The Epicure's Lament (43 page)
“That's right,” she said. “With a little Hugo.”
“Or Huguette?” I said nastily.
“Or Huguette.”
“Is that why you came back to Waverley? To get implanted with my seed for real this time?”
“No,” she said, “but now that it's coming, I want another baby, to give Bella a brother or sister. She is so happy that we will be a larger family. I am here to tell you that you can come and live with us if you would like to.”
“I wouldn't like to,” I said. “You pulled the oldest trick in the book, Sonia. You tried to trap me.”
“How can I trap you if we're already married?” she said. “I didn't plan this, I swear to you, Hugo, I would never try to trick you that way. This is our child, Hugo, about to come into the world, the product of the great love I have for you.”
“Anyway, you rank piece of cheesecloth, I want a divorce.”
“A divorce?” she repeated, scandalized.
“That's right. That's the deal. Hire Louisa to help you when the brat is born if she's available, or someone else. I never asked for this kid. You're on your own with it. When it's of legal drinking age and can hold its liquor properly, I'll take it on father-child bar outings and we'll get drunk and badmouth you. I won't live with you ever again, Sonia, you drive me mad. Look how mad I went when you came back to Waverley.”
“You can't pin that on me,” she said. “You were mad always, ever since I met you, and you're mad still, and always will be.”
“I assume you haven't introduced Bellatrix to her real father, although you promised me you would,” I said.
“I never promised, because I don't know where he is,” she confessed reluctantly. “I don't even remember his last name.”
“One-night shebang?”
She twisted her mouth and didn't answer.
We talked about this divorce for a while longer. She pretends to be violently opposed to the idea because of some wholly fictional love she claims still to bear for me, but she'll come
around, if only because she has no choice. My rage slowly abated until I had returned to my usual simmering mistrust of her. Pregnant or not, she's still a treacherous snake, but unless I'm deluding myself, I know most of her moves by now.
Later on in the visit, Bellatrix played the same Bach suite, at my request, that she'd played after Christmas dinner…. While she played I peeled and ate a blood orange. The combination of fruit and music did more than anything else has in a long time to lessen the vise around my head, this maddening life, my en-snarement in this web of people. Dennis, Sonia, Bellatrix, the coming descendant, whoever it may be. What sort of father can I hope to be? I have nothing to offer, paternity-wise, except money. And I can't imagine that any aspect of having Sonia for a mother will offset whatever genetic flaws it inherits from me, except that it will toughen the kid up. Maybe it will make it into adulthood without having to know me too well, and without having to become too much like its mother. I managed to accomplish that much, at least; and so maybe even my poor doomed sod of a kid can too.
My “family” drove off, and I opened Shlomo's letter. It was much shorter than the thickness of the envelope had led me to believe, because he had written it on a slab of thick paper of the sort used to line silverware drawers, probably the only paper he could find when he was moved to write to me. “Dear Hugo,” it began, “Surprised I know how to write? I know you're in the nuthouse but I won't embarrass you by sending this there, I'll send it to your house and hope your dickweed brother remembers to bring it next time. Listen fuckface, that gatehouse smelled like cat piss, I couldn't live there, I'm allergic, plus when I heard you tried to off yourself and your dickweed brother saved you I figured the deal was off I know that scumbag's a child molester, I saw it a mile away, but you don't strike me as the type who can live with the kind of guilt you're gonna
feel, being so sensitive and all. What you should really feel guilt for is going against G—d's will. Suicide is just wrong, but I got no time now to quibble on that. Anyway, it's your call, ‘boss,’ I consider myself on retainer or whatever. Plus I'm back at Rochelle's, so I can always use a distraction. Me and her are shacking up these days, surprise, surprise, I could only hold out against that horny old wildcat for so long. Whatever, don't do me any favors or nothing cause I've got plenty of company, but if they ever let you out of there and you get lonely, you know where to find me. Don't let those voodoo doctors brainwash you. Your pal, Shlomo Levy. p.s. I'm keeping the dough no matter what. You owe me for letting you off all those years ago. You're a rich boy, you can afford it. And you still owe me a drink from that other night a while back. You stiffed me, you didn't think I noticed. p.p.s. When the dough is gone, so's the retainer deal, so think fast.”
February 28—Early morning. Woke up and reached for this notebook. Almost reached for my cigarettes until I realized I don't have any at the moment. Peeled one of the blood oranges instead—such an effete and sober substitute, but as long as I'm here it's the best I can come up with besides solitaire, another pathetic old-man solace, soon to be exchanged for something a little spicier and less wholesome, I hope; and if not cigarettes, then what? I have no interest in gambling, booze only gets me so far, and all the harder stuff is more suited for those who are younger and less run-down at the heel than I am.
Well, there's always writing. I hate writing, of course, but can't seem to stop myself from doing it. So I sit, in the quiet hour before breakfast in bedlam, eating my pansy-assed orange and writing whatever comes to mind. Which happens, today, to be nothing at all. Nothing… But words will come out of my pen if I hold it over the paper; if I sit here and let the pen do
the walking, it walks, and talks. I may write nothing but gibberish for the rest of my life, but if I appear to be busily scribbling away, people might have the tact and courtesy to leave me alone, which goes some way toward solving the conundrum. But of course they won't leave me alone. Here I am again, hounded by the presence of others. And there seems to be some sort of a future in store for me, however long or short it may be. Against all odds, I find I'm curious about this afterlife, whatever time I've been forced against my will to live out. I wonder what will happen next.
Copyright © 2004 by Kate Christensen
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States by Anchor Books,
Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
by Doubleday a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York, in 2004.
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This book is a “work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places,
events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used
fictitiously Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is
entirely coincidental.
The epicure's lament: a novel/Kate Christensen.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Hudson River Valley (N.Y and NJ.)—Fiction.
Thromboangutis obliterans—Patients—Fiction.
3. Suicidal behavior—Fiction. 4. Rich people—Fiction.
5. Recluses—Fiction. 6. Cookery—Fiction.
7. Smoking—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.H716O87 2004
813′.54—dc21
2003051503
eISBN: 978-0-307-48433-8
v3.0
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