The Marriage Plot

by Jeffrey Eugenides

  The colder you were, the more calories you burned.

  His ebullient mood, the steady pumping of his heart, and the big soft fur hat were enough to keep Leonard warm as he walked along, passing the big houses on the water and the shingled cottages cramming the little lanes. But when he finally arrived in the center of town, he was surprised to see how deserted it was, even on a weekend. Stores and restaurants had started closing up after Labor Day. Now, two weeks before Christmas, only a few were still operating. The Lobster Pot had closed. Napi’s was open. Front Street was open. The Crown & Anchor had closed.

  He was gratified, therefore, to find a small midday crowd gathered in the Governor Bradford. Climbing on a stool, he looked up at the television, trying to seem like a person with one thought in his head instead of fifty. When the bartender came over, Leonard said, “Are you Governor Bradford?”

  “Not me.”

  “I’d like a pint of Guinness, please,” Leonard said, swiveling on his stool and glancing at the other customers. His head was getting hot but he didn’t want to take off his hat.

  Of the four females in the bar, three were engaged in self-grooming, running their hands through their hair to indicate their readiness for copulation. The males responded by lowering their voices and sometimes pawing the females. If you ignored human qualities like speech and clothing, the primate behaviors became more apparent.

  When his Guinness arrived, Leonard swiveled back around to drink it.

  “You need to refine your shamrock technique,” he said, gazing down into the glass.

  “Excuse me?”

  Leonard pointed at the foamy head. “This doesn’t look like a shamrock. It looks like a figure eight.”

  “You a bartender?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s not your business, I guess.”

  Leonard grinned. He said “Cheers,” and began sucking down the creamy stout. Part of him wanted to stay in the bar the rest of the afternoon. He wanted to watch football and drink beer. He wanted to watch the human females groom themselves and see what other primate behaviors they exhibited. He, too, was a primate, of course, in the present context, a rogue male. Rogue males stirred up all kinds of trouble. It might be fun to see what he could get going. But he was getting a bad vibe from the bartender, and he felt like walking some more, and so when he finished his drink he pulled a ten-dollar bill out of his jeans and left it on the bar. Without waiting for change he vaulted off the stool and plunged out into the bone-chilling air.

  The sky had already begun to grow dark. It was only a little after two and already the day was dying. Staring up, Leonard felt his spirits sink with it. His earlier mental liveliness was beginning to fade. It had been a mistake to drink the Guinness. Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his jeans, Leonard rocked back and forth on his heels. And that was all it took. In further confirmation of his brilliant move, no sooner did his energy sag than he felt it being replenished, as though tiny valves in his arteries were spritzing out the elixir of life.

  Buoyed by his brain chemistry, he sauntered farther along Commercial Street. Up ahead, a guy in a leather cap and jacket was going down the steps to the Vault. The throbbing music inside escaped into the street until he closed the door after him.

  Homosexuality was an interesting topic, from a Darwinian standpoint. A trait predisposing a population toward sterile sexual relations should have resulted in the disappearance of that trait. But the boys in the Vault were evidence otherwise. It must be an autosomal transmission of some kind, the associated genes hitching rides on sisterly X chromosomes.

  Leonard proceeded on. He looked at the driftwood sculptures in the shuttered art galleries and the homoerotic postcards in the windows of a stationery store, still open. Right then he noticed a surprising thing. Across the street, a saltwater taffy shop appeared to be open. The neon sign was lit in the window and he could see a figure moving around inside. Something mysterious but insistent, something that called to his own primate nature, prompted him to draw nearer. He entered the shop, activating a bell on the door. The thing of interest that his cells had been telling him about turned out to be a teenage girl working behind the counter. She had red hair, high cheekbones, and a tight yellow sweater.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Yes. I have a question. Is it still whale-watching season?”

  “Um, I don’t know.”

  “But they have whale-watching boats out here, don’t they?”

  “I think that’s more like in the summer.”

  “Aha!” Leonard said, not knowing what to say next. He was acutely aware of how small and perfect the girl’s body was. At the same time, the sugary smell of the shop reminded him of a candy store he used to go into as a kid with no money to buy anything. Now, he pretended to be interested in the taffy on the shelves, crossing his arms behind his back and browsing.

  “I like your hat,” the girl said.

  Leonard turned and smiled broadly. “You do? Thanks. I just got it.”

  “Aren’t you cold without a coat, though?”

  “Not in here with you,” Leonard said.

  His sensors registered an uptick in wariness on her part, so he quickly added, “How come you’re open in winter?”

  This proved to be a good move. It gave the girl a chance to vent. “Because my father wants to ruin my whole weekend,” she said.

  “Your dad owns this place?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re like the taffy heiress.”

  “I guess,” said the girl.

  “You know what you should tell your dad? You should tell him it’s December. Nobody wants saltwater taffy in December.”

  “That’s what I do tell him. He says people still drive up for the weekend, so we should stay open.”

  “How many customers have come in today?”

  “Like three. And now you.”

  “Do you consider me a customer?”

  She shifted her weight to one hip, growing skeptical. “Well, you’re in here.”

  “I am definitely in here,” Leonard said. “What’s your name?”

  She hesitated. “Heidi.”

  “Hi, Heidi.”

  Maybe it was her blush, or the tight fit of her sweater, or it was just part of being a Superman within reach of a super girl, but for whatever reason, Leonard felt himself getting hard at five paces. This was a piece of significant clinical data. He wished he had his Moleskine notebook with him to write it down.

  “Heidi,” Leonard said. “Hi, Heidi.”

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hi, Heidi,” Leonard repeated. “Hi-de-ho. The Hi De Ho Man. Have you ever heard of the Hi De Ho Man, Heidi?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Cab Calloway. Famous jazz musician. The Hi De Ho Man. I’m not sure why they called him that. Hi-ho, Silver. Hawaii Five-O.”

  Her brow wrinkled. Leonard saw he was losing her and so said, “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Heidi. Tell me one thing, though. Do you make the saltwater taffy right here?”

  “In summer we do. Not now.”

  “And do you use salt water from the ocean?”

  “Huh?”

  He approached the counter, close enough to press his boner against the glass front.

  “I just always wondered why they call it saltwater taffy. Like, do you use salt and water, or do you have to use salt water?”

  Heidi took a step back from the counter. “I’ve got to do some stuff in the back,” she said. “So if you want anything.”

  For some reason Leonard bowed. “Go to it,” he said. “I don’t mean to keep you from your labors. It’s been nice meeting you, Heidi-Ho. How old are you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  She didn’t seem to want to say. “Yes.”

  “He’s a lucky guy. He should be in here right now, keeping you company.”

  “My dad’ll be here in a minute.”

  “I’m sorry I won’t be
able to meet him,” Leonard said, pressing against the counter. “I could tell him to stop ruining your weekends. Before I go, though, I think I’ll buy some taffy.”

  Again he perused the racks. When he bent forward, his hat fell off and he caught it. Perfect reflexes. Like Fred Astaire. He could flip it in the air, end over end, right onto his head if he wanted to.

  “Saltwater taffy is always pastel,” he commented. “Why is that?”

  This time Heidi didn’t respond at all.

  “You know what I think it is, Heidi? I think pastels are the palette of the seashore. I’ll take these pastel green ones, which are the color of dune grass, and I’ll take some pink ones, which are like the sun setting on the water. And I’ll take these white ones, which are like sea foam, and these yellow ones, which are like the sun on the sand.”

  He brought all four bags to the counter, then decided to take a few other flavors. Buttercream. Chocolate. Strawberry. Seven bags in all.

  “You want all these?” Heidi said, incredulous.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just a lot.”

  “I like a lot a lot,” Leonard said.

  She rang up his purchase. Leonard reached into his pocket and took out his cash.

  “Keep the change,” Leonard said. “But I need a bag to carry all this in.”

  “I don’t have a bag big enough for all this. Unless you want a trash bag.”

  “A trash bag is perfect,” Leonard said.

  Heidi disappeared into the back of the shop. She came out with a dark green twenty-five-gallon heavy-duty trash bag and began putting the bags of taffy in it. She had to bend forward to do so.

  Leonard stared at her little tits in the tight sweater. He knew exactly what to do. He waited until she lifted the trash bag over the counter. Then, taking it from her, he said, “You know what? Since your dad’s not here?” And holding her wrists, he leaned forward and kissed her. Not long. Not deeply. Just a peck on her lips, surprising her totally. Her eyes grew wide.

  “Merry Christmas, Heidi,” he said, “Merry Christmas,” and he whirled out the door into the street.

  He was grinning madly now. Slinging the trash bag over his back like a sailor, he strode down the street. His erection hadn’t subsided. He was trying to remember what his dose had been that morning and wondering if he might need a touch more.

  The logic of his brilliant move rested on one premise: that manic depression, far from being a liability, was an advantage. It was a selected trait. If it wasn’t selected for, then the “disorder” would have disappeared long ago, bred out of the population like anything else that didn’t increase the odds of survival. The advantage was obvious. The advantage was the energy, the creativity, the feeling of genius, almost, that Leonard felt right now. There was no telling how many great historical figures had been manic-depressives, how many scientific and artistic breakthroughs had occurred to people during manic episodes.

  He picked up speed, hurrying home. Came out of the town and passed the lake again, the dunes.

  Madeleine was on the couch, her beautiful face stuck into the GRE booklet, when he came in.

  Leonard tossed the trash bag on the floor. Without a word he lifted Madeleine off the couch and carried her into the bedroom, laying her on the bed.

  He undid his belt and took off his pants and stood before her, grinning.

  Without the usual preliminaries, he pulled off Madeleine’s tights and underwear and plunged into her as far as he could go. His cock felt wondrously hard. He was giving Madeleine what Phyllida could never give her, and thereby exercising his advantage. He felt the most exquisite sensations at the end of his dick. Nearly weeping with the pleasure of it, he cried out, “I love you, I love you,” and he meant what he said.

  Afterward, they lay curled up, catching their breath.

  Madeleine said slyly, happily, “I guess you are better.”

  At which Leonard sat up. His head wasn’t crowded with thoughts. There was only one. Rolling off the bed onto his knees, Leonard took Madeleine’s hands in his much bigger hands. He’d just figured out the solution to all his problems, romantic, financial, and strategic. One brilliant move deserved another.

  “Marry me,” he said.

  Asleep in the Lord

  Mitchell had never so much as changed a baby’s diaper before. He’d never nursed a sick person, or seen anyone die, and now here he was, surrounded by a mass of dying people, and it was his job to help them die at peace, knowing they were loved.

  For the past three weeks, Mitchell had been volunteering at the Home for Dying Destitutes. He’d been going five days a week, from nine in the morning until a little after one, and doing whatever needed doing. This included giving the men medicine, feeding them, administering head massages, sitting on their beds and providing company, looking into their faces and holding their hands. It wasn’t something you had to learn how to do, and yet, in his twenty-two years on the planet, Mitchell had done few of these things before and some of them not at all.

  He’d been traveling for four months, visiting three different continents and nine different countries, but Calcutta felt like the first real place he’d been. This had partly to do with the fact that he was alone. He missed having Larry around. Before Mitchell left Athens, when they’d made their plans to reunite in the spring, the discussion had skirted around the reason Larry was staying on in Greece. That Larry was now sleeping with men wasn’t a big deal in the larger scheme of things. But it cast a complicating light on their friendship—and especially the drunken night in Venice—and made them both feel awkward.

  If Mitchell had been able to return Larry’s affection, his life might have been a lot different right now. As it was, the whole thing was beginning to look fairly comical and Shakespearean: Larry loved Mitchell, who loved Madeleine, who loved Leonard Bankhead. Being alone, in the poorest city on earth, where he didn’t know anyone, pay phones were non existent, and mail service slow, didn’t end this romantic farce, but it got Mitchell offstage.

  The other reason Calcutta felt real was that he was here for a purpose. Until now he’d been merely sightseeing. The best he could say about his travels so far was that they described the route of a pilgrimage that had led him to his present location.

  He’d spent his first week in the city exploring. He’d attended mass at an Anglican church with a gaping hole in the roof and a congregation of six octogenarians. At a Communist playhouse, he’d sat through a three-hour production of Mother Courage in Bengali. He’d walked up and down Chowringhee Road, past astrologers reading faded Tarot cards and barbers cutting hair while squatting at the curb. A street vendor had summoned Mitchell over to look at his wares: a pair of prescription eyeglasses and a used toothbrush. The uninstalled sewer pipe in the road was big enough for a family to camp inside. At the Bank of India, the businessman in front of Mitchell in line was wearing a solar-powered wristwatch. The policemen directing traffic were as expressive as Toscanini. The cows were skinny and wore eye makeup, like fashion models. Everything Mitchell saw, tasted, or smelled was different from what he was used to.

  From the minute his plane touched down at Calcutta International Airport at two a.m., Mitchell had found India to be the perfect place to disappear. The trip into the city had proceeded through near-total darkness. Through the curtained rear window of the Ambassador cab, Mitchell discerned stands of eucalyptus trees lining the lightless highway. The apartment buildings, when they reached them, were hulking and dark. The only light came from bonfires burning in the middle of intersections.

  The taxi had taken him to the Salvation Army Guest House, on Sudder Street, and it was there that he’d been staying ever since. His roommates were a thirty-seven-year-old German named Rüdiger and a Floridian named Mike, an ex–appliance salesman. The three of them shared a small guest lodge across from the crowded main building. The neighborhood around Sudder Street constituted the city’s minimal tourist district. Across the street stood a palmy hote
l that catered to old India hands, mainly Brits. A few blocks away, up Jawaharlal Nehru Road, was the Oberoi Grand with its turbaned doormen. The restaurant on the corner, catering to backpacker tastes, served banana pancakes and hamburgers made from water buffalo. Mike claimed you could get bhang lassi on the next street over.

  Most people didn’t come to India to volunteer for a Catholic order of nuns. Most people came to visit ashrams, smoke ganja, and live on next to nothing. At breakfast one morning, Mitchell had walked into the dining room to find Mike sharing a table with a Californian in his sixties, dressed all in red.

  “Anybody sitting here?” Mitchell asked, pointing to an empty chair.

  The Californian, whose name was Herb, lifted his eyes to Mitchell’s. Herb considered himself a spiritual person. The way he held your gaze let this be known. “Our table is your table,” he said.

  Mike was munching a piece of toast. After Mitchell sat down, Mike swallowed and said to Herb, “So go on.”

  Herb sipped his tea. He was balding, with a shaggy gray beard. Around his neck hung a locket bearing a photograph of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

  “There’s an amazing energy in Poona,” Herb said. “It’s something you can feel when you’re there.”