Authors: Bernard Malamud
Dubin's Lives (4 page)
Sometimes he felt like an ant about to eat an oak tree. There were several million facts of Lawrence's short life and long work, of which Dubin might master a sufficient quantity. He'd weave them together and say what they meantâthat was the daring thing. You assimilated another man's experience and tried to arrange it into “thoughtful centrality”âSamuel Johnson's expression. In order to do that honestly well, you had to anchor yourself in a place of perspective; you had as a strategy to imagine you were the one you were writing about, even though it meant laying illusion on illusion: pretense that he, Dubin, who knew himself passing well, knew, or might know, the life of D. H. Lawrence: who seemed not to have stepped beyond his mythic maskâexplained himself without revealing himself; created an ur-blood mystique that helped hide who he ultimately was. Beyond that is more: no one, certainly no biographer, has the final word. Knowing, as they say, is itself a mystery that weaves itself as one unweaves it. And though the evidence pertains to Lawrence, the miner's son, how can it escape the taint, subjectivity, the existence of Willie Dubin, Charlie-the-waiter's son, via the contaminated language he chooses to put down as he eases his boy ever so gently into an imagined life? My life joining his with reservations. But the joining âthe marriage?âhas to be, or you can't stay on the vicarious track of his past or whatever “truth” you think you're tracking. The past exudes legend: one can't make pure clay of time's mud. There is no life that can be recaptured wholly; as it was. Which is to say that all biography is ultimately fiction. What does that tell you about the nature of life, and does one really want to know?
By mid-afternoon he had done two pages and was feeling good when Kitty returned from the town clerk's office to pay the cleaning person. Dubin was
sitting in the living room with a drink. The bee sting no longer bothered. The girl had gone after slantedly writing her name and address on an old envelope on the kitchen counter.
sitting in the living room with a drink. The bee sting no longer bothered. The girl had gone after slantedly writing her name and address on an old envelope on the kitchen counter.
“I'll mail her a check,” Kitty said. “What do you think of her? The house is fairly clean. Should I keep her for a while or look for someone permanent?”
He had barely caught a glimpse of the girl but felt magnanimous. “What have you got to lose?”
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The cleaning personâFanny Bickâhe had read her name on the envelopeâwho had appeared Tuesday morning, returned to work on Fridayâresisting it all the way, Kitty said. Fanny, a nervously active girl, vacuumed and dusted, and was supposed to do a wash but hadn't got to it the first time. Kitty had done the wash on Thursday and had left a pile of Dubin's underwear, pajamas, socks, to be ironedâshe had tried to talk him out of ironed socks but he liked them that way. As he worked that morning he was vaguely aware of the girl outside his door yanking the vacuum cleaner from room to room; and he later asked Kitty to tell her not to come into the study, because there were so many note cards laid out on the desk and worktable that he didn't want touched. She could clean his room next time, once he had the cards weighted down. He'd have lunch meanwhile or would read upstairs in Gerald's old room.
The girl had left before Dubin stopped workingâhe had eaten while she was in the master bedroom and as he went downstairs for coffee, had caught a look at her on hands and knees, shoving an aluminum hose under the double bed. But on the following Tuesday, when he left his study in mid-morning to visit the bathroomâhe went sometimes to think a thought throughâthere she stood barefoot, a brush in her hand, grimly swabbing the toilet bowl.
Fanny sweated as Dubin apologizedâhe would use the downstairs toilet, no trouble at all. The biographer had recognized her; she seemed younger than he'd remembered, possibly because he now knew she was still in college. Or had he suddenly grown older? Her light hair hung loosely down her back, and he was again aware of the random bleached hairs under her chinâcounted four or five and wondered why she hadn't had them removed, a matter of esthetics. Fanny wore a faded denim wraparound skirt and black shirt without bra. Her abundant body, though not voluptuous, clearly had a life of its own.
Dubin stood at the bathroom doorway. The girl had retreated to the tub, holding the brush behind her.
“I'm Fanny Bick,” she said, in annoyance and embarrassment. “I'm helping your wife.”
“She mentioned it. Glad to know you.” He spoke gently, sorry for her unease, apparently a persistent quality of her.
Fanny explained her situationâafter a moment seemed calmerâand he lingered to hear: that she was working in his house because there wasn't much else to do in town. “I tried the State Employment Office and all the guy there does is show you unemployment figures for the county and shakes his head. Makes you feel zonky.”
“That so?”
“Twittery. So I bought the town gazette, or whatever you call it, and put together four mornings of work at three different housesâthis and two others. I had no choice but I don't like cleaning.” She made a face. “I do an absolute minimum for myself. I'm not a slob but I don't like housework.”
He nodded seriously, not entirely approving.
She smiled dismally.
He clucked in sympathy. “You should have gone on to Winslow. It's a bigger townâmore variety. You might have picked up something at the piano factory there.”
“Not the way things have been going for me lately. My car pooped out after an accident. My fault, and all I carry is liability.”
He shook his head at her luck.
She said with a tense laugh, “Please don't tell your wife I don't like this job. I wouldn't want to lose my two mornings here.”
“Have no fear.”
Her body eased and she brought forth the brush.
Fanny said she was broke and had to settle for whatever she could get. “I've had it with college and have just about made up my mind I'm not going back. Anyway, my father said he wouldn't support me any more, so I'm trying to put together enough to take me to the Big Apple.”
“To do what?”
“Ask me when I get there.”
“Haven't we met before?”
She regarded him with fresh interest. “On the road? I thought I'd got lost though I guess I hadn't. I was where I was looking for.”
“You can't be much more than twenty-one or -two?”
Her glance was friendly yet reserved.
Dubin said lamely, “Maybe I'm intending to prove I know something about people your age?”
“Twenty-two,” she said. “Yesterday, actually. My friends say I look older.”
It struck him he had almost hoped so. Dubin said he was fifty-six and after a moment laughed huskily.
She mulled over the news, her face impassive.
“Don't cheat yourself on education,” he advised. “College is limited but at least it's a beginning. That's what I told my daughter.”
“Giving up college isn't giving up your education. Far from it.”
“William James, the psychologist and pragmatist philosopher, reflecting on the social value of the college-bred, thought the major effect of a college education might be to help you recognize a good man when you saw one.” Dubin laughed saying this; had often said it. I have a one-track mind.
He tightened his belt. “Here I am offering free advice again,” he apologized. “I am a biographer is why. I often have this souped-up sense of other people's lives so that I don't always mind my business. Pardon me, I don't mean to offend.”
“No sweat.” Fanny was amiable. “You feel empathy for people?”
“That's putting it kindly.”
He had noticed her Star of David. Nodding abruptly, Dubin broke off and returned to his study. He was surprised at the time he had given her; and it annoyed him a bit that he had felt her sexuality so keenly. It rose from her bare feet. She thus projects herself?âthe feminine bodyâbeautifully formed hefty hips, full bosom, nipples visibleâcan one see less with two eyes? Or simply his personal view of her?âmale chauvinism: reacting reductively? What also ran through his mind was whether he had responded to her as his usual self, or as one presently steeped in Lawrence's sexual theories, odd as they were. He had thought much on the subject as he read the man's work. Despite his reservations it tended to charge him up some. Dubin counteracted the effect by recalling the continuous excitement of Thoreau, woodsy dybbuk, possessing him as he was writing his life. The biographer had for a time become the celibate nature lover, or so it had seemed.
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He became aware he was leaving his study more often than usual; he would drift down into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee. He'd be restless,
Dubin explained it to himself, well into beginning a workâit might take fifty, sixty pages before you were settled in, sure you were working right. He had the sense of having been more quickly into Thoreau, wasn't yet knee-deep in Lawrence. Once he was securely placed in the life he'd stick it out steadilyâhours at his desk without a break, except for an occasional visit to the john. Holding cup on saucer he'd wander through the house, sipping absently, standing around thoughtful, probing his problems. If Fanny, on days she was there, happened to appear, Dubin nodded as though in thought and went on thinking.
Dubin explained it to himself, well into beginning a workâit might take fifty, sixty pages before you were settled in, sure you were working right. He had the sense of having been more quickly into Thoreau, wasn't yet knee-deep in Lawrence. Once he was securely placed in the life he'd stick it out steadilyâhours at his desk without a break, except for an occasional visit to the john. Holding cup on saucer he'd wander through the house, sipping absently, standing around thoughtful, probing his problems. If Fanny, on days she was there, happened to appear, Dubin nodded as though in thought and went on thinking.
Once when he lifted his coffee cup in greeting she said “Hi” cheerily and ducked out of the room.
“How come,” Kitty inquired one morning, “you're drinking lots of coffee?” Years ago she had tried bringing up a cup of mid-moming broth to his study. This had soon come to an end: not really her style, not really his. It took time and added weight.
“Beginnings are tough.”
“But you've begun.”
One did not necessarily begin at the beginning, Dubin explained. “Beginnings may be more effective independent of strict chronologyâwhere the dominant action of the life starts, the moment of insight, cohesion, decision. You can search that out or perhaps define a moment as a beginning and let what follows prove it. I'm not sure I'm there yet.”
“You will be,” Kitty said. “Don't strive for perfection right off.”
He ignored the remark. They'd agreed she was not to advise him how to work unless he asked her.
She poured herself a sherry; it was near lunchtime. He was aware how well she looked this summer, her long body retaining its shape, if slightly heavier than last year. She looked younger than fifty-one, but if you said so she tittered, or sadly smiled at all you hadn't tallied.
“How's the girl working out?” He poured from the coffee pot.
“Not badly. She tries. I told you she's off to New York in September. I'll advertise then.”
“Has she said anything about herself?” Kitty had long talks with people who worked for her.
“Not very much. She's intelligent, has a mind of her own and the usual dissatisfactions of someone her age, plus a few I can only guess at. Her old man's let her down, but I don't know how or whyâthe usual crise de
confiance, I suppose. She's apparently decided to drop out of college, after a year in, two out, in again into her senior year and now wanting out for sure, she says.”
confiance, I suppose. She's apparently decided to drop out of college, after a year in, two out, in again into her senior year and now wanting out for sure, she says.”
“What brought her to Center Campobello?”
“She was living in an upstate commune, got fed up, and was on her way to New York City when she had an accident coming off the highway outside town. So she stopped off to earn some money to have her car repaired, et cetera. She's hinted some vague other reason, maybe looking up an old lover âI don't know. She's a mild depressive, I'd say.”
Kitty analyzed people; she'd long ago been psychoanalyzed.
“She reminds me a little of Maud,” Dubin said.
His wife was incredulous.
“Lots of vitality,” he offered. “Direct too, wouldn't you say?”
“She's energetic enough when she wants to be, otherwise tends to droop.”
“Seems to present herself as sexy?”
“I'd say soâdoes Maud?”
“Don't run it into the ground. Just an impression.”
“Impressions either have or haven't validity.”
Dubin was silent.
“She knows Roger Foster,” Kitty said. “Apparently she applied for a job in the library but they had none. Now he calls for her after workâwaits in his car in the driveway. I've asked him to come in but I think he's uneasy with you.”
Dubin grunted.
“What more could you ask for a single attractive slightly blowsy girl who isn't your daughter, or for that matter much like her?” Kitty asked. “Fanny strikes me as not quite put together.”
“Is Roger her lover?”
“How would I know?”
He'd never liked him, a sandy-haired large-shouldered insistent young man. When Roger was in college he'd worked one summer for Dubin, theoretically assisting a carpenter who was altering the barn Dubin was in part turning into an outside study that he had since then not much used. Roger hadn't worked well, goofed off. Lazy bastard.
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