemed to know what he had done and were despising him for it. Their every word secretly echoing unspoken thoughts. The gaze told him what an abominable person he was.
Somewhere deep inside Solomon Fray, he realized that he was guilty. But what was so paradoxical about it – was that this wrongdoing never felt wrong in the moment of doing. The remorse came only after the whole thing was already accomplished. Then he was in agony, calling himself names and promising he would never be in this position again and asking for God’s forgiveness (about whose existence he remembered only on such occasions). But one day his hand would grip his mobile phone against his will and he would call the number of a woman so much more interesting and carefree than his dull wife. At such moments some other voice – a very pleasant and seductive voice of a man capable of anything nobody ever heard before – would speak from his mouth the things that will make him shudder in embarrassment the next day. However, with time his self-disgust and feelings of remorse were getting fainter. And some kind of harmony or, better still, a mutual ignoring of each other formed in him between the two different Solomon Frays that he had become. Until fate in the most ugly form of Molly Gleemors stepped in. That fateful day was horrible for poor Solomon Fray. For small moments he managed to forget his misery and go on with his work at the office. But any time he suddenly realized that the leaden ball was still in his gut, disappointment came flooding in, bringing new mental torments and dread anticipation of the evening at home.
