Family Happiness (9 page)

Polly, who often catered Paul's dinner parties when he had them, had for five years hoped that Paul would marry “this woman,” Mary Rensberg, although she did not understand why Mary would marry Paul. Mary was small, wiry, and blonde. She smoked unfiltered cigarettes, wore men's shirts, real silk stockings, and diamond earrings. In her conversation she was breezy and slangy; she swore constantly. Every Sunday she went to church in the company of her teen-aged daughters, Dulcie and Daisy. She had been married to a banker named Charlie Rensberg who had gone through life fearing that someone would take him for an ordinary Jew. He was of an immensely rich German Jewish family, one that Wendy felt was very vulgar—Wendy knew the elder Rensbergs from afar. Polly thought that Mary's churchgoing was a revenge on Charlie and his awful, snobby family. Mary was a few years older than Polly, but the Demarests had attended the same dinner parties as the Rensbergs. Polly wholeheartedly liked Mary and had always hoped to know her. She had been privately glad that Mary and Charlie had divorced—Polly had never been able to stand Charlie Rensberg. When Paul had started to be seen with her, Polly's heart rose up in hope, but Paul did not encourage her in this. By some unspoken code he made it clear that Polly was not supposed to make friends with Mary, and he was fortunate in having a sister sensitive enough to pick this up.

Not only was Mary divorced, but she kept shop. She dealt in antiques—tables of all sorts and Victorian china. She sold these out of a corner store in Polly's neighborhood. Paul did not approve of shopkeeping among people he knew. Polly assumed that he must be in love with Mary, since she so thoroughly violated his sense of propriety. She said almost anything that came into her mind. When Polly had last run into her and asked about her daughters, Mary said, “They are perfect ducks, my sweet girls. They refer to your brother as Paul ‘Night of the Living Dead' Solo-Miller.”

It was the first week of the new year. Polly sat at her desk in her office wishing she had been able to get all last year's work taken care of, so she could start the new year fresh. The year-end report was sitting on her desk waiting for her evaluation; the memo she had drafted the week before was lying on top of her typewriter. In a large folder were printouts of the results of a series of experimental reading tests that would form the basis of the spring report. Each spring Polly's group presented to the Board of Education a review of all the new reading methods developed during the previous year, along with a re-evaluation of the old.

Lately Polly had begun to long for her office. At work she did not daydream about Lincoln; it occurred to her that when she said she had had a good or productive time, she meant that she had been involved in something that caused her not to think about Lincoln for as much as a whole hour. The more work she had, the better she felt.

She was sitting editing the year-end report when the telephone rang. It was Wendy.

“I have breathtaking news,” she said. “Your brother Paul is getting married.”

“Good Lord,” said Polly. “That
is
breathtaking. I never thought Mary would marry him.”

“That's the breathtaking part,” Wendy said. “Your brother is marrying someone named Beate von Waldau.”

“Who? Who is she?” Polly asked. “Do you know her?”

“The first I heard mention of her name was this morning. Your brother came for breakfast very early and broke the news. I haven't a clue who she is. Paul says she's a psychoanalyst of some sort. At any rate, she's a German.” Wendy paused. “Your father is quite beside himself.”

This meant that Wendy, who had nothing but contempt for modern Germans, was quite beside herself.

“Isn't it interesting,” said Polly, “that both Paul and Henry have ended up with Europeans?”

“I never think of Czechoslovakia as a European country,” said Wendy. “But never mind. They're coming for dinner tomorrow night, just the two of them, so this Beate can meet us all, and after that I expect she'll be introduced to the family at large.”

The family at large included the Solo-Miller aunts and uncles, the Hendricks aunts and their husbands, all the first cousins, and Great-Aunt Harriet, who was very old and who claimed she had never in her life taken part in any social function that was not in some way connected with family. Henry and Wendy felt that only blood really counted. The married-in person was, even after fifty years, somewhat of a guest. For what family was the equal of the Solo-Millers or the Hendrickses? Henry, Sr., and Wendy had been the oldest in their families, and now that old Grandmother Solo-Miller was dead, they were the head of the family, with Henry's two brothers and their wives, and Wendy's sisters and their husbands, as second string. Henry Demarest said that only anthropologists could properly understand the Solo-Miller family, and Lincoln said the Solo-Millers functioned like a racist state and that their unwritten statutes were like the Nuremberg Laws on which Adolf Hitler had been so keen.

“About dinner,” Wendy said. On both sides of the line, mother and daughter settled down for the conversation they enjoyed most: what to serve with what for dinner. Wendy's longtime housekeeper, Odessa Smith, helped Wendy with the cooking, but menu planning was one of Polly and Wendy's chief delights. “I thought roast leg of lamb or roast beef, potatoes Anna, and those lovely cold string beans of yours for a second vegetable.”

“Don't you think a cold vegetable is too springlike?” asked Polly. “And what about Andreya?”

“Oh, dear. Andreya. Well, some eggs with cheese in a gratin dish. I think the green beans will be just fine. I feel rather springlike around now. This is the lowest part of the year, so all signs of spring are cheering. Lots of flowers, I think. I saw some lovely quince branches the other day. I think one cold vegetable dish will fit in very well. And apple pie.”

“I think lamb,” Polly said. “Spring lamb.”

“Just roasted with rosemary, mustard, and garlic,” Wendy said.

“Perfect,” said Polly. “I could make peach mousse if you would rather have that than apple pie. Our grocery has hothouse peaches.”

“Hothouse fruits never have enough flavor,” said Wendy. “I'll ask Odessa to make her apple pie. It's a nice American touch. Goodness, there's the door. It's the window cleaner. How can they bear to clean windows at this time of year? Call me later, darling.”

The next day Polly was frantic with obligations. She had bought the string beans on her way home from work. In the morning, while she gave Henry and the children their breakfasts, she topped and tailed and steamed them, and made the dressing in which they would rest for an hour before serving. She got Henry's shirts together to be washed and ironed, left a long note for Concita, the Demarest housekeeper, sewed a button on Henry's suit jacket, checked to see whether her black silk dress needed pressing, put a ribbon in Dee-Dee's hair, found Pete's lost math homework, and arranged for a baby-sitter. She went through her briefcase, collected her notes on the spring report, and left for her office. Before beginning work she called her mother to see if there was anything she needed. There was. Would Polly please stop at the French bakery in midtown and buy ten baguettes, and then go to the cheese store and pick up two goat cheeses of the type Wendy called “Primitif,” but only if they were fairly young.

“Pyramid,” said Polly. “It's a snap to remember. That's its shape.”

“Darling, I can't remember a thing,” Wendy said. “This business with Paul has me absolutely rattled. I completely forgot that this Beate has a brother, so he's coming, too. He doesn't live here. He's visiting. Do you think you could call Henry and have him pick up some of that brandy your father likes so much? These people drink schnapps, I'm quite sure.”

Polly wrote all this down on a little card.

When she hung up, she looked at the card and looked at her desk and realized with panic that she did not want to meet Paul's fiancée or his fiancée's brother. She did not care that Paul was getting married. Why had he picked a time when she was so pressed? She saw before her an endless procession of family gatherings—cocktails, lunches, prenuptial suppers, buffets, bridal dinners, wedding breakfasts, for all of which Polly would be called upon to make her
oeufs à la neige
, her chocolate cake, her mocha jelly roll, to say nothing of stuffed mushrooms, cucumber sandwiches, cream of sorrel soup, and spinach pie. Or she would be asked to find a caterer. Her desk was piled with work, Henry was getting ready to go away again, and the children both had scratchy throats. She was a monster of selfishness, she thought. She picked up her telephone, dialed, hung up, and dialed again.

“Hi, Dot,” Lincoln said.

“It's only me,” said Polly.

“You sound awful. How's the bridal couple?” He was enthralled by the subject of Paul's marriage and had talked of nothing else since yesterday.

“I'm just tired. I ought to be thrilled about Paul, but I'm not.”

“Well, I am,” Lincoln said. “I can't wait until you meet the little bride. Do you think she's won the Nobel Prize already, or is just about to?”

“She's a psychoanalyst of some sort,” Polly said. “Did I tell you that yesterday? I can't remember anything these days.”

“You did, and I think it's very nice that Paul has found an Aryan controller,” Lincoln said. “Goody for him. I bet she dresses up in old Nazi uniforms.”

“Oh, Linky.”

“Come on, Dot. You know there's something weird about Paul. Why does this make you sound so low?”

“I'm just tired. I've got a thousand things to do. I have all these errands to run. I wanted to see you today, but I don't see how.”

“I'll tell you what,” Lincoln said. “I'll come see you. We'll meet for lunch, just like real chums. I'll help you run your errands and I'll carry the packages in my teeth. What about it?”

“Oh, Lincoln. You really shouldn't stop work to come have lunch with me. It'll disrupt your day.”

“Not another word. I'll meet you at twelve-thirty. Where's that place you sometimes go to?”

“The Sublime Salad Works,” said Polly. “It's right around the corner. We passed it once when you picked me up, remember?”

“I'll be there at twelve-thirty.”

“You really needn't.”

“I do need,” Lincoln said. “After lunch I'm going to take you into an alleyway and kiss you and feel you up. And because I love you so much I have produced a German sentence for you to practice for tonight. Here it is. Write it down.
Ich bin ein baltischer Scharfrichter auf Ferein
. I've always found it a very useful phrase. It means: I am a Baltic executioner on vacation.”

It took Polly five minutes to collect herself and get back to work. She was overcome, like a flooded car. She put her list aside and realized that in order to get the cheese and bread, and meet Lincoln, she would have to get the cheese and bread first, and that Henry was far too busy to go and buy the brandy, and so, either on the way home or after lunch, she would have to stop at the wine merchant's near her office and buy it. It would not be the kind Wendy wanted, and Wendy would notice. Polly wondered for a moment if she had time to take the subway downtown and go to the vintner near Henry's office, but that was out of the question. She would buy an expensive bottle of something else, and Wendy would have to put up with it. Two years ago, or even a year ago, Polly realized, she would have cheerfully taken the subway down-town to get a special brandy. But gestures of that sort were impossible if you were having a love affair. Of course the very fact that you were having a love affair meant that you no longer wanted to make gestures of that sort.

Polly's love for Lincoln was divided like a pie chart: part gratitude, part pain, part restoration, part consolation, and part pure lust as well as a lust for friendship. From week to week the proportions changed. There were times when she was as lovesick as any thirteen-year-old, but the nature of their relationship prevented any undiluted joy. Guilt, longing, confusion, and surprise mitigated everything. Polly discovered how volatile and emotional she actually was. She said to Lincoln, “If only I could have a specific lobotomy—if they could find the part of my brain where you are and take it out.” In unguarded moments she felt that if she did not have Lincoln in her life she would shrivel. This filled her with sorrow. These days she felt her sorrow and confusion were like rainy weather, dripping on everything, making everything wet.

She felt she had been pitched from a safe, calm harbor into an unpredictable and turbulent sea; that she had woken up not from a dream but from a daydream. Falling in love opened the world up to her in a way it had not been opened before. Everything occurred to her: her place in her marriage, her place in her family, her place in herself. She had no precedent or guide for these feelings. Never in her life before had she felt lonely, bereft, agonized, or fearful. She had never felt that the road of her future was dark. Yet, with all her blessings, she had gone off to hunger after something else.

When she was feeling especially terrible Polly tried one of two things. First she would buck herself up by telling herself that her sufferings were tiny—that she was not sick or maimed or poor or alone and that she was simply a spoiled brat. This never seemed to work, and so she devoted herself to her job. She found that work really did take her out of herself. She could burrow into it so intently that she did not hear someone call her name or tap on her door. When someone pounded on her door, Polly looked up. It was her office chum, Martha Nathan.

Martha was a
Wunderkind
. She was not as young as she looked but no one was as young as Martha looked. She wore the sort of clothes a child might wear to a child's party—smocks and shifts. The rest of her garments were made in India, Guatemala, or Afghanistan. Martha felt solidarity with emerging nations. “I am sort of an emerging nation myself,” she said. Martha was the office computer genius and very much fussed over, but she found her present line of work pretty much a breeze. She was brilliant in the way that some people are left-handed or redheaded or beautiful—it was a fact of her existence. As a result she was somewhat restless. Before becoming a computer expert she had worked with a documentary team on a film about land reform in Chile, and because she had found the problems of Latin America so overwhelming, she had turned to computers for fun. Recently she had applied to medical school, since she felt being a doctor might be entertaining as well as useful.