Letting Go (99 page)

“That’s right,” Paul said.

“Tim is doing research this year,” Marge told them. “We’ve been in Evanston for three or four years.” She turned, but only half looked at her husband. “Isn’t that right, darling?”

At the very same moment that he heard Marge say “darling”—and disbelieved it—Paul felt himself powerfully married to his wife. “We’ve been in Chicago for a year, a little more than a year.”

The other couple with the Franklands now moved out of the dining room, saying they would meet Tim and Marge in the lobby. Silence followed their departure.

“Well, it’s been three or four years,” Marge said, “since we’ve met, I think.”

Dr. Frankland gave a very stiff, very polite grin to everyone.

“Where is it we met before?” Libby asked.

“Iowa City,” Marge said.

“Do you have children?” Paul asked.

“One. A girl.”

“We have a girl too,” Libby said. “Six months.”

“Jocelyn is three,” Marge said to Paul.

“Time flies,” Dr. Frankland said to Libby, as though she might not have known. “Yours will be three before you realize it.”

“Do you ever see your friend?” Marge asked. “You remember—”

“Gabe Wallach.”

“Yes. How’s he doing? Do you ever hear from him?”

“He’s teaching at Chicago too,” Paul said.

“No kidding,” Tim Frankland said.

“Oh,” said Marge, “Tim has heard all these names.” She did not smile with much confidence.

“That was when Marge was revolting against her family. Your bohemian period, dear.” But the remark was meant for the edification of the crowd; there were obviously certain areas of the past with which Dr. Frankland didn’t have too much sympathy.

“Gabe’s baby-sitting for us tonight, as a matter of fact,” said Libby.

“I thought he’d be married—”

Libby made the announcement as though it gave her pleasure. “No, he isn’t.”

“Still knocking the girls over.” The words were spoken by Dr. Frankland.

“I suppose so,” Paul said.

Apropos of nothing, or so it seemed, Libby said, “He’s a very generous person.”

“It’s a coincidence,” Marge said, “all of us being in Chicago, isn’t it?”

“We were in Pennsylvania for a while,” Paul said.

“We should all get together,” Marge answered.

“Yes,” Paul said, when no one else did, “that would be fine.”

“Yes … It was nice running into you,” Dr. Frankland said. “We’re in the book, of course.”

“So are we,” Libby said, as though that tied the score.

“What do you call your daughter, Paul?”

“Rachel,” Libby said.

At this the two women were called upon to take a sudden interest in one another. Marge was the one who smiled.

Frankland felt called upon to be magnanimous. “That’s a nice old-fashioned European name.”

“Whom does she resemble?” Marge asked.

“Paul,” said Libby.

“I’m afraid Jocelyn looks just like me.”

“Well, we have to be going,” Tim Frankland said. “I’m afraid the Hodges are waiting—”

“Oh yes—”

“Goodbye. Say hello to Gabe Wallach—”

“Oh yes—”

Libby waited until they were barely out of earshot. “I’m afraid the Hodges are waiting,” she said, in a fair imitation.

“I had a feeling you didn’t like them.”

“I didn’t mean to be too obvious, but that man’s a horror. And she—I don’t know. At the end I suddenly thought she wasn’t so bad. Who is she? I don’t remember her at all. I thought we’d met her at Cornell.”

“She was a friend of Gabe’s.”

“That’s what I thought, after I found out it was Iowa. Gabe certainly has catholic tastes.”

“Of course, it was a long time ago.”

“She couldn’t have been any—Well, she didn’t strike me as very genuine. Did she you?”

“She’s all right, I suppose.”

“Well, she chose old Tim—I wouldn’t be so sure. ‘I’m afraid the Hodges are waiting.’ Hey, that’s not too bad, is it?” She did it again. “Did we know her well?” she asked suddenly.

“I met her once with Gabe. I don’t think you did.”

“Oh,”
she said, “this isn’t the girl friend of his you once helped move, is it, when I was sick? The girl he dropped, ker-plunk.”

“I think,” Paul said, “that was somebody else.”

“The more I learn about Gabe,” Libby said, “the stranger he seems. I don’t know if he has any substance or what.”

“There are girls like her in everybody’s past, I suppose.”

“Well, sweetheart, who was there in yours?”

After a moment, he said, “Doris. I’ve told you about Doris …”

“But you were in high school. Gabe was a man.”

“Well …”

“Gabe knows a lot about some things,” said Libby, “but then he seems to have so little imagination about others. He didn’t even begin to know what I was saying when I spoke about religion, for instance.”

“You said …” He was looking directly at his wife now; he had forced himself to while she spoke of Gabe’s past, and he for some reason made references—veiled, to be sure—to his own. “You said you didn’t know what to tell him.”

She was surprised. “I didn’t say that.”

“You said that you didn’t know what I thought.”

“Well, I
don’t
know what you think …”

“Well …” He had led himself into this. “What do you want to know?”

“What?”

Marge Howells had come and gone, and nothing had happened to him. It was not shame that was filling him with the incredible desire to answer questions. “I’m not hiding anything,” he said, and indeed he did feel perfectly innocent.

“Paul … no?”

The moment passed, though it left its mark. “Well, no.” He was not sure he could believe himself—though he was not completely unsure. Marge had come and gone and nothing had happened to him. “So what do you want to know?” he asked jokingly.

“… I don’t know. What do you do when you go to the synagogue?” she asked, shrugging her shoulders.

“I sit there.” She might as well be told that. He was afraid, however, of other questions she might ask, though he could not really inform himself as to what they might be. He continued to close back upon himself. “I sit there,” he said again.

“You say the prayer.”

“No.”

“Don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You did that Friday I went—”

“I did that Friday. I knew you expected certain things. I don’t when I’m alone.”

“You see—now there’s something I didn’t know that …”

“Well, we’re married, Libby, but we’re separate too.”

“I know that.”

“I don’t think that’s too unusual.”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking defeated. “I don’t know what’s usual and unusual. I’m still trying to figure marriage out. Excuse me—I don’t want to keep embarrassing you by being naïve. I didn’t mean to embarass you by saying Rachel resembled you either—”

“I don’t think that’s what’s embarrassing us.”

“I keep blushing tonight, Paul. And you’re my
husband.
”

“We’re just both excited about this whole week.”

“Yes … I’m not saying I’m not happy.”

“We’re just not used to things working out.” He wondered if that could be it. “It’s something we’ll have to become adjusted to.”

“I’m a little drunken, darling, but you’re sober, and you mean that, don’t you? I keep having the strange feeling that our troubles are over. That I’ve been being born and born for years and years, and now I’m out. That’s a weak statement from a woman who’s supposed to be somebody else’s mother, I know it probably makes me sound ill-equipped … What I mean is that if things will calm down for a while, I
will
be equipped. I’m embarrassed about the past. I keep saying ‘embarrassed’ only because it’s the only damn word I can think of. I really want to talk to you, Paul. The last few days I’ve thought and thought, because they seem so significant … Can’t we begin to talk a little?”

“Sure.”

“I want you to tell me sometimes what you’re thinking. That’ll make all the difference—”

“Yes, but, Libby, you understand—” He knew he had opened this floodgate himself; he had allowed himself the pleasure of optimism, and now he was paying. It would all wind up, tonight or tomorrow or next week, with Libby crying.

“I don’t expect to know everything. If I can know … If I don’t have to stay home all day imagining it. Everything else is all right now—now it’s simply you and me that needs working out.” She was trying to grin; he was trying to collect himself. But he couldn’t; some inroad had been made. “I tell people about what you think,” Libby said, “and I don’t even know what you
do
think. Are we religious or aren’t we?” With that question she looked quite beaten again. “There—that’s one simple little thing—”

“You see, we’re not one person. We’re two.”

“—because we have to communicate
somehow.
”

“Of course—”

“I don’t think every marriage has to be lustful. I understand that differently now. I’ve made myself understand it differently. But if it’s not that, then it’s going to have to be something else.”

“Libby—you’ve had a lot of patience …”

Near tears, she answered, “Thank you.”

“I can only ask for a little more.” Another woman would, at this moment, have struck him, or left him; knowing this made him feel no more noble about his plea.

“Everything seems to be changing,” said Libby, “but you.”

“Then I must be changing too, Lib. I have changed.”

“How?”

He did not ever think of such easy solutions as Marge Howells; he did not think of solutions. “I don’t know,” was all he said.

“You still don’t love me, do you?”

“That’s an unfair … an inexact way to put it, for both of us.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

His responses were not satisfying either of them; he might just as well be silent. Libby asked, “Am I ruining our evening? Oh hell—”

They finished up what food remained on their plates.

“If you did believe in God,” she said, sliding her fork on the empty plate, “I wouldn’t feel it was an important question at all. You know that?”

“Because you do?”

“I don’t. I can’t. I don’t even want to. But you’re different. I don’t even know what you are—but I love you, Paul. And I don’t care that you don’t love me. I know you’re a good man.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t love you,” he began.

“I don’t care. Let’s pay the bill—let’s take a walk. I feel chaotic inside. I’m sorry if I’ve ruined our ten-dollar dinner.”

“Please,” she said, as they walked west toward the theater, “I can’t keep one foot in each camp any longer.”

She waited, but did not hear him ask that she explain. It was difficult to tell whether he was not listening, or was thinking, or had chosen simply to ignore her.

“I can’t keep provoking other men, Paul. I’m just spilling out everything—and I’m sorry. How much was dinner, eleven dollars? I know I’m responsible for wasting it. When I was a child I always wound up crying on my birthday—there would always be an argument, somehow or other. I had a way, I have a way, of ruining significant days. I suppose I shouldn’t have had that drink what with these kidneys inside me. I was just edgy enough, and now I’m just drunk enough—and I want you to talk to me. Please, we’ll walk all the way to the movie, and please, you just talk. Up at Cornell you could persuade me of anything. Persuade me now.”

“About what?”

“About you. I keep thinking that either you believe in God or you love me. It’s not something I’ve given a lot of thought to, but it comes into my head, and I might as well say it. Weak as I am, Paul, I’ve always said things. Blurted them out. It’s our sixth anniversary,” she said after a moment. “Persuade me, will you? You just can’t cut me out of your life!”

The air was cold; they were walking directly into a light wind. Neither looked at the other. “I can’t give you positive answers,” he said. “I’m not sure either way, about either.”

“Stop sparing me too, all right?”

“Libby, since my father’s death, since that trip, it’s been me who’s felt as though he’s been being born. Perhaps you have, but so have I. And I’ve not come out yet.”

“When—?”

“I don’t know.” He raised his hands impatiently. “I’m trying to speak indirectly …”

“Why do you go to the synagogue then? Why do we stay married? I keep thinking, Well he believes—”

“Faith is private; why do you have to feel so impassioned about mine?”

“When you came back from New York I thought everything was going to change. I thought religion—”

“I’m not so sure any more about the religion I came back with from New York. Things have gotten better. That’s precisely it.”

“Don’t think,” she said gloomily, “they’ve gotten that much better.”

“And that’s why I still go to synagogue. They haven’t gotten that much better.”

“I don’t think I’m understanding everything you’re saying. Are you saying that if we were both perfectly happy, then you wouldn’t go at all?”

“I suppose, in a way, that’s what I’m saying.”

“Well, what do you
do
there—do you pray? Why do you even go there? Are you praying for things to get better, so you can just forget all about it?”

“Things won’t get ‘better,’ Libby.”