The Marriage Plot

by Jeffrey Eugenides

  “When you’re finished in there,” Phyllida called back, “I want us all to have a talk.”

  The toilet flushed. A few seconds later, Alwyn emerged, still pumping milk. “I don’t care what you say, I’m not going back,” she said.

  “Ally,” Phyllida said, employing her most sympathetic tone, “I understand that you’re having difficulties in your marriage. I can imagine that Blake, like every member of the male species, has certain lapses when it comes to taking care of children. But the one who’s being most hurt by your leaving—”

  “Certain lapses!”

  “—is Richard!”

  “There’s no other way to convince Blake that I’m serious.”

  “But to leave your child!”

  “With his father. I left my baby with his father.”

  “But he needs his mother at his age.”

  “You’re just worried Blake can’t take care of him. Which is exactly my point.”

  “Blake has to work,” Phyllida said. “He can’t stay home.”

  “Well, he’s going to have to now.”

  Exasperated, Phyllida stood up again and went to the window. “Madeleine,” she said, “talk to your sister.”

  As the younger sibling, Madeleine hadn’t been in this position before. She didn’t want to humiliate Alwyn. And yet there was something intoxicating about being asked to sit in judgment of her.

  Having detached the suction cup from her breast, Alwyn was now dabbing her nipple with a handful of toilet paper, her lowered head giving her a double chin.

  “Tell me what’s been going on with you guys,” Madeleine said softly.

  Alwyn looked up with an aggrieved expression, brushing her leonine hair out of her face with her free hand. “I’m not me anymore!” she cried. “I’m Mommy. Blake calls me Mommy. First it was just if I was holding Richard, but now we’re alone and he says it. Like because I’m a mother he thinks I’m his mother. It’s so weird. Before we got married we used to divide all the chores. But the minute we had a kid Blake started acting like it makes total sense that I do all the laundry and shop for groceries. All he does is work, all the time. He’s constantly worrying about money. He doesn’t do anything around the house. I mean anything. Including have sex with me.” She glanced at Phyllida. “Sorry, Mummy, but Maddy asked me how it’s going.” She looked back at Madeleine. “That’s how it’s going. It’s not going.”

  Madeleine listened to her sister sympathetically. She understood that Alwyn’s complaints about her marriage were complaints about marriage and men in general. But, like anyone in love, Madeleine believed that her own relationship was different from every other relationship, immune from typical problems. For this reason, the chief effect of Alwyn’s words was to make Madeleine secretly and intensely happy.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Madeleine asked, indicating the baby bottle.

  “I’m going to take it back to Boston and send it to Blake.”

  “That’s crazy, Ally.”

  “Thanks for the support.”

  “Sorry. I mean, Blake sounds like he’s being a total shit. But I agree with Mummy. You have to think about Richard.”

  “Why is it my responsibility?”

  “Isn’t that obvious?”

  “Why? Because I had a baby? Because I’m a ‘wife’ now? You don’t know anything about it. You’re barely out of college.”

  “Oh, and that means I can’t have an opinion?”

  “It means you need to grow up.”

  “I think you’re the one who’s refusing to grow up,” Madeleine said.

  Alwyn’s eyes grew slitty. “Why, when I do something, is it always crazy Ally? Crazy Ally moving into a hotel. Crazy Ally abandoning her children. I’m always the crazy one and Maddy’s always the sensible one. Yeah, right.”

  “Well, I’m not the one messengering my mother’s milk!”

  Alwyn gave her a strange, fierce smile. “There’s nothing wrong with your life, I bet.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “There’s nothing crazy about your life.”

  “If I ever have a baby and take off, you have my permission to tell me I’m acting crazy.”

  Alwyn said, “What about if you start dating somebody crazy?”

  “What are you talking about?” Madeleine said.

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Ally,” Phyllida said, turning around, “I don’t appreciate the tone you’re taking with your sister. She’s just trying to help.”

  “Maybe you should ask Maddy about the prescription bottle in the bathroom.”

  “What bottle?”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Did you snoop in my medicine cabinet?” Madeleine said, her voice rising.

  “It was right out on the counter!”

  “You snooped!”

  “Stop it,” Phyllida said. “Ally, wherever it was, it’s none of your concern. And I don’t want to hear one word about it.”

  “That makes total sense!” Alwyn cried. “You come out here to see if Leonard’s husband material, and when you find a serious problem—like that he’s maybe on lithium—you don’t want to hear about it. Whereas my marriage—”

  “It was wrong of you to read the prescription.”

  “You were the one who sent me into the bathroom!”

  “Not to invade Maddy’s privacy. Now, both of you—enough.”

  They spent the rest of the afternoon in Provincetown. They had lunch at a restaurant near Whaler’s Wharf, with fishing nets hung on the walls. A sign in the window informed customers that the establishment would be closing in another week. After lunch, the three of them walked silently down Commercial Street, looking at the buildings and stopping into the souvenir shops and stationery shops that were still open, and going out onto the pier to see the fishing boats. They went through the motions of having a proper visit (even though Madeleine and Alwyn would barely look at each other) because they were Hannas and this was how Hannas behaved. Phyllida even insisted on having ice cream sundaes, unusual for her. At four o’clock, they got back into the car. Driving to the airport, Madeleine stomped the gas pedal as if squashing a bug, and Phyllida had to tell her to slow down.

  The plane to Boston was on the runway when they arrived, its propellers already spinning. Happier clans, seeing people off, were hugging or waving. Alwyn joined the waiting passengers without saying goodbye to Madeleine, quickly striking up a conversation with a fellow passenger to show how friendly and agreeable other people found her to be.

  Phyllida said nothing until she was about to pass through the gate.

  “I hope the winds have calmed down. It was a little bumpy coming in.”

  “It seems calmer,” Madeleine said, looking at the sky.

  “Please thank Leonard for us again. That was awfully nice of him to take time out of his day.”

  “I will.”

  “Goodbye, dear,” Phyllida said, and then walked out across the landing strip and up the stairway of the commuter plane.

  Clouds were gathering in the west as Madeleine drove back to Pilgrim Lake. The sun was already beginning its descent, the angle of its light turning the dunes the color of butterscotch. Cape Cod was one of the few places on the East Coast where you could watch the sun set. Gulls were plunging straight down into the water, as if trying to bash in their tiny brains.

  Back at her apartment, Madeleine lay on the bed for a while, staring up at the ceiling. Going to the kitchen, she heated water for tea but didn’t make it, and ate half a chocolate bar instead. Finally, she took a long shower. She’d just gotten out when she heard Leonard come in.

  She wrapped a towel around herself and went out to him, putting her arms around his neck. “Thank you,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For putting up with my family. For being so nice.”

  She couldn’t tell whether Leonard’s T-shirt was damp or she was. She turned her face up to his, begg
ing for a kiss. He didn’t seem to want to, so she went up on her toes and started it herself. She tasted the faint metallic tang and pushed past it, slipping one hand under his T-shirt. She let her towel fall to the ground.

  “Well, O.K. then,” Leonard said. “Is this my reward for being good?”

  “This is your reward for being good,” Madeleine said.

  He walked her, somewhat awkwardly, backwards into the bedroom, lowered her onto the bed, and began taking off his clothes. Madeleine lay on her back, waiting, silent. When Leonard climbed on top of her she responded, kissing him and stroking his back. She reached down and placed her hand against his penis. Its surprising hardness, after months of not being so, made it feel twice as big as Madeleine remembered. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it. Leonard rose on his knees, his dark eyes hoovering up every aspect of her body. Propping himself up on one arm, he took hold of his cock, moving it in a circular fashion, almost putting it in, but not quite. For one mad instant Madeleine considered letting him. She didn’t want to break the mood. She wanted to abandon herself to risk in order to show him how much she loved him. She arched her back, guiding him in. But as Leonard pushed farther in, Madeleine thought better and said, “Hold on.”

  She tried to be as quick as possible. Throwing her legs over the side of the bed, she opened the bedside table drawer and took out her diaphragm case. She removed the disk, with its rubbery smell. The spermicide tube was all crumpled up. In her haste Madeleine squeezed out too much jelly and it dripped onto her thigh. She spread her knees apart, squeezing the device into a figure eight, and inserted it deep inside her until she felt it pop open. After wiping her hand on the sheet, she rolled back to Leonard.

  When he began kissing her she noticed the sour, metallic taste again, stronger than ever. She realized, with a sinking feeling, that she was no longer aroused. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that they complete the act. With this in mind, she reached down to help things along, but Leonard was no longer hard. As if she hadn’t noticed, Madeleine resumed kissing him. With desperation she began to feed on Leonard’s sour mouth, trying to appear excited and to excite him in turn. But after half a minute, Leonard pulled away. He rolled heavily onto his side, facing away from her, and was silent.

  A long cold moment ensued. For the first time ever, Madeleine regretted meeting Leonard. He was defective, and she wasn’t, and there was nothing she could do about it. The cruelty of this thought felt rich and sweet and Madeleine indulged in it for another minute.

  But then this, too, faded away, and she felt sorry for Leonard and guilty for being so selfish. She reached over and stroked Leonard’s back. He was crying now and she tried to comfort him, saying the required things, kissing his face, telling him that she loved him, she loved him, everything was going to be fine, she loved him so much.

  She curled up against him, and they both were quiet.

  And then they must have fallen asleep, because when she woke again the room was dark. She got up and dressed. Putting on her peacoat, she went out of the building to the beach.

  It was just after ten o’clock. The lights of the dining hall and bar were still blazing. Directly ahead of her, the quarter moon lit up shreds of clouds moving quickly over the dark bay. The wind was strong. Blowing in Madeleine’s face, it seemed personally interested in her. It had come all this way, across the continent, to deliver a message to her.

  She concentrated on what the doctor at Providence Hospital had said, the one time they spoke. It often took a while to get the appropriate dosage right, she said. Side effects were typically worse at first. Given that Leonard had functioned well on lithium in the past, there was no reason he wouldn’t do so in the future. It was only a question of recalibrating the dosage. Many patients with manic depression lived long and productive lives.

  She hoped all this was true. Being with Leonard made Madeleine feel exceptional. It was as if, before she’d met him, her blood had circulated grayly around her body, and now it was all oxygenated and red.

  She was petrified of becoming the half-alive person she’d been before.

  As she stood staring out at the black waves, a sound reached her ears. A soft thudding quickly approaching over the sand. Madeleine turned as a dark shape shot out, moving low to the ground. In another second she recognized Diane MacGregor’s standard poodle, galloping past. The dog’s mouth was open, tongue unfurled, her body as elongated and directed as an arrow.

  A few moments later, MacGregor herself appeared.

  “Your dog scared me,” Madeleine said. “It sounded like a horse.”

  “I know just what you mean,” MacGregor said.

  She was dressed in the same raincoat as at the press conference two weeks ago. Her gray hair was hanging limply on either side of her creased intelligent face.

  “Which way did she go?” MacGregor asked.

  Madeleine pointed. “She went thataway.”

  MacGregor squinted into the darkness.

  They stood together on the beach, feeling no need to speak further.

  Finally Madeleine broke the silence. “When do you go to Sweden?”

  “What? Oh, in December.” MacGregor seemed to be uninterested. “I don’t understand why the Swedes would bring anyone to Sweden in December, do you?”

  “Summer would be nicer.”

  “There will be hardly any daylight at all! I suppose that’s why they came up with the prizes. To give the Swedes something to do during the winter.”

  Suddenly the dog sped past again, ripping up sand.

  “I don’t know why it makes me so happy to watch my dog run,” MacGregor said. “It’s like a piece of me gets to hitch a ride.” She shook her head. “This is what it’s come to. Living vicariously through my poodle.”

  “There are worse things.”

  After a few more passes, the poodle returned, prancing in front of her owner. Noticing Madeleine, the animal went up to sniff her, and began rubbing her head against Madeleine’s legs.

  “She’s not very attached to me,” MacGregor said, looking on objectively. “She’ll go to anyone. If I died, she’d forget me in a second. Wouldn’t you?” she said, calling the poodle over and scratching her vigorously under the chin. “Yes, you would. You would, you would.”

  •

  After they left Paris, going from France to Ireland, then back south, all the way through Andalusia and to Morocco, Mitchell began sneaking off to churches any chance he could. This was Europe and there were churches everywhere, spectacular cathedrals as well as quiet little chapels, all of them still functioning (though usually empty), each one open to a wandering pilgrim, even one like Mitchell who wasn’t sure he qualified. He went into these dark, superstitious spaces to stare at faded frescoes or crude, bloody paintings of Christ. He peered into dusty reliquary jars containing the bones of Saint Whoever. Moved, solemn, he lit votive candles, always with the same inappropriate wish: that someday, somehow, Madeleine would be his. Mitchell didn’t believe the candles worked. He was opposed to petitional prayer. But it made him feel a little better to light a candle for Madeleine and to think about her for a minute, in the peacefulness of an old Spanish church, while, outside, the sea of faith retreated “down the vast edges drear and naked shingles of the world.”

  Mitchell was perfectly aware of how strangely he was behaving. But it didn’t matter because no one was around to notice. In stiff-backed pews, smelling candle wax, he closed his eyes and sat as still as possible, opening himself up to whatever was there that might be interested in him. Maybe there was nothing. But how would you ever know if you didn’t send out a signal? That’s what Mitchell was doing: he was sending out a signal to the home office.

  On the trains, buses, and boats that took them to all these places, Mitchell read the books in his backpack one by one. The mind of Thomas à Kempis, the author of The Imitation of Christ, was difficult to connect with. Parts of Saint Augustine’s Confessions, especially the information about his self-pleasuring y
outh and his African wife, were eye-opening. Interior Castle, however, by Saint Teresa of Avila, proved to be a gripping read. Mitchell devoured it on the overnight ferry ride from Le Havre to Rosslare. From the Gare St. Lazare, they’d gone to Normandy to visit the restaurant Larry had worked at during high school. After a huge lunch with the family owners, followed by a night in their house, they proceeded to Le Havre for the crossing. The seas were rough. Passengers stayed awake at the bar, or tried to sleep on the floor of the open cabin. Exploring belowdecks, Mitchell and Larry gained entry to a vacant officers’ lounge, with a Jacuzzi and beds, and amid this unwarranted luxury, Mitchell read about the soul’s progress toward mystical union with God. Interior Castle described a vision that Saint Teresa had had involving the soul. “I thought of the soul as resembling a castle, formed of a single diamond or a very transparent crystal, and containing many rooms, just as in heaven there are many mansions.” At first, the soul lay in darkness outside the castle walls, plagued by the venomous snakes and stinging insects of its sins. By the power of grace, however, some souls crawled out of this swamp and knocked at the castle door. “At length they enter the first rooms of the basement of the castle, accompanied by numerous reptiles which disturb their peace, and prevent their seeing the beauty of the building; still, it is a great gain that these persons should have found their way in at all.” All night long, while the ferry pitched and rolled, and Larry slept, Mitchell read how the soul progressed through the other six mansions, edifying itself with sermons, mortifying itself by penance and fasting, performing charity, meditating, praying, going on retreats, shedding its old habits and growing more perfect, until it became betrothed to the Spouse. “When our Lord is pleased to take pity on the sufferings, both past and present, endured through her longing for Him by this soul … He, before consummating the celestial marriage, brings her into His mansion or presence chamber. This is the seventh Mansion, for as He has a dwelling-place in heaven, so has He in the soul, where none but He may abide and which may be termed a second heaven.” What struck Mitchell about the book wasn’t so much imagery like that, which seemed borrowed from the Song of Songs, but its practicality. The book was a guide for the spiritual life, told with great specificity. For instance, describing mystical union, Saint Teresa wrote: “You may fancy that such a person is beside herself and that her mind is too inebriated to care for anything else. On the contrary, she is far more active than before in all that concerns God’s service.” Or, later: “This presence is not always so entirely realized, that is, so distinctly manifest, as at first, or as it is at times when God renews his favour; otherwise the recipient could not possibly attend to anything else nor live in society.” That sounded authentic. It sounded like something that Saint Teresa, writing five hundred years ago, had experienced, as real as the garden outside her convent window in Avila. You could tell the difference between someone making things up and someone using metaphorical language to describe an ineffable, but real, experience. Just after dawn, Mitchell went up on deck. He was light-headed from sleeplessness and giddy from the book. As he stared at the gray ocean and the misty coast of Ireland, he wondered what room his soul was in.