About Schmidt (18 page)

Remember when the Indian boy caught one?

Yes, that was quite a trick. Lang put the boy on shore, and we pushed off and drifted a little. Then the boy gave a sort of whistle, Lang turned on his lamp, and in the beam we saw the boy on the bank holding up an alligator by the gills. He had crept up on him from behind. Why the other alligators didn’t eat him is beyond me. We never understood it, because Lang showed us they can move really fast on land. It’s a weird, terrifying kind of sprint.

It all sounds quite splendid, but do you think it’s for me?
Alone? I have never had a powerful interest in nature—bird-watching or anything like it.

This is different. It’s not like sneaking around in the brambles surrounded by Yalies with binoculars and skin cancer on their noses. Nature is quite simply there: overpoweringly beautiful and omnipresent. You are in it. Besides, we were there in the bad season, when there really are no flowers, but you will have amazing orchids in the trees, other blossoms covering the water as far as you can see. But if you want company, come to Venice with us. We would really like that.

Venice is out of the question. Let me think about the island.

Think fast. I would hate to find it had been reserved for someone else.

The woman in felt slippers served coffee in the library—that is, served it to Schmidt. Both Blackmans drank chamomile and both sat on the sofa facing the fire, which was fit to roast an ox. Felt Slippers must have added logs to it during dinner. The room was so warm that Schmidt didn’t worry about blocking the fireplace. He stood again with his back to the fire.

This stuff isn’t decaffeinated? he asked.

No, we would have warned you.

Then I would like some more.

If he couldn’t sleep, he would take a pill. It was nice of Gil to remember his addiction to coffee. He should reciprocate by drinking an unreasonable amount of it. With a new and insistent feeling of benevolence, Schmidt surveyed the neat bookshelves, the Fairfield Porter watercolor of Gil done in the garden behind the house where Gil had lived when he was
still married to Ann, the predictable but sound arrangement of the furniture, and Gil and Elaine themselves. Couldn’t consolation be drawn from this scene, regardless of his actual distance from it? Keep envy at bay. The small aches in his neck and shoulders, and also in his left ankle, which, twisted so often, became sore as soon as the cold weather began, were melting away. He eyed the bottles on the silver tray on the coffee table and the snifters and was about to ask for a brandy when he realized that neither Blackman had spoken for some minutes. That must mean they thought the evening should end.

Beautiful Elaine, he said. Thank you! I had better return to my Schloss.

Forgive me. I know my eyes are closing. It must be Gil’s all-purpose Merlot.

Nonsense! It’s the bliss of having given your old pal the first home-cooked meal he has had in a week—one he hasn’t cooked himself.

He stooped to be embraced by two arms in black angora and kissed her. One would not have thought it looking at her across the dinner table: the cheek felt rough. Rigorous diet, too much sun all year-round, not enough face cream under the powder and the rouge, or just the ordinary death march of the cells? For the third time that evening, a fist busied itself with Schmidt’s heart. Until the end, he had marveled at the softness of Mary’s skin, even when she had lost so much weight that it had become puckered around her mouth and on the neck, like a child making a monkey face.

Wait, said Gil. I am coming with you. I don’t feel sleepy at all and I can tell you want a drink. We’ll have it at your house.

The Ottoman moon was hidden. Schmidt drove west faster than was usual for him on country roads, keeping Gil’s Jaguar in his rearview mirror. It had gotten even colder. Puddles he hadn’t noticed on his way to the Blackmans’ had turned into shiny mirrors of ice. Whenever Route 27 was visible at a crossing, he would see the headlights of a car hurtling this way or that. Nothing else; along the polite, clean roads south of the highway, the houses had been deserted, the thermostats turned down, the alarm systems set. Why shouldn’t he spend the ten thousand dollars or more and give the Amazon a try? He would be lonely but warm, and perhaps not that lonely. It might be a nice change to doze over a drink in his room, or in the salon if there was one, knowing that well-meaning brown persons with eyes like worlds of sadness were but a few feet away, busy with his dinner. There would be candles or some sort of lamp on the table. He could read while he was eating:
Almayer’s Folly
, or some other suitable Conrad in paperback. Probably, the humidity there made books curl; no need to expose his good edition to it. Long Island air was bad enough.

He slowed down for the sharp left turn into the driveway to his house and crept along on the gravel. When the front of the house came into view, he braked so suddenly that Gil’s bumper touched the rear of his car. As always when he went out in the evening, Schmidt had turned on the lamps on both sides of the front door and the reflectors on the front porch. In the harsh light he saw a large figure, like a melting snowman, squatting on top of the steps. Its exposed buttocks were fat and exceedingly white. One arm was raised, perhaps to shade the face against the glare. Very slowly, tugging at its
clothes, the figure straightened itself. Then, as though to signal satisfaction with the result, it made a little bow in the direction of Schmidt’s car, dashed like a startled pig to the end of the porch, vaulted over the balustrade, became a shadow jogging toward the back lawn, and disappeared behind the honeysuckle hedge. There could be no mistake: it was the man.

Gun the motor, make a U-turn around Gil’s car, and to hell with the grass, spend the night at the Blackmans’ or at a motel?

Gil was already striding toward the house, flashlight in one hand and some sort of stick in the other. All right, let it be. Schmidt turned off the ignition, and got out, holding on to the door to steady himself. He caught up with Gil.

Gil, that’s a lunatic. I’ve seen him before. I don’t want to deal with it. Let’s get away. We’ll call the police on your car phone or from your house.

We can’t just leave your house because we’ve seen a marauder. How do you know he hasn’t broken in?

I told you: he’s a nut, not a burglar. A big, unpleasant nut.

That’s all right. I can take care of him.

Gil held up the object that looked like a stick.

A crowbar! Are you mad too?

I keep one under the car seat, just in case. It steadies the nerves. Come on, Schmidtie, we’ll check the doors and windows and, if nothing is broken, we’ll have our drink. I don’t feel like chasing that guy around the pond either.

The moon had reappeared, so bright one could have read the newspaper. A house well put away for the winter: not a dead leaf or broken branch to be seen, garden hoses and
wheelbarrows stored, storm windows intact. Schmidt looked at the house as though it were a stranger’s, ready to congratulate the old fellow who lived in it, and ask about his yardman. They circled back to the front door. He felt no surprise. On the doormat, still steaming, lay the fruit of the white buttocks.

We should kill the bastard, whispered Gil.

Getting him back to the loony bin would do it for me. I’ll tell you something shameful: I’m glad you are here. Go on into the house, and light the fire in the living room. The liquor is on the sideboard. I’ll get rid of this.

He flushed it down the toilet off the kitchen and put the snow shovel back in the garage. Then he washed his hands. His face was green, as though he had just vomited. Perhaps the light in that bathroom was also too harsh. He could change it for a soft, pink bulb. The other solution was to do nothing. Why not leave it for Jon Riker to worry about?

That’s taken care of, he told Gil. Really, no worse than dog shit. You might have thought it would bring back fond memories—like picking up your dog’s mess from the middle of the front lawn, while everybody else is eating lunch on the porch, but somehow the effect on me was different.

That’s because malice is so uniquely human.

Debasement, too.

Look, I really want to hear what you know about this guy, because what happened isn’t funny, but not right this minute. In fact, I asked to come here to talk about me.

That was pretty clear.

I am in a strange situation. I’m involved with this girl—she is all of twenty-four, in fact her birthday was last week—and
I don’t know what to do about it. It’s not the usual thing. First of all, it wasn’t my idea. She engineered it all by herself, from the unexpected pass she made to the daily sex when I am in New York. Second, she is really beautiful. Third, she isn’t after anything—you know, getting to have a part in some television show, presents, whatever. I can’t even take her out to lunch or dinner! Where would we go without being noticed? Fourth, she may even be intelligent; anyway, she doesn’t bore me. And fifth, the sex is irresistible. It isn’t so much what she does—though she does plenty—it’s her unbelievable enthusiasm. She makes me feel I am some kind of god of love, capable of magical feats. This would be very nice if it weren’t for Elaine. You saw me give her a hard time at dinner. But that’s an act. I love her. She loves me. We have a good marriage.

I know.

A marriage with good sex. We haven’t stopped. It’s not one of those once-a-month arrangements you read about in women’s magazines—if such things do in fact exist. I’ve always wondered. Unless we are tired or I am drunk, we make love. Another curious fact is that the thing with the girl hasn’t had a bad effect on the thing with Elaine.

Perhaps you think about the girl when you do it.

You’re wrong. That breaks your concentration and stops you dead in your tracks! I believe it’s something very healthy: the girl has made me more interested in the activity. I feel better about my old carcass. That must be the reason.

Then what’s wrong? It sounds quite ideal. Or does she want you to divorce Elaine?

She says she knows I’m too old for her. Of course, I’ve told
her that I will never leave Elaine. I don’t just love Elaine—I like our life together. The girl is certainly smart enough to understand that.

She may not believe you. Anyway, there seems to be a category of women who don’t mind living with men who are old enough to be their fathers. Particularly when they are glamorous and rich, like you. There are lots of examples.

Sure, but usually they’re older than my girl or a little crazy.

Is she the latter?

I don’t think so. I think she is just a nice, oversexed kid.

Then I ask again, what’s wrong?

The duplicity. I don’t have an unmixed reputation as far as fidelity is concerned, but I don’t deserve it. You might say that I’ve only been unfaithful to Elaine in moments of distraction. Never in a way that made me shut her off from what I do and think about every day. If only I could bring the girl to the house to be the number-two wife!

Elaine might like that.

She’d hate it. So would Lilly—and Nina and Lisa. You know that those two are crazy about Elaine. There would be a solid front against me!

Like the Maginot Line, right? Then maybe the only solution is to stop. If the girl is so intelligent, and you have explained everything to her, she should understand. You could even introduce her to somebody more suitable—for instance, a younger me!

But I don’t want to stop! That’s like saying I should tear up a flower bed. If I put the problem of duplicity aside, which I can’t, I’ve got something happening to me that’s quite marvelous.
I’ve been transformed into a brand-new man, admired and desired for some qualities I can’t even see, and this by a girl who is like a daydream, except that she is absolutely real! You know the normal me: important and self-important, days cut up in thirty-minute segments of appointments with other men like me, weekends here or on the Coast, and vacations planned by Elaine months in advance, like that Christmas trip we’re making with the usual idiots, intermittent orgies of spending money and paying bills, and every eighteen months or so the ritual fit of nerves about a film I know is going to turn out pretty much all right. Do you think it’s easy to give up this new thing that’s grown up in my life? Could such a thing—so unpolluted by my permanent self—happen again?

Ah, the mirage of fugitive youth!

That’s another problem. How long can I keep it up, this sort of stuff—I mean physically? And what happens when I slow down?

That will take a while, especially if you’re not in New York all the time. By the way, are you jealous? I mean, do you care whether you are the only one?

I don’t dare to be. She has asked me a slightly different question, whether I wanted her to be faithful. I said that would be an unfair request, since I am not faithful to her. She was so genuinely shocked that I had to explain it was only with Elaine!

Schmidt found it difficult to comment on this revelation. A moment of thoughtful silence followed, interrupted by Gil.

Look, what about this guy? Are you going to call the police?

Perhaps tomorrow. I feel too tired. There is no rush; by
now he might be anywhere, including, of course, my backyard. There isn’t much I can tell you. I met him, if that’s what you want to call it, on the bus. He sat down next to me and stank. I don’t think I could bear to touch him. I believe he sensed my revulsion and used it to terrorize me. This is an abstract way of putting it, but it’s as good as any other. I saw him a second time, through the window of O’Henry’s, and had the same feeling of panic. What was the meaning of tonight? A coincidence? Was he looking for a house with a front door that was unlocked, happened to check mine out, and took a shit on my doormat out of frustration? Is he following me around because he knows he can scare me? Whatever it is, I don’t like it.

I don’t either. Let me know what you decide to do.

After Gil left, Schmidt had another, indecently large, drink of brandy. It was not the first time that having listened to one of his friend’s tales of woe he wished he had the same sort of problems to contend with. The visit from the man, on the other hand, was right up his own alley Shame and paralysis! Was he expected to call the police and ask Sergeant Smith to rescue him from a bum defecating on his doorstep? Wouldn’t it be more decorous to get a crowbar, like Gil, or the ax handle he already owned, and brain the fellow when he pulled his next stunt? But his nerve would fail; he was unmanned by that strange hobo; it was the effect, which he had never seen, of a snake on a bird. Two birds with one stone: there was something wrong with that pun that brandy prevented him from identifying, but it was all the same. The Amazon island would put plenty of distance between him, the man, and all pretense of Christmas cheer.