The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg (88 page)

There was a bottle of wine breathing on the table, and William had managed to maneuver dinner out of the mysterious little containers and the limp bits of organic matter from the fridge, which Otto had inspected earlier in a doleful search for lunch. “Bad?” William asked.

“Fairly,” Otto said.

“Want to tell me?” William said.

Otto gestured impatiently. “Oh, what’s the point.”

“Okay,” William said. “Mustard with that? It’s good.”

“I can’t stand it that she has to live like this!” Otto said.

William shook his head. “Everyone is so alone,” he said.

Otto yelped.

“What?” William said.

“What did I do?”

“Nothing,” Otto said. He stood, trying to control his trembling. “I’m going to my study. You go on upstairs when you get tired.”

“Otto?”

“Just—please.”

He sat downstairs in his study with a book in his hand, listening while William rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher, and went, finally, upstairs. For some time, footsteps persisted oppressively in the bedroom overhead. When they ceased, Otto exhaled with relief.

A pale tincture spread into the study window; the pinched little winter sun was rising over the earth, above the neighbors’ buildings. Otto listened while William came down and made himself breakfast, then returned upstairs to practice once again.

The day loomed heavily in front of Otto, like an opponent judging the moment to strike. How awful everything was. How awful he was. How bestial he had been to William; William, who deserved only kindness, only gratitude.

And yet the very thought of glimpsing that innocent face was intolerable. It had been a vastly unpleasant night in the chair, and it would be hours, he knew, before he’d be able to manage an apology without more denunciations leaping from his treacherous mouth.

Hours seemed to be passing, in fact. Or maybe it was minutes. The clock said seven, said ten, said twelve, said twelve, said twelve, seemed to be delirious. Fortunately there were leftovers in the fridge.

Well, if time was the multiplicity Sharon and William seemed to believe it was, maybe it contained multiple Sharons, perhaps some existing in happier conditions, before the tracks diverged, one set leading up into the stars, the other down to the hospital. Otto’s mind wandered here and there amid the dimensions, catching glimpses of her skirt, her hair, her hand, as she slipped through the mirrors. Did things have to proceed for each of the Sharons in just exactly the same way?

Did each one grieve for the Olympian destiny that ought to have been hers? Did each grieve for an ordinary life—a life full of ordinary pleasures and troubles—children, jobs, lovers?

Everyone is so alone.
For this, all the precious Sharons had to flounder through their loops and tucks of eternity; for this, the shutters were drawn on their aerial and light-filled minds. Each and every Sharon, thrashing through the razor-edged days only in order to be absorbed by this spongy platitude:
everyone is so alone!
Great God, how could it be endured? All the Sharons, for ever and ever, discarded in a phrase.

And those Ottos, sprinkled through the zones of actuality—What were the others doing now? The goldfish gliding, gliding, within the severe perimeter of water; William pausing to introduce himself…

Yes, so of course one felt incomplete; of course one felt obstructed and blind. And perhaps every creature on earth, on all the earths, was straining at the obdurate membranes to reunite as its own original entity, the spark of unique consciousness allocated to each being, only then to be irreconcilably refracted through world after world by the prism of time. No wonder one tended to feel so fragile. It was infuriating enough just trying to have contact with a few other people, let alone with all of one’s selves!

To think there could be an infinitude of selves, and not an iota of latitude for any of them! An infinitude of Ottos, lugging around that personality, those circumstances, that appearance. Not only once dreary and pointless, but infinitely so.

Oh, was there no escape? Perhaps if one could only concentrate hard enough they could be collected, all those errant, enslaved selves. And in the triumphant instant of their reunification, purified to an unmarked essence, the suffocating Otto-costumes dissolving, a true freedom at last. Oh, how tired he was! But why not make the monumental effort?

Because Naomi and Margaret were arriving at nine to show off this baby of theirs, that was why not.

But anyhow, what on earth was he thinking?

Still, at least he could apologize to William. He was himself, but at least he could go fling that inadequate self at William’s feet!

No. At the
very
least he could let poor, deserving William practice undisturbed. He’d wait—patiently, patiently—and when William was finished, William would come downstairs. Then Otto could apologize abjectly, spread every bit of his worthless being at William’s feet, comfort him and be comforted, reassure him and be reassured…

At a few minutes before nine, William appeared, whistling.

Whistling! “Good practice session?” Otto said. His voice came out cracked, as if it had been hurled against the high prison walls of himself.

“Terrific,” William said, and kissed him lightly on the forehead.

Otto opened his mouth. “You know—” he said. “Oh, listen—” William said. “There really is a baby!” And faintly interspersed among Naomi and Margaret’s familiar creakings and bumpings in the hall Otto heard little chirps and gurgles.

“Hello, hello!” William cried, flinging open the door. “Look, isn’t she fabulous?”

“We think so,” Naomi said, her smile renewing and renewing itself. “Well, she is.”

“I can’t see if you do that,” Margaret said, disengaging the earpiece of her glasses and a clump of her red, crimpy hair from the baby’s fist as she attempted to transfer the baby over to William.

“Here.” Naomi held out a bottle of champagne. “Take this, too. Well, but you can’t keep the baby. Wow, look, she’s fascinated by Margaret’s hair. I mean, who isn’t?”

Otto wasn’t, despite his strong feelings about hair in general. “Should we open this up and drink it?” he said, his voice a mechanical voice, his hand a mechanical hand accepting the bottle.

“That was the idea,” Naomi said. She blinked up at Otto, smiling hopefully, and rocking slightly from heel to toe.

“Sit. Sit everyone,” William said. “Oh, she’s sensational!”

Otto turned away to open the champagne and pour it into the lovely glasses somebody or another had given to them sometime or another.

“Well, cheers,” William said. “Congratulations. And here’s to—”

“Molly,” Margaret said. “We decided to keep it simple.”

“We figured she’s got so much working against her already,” Naomi said, “including a couple of geriatric moms with a different ethnicity, and God only knows what infant memories, or whatever you call that stuff you don’t remember. We figured we’d name her something nice, that didn’t set up all kinds of expectations. Just a nice, friendly, pretty name. And she can take it from there.”

“She’ll be taking it from there in any case,” Otto said, grimly.

The others looked at him.

“I love Maggie,” Naomi said. “I always wanted a Maggie, but Margaret said—”

“Well.” Margaret shrugged. “I mean—”

“No, I know,” Naomi said. “But.”

Margaret rolled a little white quilt out on the rug. Plunked down on it, the baby sat, wobbling, with an expression of surprise.

“Look at her!” William said.

“Here’s hoping,” Margaret said, raising her glass.

So, marvelous. Humans were born, they lived. They glued themselves together in little clumps, and then they died. It was no more, as William had once cheerfully explained, than a way for genes to perpetuate themselves. “The selfish gene,” he’d said, quoting, probably detrimentally, someone; you were put on earth to fight for your DNA.

Let the organisms chat. Let them talk. Their voices were as empty as the tinklings of a player-piano. Let the organisms talk about this and that; it was what (as William had so trenchantly pointed out) this particular carbon-based life form did, just as its cousin (according to William) the roundworm romped ecstatically beneath the surface of the planet.

He tried to intercept the baby’s glossy, blurry stare. The baby was actually attractive, for a baby, and not bald at all, as it happened. Hello, Otto thought to it, let’s you and I communicate in some manner far superior to the verbal one.

The baby ignored him. whatever she was making of the blanket, the table legs, the shod sets of feet, she wasn’t about to let on to Otto. Well, see if he cared.

William was looking at him. So, what was he supposed to do? Oh, all right, he’d contribute. Despite his current clarity of mind.

“And how was China?” he asked. “Was the food as bad as they say?”

Naomi looked at him blankly. “Well, I don’t know, actually,” she said. “Honey, how was the food?”

“The food,” Margaret said. “Not memorable, apparently.”

“The things people have to do in order to have children,” Otto said.

“We toyed with the idea of giving birth,” Margaret said. “That is, Naomi toyed with it.”

“At first,” Naomi said, “I thought, what a shame to miss an experience that nature intended for us. And, I mean, there was this guy at work, or of course there’s always—But then I thought, what, am I an idiot? I mean, just because you’ve got arms and legs, it doesn’t mean you have to—”

“No,” William said. “But still. I can understand how you felt.”

“Have to what?” Margaret said.

“I can’t,” Otto said. “Have to what?” Margaret said. “I
can’t
understand it,” Otto said.

“I’ve just never envied the capacity. Others are awestruck, not I. I’ve never even remotely wished I were able to give birth, and, in fact, I’ve never wanted a baby. Of course it’s inhuman not to want one, but I’m just not human. I’m not a human being. William is a human being. Maybe William wanted a baby. I never thought to ask. Was that what you were trying to tell me the other day, William? Were you trying to tell me that I’ve ruined your life?
Did
you want a baby?
Have
I ruined your life? Well, it’s too bad. I’m sorry. I was too selfish ever to ask if you wanted one, and I’m too selfish to want one myself. I’m more selfish than my own genes. I’m not fighting
for
my DNA, I’m fighting against it!”

“I’m happy as I am,” William said. He sat, his arms wrapped tightly around himself, looking at the floor. The baby coughed. “Who needs more champagne?”

“You see?” Otto said into the tundra of silence William left behind him as he retreated into the kitchen. “I really am a monster.”

Miles away, Naomi sat blushing, her hands clasped in her lap. Then she scooped up the baby. “There, there,” she said.

But Margaret sat back, eyebrows raised in semicircles, contemplating something that seemed to be hanging a few feet under the ceiling. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, and the room shuttled back into proportion. “I suppose you could say it’s human to want a child, in the sense that it’s biologically mandated. But I mean, you could say that, or you could say it’s simply unimaginative. Or you could say it’s unselfish or you could say it’s selfish, or you could say pretty much anything about it at all. Or you could just say, well, I want one. But when you get right down to it, really, one what? Because, actually—I mean, well, look at Molly. I mean, actually, they’re awfully specific.”

“I suppose I meant, like, crawl around on all fours, or something,” Naomi said. “I mean, just because you’ve got—But look, there they already are, all these babies, so many of them, just waiting, waiting, waiting on the shelves for someone to take care of them. We could have gone to Romania, we could have gone to Guatemala, we could have gone almost anywhere—just, for various reasons, we decided to go to China.”

“And we both really liked the idea,” Margaret said, “that you could go as far away as you could possibly get, and there would be your child.”

“Uh-huh,” Naomi nodded, soberly. “How crazy is that?”

“I abase myself,” Otto told William as they washed and dried the champagne glasses. “I don’t need to tell you how deeply I’ll regret having embarrassed you in front of Naomi and Margaret.” He clasped the limp dishtowel to his heart. “How deeply I’ll regret having been insufficiently mawkish about the miracle of life. I don’t need to tell you how ashamed I’ll feel the minute I calm down. How deeply I’ll regret having trampled your life, and how deeply I’ll regret being what I am. Well, that last part I regret already. I profoundly regret every tiny crumb of myself. I don’t need to go into it all once again, I’m sure. Just send back the form, pertinent boxes checked: ‘I intend to accept your forthcoming apology for—’”

“Please stop,” William said.

“Oh, how awful to have ruined the life of such a marvelous man! Have I ruined your life? You can tell me; we’re friends.”

“Otto, I’m going upstairs now. I didn’t sleep well last night, and I’m tired.”

“Yes, go upstairs.”

“Good night,” William said.

“Yes, go to sleep, why not?” Oh, it was like trying to pick a fight with a dog toy! “Just you go on off to sleep.”

“Otto, listen to me. My concert is tomorrow. I want to be able to play adequately. I don’t know why you’re unhappy. You do interesting work, you’re admired, we live in a wonderful place, we have wonderful friends. We have everything we need and most of the things we want. We have excellent lives by anyone’s standard. I’m happy, and I wish you were. I know that you’ve been upset these last few days, I asked if you wanted to talk, and you said you didn’t. Now you do, but this happens to be the one night of the year when I most need my sleep. Can it wait till tomorrow? I’m very tired, and you’re obviously very tired, as well. Try and get some sleep, please.”

“‘Try
and
get some sleep?’ ‘Try
and
get some sleep?’ This is unbearable! I’ve spent the best years of my life with a man who doesn’t know how to use the word ‘and’! ‘And’ is not part of the infinitive! ‘And’ means ‘
in addition to
.’ It’s not ‘Try
and
get some sleep,’ it’s ‘Try
to
get some sleep.’
To! To! To! To! To! To! To! Please try to get some sleep!
”