About Schmidt (25 page)

Yes.

There is an adorable little farmhouse adjacent to it. They thought it might be exactly right for them. There are skiing areas nearby they would enjoy.

Schmidt nodded and lit a cigarillo.

Schmidtie, you do understand the tax business, don’t you? Jon explained it, but it has gone out of my head.

Those are details. The real question is whether I can afford to keep the house once I have given away or spent all that cash. I had counted on buying a small house that wouldn’t be so expensive to run. I am fairly certain I will do what Jon and,
I assume, Charlotte want. Let me think about it for a day or two.

You are a very good and generous man. If the house is too big, couldn’t you sell it after you have bought Charlotte out?

That isn’t exactly what Mary had in mind. I do have to think about it. Do I give the answer to you?

They’ll be thrilled to speak to you, Schmidtie.

I am sure. What about the wedding? I take it they are still getting married—to each other—somewhere!

That’s not funny. I don’t think you realize how much they are in love. They would like to have a wedding in New York. Not in a hotel, of course, and our apartment is really too small. They were thinking of one of those nice new places downtown.

I don’t know anything about them. I’ll stay out of it then. That should make everyone’s life simpler. You are the lady who has been listening to the tape. Didn’t I say something about that?

You said very generously that you would pay for the wedding even if it wasn’t in Bridgehampton.

And so I will. You may reassure Charlotte.

But we’ll be more than happy to chip in—after all, it’s going to be a modern party!

Thanks. That will not be necessary. The new plan may end up saving me money. Don’t go yet, he added, seeing that she was putting the disdained cassette in her pocketbook. You have already told me so much, but there is one thing more. I was quite surprised by Charlotte’s remarks about my bad reputation at Wood & King. It’s odd that no one has warned me. I can’t square them with some of the things that you have
said, how Jon and his contemporaries hold me in such high regard. I realized that you were exaggerating, but were you saying the exact opposite of the truth?

I was hoping that you had put what Charlotte had said on that subject out of your mind.

How could I?

The dining room had emptied. She looked around and asked, Don’t the waiters all wish we would leave?

Doubtless.

He was going to add something like, Don’t worry about it, they aren’t supposed to make members uncomfortable if a conversation is prolonged, when he thought of Carrie, and how fatigue showed in her eyes and in the way that from one moment to the next her head would seem to droop.

Instead he said: Good try, but I won’t let you get away. Let’s go downstairs, to the reading room.

More coffee? he asked when they sat down again. You might want to have a brandy. I shouldn’t, since I’m going to drive back.

Thank you, Schmidtie. Nothing at all. I think you should recognize that these remarks were what I described as Charlotte’s aggressive behavior. She knew your feelings were going to be hurt by what she and Jon had decided about the wedding and the house, that made her feel guilty and unhappy, and the only solution was to attack, to hurt your feelings even more. You handed her the opening, when she spoke about the rabbi and perhaps converting. That’s all.

I don’t understand. Are you saying that the aggression consisted of telling me the truth or of telling me a lie? Did she make up what she told me?

Not entirely. She knows you turned on Jon because he is Jewish.

Suddenly Schmidt felt very tired. Sleep, he needed to sleep, if only for a few minutes.

He wanted to say, I didn’t exactly turn on him, and, I wasn’t unhappy only because he is a Jew, but what was the use of splitting hairs?

Renata, I am sorry that I didn’t respond more gracefully.

The first time we met I told you that you were under very great stress. It had to affect your behavior. But I can tell you do have strong anti-Semitic feelings. Perhaps you should examine them. Jews aren’t that bad. On the average they aren’t worse than other people.

They are different.

Don’t let that frighten you.

Before she got into the taxi he had hailed for her at the corner of the street, she gave him her cheek to kiss and said, Oh Schmidtie, I had hoped we would be such good friends. Is that still possible? Don’t answer now, when you are angry.

He returned to the club before going to the garage and went to the toilet. Face slightly flushed, otherwise recognizable. He washed with cold water and rinsed his mouth with Listerine. The cigars were waiting on the bench in the hall. Julio could be counted on; he was a real friend; Gil Blackman was another. Smart and cynical and he’d known Gil forever. He asked Julio to connect him with Gil’s office. An English voice, like Wendy Hiller’s in
I Know Where I’m Going
, informed him that Mr. and Mrs. Blackman were at their home in Long Island. Oh ho! Could she connect him there?

You’ve returned from paradise, you old rascal, called out the robust maestro. When am I going to see you?

I was hoping to come to your office right now. I’m in the city. But as you’re out there, I’ll drive back this afternoon.

Then have dinner with me. What a relief! The mummy’s here on a visit. Elaine and she will be able to eat together on trays in front of the TV A girls’ night in! Ha! Ha! Around seven-thirty at O’Henry’s? Yes, the earlier the better! I can’t wait to get away. Ciao!

The mummy was Elaine’s mother. According to Gil, she was still unreconciled to the misalliance between her own daughter, the lineal descendant of the world’s foremost manufacturers of work clothes, and an interloper whose grandfather had been born in Odessa. The insult had penetrated deep under the skin that surgery had made as impervious to the passage of time as the limestone facade of her mansion on Pacific Heights. Would her problem respond to treatment by Dr. Renata? Schmidt feared it might be too late.

The Saab on cruise control, resolutely in the far left lane of the expressway, snaking past slower traffic, Schmidt reviewed what had been demanded and offered. Purchase of Charlotte’s remainder in the house? One and a half million, he figured. That was a lot of cash, but he would manage it. He might, in fact, take Dr. Renata’s advice: sell the house and move into a place that wasn’t like a hemorrhage of hundred-dollar bills. If not right away, then sometime later. “Dust inbreathed was a house—the wall, the wainscot and the mouse.” He wouldn’t be selling the Schmidts’ ancestral homestead. Someone must have sold that long ago. This house was nothing except his life with Mary, which was over, and memories of Charlotte’s childhood, which was over too. Charlotte was going against Mary’s wishes, not he. There was no need for him to play the martyr. If he didn’t sell the house,
those two would do it as soon as he died and the estate was settled.

          Carrie winked at him. When he had left the house in the morning, she was still a shape under the covers like a very large cat. If she weren’t in her waitress clothes, she would have on the same pink flannel shirt with a red-and-blue flower pattern she wore last night, when she appeared in the bedroom so soundlessly that he kept on reading until he heard her speak: Who’s come here to play with Schmidtie? He looked up—a Halloween witch’s mask. Scared you, didn’t I?

Hey, you’re early tonight. The usual drink?

Yes, please. Very cold.

He told her that he was waiting for Gil Blackman, the man with whom she had seen him have such a long lunch.

Yeah, that guy. I’ll leave the table set for two. Enjoy. Whenever you’re ready.

You’re going to come tonight? He put the question in a voice that was very low, without being a whisper.

No answer. Panic in Schmidt’s heart. Stop, you old fool. She has told you she doesn’t want it every night. Leave some air between you and her. If you don’t, you will lose her respect.

She brought his martini and put it before him on a square cocktail napkin. Not a word. The napkin had on it “O’Henry’s” in large red letters and below it the telephone number. When he lifted the glass, in the space between them he saw what she had written in red ink. He associated that sort of neat, almost square script with girls who had gone to very good schools, but, having paid all those checks she had
brought, he knew it was also Carrie’s. The message said: “C loves S.”

Enter Mr. Blackman. Long, belted shearling coat, under it black trousers, black cashmere turtleneck. Resplendent hair cut shorter than usual. Yes, Mr. Blackman will have a martini. Just like his friend, Mr. Schmidt. Straight up, with an olive. And very cold!

Nice!

His eyes are fixed on Carrie, her head to the side, on her way to the bar to fetch him the drink.

Really, not half bad. Some sort of Latino. Isn’t that the girl who spoke to you on the sidewalk, the last time we had lunch in this place?

Yes, she works here.

A stupid answer, but Gil does not say, Really! He asks instead about the Amazon. Did it turn out to be everything he and Elaine had said?

And more!

And did the other Schmidt take you around in his boat?

Yes, only he claimed his name is Oskar Kurz. Perhaps he has changed it!

Otherwise the same man? Squaw wife with small breasts? Yes? Then he has changed it or he has delusions! He thinks he is somewhere up the Congo! Ha! Ha! Ha!

What about Venice?

Let’s order dinner first.

Gil flirts with Carrie about Manhattan chowder and broiled breast of free-range chicken. Amusing to see the enemy across a small table. The restaurant is teeming with them: men who look rich and talk fast. Yes, but they have
wives. Carrie wouldn’t like the problems. Don’t kid yourself, Schmidtie, Gil is a problem solver. Perhaps the thing to do is to tell him about Carrie. That’s different from not being careful in the restaurant.

It was Venice as usual in the winter.
Acqua alta
, fog so thick it stopped the vaporettos for a few hours, and a couple days that were just plain gray and humid. The rooms at the Monaco are too small—even the good ones! Elaine caught a cold and blew her nose all night. I could have murdered her.

I’m glad you didn’t. And your merry band of revelers?

Tiresome. Isn’t there something inane about going on holiday with people you see all the time, at all the same places, in New York and on the Coast? It’s beyond comprehension why I do it. I wouldn’t mind taking a trip with you—you’re the silent type and there is only one of you. The pure hell of booking tables for six in a restaurant, and forcing the other five to be there at more or less the same time! There is always someone coming from some inconvenient other direction—say, the Gesuiti! Naturally, he or she gets lost and is one and a half hours late. I went through this twice a day, every day. Never again!

He stopped to examine the wine bottle. This stuff is dreadful. Do you mind if I order another bottle?

Carrie was nowhere in sight.

I should have said the financing for my film was falling through, Gil continued, and I must stay in New York until the end of the year to hold it together. Then I might have been able to send Elaine and Lilly to Venice with Fred and Alice and stay in New York myself.

It can’t have been so bad!

Yes, it was and still is. Believe me. I don’t mean just Venice.

Carrie was clearing the table next to them. Gil gave her an ingratiating smile and named the wine he wanted. That task accomplished, he went back to looking glum.

Schmidt was surprised to find that the inevitability of hearing more about Gil’s sorrows wasn’t all that irritating.

What is really the matter? He tried to look concerned.

It has finally happened: my youth is dead. Gone. Finished. The me I used to know is dead.

Gil, what are you talking about?

My girl. Katerina. The one I told you about. She has left me. While I was in Venice, she went to Jamaica. You know Periklis Papachristou?

I don’t think so.

Yes, you do. You’ve seen him at our apartment. P.P., for power play. He’s an agent. Anyway, he rented a house on Round Hill grounds and invited some people. He invited Katerina too, as a fellow Greek. She met this other guy there, also a Greek. He’s some sort of thirty-year-old stockbroker, divorced, no kids, who had been going around with Bianca Jagger. He laid Katerina the first evening and left her black and blue. Of course, she loved it. Moved in with this jerk as soon as they came back. She wouldn’t have gone to Jamaica if I had been in New York!

Isn’t she the one who asked you if you wanted her to be faithful? You should have said yes.

Fuck you, Schmidt! How could I? I told you I couldn’t let her think I was going to leave Elaine.

I remember. Well, this solves the problem of lying to Elaine. Seriously, what could you expect? To keep laying her, in perpetuity, on your office couch? Things like that don’t last.

Yes, they do. No, you’re right, they don’t. Not with a wife
like Elaine. I would have had to take Katerina with me on trips and so forth. Like Tom Roberts! He lives with his wife in New York, the one who looks like an old Gypsy, and goes out with her to dinner and parties, but travels everywhere with his secretary. Out of town, she is Mrs. Roberts! But Elaine would never accept that.

You see.

I don’t see anything, except that you have zero sympathy for me.

They had finished the bottle of number-two wine, and Gil asked Carrie to bring one more. This time he inquired about her name.

When she told me about the jerk—in detail, that’s why I know about their first night together—she said, You know, I really loved you. If you weren’t so old, we could have worked it out. It’s better for me to be with someone my age. That was so unanswerable. I had never thought I was “old.” After all, I’m in good condition, I’ve never done better work, women like me. I thought I was older, not old. But after she said that, I had to remember what we thought at her age of people who were the age we are now, and that really flattened me out. If you can believe it, she actually thought I was sixty-five. Of course, it made no difference to her at all when I pointed out that I was only sixty-one. What’s four years more or less from her point of view? That’s why I tell you, it’s like death, my youth is dead! Do you know something else? I miss the sex with her. Now I do think about it when I’m in bed with Elaine.