Tolstoy Lied : A Love Story (9780547527307) (31 page)

At this overdue acknowledgment that I've tried to protect her, I soften. The clock on my wall indicates I've got only fifteen minutes to prepare for seminar. “You getting any rest?” I say.

She doesn't answer.

“Please, Elizabeth, don't talk about my project in public again.”

“I promise.” This time she sounds sincere.

She leaves. I settle into my chair. Before forcing myself into
The House of Mirth,
I indulge myself in a brief replay of Steven Hilliard's voice pronouncing the word “colossal.”

My mother, who does not buy outfits, has bought outfits for this holiday in the Catskills. She fusses with the buttons of her new sweaters and is painfully shy around George. With me, she is abnormally voluble.

The grassy, starlit parking lot is deserted. The air smells of woodsmoke. In the dark beyond the parking lot the hills roll on for miles, beckoning me with a blunt, chilly clarity I trust. There's no sound but the wind in the bare trees around the inn. No evidence, other than a half-dozen parked cars, of the mountainside inn's other patrons, tucked away in their lamplit rooms, presumably readying themselves for tomorrow's Thanksgiving feast.

Still, my mother, suddenly a font of gossip, whispers. “You remember Theresa and Watson from next door?”

“The ones from L.A.?” I can't help whispering in reply.

“They have a
terrible
fertility problem.”

I hoist my weekend bag higher onto my shoulder.

“The problem is Watson's,” she continues. “They're seeing a specialist.”

The injustice of it stuns me: now that I've made a life choice she understands, she's eager to provide a map of the world.

Silhouetted in the inn's lighted doorway, my father claps a hand to George's neck and waves. I follow my mother toward the entrance.

Since George and I greeted my parents at the airport this afternoon, my father has hardly spoken to me. Instead, he's peppered George with questions and nodded vigorous approval of every answer. And George—I couldn't help noticing as I sat speechless in the back seat—was perfect. Courteous, solicitous without being smarmy, funny without crossing any lines of propriety. The two of them fell into a hearty friendliness that continued as George piloted us north in the rented car, the tension of their postures easing in the front seats as their conversation grew steadily more genuine.

Do fathers always greet their future sons-in-law with such grim
cheer? Do they always shift their gazes from their daughters with that suddenly preoccupied expression?
If you're going to choose another man then I'm going to grit my teeth and make best friends with him and ignore you until you have children.
My father, who always said I could be anything I wanted to be, doesn't seem to have planned for my becoming a wife. He is taking my engagement personally. It is obvious I need to say something to him about this.

You tell me what.

Here is my recollection of adolescence: You grow breasts (even if they are not particularly significant breasts), and everyone changes overnight. People you used to count on suddenly find you uninteresting. Other people—ones who never had much to say to you—are abruptly unshakable.

Engagement, I am coming to believe, is a second set of breasts.

“How's work, Dad?” I say when we join them in the inn's foyer.

“Fine,” says my father, smiling as though he's trying to remember my name.

“How about some hot soup?” my mother interjects.

I want to curl up in her arms.

We settle into our rooms, separated by a discreet distance. At this juncture it seems pointless to mention to George that these are not my parents. And in any event he doesn't look as though he'd want to believe me. His face is animated. He undresses slowly, like a man who's finally, after a despairing search, stumbled across a club to which he belongs, and he hates to let go of the day. Only one thing seems to perturb him. He settles beside me on the mattress. Wrapping his arms around my waist, he says, “Just one thing, Trace.” He nuzzles my neck. “And I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it. But I didn't appreciate your mentioning my job trouble in the car.”

Holding loosely to his arms, I sift my memory of the last few hours' exchanges, at last unearthing the small conversational nugget. “But all I said was you've been doing a lot of travel. And that you may have some tough negotiations ahead. I didn't say anything about trouble.”

“I don't want them to think I'm not a good provider.” He sits on the bed.

“But I didn't mention money. I just said
tough negotiations.
They wouldn't—”

“You made it sound like I was struggling.”

“George.” I settle against the wooden headboard. “I don't get it.”

He sits in silence for a long time. When he speaks he begins heavily, reluctant. “I didn't tell you about my conversation with my father,” he says. “Just before they left for the airport on Thursday. There wasn't time to tell you. And I honestly didn't want to.” His face colors slightly. “My father says I don't have a clue what it takes to support a family.”

“I'm sorry, George. I'm really sorry.” I watch him. “But really, we don't have to care, do we? Your father's opinions are back in Toronto, and they can stay there.”

His voice turns adamant. “He's right. Joel hasn't given me a raise in years.”

“But that's because money is tight. It's not a sign of disrespect. And you love your work. You've told me you're all right with the money.”

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

He looks at me as though I am being obtuse on purpose. “Before we got engaged. I'm ready to move forward with life. I want a family salary.”

“Don't forget, George, I earn a salary too.”

His expression sours: this was the wrong thing to say. He rises. As he speaks he paces the length of the room. “I want to move forward. I want to start our family.” He stops by the door and faces me. “I'd like to set a date, Tracy.”

I draw a deep breath, and stumble off script. “You're freaking me out.”

George looks unstrung. He returns to the bed and settles beside me. He lies on his back, hands beneath his head. He doesn't touch me, but stares at the ceiling. “I know I've been difficult.”

“You do?”

“I've been preoccupied. And . . . revved.” He falls silent. Then he props himself on one elbow and, taking my hand, cradles it in both of his palms, considering its bejeweled architecture. “I don't like to admit this, Tracy.” He looks into my eyes, questioning.

“Go ahead,” I say.

“And I hope you won't think less of me, although I know you might.”

“Tell me.” At the prospect of some heretofore untold secret, an explanation for the way George has been acting, my pulse races.

“Sometimes,” he says, “I doubt myself.”

I wait in vain for him to continue. “That's it?” I say at length.

He chooses his words with care. “I doubt my ability to live the life I've hoped for. I doubt my ability to make the grade in the daily grind. I think there are some things—good things—my father accomplished that I may not be able to achieve.”

“But of course you feel that. Everyone worries about those things. Don't you think?”

“Not everyone,” he says softly. “Sometimes I think I'm just not going to measure up.” A moment passes. Then his gaze leans into mine. Relief washes his eyes. Slowly the tension in his body seems to drain. “It's good to trust you like this, Tracy.”

I'm not sure he should.

For years I believed I understood men. I was comfortable teasing Adam, jousting with Jeff, critiquing male authors whose texts I mined in an intimacy known only to scholars. Now it's clear to me that all along there was some core impenetrable to me: an untouchable, red-hot male region of shame.

I do not understand men. I understand only that George has just opened his heart to me in a way he hasn't for weeks. And that my job is to place suddenly awkward arms around this one man I've loved. To cradle his head, gingerly, in my lap.

“George,” I say after a long time. “I'm sorry your father doesn't have faith in you. I have absolute faith that you can
measure up.
More than measure up . . . whatever that means. And as far as I'm concerned your job is just fine.” I hesitate. “Also, listen, I know my parents, and they're not going to think less of you for a mention of difficult negotiations.
Everyone
has difficult negotiations, about one thing or another. There's no shame in that. Everyone has difficulties.”

George raises his brows: not, apparently, future sons-in-law. “I'm just making a request,” he says. He smiles to soften the impact of this conversational trump card. “If you want we can talk about it more tomorrow. I'm fried.” Then he kisses me, squeezes
my hand, and, sliding beneath the covers, turns out the light. At first I think he's going to reach for me, but his breath slows so quickly I know sleep's ambushed him.

The low-ceilinged room is silent.

Is that part of the marriage contract? Wives pretending their husbands have no troubles?

George begins to snore.

If so, then every married woman is the keeper of a secret: her husband's vulnerability. This is absurd. I will not be married if it means lying to everyone close to me. Isn't the best thing I have—despite a thousand faults and obstinacies—my honesty? Isn't pretending men have no doubts the very thing that keeps all the stupid macho stuff going? I'm certain my parents wouldn't flinch at something as ordinary as
tough negotiations.

Unless they would. Unless they all adhere to an unspoken patriarchal code: my parents, George, the married set, all conspiring to keep the world safe from the least tremor on a male emotional Richter scale.

I recall my conversation with Hannah, the day of the engagement—only this time the phrase that pops into my head is:
the day I lost George.

Is that it? Is it all lost—the delicate fun, the lightness, the companionship between us? Did its heart stop beating that day?

At breakfast the next morning I leave the scrambled eggs on my plate and can't get down my coffee. George and I aren't going to make it. I cannot be a wife: his, anyone's. We're leading my poor, game, color-coordinated parents through a social charade we'll all regret.

Midway through breakfast, my mother falls silent. As we rise from the table to prepare for the day's hiking she gives me a quiet, intimate look I don't understand.

We spend the day hiking gullies of boulder and pine. The fresh air is bracing, the vistas austere and lovely. George and my parents comment on the landscape and share safe family stories. I'm lightheaded from hunger, tightlipped. All day my mother's eyes seek mine—concerned, empathic, reassuring.

Baffling.

Yet I can't recall a moment since childhood when I so longed for an audience with her.

After dinner George and my father step out to the inn's reception area to consult maps for tomorrow's hike. My mother and I settle in front of the fireplace.

“So, Mom.” I stretch first one calf, then the other, then roll onto my side, deliberately casual as though dealing with a flight-prone animal. I want so much from her it frightens me. I don't know how to say all I mean. A minute passes; George and my father won't be gone long. “Tell me,” I say, “about marriage.”

She nods gravely—as though she's been waiting thirty-three years for me to ask. “Well,” she says carefully. “Two people just get along.”

I stare. “Okay. But I mean—you and Dad. And the other couples you've seen. What makes marriage succeed? In your opinion?”

She looks into the fire. For a moment her face works. When she turns to me her eyes are clear, her words quick with the thrill of confession. “Sometimes you have sex more often than you feel like it.”

The fire emits a loud pop.

“That's it?” I say.

She nods. She sits back, visibly animated at having divulged this secret. She takes a long drink of her wine.

I stare, incredulous. Exposed yet again, years beyond the point where my childhood hopes should have expired, as a fool.

As though he'd been watching from the hall, the inn's burly waiter comes in to offer a refill of her wineglass. She accepts. Once more he offers me a glass, and once more I decline. He leaves. I turn back to my mother. She's not looking at me, but watching the fire with an expression of wonder, and sorrow, and fulfillment. It's then, and only then, that I understand her flushed solidarity for the falsehood it is.

“I'm not pregnant,” I say.

She offers a slight, knowing smile. Disbelieving.

Without another word I get up and head to the kitchen, where I tersely obtain a cigarette and a light from a bored busboy. Returning to the inn's fire, I manage to smoke without coughing, despite the fact that I haven't touched a cigarette in years. She turns back to the fire. I watch as her expression ranges from shock to an almost heartbreaking disappointment; then to a stony sort of relief.

By the time she turns back to me, her face is once more blank. A blankness in which I recognize my own paralysis.

The men return, amiably silent. George sets a tray of hot cocoa on the table and brings me a mug, then settles behind me and begins to knead my shoulders. My father summons my mother to the hallway to consult the map. Alone in the room with George, I glare at the fire.

“You didn't tell me your father was into fishing,” he says. “We're already talking about a summer trip.”

The dry heat hurts my eyes.

“You know, Tracy,” he says, “I've waited so long for this. For you. I waited so long for someone I
recognized,
Tracy. Ever since I left Toronto for college I thought, I left home and now I'm cursed: I'll never have that whole life.”