My Famous Brain
Page 15
Each morning I would perform for myself a tightly choreographed dance of punctuality that led me to my office at an unreasonably early hour. One time, forgetting how early it was, I called Don Rath to seek his advice on a technical question relating to some research in an article I was reading. He was forgiving when I awakened him (though Denny, who answered the phone, was noticeably less so), and laughed along with me at my compulsive new habits. Then he asked me quite seriously if I didn’t think maybe I ought to slow down. He said I was beginning to worry him, and I said I appreciated his concern and would certainly take stock of my behavior.
I decided that while I couldn’t seem to control my vast need for perpetual intellectual stimulation (which mercifully allowed me no time to dwell on Sarah or my pain) I could switch my attentions to less work-related projects, thereby, I hoped, taking some of the strain off my system. I took up, in a manner I had not practiced since I was quite young, the enriching habit of reading strictly for pleasure. It wasn’t easy at first. I would find myself taking copious notes or planning critical articles I could write on the subject at hand—but with deliberate effort I calmed myself down a little and began simply to enjoy. I began with an eclectic selection: old favorites like Jude the Obscure and The Bell Jar, rediscovering with gratitude all the fulfillment well-loved great literature could supply. I concentrated simply on what I liked, not on what I thought I should be reading. It was heavenly. I delved into Patchen again, and thought briefly of my student Eliza Harder, and how happy I was to have found a kindred spirit who loved his work as much as I did.
And I took up memorizing books again as well, though I mentioned this to no one. Thinking back, it was almost as if, somewhere deep inside myself, I knew I had to store up valuable goods for the challenging times to come. Again, I concentrated solely on what pleased me. This memorization, into which I would delve late at night when distractions were least likely to disturb me, occasioned myriad memories of my boyhood as well, and sometimes I would cease my happy labors to meditate on some long-forgotten scene and weave the magic and the lessons of the past into my busy but forlorn present.
And so, because of this process of renewal, I was in slightly better mental shape when Don Rath approached me in my office one day with unusual news. I remember his face so clearly that day: there were specks of grey in his natty beard that I hadn’t previously noticed, and a network of airbrushed lines around the periphery of his eyelids that, instead of showing his age, served to draw all one’s attention to the remarkable life-light shining from his eyes. He looked like a man on fire from within, and I wondered what on earth he had to tell me.
He came into the room quietly, closing the door behind him, and pulled one of the chairs around from the front of my desk to the side, so that we were sitting face to face without the obstruction of furniture and papers.
“Mac,” he said. “I need to tell you what I’ve done.”
I just said okay; I could tell he didn’t want any snappy backtalk.
“Remember,” he asked, “your plan for checking up on Mussel’s degrees?” It was the first time since Sarah’s departure that either of us had mentioned the subject. I did not know if he was aware of her marriage, but I assumed so. I sighed.
“I know, I know,” he said. “Maybe I should have dropped it. I didn’t know if you’d be interested in it any more after Sarah—”
I stopped him. “There’s more than just her leaving me, you know.”
“Yes,” he said. “Precisely. And that is exactly why I felt we must go ahead with this.” He stood up suddenly and banged his hand on my desk about six inches in front of my chin. I jumped. “Damn it, Mac!” he continued, his voice grappling with what I could tell was a tornado of emotion. “I know how much this all sucks. For you more than anyone. But, damn it all, don’t you see? So what if she’s married the bastard? That doesn’t mean she’s dead—or that you are either. I’m not suggesting that anything we discover or disclose would break them up, but is it any less important now that we try to oust him? I don’t know how many people even know about the marriage—they tried to keep it very, very quiet—I only found out by accident—but Christ, Mac, I don’t know about you, but I’m still mad! And I’ll bet you are too—madder than hell if you’d admit it—if you’d get your nose out of those six million books you’ve been reading and face the fact that you’re hiding. Use your famous brain, man. Jesus Christ.”
I knew he was right. I looked at him coldly; I didn’t have any reserves of kindness to call upon. “I’m enjoying my reading very much, thank you.”
He placed each of his hands on each of mine. It was a peculiar gesture, like something a mother might do, and the very oddity of it made me start and shudder a bit. I hoped he wouldn’t take it as a recoil, for in truth his touch had gone straight to my heart and wakened it from its troubled sleep. “What have you done?” I asked him.
He smiled and sat down again. “Well,” he said, “I couldn’t wait for you to take any action. I knew you were in no shape to do anything right away—so I took it upon myself to write to those schools as you’d suggested, asking for copies of Mussel’s diplomas.” He laugh-coughed, and smiled widely. I had to smile back.
“I assume this ninety-six-tooth grin means that you got the expected result?”
“Bingo!”
I felt a strange bolt of energy rise from my mid-section and travel along my spine to my shoulders; it was as if a whole flotilla of little hogtied muscles were suddenly released from their bindings and loosed upon an ocean of pure delight. Had someone described to me the magnitude of the unfettering I would experience upon hearing such news, I would have denied the possibility. I allowed myself what I hoped would be a rousing whoop of happiness, but in my weakened state all that erupted from my throat was a pitiful little bleat of joy. This sent Don into a fit of choking giggles, and I offered him my cup of coffee. He pushed it away. When he’d finally composed himself, wiping some tears from his eyes, he said. “Yep. You got it. The old boy’s a complete imposter: no Harvard, no Columbia, no Yale … no NOTHING!”
I took off my jacket and loosened my tie. A headache was building, but I put it down to excitement. “So what do we do now?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But let’s not wait too long to decide. I want to do something while the fire’s still raging within me—and you, I hope. Maybe we should both think it over and plan to come together and map out a plan later this week. You look like you need a little time to pull yourself together, Mac, if you’ll forgive my saying so. What do you say?”
“Fine,” I told him. “That’s a good idea. Let’s have dinner Friday and devise a plan. My treat. You deserve a reward for all your sleuthing. Where do you want to go?”
I could tell this gesture pleased him immensely; I think I sometimes gave Don less friendly feedback than he deserved—and he was such an excellent friend. His eyes sparked up and he said to me, “Let’s do it up right. Do you want to go into the city?”
It did seem like a wonderful idea. “Absolutely, “I said. “You pick a place and surprise me. I haven’t been into New York in so long I can’t think of anywhere to go. Call me Thursday, and we’ll figure out where to meet and all that. And Don … thanks.” I reached for his hand to shake it but changed my mind and got up and embraced him as hard as I could. He felt surprisingly slight inside his clothes: fragile, slender, like one of my sons. “I can’t tell you …” I started, but he moved away from me. He was smiling, but there was a small, strange shadow of awkwardness in his eyes as well, and he lowered them as if to keep me from seeing it.
“Don’t get all sappy,” he said, moving toward the door. “You don’t have to say a thing. And you don’t have to worry so fucking much either, you know. ‘Physician, heal thyself!’ You’re starting to look like a mushroom. Get out in. the sunshine, why don’t you, MacLeod, and put a little color in that bald spot, okay?” He grinned and rolled his eyes in mock despair.
“Thank you, Doctor,” I answered. �
�I think I might just take your advice—this once.”
“Till Friday, then. And wear a different tie? Those things with the little whales on them went out with the Kingston Trio.”
“Black tie.”
“Are you kidding?” It almost hurt me to see the happiness on his face.
“No, no, I’m not. We’re going to live it up, kid. Two wild academic dudes on the town. I’m going to spend a bundle. Pick out someplace classy and expensive, okay? Someplace where we might run into a movie star or two.”
He pulled at his beard. “Right-o,” he said. “And don’t you dare back down. I’ll make the reservations, and I’ll pick you up around seven.” He moved quickly out the door, as if he were afraid I’d change my mind. But there wasn’t any question of that. The idea of having some fun for a change really tickled me. I wondered if I were getting better.
27. It Really Is a Dress Rehearsal
I never felt that Eliza had treated me unkindly, even when she finally vanished from my life. I know now, however, that she did not hold the same opinion herself, and that she suffered from sometimes overpowering feelings of guilt.
I’ve explained how I’d seen Eliza and Miles DiGrazia, and how it surprised me to learn that I was not her only love interest at the time. At the time, in fact, I was unable even to conceive of such a thing—not because of my vanity, but simply because of my unusual and overwhelming personal situation. In my mind, Eliza and I existed on a secondary level of purity and virtual isolation: the primary level of existence was inhabited only by myself, my disease (or dis-ease, as I tried to think of it), and my impending death. We seemed, Eliza and I, pretty fairly abstract—in the sense that, since our physical affair was doomed to perpetual imperfection, it was our souls, for want of a better word, that met and conversed and held each other so tightly, making us dissimilar to other lovers—maybe even more elevated. Perhaps that is another reason why I never dwelt on the subject of Eliza’s “other life.” She was entitled to one, after all: I could never really fulfill her, and although Eliza’s eventual fading from my own life was very painful, it was certainly not unexpected.
I think I had always known, somewhere deep in my mind, that it would happen the way it did, and that it was necessary, and even good, that it should happen. I knew that we could not stay together, that I could not marry her, that even as much as I needed her I could never allow her to be with me in the final days of my illness or allow her even to witness the brutal beginnings of my last decline. I could not leave her a widow, physical or spiritual. Having gotten to know her character so deeply and so easily, I imagined with great clarity the million tiny daggers the last stages of my illness would drive into her heart and the veil of grief that would descend over her clear, unflinching eyes when she felt them.
I began, at some point, and in very small ways at first, to pull away from her. She knew what I was doing. She ignored it. Once, I did not call her for seventeen days; she let me be silent. When I finally called, she did not reproach me. I abruptly stopped petting her so continually, telling her that any even vaguely sexual effort made my head hurt; she said then of course we should avoid it. When I could bear it no more, using all my waning energies to pull her passionately to the couch and make love to her three seconds after she’d come in the door, bringing her to pleasure in every way I could think of (something, by the way, she would not often allow me to do), she simply said, “I’ve missed you, Jack.” I despaired of ever gathering the courage to leave her.
And so of course, on some level, she must have known she had to be the one to leave. She did not want to, of that I am certain, but her healthy instincts were true, and therefore cruel. Life is that way. Who is lucky enough never to have had to make a choice for the best that tore one apart, that hurt someone else grievously, that made “the best” seem a lame thing indeed? Sometimes lives must be taken that lives may be saved. We don’t inhabit the best of possible worlds.
Eliza and I had a short but memorable conversation that day I made love to her what seemed like a thousand times. Exhausted, we lay each in the other’s arms like weary children. It always amazed me how sex unsexed one, how immediately after the act of love men and women often return, for a short time at least, to a pure state of innocence that allows them to experience an unrestricted relaxation of the ordinary rules of gender. Eliza and I were like that that day, armored by what we had shared against the influence of our pitiless reality. After a while she got up to fix our tea, remembering, as she always did, to use the tall mugs I loved and to sweeten the drink heavily, the way I liked it. By the time she came back to the couch with the tray, I had, unfortunately, returned somewhat to the world. I took her in my arms again and we sat there, sipping our tea and talking.
“I’m glad you let me do that,” I told her. “I loved it. And I’m sorry I’ve been so absent lately.”
“That was wonderful,” she said. Her voice shook a little. I knew she was feeling sad that I couldn’t have the same kind of physical release she did, and I wanted to stop her before everything was spoiled.
“Eliza,” I whispered into her hair, taking both our mugs and moving them to the table, “It couldn’t have been better for me. I mean that. Forgive me if any of this sounds crude, but I have to tell you this. I’ve made love a great many times in my life; it does hurt me a little still that I can’t complete the act with you in the usual way, but it’s not as important as it was at first. At first, quite naturally, I wanted to impress you; I wanted you to think of me the way you might think of any other man—but that’s just not the way things are. We have something different; we’ve made it something splendid. I don’t want you to feel guilty that you can enjoy your body so much; I want you to rejoice in it, Eliza, and to rejoice that such pleasure comes to you with love from me. I don’t feel physically frustrated anymore—it’s not like that, do you understand? I’m not missing anything, and when I can make you feel so good, even for those few moments, it makes me feel just as much your lover as if everything were going the usual way; I hope you can believe that. It’s not hard for me to talk about my impotence anymore. I think I’ve gone beyond it—or maybe I just worry about different things now.”
She smiled; I felt her face loosen where it lay against my shoulder. She made a move as if to speak, but I stopped her.
“Wait a minute. Just one more thing. You made me feel so alive this afternoon, Eliza, that’s all; you’re the only one who can do that now. Sex is whatever people want it to be, you must know that.” I felt her move her head to look at me, and I wiggled my eyebrows and made what I hoped was a comically leering face. She giggled.
“You mean,” she asked, “that if we really get good at this ‘sex-is-what-you-say-it-is’ stuff, we’ll be able to make love just by tapping our toes together or something?”
I said, “Exactly.” She laughed some more. My head was killing me, though I did not tell her that.
She said, “I want to get so good at this that I can just give you a little signal in a restaurant or something and you’ll …” She giggled again, this time embarrassed, unable to complete her sentence.
I put on my loftiest, most precisely enunciating professorial voice for her. I pretended to be flustered, like her beloved ancient Professor Pettigrew in the English department. “Good heavens,” I said.
She collapsed against me, laughing uncontrollably. Then she said, dreamily, “Yeah. I bet we could do it.”
There was something in her tone of voice just then that plunged me suddenly into grief once more. It was the voice of a young, vibrant, playful, sexy woman, and I knew she should have been saying what she’d just said to some man equally as alive. She immediately sensed the change in me, and, I think, what had caused it. She suddenly kissed me, hard, on the lips, occasioning a bolt of pain that shot through my head like a fireworks rocket.
“Stop it!” she said. “Don’t get into that again. You’ll give yourself a headache, and you’ll give me one too. Okay? Will you stop it?”
She shifted position, nestling her head into my lap. “If this is ‘keeping a hand in’ life, then I don’t mind a bit,” she told me. “And I don’t believe that dress-rehearsal stuff either. I think maybe life really is a dress rehearsal, you know, Jack? There’s something else out there. You and I aren’t wasting time; I feel like we’re preparing for something. I don’t know. I guess that sounds crazy. But I’m not willing to take some silly, glib saying like that at face value, and I don’t believe you really are either.”
Eliza often made perfect uncommon sense. I had no real idea then what she was talking about—no idea I could have articulated—but of course I know now she was right. Maybe my currently dead state is a dress rehearsal too, who knows? And maybe there is no main act, just an endless series of smaller ones. Anyway, what she said that day comforted me more than any of the hours and hours of tortuous thinking I’d done on the subject. I made love to her one more time that afternoon, and when it was over, I held her face and touched it to my aching, bewildered head in what was certainly a sacramental connection. She did not tremble; she did not cry. She made sure before she left the next morning that I would not do so either.
28. A Funeral, Frances, and a Moment of Clarity
After a few days, I knew I would never see Eliza again. The realization came upon me gradually, and I accepted it the same way, working diligently to make my peace with each individual aspect of my feelings until I felt I was able to face the whole of it. There were no signs; I simply knew. I tried to be grateful that our last hours together had been such close ones, and that we had not tortured ourselves with any kind of goodbyes. Indeed, although I grieved, I did not really feel that any true break had occurred; although I was certain we would not ever actually meet again, in some sense I knew we were still together.