by Philip Roth
So, during the night, lust and treachery gunned down by her prudence, by foresight—by her brains. That’s what happened. Don’t blame Enid. Nor was it jealousy of the kid. If she’d wanted to probe his papilla on Saturday, the kid’s stolen panties would only have turned her on more. She would have worn them for him. She would have got herself up in Debby’s stuff for him. She’s done it before, along with everything else. But she was using the underpants to get him out before he ruined everything she had going for her. The underpants to inform him that there would be no wavering, that should he try to bring pressure there’d be an even more resourceful authority than Officer Abramowitz to crush him. It wasn’t the underpants, the crack, even the Green Torpedo—it was Sabbath. Maybe he could still tell a story, but otherwise nothing remotely alluring left, not even the hard-on he’d showed her. All that remained of his going all out was repellent to her. Crude she was herself, besmirched, wily, connubially half-crazed, but not yet uncontrollably desperate. Hers was the ordinary automatic dishonesty. She was a betrayer with a small b, and small-b betrayals are happening all the time—by now Sabbath could pull them off in his sleep. That wasn’t what was at the center for him: this guy is spinning; he wants to die. Michelle had enough equilibrium to reach a sensible decision. The maniacal intoxicant to put the enchantment back in life is not me. She will be better off shopping around, scenting out somebody less clamorously kaput. And he’d thought he was going to gorge himself. It was bursting time again. You great big infant. That you could still believe that it could go on forever. Maybe now you’ve got a better picture of what’s up. Well, let it come. I know what’s up. Let it come.
Eat breakfast and go. This is an amazing moment. It’s over.
“How could you take Debby’s underwear?” Norman asked.
“How could I not is the question.”
“It was irresistible to you.”
“What a strange way to put it. Where does resistance even enter in? We’re talking about thermodynamics. Heat as a form of energy and its effect on the molecules of matter. I am sixty-four, she is nineteen. It’s only natural.”
Norman was dressed like the connoisseur of fine living that he was: double-breasted chalk-stripe suit, maroon silk tie with matching breast-pocket handkerchief, pale blue shirt monogrammed at the pocket NIC. All of his considerable dignity was on display, not simply in his clothing, but in his distinctive face, a lean, long, intelligent face with gentle dark eyes and a becoming kind of baldness. That he had less hair even than Sabbath made him a thousand times more attractive. Without the hair you saw unveiled all the mind in that skull, the introspection, the tolerance, the acuity, the reason. And a manly skull it was, finely made yet almost ostentatiously determined—none of its delicacy suggested weakness of will. Yes, the whole figure emanated the ideals and scruples of humanity’s better self and it wouldn’t have been hard for Sabbath to believe that the office for which Norman shortly would be leaving in a limo had spiritual aims loftier even than those of a theatrical producer. Secular spirituality, that’s what he exuded—maybe they all did, the producers, the agents, the mega-deal lawyers. With the aid of their tailors, Jewish cardinals of commerce. Yeah, now that I think of it, very much like them sharpies surrounding the pope. You’d never guess that the jukebox distributor who paid for it all dealt at the edges of the Mob. You’re not supposed to guess. He’d made himself into that impressive American thing, a nice guy. It all but says he’s one on his shirt. A nice rich guy with some depth, and dynamite on the phone at the office. What more can America ask of its Jews?
“And at dinner last night,” Norman said, “was it only natural to want to play with Michelle’s foot under the table?”
“I didn’t want to play with Michelle’s foot under the table. I wanted to play with your foot under the table. Wasn’t that your foot?”
He registers neither antipathy nor amusement. Is it because he knows where we’re headed or because he doesn’t know? I surely don’t know. Could be anywhere. I’m beginning to smell Sophocles in this kitchen.
“Why did you tell Michelle you killed Nikki?”
“Should I try to hide it from her instead? Am I supposed to be ashamed of that too? What is this shame kick you’re on?”
“Tell me something. Tell me the truth—tell me if you believe that you murdered Nikki. Is this something you believe?”
“I see no reason why I shouldn’t.”
“I do. I was there. I do because I was with you when she disappeared. I saw what you went through.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not saying it was easy. Going to sea doesn’t prepare you for everything. The color she turned. That came as a surprise. Green, like Linc. With strangulation the primitive satisfactions are all built in, of course, but if I had it to do over again I’d opt for one of the more expeditious modes. I’d have to. My hands. How do you plan to kill Michelle?”
Some emotion stirred up by Sabbath’s question made Norman look to Sabbath as though he were afloat or flying, drifting away from the entire orientation of his life. An exciting silence ensued. But in the end Norman did no more than to put Debby’s underpants into the pocket of his own pants. The words he next spoke were not without a tinge of menace.
“I love my wife and children more than anything in this world.”
“I take that for granted. But how do you plan to kill her? When you find out she is fucking your best friend.”
“Don’t. Please. We all know how you are a man on the superhuman scale, who has no fear of verbal exaggeration, but not everything is worth saying, even to a successful person like me. Don’t. Not necessary. My wife found our daughter’s underpants in your pocket. What do you expect her to do? How do you expect her to respond? Don’t degrade yourself further by defiling my wife.”
“I wasn’t degrading myself. I wasn’t defiling your wife. Norman, aren’t the stakes too high for us to bow to convention? I was just wondering how you think about killing her when you think about killing her. Okay, let’s change the subject. How do you think she thinks about killing you? Do you imagine her content, when you fly off to L.A., just to kind of hope American Airlines will take care of it for her? Too mundane for a Michelle. The plane will crash and I’ll be free? No, that’s how the secretaries solve their problems on the subway. Michelle’s a doer, her father’s daughter. If I know anything about periodontists, she’s thought of strangling you more than once. In your sleep. And she could do it. Got the grip for it. So did I once upon a time. Remember my hands? My old hands? All day you work as a seaman on deck, chipping, chipping, chipping—the constant work of the ship. A metal drill, a hammer, a chisel. And then the puppets. The strength in those hands! Nikki never knew what hit her. She was a long time looking up at me with those imploring eyes, but actually I would think a coroner would have said that she was brain-dead in sixty seconds.”
Leaning back in his chair at the breakfast table, Norman crossed an arm over his chest and, with the other arm resting on it, let his forehead drop forward onto his fingertips. Exactly how Michelle’s forehead dropped onto mine. I can’t believe the panties did it. I can’t believe this truly superior aging woman could have been daunted by that. This isn’t happening! This is a fairy tale! This is true depravity, this genteel shit!
“What the hell has become of your mind?” Norman said.
“This is awful.”
“What is awful?” Sabbath asked. “The kid’s underpants wrapped around my dick to help me through the night after the day that I’d been through? That’s so awful? Come off it, Norm. Panties in my pocket at a funeral? That’s hope.”
“Mickey, where are you going to go after you leave here? Are you going to drive home?”
“It’s always been hard for you, Norman, hasn’t it, to imagine me? How does he do it without protection? How do any of them do it without protection? Baby, there is no protection. It’s all wallpaper, Norman. Look at Linc. Look at Sabbath. Look at Morty. Look at Nikki. Look, tiresome and frightening as looking m
ay be. What we are in the hands of is not protection. When I was on the ships, when we got to port, I always liked to visit the Catholic churches. I always went by myself, sometimes every day we were in port. You know why? Because I found something terrifically erotic about watching kneeling maidens at prayer, asking forgiveness for the wrong things altogether. Watching them seeking protection. It made me very hot. Seeking protection against the other. Seeking protection against themselves. Seeking protection against everything. But there isn’t any. Not even for you. Even you are exposed—what do you make of that? Exposed! Fucking naked, even in that suit! The suit is futile, the monogram is futile—nothing will do it. We have no idea how it’s going to turn out. Christ, man, you can’t even protect a pair of your daughter’s—”
“Mickey,” he said softly, “I take your point. I get the philosophy. It’s a fierce one. You’re a fierce man. You’ve let the whole creature out, haven’t you? The deeper reasonability of seeking danger is that there is, in any event, no escaping it. Pursue it or be pursued by it. Mickey’s view, and, in theory, I agree: there is no escaping it. But in practice I proceed differently: if danger’s going to find me anyway, I needn’t pursue it. That the extraordinary is assured Linc has convinced me. It’s the ordinary that escapes us. I do know that. But that doesn’t mean I care to abandon the portion of the ordinary I’ve been lucky enough to corral and hold on to. I want you to go. It’s time for you to go. I’m getting your things out of Debby’s room and then you’re to go.”
“With or without breakfast?”
“I want you out of here!”
“But what’s eating you? It can’t just be the underwear. We go too far back for that. Is it that I showed my dick to Michelle? Is that the reason I can’t have my breakfast?”
Norman had risen from the table—he was not as yet shaking like Linc (or Sabbath with Rosa), though there was a seizure of sorts in his jaw.
“Didn’t you know? I can’t believe she didn’t tell you. ‘There’s a bull in Sabbath. He goes all out.’ The underpants are nothing. I just thought the only fair thing was to take it out. Before we met on Saturday. In case it wasn’t to her taste. She invited me Saturday for a periodontal probe. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that either. Her office. Saturday.” When Norman remained, without moving, on his side of the table, Sabbath added, “Just ask her. That was the plan. We had it all set up. That’s why, when you said I couldn’t stay to have breakfast, I figured it was because I was going to her office on Saturday to fuck her. Plus my taking out my dick. That it’s only the panties . . . no, I don’t buy that.”
And this Sabbath meant. The husband understood the wife better than he let on.
Norman reached up to one of the cabinets above the serving counter and took down a package of plastic garbage sacks. “I’m going to get your things.”
“Whatever you say. May I eat the grapefruit?”
Without again bothering to respond, Norman left Sabbath alone in the kitchen.
The half grapefruit had been segmented for Sabbath. The segmented grapefruit. Fundamental to their way of life—as fundamental as the Polaroids and the ten thousand bucks. Do I have to tell him about the money, too? No, he knows. Bet he knows everything. I do like this couple. I think the more I come to understand the chaos churning about here, the more I admire how he holds it together. The soldierly way he stood there while I briefed him on last night. He knows. He’s got his hands full. There is something in her that is always threatening to undo it all, the warmth, the comfort, the whole wonderful eiderdown that is their privileged position. Having to deal with all that she is while holding to his civilized ideals. Why does he bother? Why does he keep her? The past, for one thing. So much of it. The present—so much of it. The machine that it all is. The house on Nantucket. The weekends at Brown as Debby’s parents. Debby’s grades would tailspin if they split up. Call Michelle a whore, throw her the hell out, and Debby would never make it to med school. And there’s the fun besides: the skiing, the tennis, Europe, the small hotel they love in Paris, the Université. The repose when all is well. Somebody there while you wait for the biopsy report to come back from the lab. No time left for settlements and lawyers and starting again. The courage of putting up with it instead—the “realism.” And the dread of no one at home. All these rooms at night and no one else home. He’s fixed in this life. His talent is for this life. You can’t start dating at the twilight of life. And then menopause is on his side. If he continues to let her get away with it, if he never goes the distance with being fed up, it’s because soon enough menopause will do her in anyway. But neither does Michelle go the distance—because she’s not just one thing, either. Norman understands (if menopause doesn’t do it, that understanding of his will)—minimize, minimize. I never learned that: work it out, ride it out, cool it down. She is as indispensable to the way of life as the segmented grapefruit. She is the segmented grapefruit: the partitioned body and the piquant blood. The unholy Hostess. The holy Hotness. This is as close to eating Michelle as I will come. It’s over. I am a meshuggeneh cast-off shoe.
“You live in the world of real love,” he said when Norman came back into the kitchen holding in one hand the sack stuffed with everything except for Sabbath’s jacket. The Green Torpedo Norman handed to him at the table.
“And what do you live in?” Norman inquired. “You live in the failure of this civilization. The investment of everything in eroticism. The final investment of everything in sex. And now you reap the lonely harvest. Erotic drunkenness, the only passionate life you can have.”
“And is it even that passionate?” asked Sabbath. “You know what Michelle would have told her therapist had we gone ahead and got it off? She would have said, ‘A nice enough man, I suppose, but he has to be kept fresh by ice.’”
“No, kept fresh by provoking. Kept fresh by means of anarchic provocation. We are determined by our society to such an extent that we can only live as human beings if we turn anarchic. Isn’t that the pitch? Hasn’t that always been the pitch?”
“You’re going to feel dashed by this, Norman, but on top of everything else I don’t have, I don’t have a pitch. You have kind-hearted liberal comprehension but I am flowing swiftly along the curbs of life, I am merely debris, in possession of nothing to interfere with an objective reading of the shit.”
“The walking panegyric for obscenity,” Norman said. “The inverted saint whose message is desecration. Isn’t it tiresome in 1994, this role of rebel-hero? What an odd time to be thinking of sex as rebellion. Are we back to Lawrence’s gamekeeper? At this late hour? To be out with that beard of yours, upholding the virtues of fetishism and voyeurism. To be out with that belly of yours, championing pornography and flying the flag of your prick. What a pathetic, outmoded old crank you are, Mickey Sabbath. The discredited male polemic’s last gasp. Even as the bloodiest of all centuries comes to an end, you’re out working day and night to create an erotic scandal. You fucking relic, Mickey! You fifties antique! Linda Lovelace is already light-years behind us, but you persist in quarreling with society as though Eisenhower is president!” But then, almost apologetically, he added, “The immensity of your isolation is horrifying. That’s all I really mean to say.”
“And there you’d be surprised,” Sabbath replied. “I don’t think you ever gave isolation a real shot. It’s the best preparation I know of for death.”
“Get out,” Norman said.
Deep in the corner of one of his front pockets, those huge pockets in which you could carry a couple of dead ducks, Sabbath came upon the cup that he’d pushed in there before entering the funeral home, the beggar’s cardboard coffee cup, still containing the quarters, nickels, and dimes that he’d managed to panhandle down in the subway and on the street. When he’d given his stuff over to Michelle to send out with the dry cleaning, he’d forgotten the cup, too.
The cup did it. Of course. The beggar’s cup. That’s what terrified her—the begging. Ten to one the panties took her to a new e
dge of excitement. It’s the cup that she shrank from; the social odium of the cup went beyond even her impudence. Better a man who didn’t wash than a man who begged with a cup. That was farther out than even she wished to go. There was stimulation for her in many things that were scandalous, indecent, unfamiliar, strange, things bordering on the dangerous, but there was only steep effrontery in the cup. Here at last was degradation without a single redeeming thrill. At the beggar’s cup Michelle’s daring drew the line. The cup had betrayed their secret hallway pact, igniting in her a panicked fury that made her physically ill. She pictured in the cup all the lowly evils leading to destruction, the unleashed force that could wreck everything. And probably she wasn’t wrong. Stupid little jokes can be of great moment in the struggle not to lose. Was how far he had fallen with that cup entirely clear to him? The unknown about any excess is how excessive it’s been. He really couldn’t detest her as much for throwing him out because of the cup as he had when he’d thought that to her the treacherous villainy was jacking off in the panties, a natural enough human amusement and surely, for a houseguest, a minor misdemeanor.
At the thought that he had lost his last mistress before he’d even had the chance of wholeheartedly appropriating her secrets—and all because of the magical lure of begging, not just the seductiveness of a self-mocking joke and the irresistible theatrical fun in that but the loathsome rightness of its exalted wrongness, the grand vocation of it, the opportunity its encounters offered his despair to work through to the unequivocal end—Sabbath fell faint to the floor.