Love Among the Ruins

by Robert Clark

  Jane drank, and put down her glass. “I don’t think he was really upset. He was more affronted. Put out. Which is exactly like him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Edward said. “It must be awfully hard to go through this . . .”

  “Alone?” Jane said. She smiled. “Still beats going through it with him. With Mr. Franklin Lowry.”

  “I take it you didn’t part amicably.”

  “I wouldn’t have wanted to. Then it wouldn’t have been worth going through all the trouble to get divorced in the first place.”

  “Oh, I see,” Edward said.

  “Sorry. I’m sounding like Frances. She’s my girlfriend,” Jane said. “She—and you—have been getting me through this.”

  “Glad to help. I can’t say that you haven’t been getting me through it. You and your excellent G-and-T’s.”

  “What about . . . Ginny?” Jane paused. “I mean, how is she holding up?” This secondary question seemed to both of them a hastily added and unconvincing addendum to the first, which was not really about Virginia’s present state of mind but about Edward’s current estimate of his wife. It was in this instant that they realized they had stumbled out onto the thin ice of intimate disclosure; and that, in retrospect, they had been there for some time. And if they were going to make a retreat, they had better do so now. For unlike flirtatious talk, which either party can declare to be nothing more than jest at any time without causing undue offense, the manner in which Edward and Jane had been speaking was premised on a certain interest, concern, and commitment to each other: to knowing each other and doing well by each other.

  “On the whole, she’s fine. And so am I,” Edward said, and this was a shrewd response, one that both answered and diffused each of Jane’s questions while honoring their underlying intentions.

  “I’m glad,” Jane said, and added, “Why don’t we move out to the living room?”—this change of scene being her own contribution to easing the strain. It was, however, more of a regrouping than a retreat, a lateral move, although they did not know this at the time, any more than they originally understood the area upon which they had earlier trespassed when they first entered into it.

  On the way to the living room, carrying their drinks, Jane picked up Emily’s two letters to William from the hall table where she had left them after reading them over several times. She wanted to talk to Edward about them. They concerned the children—perhaps, properly interpreted, could even help find the children—and this was surely the real and legitimate ground of Jane and Edward’s relation. It was imperative and wholly blameless to explore it.

  Upon entering the living room, Jane thought she ought to turn over the record that had been playing just prior to Edward’s arrival, and she went to the record player to do this. Having started the machine and adjusted the volume, she moved without thought towards the couch, her habitual music listening post, and only after rounding the coffee table and being within two feet or so of her perch did she realize that Edward was already seated there. She saw the problem in going forward with her original unwitting intention, but understood that the alternative—turning around more or less on a dime and moving back to the easy chair opposite him—was more awkward still. So she sat down next to Edward on the tiny couch.

  “I’ve been reading Emily’s letters to Billy,” she said. “I hope it’s okay.”

  “Of course. I don’t suppose they’re very revealing.”

  “Well, not about what they’ve done. But about each other, maybe.” Jane extracted one of the letters from its envelope. “For example, she mentions Bobby Kennedy in both of them. That he could be for kids their age what JFK was to their older brothers and sisters.”

  “That’s funny. I mean, that’s just what Billy wrote to her.”

  “I guess they’re just echoing each other. Thinking the same thoughts.” Jane paused. “Of course, I was a little surprised to think that Billy was a crypto-Kennedyite. Right under my roof.” She laughed and then she drank. “But you can see how it might make an impact on them. Even though he never got near to being president. I mean, everyone—everyone our age knows what they were doing, where they were, when they found out Roosevelt had died. And I suppose it binds us together.”

  “So where were you? When Roosevelt died?” Edward asked.

  “I was at college. Back East. In a class. Comparative religion. Someone came in and gave a note to the professor. He said, ‘The president is dead,’ and said he was going to stop for the day.” Jane stopped and drank. “We all went outside, mostly just standing on the grass, and we were all crying. Female hysteria, I suppose.” Jane looked directly at Edward, and Edward saw there was a tear running down her cheek.

  Jane suppressed a sob and cleared her throat. “I guess I haven’t changed one bit. Not in twenty years. Still hysterical.” Jane laughed, but it came out in a strangled tone, as though the laugh were being forcibly held down, underwater.

  Edward said, “I don’t think that’s it at all. I mean, under the circumstances. With everything you’re going through—”

  “We’re going through,” Jane said.

  “Yes. That we’re going through,” Edward said. “All of us.”

  Jane cleared her throat again. “So where were you?”

  “When he died?” Edward asked. Jane nodded. “I was in Germany. Well, barely. They’d bridged the Rhine, but I was way to the rear of that. I was just waiting.”

  “And what happened? How did all these men react?”

  “I don’t remember any weeping. Just a lot of silence. Men just not talking.”

  “Maybe silence is the male version of hysteria.”

  “Maybe,” Edward said. “I suppose maybe there should have been. Some of them were scarcely eighteen years old. He’d been president for pretty much their whole lives. It might as well have been their father or grandfather.”

  “And what did you do? Did you cry?”

  “No. I’m sure I didn’t. It’s hard to explain. There was a war. And I suppose you just can’t let yourself get carried away.”

  “Do you ever let yourself get carried away?”

  “Me personally?” Edward asked. “Or men in general? I can’t say. Not really. I can’t say I ever really feel the need.”

  “Not even now?”

  Edward had been lulled by the drink, by the tailing off of the afternoon, by their easy and somnolent wading through the past, through memory and crystallized sentiment. But he saw now that he and Jane were back in the territory they had broached in the kitchen, and deeply so.

  It had heretofore always seemed to Edward that talking about the past was the safest of conversational refuges, that you could not get into much trouble reminiscing or being nostalgic, whereas the present—with its conflicts and tensions and differences of opinion all in progress, all real—was a minefield. Yet now the past, too, was treacherous; what history disclosed was as naked and galvanic as a kiss. It said not simply “This is how I was” but “This is how I am. Taste it.”

  Edward could therefore only try to change the subject, and he grasped the nearest matter to hand, the music that, by turns sweet and strident, was playing on the record player. It was to no avail, for art is just as raw and intimate as history, and perhaps is nothing more than history a little ahead of itself, the germ of it, its translucent, pulsing embryo.

  “So what’s this you’re playing?” Edward said, and it was only after the fact that he realized that this could be misheard too; that it might be understood to refer to some putative motive or strategy Jane was pressing forward with, some kind of game that was afoot.

  “It’s Bernstein,” Jane said. “Not just conducting, though. It’s his composition, too.”

  “Called . . . ?”

  “Age of Anxiety.”

  Edward laughed, almost barked. “You . . . you really have a knack. I mean, considering everything . . .”

  Jane now also laughed, at first politely and then freely, as though she had now peeked over the same fence a
s Edward and seen that everything beyond it was utterly absurd. “I suppose I do. I didn’t even think of it. It’s just the kind of thing I . . . like,” she said with almost a snort. She rocked forward and back, laughing.

  “Something light. To while away the hours.”

  “Exactly.” Jane began to try to settle herself, to steer the talk away from levity. “But, I mean, really. It’s . . . profound.”

  “Oh, you bet your life it is,” Edward said, and roared with laughter, as did Jane. And as they rocked and hooted and gradually calmed down together, they might have fallen into each other’s arms, in relief.

  They did not, of course. They collapsed into their respective corners of the little sofa, and caught their breath. There was still something Jane wanted to say, and she persisted in feeling it was important. So she raised it, even though she knew that in doing so she risked their succumbing to a further bout of, yes, hysteria.

  “I really am a great admirer of Bernstein.” She also had the good sense not to refer to him as “Lenny,” although this was her custom.

  “He’s very talented,” Edward agreed, and without any visible sign of mirth.

  “I think he’s almost . . . the preeminent man of—no, not of. The preeminent man for our time. Do you understand? He’s a symbol, he exemplifies, I don’t know, all these qualities. He’s a musical genius and he’s popular and classical and he’s active in politics and social change. He’s suave and brilliant. He’s a star. For thinking people.”

  “He’s a Jew, isn’t he?” Edward offered this not with any malign intent, but as a further remarkable fact.

  “He’s a sexy Jew.” Jane had warmed to her subject, and having also been warmed by her gin, lowered her guard sufficiently to make it clear that this was the nub, the ground zero of Lenny’s appeal.

  Edward’s guard was also down. He thought he had already steered clear of the shoals when he had gotten them away from the past, from Jane’s tears. “It sounds like you’d make an exception to what you said about six men not being worth one girlfriend.”

  “For Lenny I would.”

  “Lenny? It sounds like you’re already . . . on intimate terms with him.”

  “Oh, if only I were,” Jane said, and they both laughed, not uncontrollably, but heartily. It seemed, just then, that if they could mock each other a little and discuss sexual attraction solely in relation to others, as cousins or brothers and sisters might, they would be safe, they would pass through and beyond this awkward moment like a bout of fever and come to rest on the far shore as simply friends.

  But then Jane said, “I’ll tell you something that’s a secret. A little-known fact. Frank—Billy’s father—is a Jew. Well, partly. Maybe a quarter or something.”

  “Really?” said Edward. “Lowry sounds like one of those ordinary names. English or Irish.”

  “That wasn’t their real name. It was Lowen. They changed it.”

  “I see.”

  “And that explains everything about Frank. Pretending to be something he’s really not, right at the core.”

  “But you didn’t care?”

  “Oh, he always insisted I did. That underneath everything else, it bothered me.”

  “But you knew? Before you were married?”

  “Of course. So did my parents. It did bother them a little. Especially my mother. But beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “Beggars?”

  “Oh, my, yes. I was the beggar maid. We Burdens had fallen on hard times. And it was a good marriage, an advantageous marriage. Frank got what he imagined was blue blood and I got security.” Jane paused. “I wasn’t really raised to work. My mother, her sisters, me. We didn’t have the slightest idea.”

  “But you do work. Now.”

  “Oh, after a fashion. But mostly I live on alimony, on Frank’s largesse. Of course, he calls it blood money.”

  “That’s a charming way to put it.”

  “He’s a charming man. Why do you think I married him?”

  They realized, in the way that people do, that the lull in the conversation which just then presented itself marked a natural and easy point of departure in which they might move to another room or mix another round of drinks or say their goodbyes. It was the latter course they took, and as Edward drove away he reflected that any unease he had felt within Jane’s home was unwarranted; that he had escaped without harm or incident, and, in fact, had had a marvelous time.

  Edward chose not to mention his visit to Virginia when he got home. If you are a scrupulous sort, you might say this omission—the kind of convenient, self-deluding sleight-of-hand casuistry at which adolescents are so adept—amounted to a lie; that it was a lie with a twofold rationalization undergirding it, just like the lie Virginia had that very morning told her mother-in-law.

  Certainly Edward believed that he was in some way sparing Virginia from pain or at least unnecessary distraction; and he also had the rather less altruistic reason of sparing himself from suspicion and a possible interrogation of his motives for once again choosing to take refreshment on Laurel Avenue. At any rate, he was doubtless right in assuming that announcing it to Virginia would not do much to improve the mood in his own home.

  That mood struck him as soon as he opened his front door—struck him as tangibly as the cooler air of the interior of the house struck him—as almost a change in the barometric pressure. He found himself wanting to flee, and the sensation was not unlike the one that accompanied being able to use a drink. Here, in his house (all but paid for come next year), the fact of Emily’s absence was glaringly, implacably present; that and his failure or incapacity to bring her back. The rooms stank of dread and impotence.

  Yet there is nothing much to being an adult if not the ability to whistle past (or even through) the graveyard. So Edward passed through the hall and down into the kitchen, where Virginia was waiting for him like, he felt, the sphinx with the impossible riddle, the one that must be answered and in which the penalty for an incorrect answer is death.

  Virginia stretched out her arm to him, to summon his kiss on her cheek, and then said, “Would you like a drink?”

  “Not just now. I had one after work. With old Dr. Fields.”

  “Okay. I thought I’d just do some hot dish for supper. That all right?”

  “Lovely. Wonderful.”

  Virginia moved to the refrigerator, to the cupboard, to the sink, and then to the counter by the stove. “I talked to Susan today. She was very upset. She volunteered to come home. To help out while this is going on.”

  “And you said?”

  “I told her there was no point. That there were enough of us . . . standing vigil. That she ought to try to put it out of her mind. That we’d keep her posted.”

  “That’s good. Good counsel.”

  “Then I went and saw Granny Byrne,” Virginia said (and one may infer her relative equanimity from the fact she did not say to Edward “your mother”). “She’s fine.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you suppose we’ll have to? I mean, she’ll expect Emily to come over sooner or later.”

  “Maybe. But maybe she’ll come back sooner rather than later and there won’t be any need to mention it at all.”

  “I’m afraid that might be wishful thinking.”

  “Well, if you want to tell her, I’ll leave it in your hands.” Virginia took a can of mushroom soup, propped it on the automatic opener on the counter, and slapped down the lever. The can spun, the opener whirred.

  “Let me just think it through.”

  “That’s fine. But we don’t want her having a stroke or something. I don’t want the responsibility for that, too, on top of everything.”

  “She’s my mother. She’s my responsibility,” Edward said. “I’ll take care of her. Like I do everything. Don’t worry about it.”

  Virginia turned around, the can in one hand, the ragged-edged disk of the lid in the other, looking at him. “ ‘Like you do everyth
ing’?” Then she said nothing.

  “I don’t mean everything. I mean . . . the kind of things that I’m . . . responsible for.”

  “Oh, just those things.” Virginia opened the door beneath the sink and flung the lid of the soup can into the trash. Then she said, “I’m not sure I wouldn’t be perfectly content to do them. Instead of this.” She gestured around the perimeter of the kitchen, as though to point out what a mess, what a state, it was in, although it was immaculate. “I don’t know that I wouldn’t prefer to chat with doctors all day and have nice cocktails with them. As opposed to being here. Waiting and waiting and waiting.”

  “This isn’t by anyone’s choice, Ginny.”

  “Or for relief, I can go over to Emmy’s school and, say, break down in front of her teachers. Just fall apart. Or go over and play-act for your mother. Tell her lies.”

  “Look. I have a job. Nothing would please me more than to stay here with you,” Edward said. “Not that it would do any good. But we still need money and groceries. That’s a fact. So I have a job.”

  Virginia was scooping the soup out into a casserole with a big stainless-steel spoon. “You have a life. Outside this house. You can do something besides wait. You can accomplish things. Or at least distract yourself.”

  Edward moved a foot closer to Virginia. He lowered his voice and let his hands hang at his sides. “I can’t do anything about what matters. It kills me. But I can’t.”

  “I can’t either. I can’t even pretend it’s not my fault.”

  “It’s not anyone’s fault.”

  “Maybe it should be. Maybe then somebody could do something.”

  “And who should that be? Me?”

  “I don’t know. I just think maybe something could have been done. To prevent the whole business.” Virginia lifted the cover of a saucepan on the stove, saw that the water in it was boiling, and poured in a half-packet of egg noodles. Edward watched her do this, and saw that she did it with a kind of offhand grace or perhaps fastidiousness.

  “I was the one who didn’t like the look of him at the start,” Edward said. “I told you that.”

  “But you changed your mind, didn’t you?”