When We Argued All Night (36 page)

Once, she didn't even see David, but he left an elaborate note: they had to get Artie's power of attorney, and he had consulted with a friend who was a lawyer and printed out forms he'd found on the Internet. The next week he met her in the lobby. The forms had to be notarized, and he'd arranged for a notary to meet them.

Artie was in the bathroom when they arrived, but he came out when cajoled by the daytime aide. He had to initial many pages of forms, and he did so with appalling meekness, signing away his right to sell property, pay taxes, or make decisions without the consent of Carol and Brenda. The effort was all in the action itself. His
A. S.
kept getting larger. The notary brought out her seal.

At three the next morning the phone rang in David's apartment, where Brenda slept. It was Jess. The nighttime aide had called. She says she called 911, Jess said.

—What's wrong?

—She just gave me her cell phone number. Honey, I don't know, Jess said. She said she couldn't tell me, only you.

Brenda dialed like a robot.

—He went crazy, said the nighttime aide.

—How did he go crazy? He's always been crazy.

—He screamed. I called 911. I don't have to put up with violence.

—What's happening now?

—They took him.

—They took him?

—He's at the ER. She named a hospital. Brenda hung up and asked David if she had to go now.

—You'll go in the morning.

She called Jess and asked the same question, and Jess too said she should go in the morning. Brenda slept.

B
ad Weather: You call yourself a fool in your title. Do you really think you're a fool?

Harold Abrams: Yes.

BW: That's all?

HA: Well, I suppose in one sense I am not a fool. I have a doctoral degree. I supported myself for many years. But I trust the reader will understand that someone who writes a book who calls himself a fool does not mean he is too stupid to write a book.

BW: Then what do you mean?

HA: I mean [coughs] . . . I mean that in most instances I am less kind, less sensible, less unselfish than I would like to be.

BW: What do you regret most in your life?

HA: I was going to say, marrying my first wife, but then I would not have had my children, so I regret being unfaithful to her, but then I would not have my second wife, so I regret nothing.

BW: What are you most proud of?

HA: Proud? I don't know. I should have done everything a little differently, you know what I mean?

BW: Do you believe in God?

HA: No.

BW: What world event had the greatest effect on your life?

HA: I have to think. The Depression, of course, but I managed. Not the war. The killing of the Jews—that had the greatest effect on my thoughts but not my life. I would have to say McCarthy.

BW: Because you lost your job?

HA: Because I got to start over.

BW: What is your hope for the 2004 presidential election?

HA: It looks like it will be Kerry. I don't care much, as long as we get rid of these idiots.

BW: So they are worse than fools?

HA: I'm a genius compared to George W. Bush.

BW: And do you think he'll lose?

HA: [coughs] [long pause] I think he'll lose.

B
renda found her father under a white blanket, his face looking shrunken. She took his hand. Hi, Daddy, it's Brenda.

—Bathroom.

—You need to go to the bathroom?

—Bathroom.

—Did they bring you a bedpan?

—Bathroom.

—Did they give you breakfast? Did you have something to eat?

—Bathroom.

No, the nurse told her, he didn't mean he had to go to the bathroom. Sometimes they just say the same thing over and over, she said. They don't know what they're saying. Brenda tried to distract him, talking about David.

Artie said, Did he go to the bathroom? Did you go to the bathroom? You have to go to the bathroom.

Hours passed. Nobody looked at her. Maybe they were giving her privacy, which was not what she needed. Nobody could tell Brenda what was wrong, nobody seemed to understand that it had happened all of a sudden. But had it happened all of a sudden?

B
W: Looking back, why do you think you joined the Communist Party?

HA: I joined to impress my friends. But sometimes we do the right thing for the wrong reasons.

BW: Why was it the right thing?

HA: Things were different. It was the right thing. Later,
Communist
turned into a dirty word. The Russians didn't do it. Stalin—you can't imagine.

BW: What can't I imagine?

HA: Ideals turning to blood. The loss. We have never regained—maybe in the sixties, for a minute—the optimism. There's no protest without optimism. You protest—do you understand me?—when something could change.

BW: But we still have antiwar marches—protests . . .

HA: No, nothing like that. Nothing. When I lost my job—

BW: As a teacher?

HA: Nobody knew why. We should have been heroes, but the time was over. We were just dirt to be mopped up. Later, they said, Oh, you weren't the dirt; we made a mistake. Big deal.

BW: Is that why you didn't go back to teaching?

HA: Didn't go back? I was a teacher all my life.

BW: In college. I guess you weren't going to give up a college teaching job to go back to teaching high school.

HA: I suppose I should have. I'm not a good person, never was. I had to do what I could as an essentially selfish person. That's what I should have called the book. Fool has nothing to do with it. I should have said,
A Selfish Man and His Principles
.

A
rtie was sent from the emergency room to a nursing home, then back to the hospital two weeks later when he seemed to be having a heart attack and dying. Carol flew in from Michigan, and she and Brenda sat by his bed. After three hours of silence, Artie said, There's no question the reduction of problems will increase.

Brenda laughed.

—He's alive? Carol said, looking at Brenda. He's going to stay alive? Carol was slim and blond; her hair was dyed and curled, and her tears were more touching, Brenda felt, than the tears that fell down her own square face, under her short gray rumpled hair. Artie didn't die, and the doctors decided it hadn't been a heart attack after all, but an infection. Carol left.

He lay in a sunny hospital room, where Brenda spent day after day, phoning Jess each night. One morning Artie said, I want to be that same old age as Harold.

Harold's birthday had already happened. Artie's would come in a week. She said, Ninety-four?

—Yes. Then, enough. Living like this is no fun.

B
W: Was there anything you could have done to prevent your son Nelson's suicide?

HA: When he was two. When he was ten. Sometimes you shouldn't tell yourself there was nothing you could have done. Sometimes there are things you could have done. I can say I didn't know it would happen, but from the time he was a teenager, I knew it would happen.

BW: Do you have advice for the parents of children with mental illness?

HA: Such as, don't beat up on yourself? My advice would be, Beat up on yourself. But nobody needs advice to do that. Everybody can do it already.

BW: In your book, you say that the best thing in your life has been your wife, Naomi, but that falling in love with Naomi caused Nelson's death.

HA: Do I say that?

BW: You imply it.

HA: So what do you want from me?

C
lothing that's halfway between theirs and ours, Artie said to Brenda. She'd gone home for a few days and had returned. Then, When your women and my women are together, what is the relationship?

She was baffled. What do you think?

—What do
you
think, and what do the girls think?

She decided they were combining their staffs, like King Lear and Goneril, but perhaps with less friction. She said, I think they'll get along, and we can deal with problems as they arise, and he nodded and quieted. The days were boring but pleasant. David came when he could. She and her father conversed—how urbanely and politely!

He said, All night it came to me that I was going between Evelyn and . . . trigger finger. Do you know who trigger finger is? Trigger finger is Brenda.

That afternoon he was tired and petulant. The room felt small and stuffy. Artie said, Confusion, confusion, confusion.

Later, Why did they play so many tricks on us?

Later still, Green paper, green paper, green paper.

—Do you want green paper? Brenda said. Do you remember something about green paper? She hushed herself.

—Sick, Artie said. No sick. Sick. No sick. Sick. No sick. Confused.

—You're confused.

Time passed. Brenda, he said. Brenda, Brenda, Brenda, green paper Brenda. Green paper, green paper . . . really happened.

Then, Yellow paper, yellow paper . . .

A nurse took his vital signs. I don't want to live, he said.

The next day he said, Yellow, yellow, yellow, and circled his hand in the air as he said it. Brenda Saltzman, he said then. Pink paper. Carol. Green paper. No release. Green medicine in red paper. Must bus. Green paper.

—Who are you? Artie said abruptly, looking right at Brenda. David had stopped by after work and stood near the window.

—Brenda.

—Who?

—Your daughter.

He said, Daughter has
d, g
.

—Yes,
d-a-u-g-h-t-e-r
.

—So why didn't you give me the
d g
medicine?

—I don't know how, Brenda said.

He laughed weirdly.

—Are you laughing?

—It's funny. David, take over. Be smarter.

The next day there were more words. What do I do now? Artie said.

—Just rest.

—Where do I rest? How do I rest? My right foot is locked up. Then, No, he said. Terrible feeling. Oh, my God. This is the worst.

B
W: You are primarily interested in political life, but you taught literature and wrote books about literature. Why is that?

HA: I am interested in literature. I hate public life. As citizens, we must pay attention to public life, just as we must pay attention to private morality as human beings, whatever our interests.

BW: You hate public life? Really hate it?

HA: Yes.

BW: Does literature relate to politics?

HA: Literature is dangerous. It tells us things are more complicated than is convenient. You can't make policy if you think all day about literature. Literature professors who won't sign the petition because they don't like the semicolon.

BW: But doesn't literature teach us how to be moral?

HA: No.

BW: That's not true! You're not telling the truth about what you think.

HA: How do you know what I think?

BW: I read your book. I read all your books.

HA: I am tired.

BW: Is it too much? Should I come another day?

HA: How is my friend?

BW: My grandfather? He's in the hospital.

HA: What does literature tell me to do when my friend is sick?

BW: You could go see him.

HA: Does literature tell me to do that?

BW: I don't know.

HA: Are you crying?

A
s Brenda walked through the corridor toward Artie's room, a nurse said, He's pretty wild.

—Could I tell you something? she said, when she came in. It was his ninety-fourth birthday.

He said, No, no—not now. I'm in a very difficult game.

Artie had been taken out of bed and put into a lounge chair with a tilted back. A tray table crossed his lap, maybe to keep him in one place. His legs were stretched out on the footrest, and Artie flexed his feet alternately, rhythmically, with the agility and control of an athlete. He said, I want to tell you how I got into it. It's very bizarre.

Brenda sat opposite in the straight chair. Artie never stopped flexing and straightening his legs and feet, alternately. Then he said, Quarter.

Then, You can make a day's pay out here. I saw five quarters.

She understood something. You're picking up quarters?

—Yeah. He paused, concentrating. Then he said, Look at that fish!

Finally, Brenda understood. He was in a pedalboat. What's the fish doing? she said.

—Not that, the way it looks. So tempting, he said. But after a while, he said, Well, I want to get out. Suppose you wanted to go somewhere right now, what would you do?

—I'd take the subway to David's and pick up my car.

—Forget I asked you. He called to invisible people to his left and right. Do you want a boat? Do you want this boat if I get out?

After another pause, he said, I had no idea this was competitive—but they're scoring.

—Is it a race? Brenda said.

—No, but they're always counting time. People were watching. One gave me a white paper, one gave me a black mark . . .

When a nurse came in, he demanded to get out of the boat.

—It's a chair, Mr. Saltzman.

—So how can I get out of this
chair
? A minute later it was a boat again. You want this boat?

To Brenda, Is this boat riding or staying put?

Brenda said, It's tied up.

He said, Let me sit on it for a while. His feet stopped. Then, What do they charge for it? Is your boat sitting or perched on a small boat? I seem to see something underneath.

It was compelling. She said, Do you think we're in a lake or a river?

—A pond, but I'm just wondering if those little boats are going to move. Rapidly and lucidly, he explained that it wouldn't be a problem if the boats were going to stay where they were, but if they were going to move, he needed to know so as not to collide with them. What is the usual ride? he asked.

—An hour, Brenda said.

—How are my touches?