How would you feel if happiness, as close to you as your next breath, was taken away from you? This book, as the author claims, is a diary of hate. Hate against his lover, his lover’s husband, himself, and eventually God.
The plot is not too dense, but the writing gives it such power, transforming it into a mesmerizing read. The story is, going by the name of the book, about the end of an affair. The author talks in first person narrative, giving a very intimate voice to the story. Bendrix, the protagonist, is planning to write a book on a civil servant, Henry. He meets Henry’s wife, Sarah, and they fall in love. Henry is oblivious to their affair. Sarah and Bendrix are madly in love. Bendrix is a jealous love, full of insecurities. Sarah tries to placate him, but too no avail. After being deliriously in love for four years, Bendrix wants Sarah to leave Henry and marry him. But Sarah’s loyalty for Henry is strong, quite similar to a parent’s loyalty for a special child. While making love amidst an air raid (the book is based in the world war era), Bendrix goes to the basement to check something and a bomb falls close to him, nearly killing him. When he pushes off the debris and walks back to the room, he sees Sarah kneeling on the ground. Sarah seems amazed and disappointed to see Bendrix alive. That is the last time Sarah and Bendrix meet in a very long time.
After two years, Sarah invites Bendrix for lunch. After lunch, Bendrix wants to kiss Sarah but she falls into a fit of coughs and slips away in a hurry. Bendrix’s feeling of insecurity and jealousy come rushing back and he hires a private detective to spy on Sarah. This detective steals Sarah’s personal diary and brings it for Bendrix. Through the entries in the diary, it’s explained why Sarah left Bendrix that day and didn’t see him for two years. When the bomb dropped, Sarah went to the basement to look for Bendrix. She found him lying unconscious, looking dead, in the rubble. Sarah came running back to the room, kneeled down in prayer and made a deal with God. Here, the reader remembers that Sarah was not a practicing catholic and never offered prayers. The deal she makes is a simple one, bring Bendrix back from the dead and she shall never see him again. She will sacrifice the one most important person in her life, a constant source of love, Bendrix, for the safety of Bendrix himself! And just then Bendrix walks into the room. Sarah’s look of disappointment is understood by the reader.
After reading the diary, Bendrix goes to Sarah and makes her promise that she will come away with him. They couldn’t go right then because Sarah had a very bad cold. They decided to wait a few days. However, instead of getting better, Sarah dies. Henry is shattered. But Bendrix perhaps realizes the existence of God, although he refuses to accept it. Bendrix’s atheism is made obvious to the reader, early on in the book. Sarah wanted a catholic funeral according to the priest she had spoken to. But Bendrix refuses it.
The book ends with the occurrence of a lot of coincidences related to Sarah. Maybe she has come back from the grave to bless or haunt her people as she was not given a catholic funeral. Through Bendrix’s voice, the reader experiences the complexity of being in love, the immorality of adultery, the realization of the existence of God, and the occurrence of miracles. This book ends with Bendrix accepting the existence of God and hating His existence.
