Letting Go (52 page)

Certainly there were others we could have invited. Anyone at all, really, could have sat down with us, eaten our food, sipped our coffee, and then gone off to carry into the streets the news of our unabashed, forthright, and impractical union. We needed only one couple—married preferably—to stand for the world and its opinions, one pair of outsiders to whom we could display our fundamental decency and good intentions, to whose judgment we could submit evidence of an ordered carnality and a restrained domestic life. Just one couple to give us society’s approval, if not the rubber stamp … For it must have been all of this that we were after when one sunny morning a week after I had moved in, Martha woke up and said, “Let’s have somebody for dinner!” and I said, “What a splendid idea!”

That the couple we chose—I chose—was Libby and Paul was not really as thoughtless and unimaginative as it may seem. If anything, it was too imaginative, too thoughtful—or too thought out. Only a moment after our evening together began, I knew how it was going to end. I still maintain, however, that for every reason one can think of why all these people would never have liked one another, there was a perfectly good one why they should have. Paul Herz could be a witty man, certainly a pensive and attentive man. Libby could be lively and gay. Martha could always laugh. And as for me, I was more than willing to be any sort of middleman in order to bring to an unbloody conclusion a painful chapter in my life. But certain chapters and pains are best left unconcluded. They can’t be concluded—all one needs is to know that at the time.

The first disappointment was Martha; she wore the wrong clothes. I had thought she had been planning to don her purple wool suit, toward which I had both a sentimental and aesthetic attachment, or at least the skirt to the suit and her white silk blouse. But when she rushed past me to answer the knock at the front door, it was not a woman that moved by but a circus—a burst of color and a clattering of ornaments. She had managed to tart herself up in a full orange skirt, an off-the-shoulder blouse with a ruffled neck, strands of multicolored beads, and on her feet what I shall refer to in the language of the streets (the streets around the University) as her Humanities II sandals. So that none of us would miss the point, she had neither braided her hair nor put it up. It was combed straight out, and when she tossed her head, the heavy blond mane draped
down her back and almost brushed her bottom. Somehow her outfit managed to call into question the very thing we wished (or I wished) to impress upon Libby and upon Paul—the seriousness of our relationship. That the Herzes’ lives were often more threatened than my own had led me on occasion to believe that their lives were also more serious than my own; whatever the mixture of insight and bafflement that had produced in me such an idea, it contributed also to the quality of my affections and anxieties where these two needy people were concerned.

The visitors peered out of the stairway; they were Paul and Libby Herz, they said, but was this Mrs. Reganhart’s apartment? Apparently Martha looked to them as though she could not be a Mrs. anything, which may indeed have been what was in her head as she had dressed herself before her bedroom mirror. Perhaps what she had wanted to look precisely like was a free spirit, someone un-worried and without cares—for a change, nobody’s mother. But what she resembled finally—what I was sure the Herzes thought she looked like—was some tootsie with whom I had decided to pass my frivolous days. Through the early stages of their visit I felt some circumstantial link between myself and a gigolo or pimp. Despite several energetic attempts to govern my unconscious, I began during dinner to make a series of disconnected remarks all of which turned out to have a decidedly smutty air. “So I laid it on the line to the Chancellor’s secretary—” “Remember Charlotte Foster from Iowa City? Well, she turned up in Chicago and blew me to a meal—” And so on, through the pimento and anchovies and into the roast itself. All I had to do really was shut up; we would then have been bathed in a silence that could probably have been no more destructive of pleasure than was my banal chatter.

To make matters worse—to make my Martha brassier—Libby that day was the child saint about to be lifted onto the cross. There was even in her very flat-chestedness something that lent her an ethereal and martyred air. She was buttoned up to her white throat in a pale green cardigan sweater whose sleeves reached nearly into the palms of her hands; and her hands were just small half-closed fists in her lap. Every time a serving dish was passed to Paul he would lean over to ask Libby if she would have some. If she shook her head, he urged half a spoonful on her anyway, whispering words I couldn’t hear into those ears of hers, which stuck poignantly out just where the hair was pulled back above them. If she parted her unpainted lips and consented to be fed, he would croon
fine, good
and arrange a portion of food for her on her plate. His behavior engaged Martha instantly, and the attention she showed him was almost embarrassing in its openness. After a while she looked to me not so much disgusted—though there was that in it all right—as offended by this demonstration of nutritional billing and cooing.

I had never seen Paul so solicitous toward his wife, and it would have made me uneasy too, had I not my own private source of uneasiness sitting directly in the center of the table—the roast. When it appeared and I had sunk my knife down into its pink center, a new wave of silence, deeper and more significant, went around the table (granted, this may have been my imagination again). It was as though a particularly gross display of wealth had been flaunted; we were about to dine on some mysterious incarnation of rubies and gold. Then I opened a bottle of Gevrey Chambertin (1951) and with the classy
thhhppp
of the cork, we were all reminded once again of the superfluity that characterized my particular sojourn on this earth. In short, I felt that Paul and Libby—in different degrees, for different reasons—resented me for Martha’s gaudy voluptuousness and for the meal as well. I told myself that they would never understand my life, and that I shouldn’t allow them to upset me. But then I thought that if all their suspicion and resentment was merely of my own imagining, it was perhaps I myself who would never understand it.

When the children came in to be appreciated in their clean pajamas, they were introduced to the guests.

“And this is Cynthia,” I said, “and this is Mark.”

Markie immediately went for Martha; Cynthia said, “How do you do?”

“How do you do?” Paul said.

Libby looked up from her food—in which she had all of a sudden taken an interest—but only for a second. She had already returned to separating something on her plate when she commented, “Aren’t they nice.”

Martha ignored the remark, though not the person who had made it; she glared at Libby, then, taking a hand of each of her children, said, “Good night, dears.”

“You going to come kiss us good night?” Mark asked.

“As soon as dinner is over,” Martha said. “You go off to bed now.”

“You going to come?” Markie asked me.

They left, Cynthia turning at the door to say that it had been a
pleasure to meet the Herzes; she skipped off, her behind like a little piece of fruit, and nobody at the table seemed charmed. We ate in silence until at last Paul asked Martha how old they were, and she didn’t answer.

“Cynthia is seven,” I said, “and Mark is—how old, Martha? Four?”

I passed the information on to Paul. “Four,” I said. “Look, would anyone care for more meat?”

“No, thank you,” Paul said.

“How about some wine, Libby?” I asked.

She shook her head. Paul said, “She can’t drink too much alcohol.”

Some few minutes later, Paul said, “We’ve had a very tiring day. You’ll have to excuse us.”

I thought for a moment they were going to get up and leave without even finishing. He was only apologizing, however, for his wife’s silence. I suppose he never felt a need to apologize for his own.

“That’s all right,” Martha said. “I’m tired myself.”

“Do you know?” I rushed in. “It’s very interesting about this wine. Now 1951 was supposedly a good year, so I procured—” Procured? Bought, damn it, bought! I babbled on, explaining how I had come to purchase the wine, while Martha began making offerings of food to Libby, calling her Mrs. Herz. Paul sat listening so silently to what I said that I went on and on and on, waiting as it were for some signal from him that I had spoken enough and could stop. But it was like sending one’s voice down a well.

When we had finally finished the one bottle of wine—which everyone had been sipping parsimoniously—I ran off to the kitchen to get the other. I returned to the living room to find that the Herzes had retired to the sofa and Martha had begun to clear the table.

“We’ll have coffee over there,” she said, carrying the dishes away.

I sat down in a sling chair opposite the Herzes. Libby had picked up a book from the sofa.

“It’s a very funny book,” I said. “Martha reads the children a little every night, and they laugh …”

Libby set it down. “That must be nice.”

“Yes,” I said. And I thought, Then why did you come? Why did you accept my invitation? Why won’t you let this be ended!

Why won’t I?

The three of us sat facing one another, and the gloom came rolling in. I said, “Excuse me, I better go say good night to the children.”

In the kitchen Martha was standing over the stove, fiddling with her beads and waiting for the coffee to be ready.

“Come on,” I whispered. “It’s like a wake in there.”

“I’ll be in in a minute.”

I put my hands on her bare arms, and she moved away. “Hurry up, will you?” I said. “Nobody’s willing to say anything. Everyone’s a little stiff.”

“Oh, just a little.”

“Why did you have to rush them away from the table?”

“They weren’t eating anything, what was the difference?”

“I was going to open another bottle of wine.”

“They weren’t drinking either.”

“Well, I’m going to bring in the Armagnac,” I said, “the hell with it.”

“What!”

“The Armagnac. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t tell me nothing—what’s the matter now?”

“That Armagnac happens to date from before I saw your smiling face.”

“Martha, we’ll all
die
out there.”

“So we’ll die. That bottle costs seven bucks. If you wanted some why didn’t you think to buy it this afternoon?”

“Because you’ve hardly started the bottle that’s here. What’s gotten into you?”

“Don’t people drink beer any more?”

“Look, I’ll give you a check for seven dollars! Be
quiet!
”

“You and your checks.” She turned back to the coffee. “I saved nickles and dimes, and bought that as a special gift for myself, but the hell with it, just take the stuff and pour—”

“This is some party! This is marvelous! Are you coming back in there tonight or aren’t you?”

“I’ll be in,” she mumbled. “Just go ahead.”

“Well, I’m taking the Armagnac.” And I went back into the living room, choking the bottle around the neck. I poured four glasses of brandy without asking whether anybody wanted some. I sat back with my glass, sipped from it, and said—innocently, absolutely
innocently, just in order to say something—“How’s the adoption going?”

Paul turned immediately to Libby, who turned to him. He said, “I mentioned it to Gabe, you know.” He looked back to me, and I felt no need to apologize; since the beginning of the evening surely it was I who had been the most burdened member of our party. We stared, Paul and I, wordlessly at one another while Libby said, “Oh did you?”

“I thought he would like to know,” he said.

Libby looked down into her lap.

I said, “I think it’s a fine idea, Libby.”

“What is?” The question came from Martha, who had entered the room with a trayful of coffee cups. Apparently she had decided to make an effort to be gracious; it was simply the wrong moment to have chosen.

“Nothing,” I said, leaning back.

“I’m sorry I interrupted.”

I saw her face harden, and Paul must have seen it too. “Libby and I are adopting a baby,” he said. “That’s all.”

“Oh yes?” She looked at Libby, and for the first time since the Herzes’ arrival, she smiled. “A boy or a girl?”

The question had an astonishing effect upon Libby at first; she seemed frightened, then insulted.

Paul said, “We don’t know yet. We’re still in the inquiring stage.”

Martha set down the tray and poured the coffee. Libby looked over to me. “We have to adopt a Jewish baby anyway,” she said.

“Yes? I didn’t know.”

“The Catholic orphanages are crawling with kids,” explained Libby in an emotionless voice, “but that doesn’t help us. With the Jewish agencies there’s over a three-year waiting list. Then we’re a mixed marriage as far as anybody’s concerned.”

“But you converted—” I said.

Sullenly she said, “So what?”

I did not press for more information; Martha sat down and the four of us drank our coffee. Paul said, “You see, today we called long distance to New York. Thinking we could work something out with an agency there.” He stopped explaining, and what was left unsaid was clear enough from the look on his face.

Martha said to him, “That’s too bad.”

“It’ll work out,” he assured her.

“Oh sure,” Libby said.

Some moments later, Libby spoke again. When her mouth opened the words that came out were connected to none that had previously been spoken in the room. Her body was lifeless and her voice vacant, and it seemed that she might say just about anything. This girl had aroused numerous emotions in me in the past, but never before had she made me feel as I did now—afraid. Looking at me again, she said, “Paul was called in to see the Dean today.”

“Libby—” her husband said.

“That Spigliano,” she said, “is really going to try to get him fired.”

“You’re kidding,” I said. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” Paul inclined his head toward his cup after he had spoken, so that his face was in shadows. “I ran into the Dean,” he said softly, “I wasn’t called in anywhere, Libby. I just ran into him.”