Middle Age (49 page)

Innocently thinking,
It’s in my clothing
.
My hair
.
Not here
. He tried to recall whether the president had smoked a cigar, and believed he had not.

In the bedroom Lionel discovered the green satin bedspread carelessly
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drawn up over wrinkled linen sheets; disbelieving, he stooped to examine coin-sized splotches of still-damp mucus on the bottom sheet. Another man’s semen? Was it possible? There were smudges of lipstick on the pillows, the hue of dried blood, Siri’s shade of lipstick. Amid the bedclothes, Siri’s rich nutmeg smell and the smell of another, rank and animal, a sweaty male. In the dazzling white tile bathroom every towel appeared to have been roughly used and hung crooked from racks or lay damply wadded on the floor; the shower was dripping, and long dark snaky hairs were trapped in the drain. The air was still humid but steam had evapo-rated from the mirrors. In the zinc-framed mirror above the sink, a man’s ashen, appalled face floated foolish as a child’s balloon. His mouth was slack and his brain was struck blank as with a mallet.



“A   S !
Thor!
”

She had only to appear in the doorway, framed in sunlight, before she summoned them, and the dogs came running. She lifted her hands, clapping just three times. How they adored their mistress, and how beautiful they were to her!

First came Thor, panting and eager, the youngest, a two-year-old Doberman pinscher with a lean-muscled, burnished-dark body like liquid energy, urgent eyes and razor teeth. Next came the older Apollo, with the husky-shepherd’s deep chest and solid hindquarters, yet puppylike in his eagerness to please. Finally, there was the smaller, spidery Shadow, coarsely black-furred, on three legs, shimmying his narrow hindquarters, panting so quickly his breath made a whistling sound. “Good dogs!

Come.” Where once Camille Hoffmann had taken pleasure in feeding her husband and children, and in feeding guests seated at her long dining room table, now she took a more ardent, less anxious pleasure in feeding her dogs in a corner of the kitchen, each in his separate bowl. “Here, Thor.

Here, Apollo. Mind your manners, now! And here, Shadow. Don’t spill.

Good dogs.” A yellow plastic bowl for Thor. A red plastic bowl for Apollo.

A dark green plastic bowl for Shadow. And a large white plastic water bowl for all three dogs, neatly set upon sheets of newspaper.

These sheets of newspaper (usually the stock market pages of the
New
York Times
) Camille changed every two or three days, depending upon how messily the dogs ate.

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J C O

Now in the New Year the beautifully restored old Colonial house on Old Mill Way was no longer a burrow. It had become a space open to daylight. Camille laughed to think she’d once fussed so over her furniture, her curtains and carpets. She’d once allowed herself to be upset when the children tracked mud into the spotless downstairs rooms. She’d been physically ill when, the morning after one of the Hoffmanns’ New Year’s Eve festive dinner-dance parties, she’d discovered burn marks on the hardwood floor of a newly remodeled guest bathroom, where someone, presumably drunk, had stubbed out a cigarette. (“In our house, Lionel.

One of our so-called friends. Can you imagine. Who could it be!” The probable suspect, both Camille and Lionel agreed, was Harry Tierney, who’d left Salthill soon afterward, thumbing his nose at them all.) What did such trivial things matter? On only his second day with Camille, the high-strung young Doberman, Thor, dashed past her into the dining room to throw himself with a savage snarl against a window (having seen what might have been a bird’s shadow passing outside?), sank his teeth into the antique lace curtains, and tugged, and all came tumbling in a heap. Apollo and Shadow, not to be outdone in vigilance, and jealous of their mistress’s new adoptee, barked excitedly. “Oh, you bad boys! You’re destroying my beautiful house,” Camille laughed.

In fact she was upset. She worried what Lionel would say when, one day soon, he returned home. “This is his house, too. He has allergies. He’ll be appalled.” And what would Camille’s relatives say when they visited, both hers and Lionel’s; and such Salthill friends as Beatrice Archer and Abigail Des Pres, who telephoned often, concerned that Camille spent too much time alone. (Camille wanted to protest she wasn’t alone: she had Apollo, Shadow, and Thor. And she had her volunteer work at the Rockland County Homeless Animal Shelter, which meant a good deal to her; she was making friends there, and would make more.
People like me
.
People
who understand animals
. At Christmas, Camille had made a generous contribution to the New Jersey Friends of the American Associated Humane Societies and in the spring she would volunteer to help in their statewide campaign to influence citizens to vote yes in an upcoming election, for a proposal to make cruelty to animals and animal abuse felonies and not merely misdemeanors punishable by token fines.) In this new phase of her life Camille felt like an explorer who has blundered onto a strange, unexpected terrain, for which nothing in her previous life has prepared her.

But she would be prepared, in time. She believed this!

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At least the dread holiday season was past. Somehow, Camille had managed to endure it. She’d never quite realized how onerous the burden was to be, or to pretend to be,
happy;
to keep up a brave, stubborn pretense of
happiness
because it’s that season. Marcy and Kevin came to visit, glum and embittered, jealous of the dogs. “How can Daddy come home, if these dogs are here? You know he’s allergic,” Marcy said peevishly. Camille tried to explain, “But your father isn’t home, dear. And in the meantime these poor animals deserve a home, too.” Marcy said, in a voice heavy with sarcasm, “Mot
her!
Next thing we know, you’ll be building a kennel out back.”

But why a kennel, Camille thought, when there’s the guest house? A useless luxury, under these changed circumstances.

T   was worsened by the cloudy presence of Marcy and Kevin. Both complained to their mother that they’d had to cancel holiday plans in order to be with her at such a sensitive, painful time; both tried repeatedly to make telephone and e-mail contact with their elusive father, with no luck. She heard them declaring grimly over the phone to friends that “Poor Mom needs us, she’s in a permanent state of shock” and “Daddy needs us, he’s having a nervous breakdown.” They went to Manhattan, to Hoffmann Publishing, Inc., and to the apartment on East 6st Street, in vain. At Lionel’s office, his secretary swore that Mr.

Hoffmann wasn’t in, but had left the country for the holidays; and when Marcy strode past her to boldly open the door, there was no one at her father’s desk. “It’s like black magic. Dad’s a magician, and he makes himself disappear,” Marcy said, disgusted. At the apartment, they discovered to their chagrin that their keys no longer fit the lock. Their father so distrusted them, he’d had the locks changed! “It’s like Kafka,” Kevin said.

“The shame of the father outlives the son.”

Still, Marcy and Kevin were childishly adamant, as Christmas approached, that Lionel would, Lionel must, return to the house on Old Mill Way for Christmas Eve, at least! Camille, who’d pondered such a fantasy earlier in December, then gave it up, tried to warn them; most likely Lionel was out of the country; he and his new, young friend seemed to travel a lot, especially to lush tropical places. Marcy said derisively,

“This ‘new, young friend’ of Dad’s, know who she is? Know what she is?
I
know.” Kevin said, “Yes? What do you know? Who told
you?
” “I know she’s Third World,” Marcy said smugly, “and she wouldn’t be confused

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J C O

with a Caucasian. That’s what I know.” Irritated, Kevin said, “So who told you? This sounds like bullshit to me.” “I know what I know,” Marcy said, thrusting her bulldog face dangerously close to Kevin’s, “I ran into a certain Salthill divorcée in the village, whose ex-husband ‘double-dated’ with Dad, both of them with Third World hookers, and—” Kevin began to shout at his sister, and Camille deftly intervened, daring to thrust herself between them. Exactly as she’d done nearly two decades ago. “Children, please,” she said, resorting to the pitiful stage gesture of actually wringing her hands, “don’t do this to me, not at Christmas. I beg you.” Both children sneered.

Apollo was barking, and Shadow was close to baying, locked in another part of the house and fearful their mistress was being attacked.

Marcy, a big girl with a tendency to lurch, went about the house singing in a mock-sugary voice, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas—NOT.” Kevin, obsessed with combing his wan, thinning hair in such a way as to minimize its thinness, or to maximize its rapidly diminishing thickness, took Camille aside and told her he was worried about his sister who was “clinically depressed” over their father’s disgusting behavior and close to “burning out” with her “fiercely competitive job.” Another time, Marcy took Camille aside to confide in her she was worried about her kid brother, who was “in a crisis of sexual identity” exacerbated by his dad’s disgusting behavior and by his mother’s “failure to deal decisively.”

Camille smiled weakly and promised to do what she could.

When it became embarrassingly clear that Lionel wasn’t coming home for Christmas Eve dinner, had no presents to heap upon them, nor even a mumbled telephone apology to transmit, it fell to Camille to placate, or to attempt to placate, Marcy and Kevin. Marcy said tragically, “This is the first time in my entire life that my father I believed I loved, and I believed loved me, won’t be spending Christmas with me.” Kevin said vehemently,

“This scene sucks. It isn’t even Oedipal, where you could explore it as myth. It’s just—shit.” “The first fucking time! In my fucking life! Fucking Christmas! Sure it’s materialist, our culture is sick with material things, but how the fuck else do you communicate your
love?
Name the ways.”

Just then the telephone rang, and Camille hurried breathless to answer it.

In a stage play a ringing phone would signal a possibly happy ending, but in actual life, dogs barking and baying in the near distance, things weren’t so logical. Yet her heart leapt like a girl’s. Though soberly instructing herself
Just remain calm
.
Calm, Camille!
She had time for a quick pleasant rec-ollection of meeting Lionel for the first time, how many years ago, in that
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rowdy smoky fraternity house upstate, and she’d been a calming influence upon him, upset as he was that his date had slipped away with one of his fraternity brothers; Camille, though very young, had been calm, sweet, steadying—and that had made all the difference. But, damn!—the telephone was only just Beatrice Archer, calling to wish Camille a happy Christmas, and to mention casually that she knew of a “beautiful, sweet-tempered, loving dog,” a young Doberman pinscher named Thor, in need of an immediate home. Had Camille any suggestions? “Thor is a purebred Doberman, too sensitive to be lodged anywhere impersonal like a kennel or a shelter. He needs a true home, Camille. I wish Avery and I could take him in, but—!” Camille tried to keep the disappointment, in fact the bleak despair, out of her voice. “Beatrice, thank you but I can’t take in a third dog. I simply can’t. I’m desperate to know what I’ll do when Lionel comes home. Please understand!” Upset, Camille hung up on Beatrice’s lilting soprano voice.

When she returned to the children, Marcy was loudly singing, “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas—NOT.” Kevin said, “NOT Dad on the phone, I guess?” in a voice heavy with adolescent irony.

I   Christmas Eve was endured, and Christmas Day. And Camille Hoffmann and her two grown children exchanged presents, and no more mention was made of the absent husband-father. When, the morning after Boxing Day, Marcy and Kevin departed for their homes, Camille collapsed on a sofa and slept for six straight hours. She was awakened only by the dogs whining and scratching at the door. How happy!—

her heart lifted. For a moment she couldn’t remember why.

I  J , Beatrice Archer again called. “Camille! If you’d just consent to meet Thor. Just let me bring him over for five minutes.”

“Beatrice, I can’t. I’ve explained.”

“Five minutes, Camille! I promise, no more.”

“Beatrice,
no
.”

“Camille, this isn’t like you. There’s a strange hardness in your voice. If only you’d consent to meet this poor sweet beautiful creature—”

How could Camille say no? How harden her ridiculous heart, that had already been cracked?

In this way, in the New Year, Thor came to live with Camille. “Three

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dogs! I’m becoming eccentric, I guess.” Meeting Thor, seeing the dog’s shining desperate eyes, Camille had known she couldn’t turn him away.

A purebred Doberman pinscher! He’d belonged to the Archers’ eldest son Michael, who “wasn’t able to keep him,” as Beatrice evasively explained. Camille spoke quietly to Thor, and Thor seemed, shyly, to be responding. He was certainly a handsome specimen, though clearly high-strung and anxious; his fine dark-burnished hide rippled with nerves almost continuously, even when he slept. He was timid around the older dogs and frightened of sudden sounds and movements. The protracted noise of a neighboring executive’s helicopter roused him to whining and snapping at the air. His teeth were young teeth, and sharp.

(Camille knew! That first week, he’d growled and snapped at her several times, reacting out of fear.) While grooming Thor, Camille discovered to her horror that fur on the young dog’s neck was rubbed away, and the skin beneath scarred, as if he’d been tightly tied. On other parts of Thor’s body there were suspicious nicks and scars. He cowered in the way of a dog accustomed to being shouted at, or kicked. Camille was naively shocked. How could the Archers’ son Michael, a classmate of Kevin’s at Salthill Country Day, and now a Wall Street market analyst, have been cruel to his own dog? Camille stroked the dog’s bony head gently, and murmured, “Thor, I promise: you will never, never be hurt again.”