He also continues to read letters Denise sent him before they were married, look at her photos. Two especially. Nude Polaroids of her seven to eight months pregnant with Olivia. Maine, secluded rented cabin, tips of trees and ideal summer sky behind her, standing on the top porch step, he must have been sitting or lying on the porch when he took them, looking down at him skeptically and saying to herself, she later told him when he asked, “Why am I doing this for you and what if someone gets ahold of it? I’m so bloated and deformed, it’ll come out pornographic.” He promised to only take one but then lied and said his finger was over the slot when the photo came out and took a second with her consent before the first was developed. She wanted to destroy both but he swore he’d never let anyone see them or leave them in a place where they could be found accidentally. They were the only nude shots he had of her. Huge belly, enormous breasts, it seemed twice as much pubic and armpit hair but that was probably just the shadows, ankles swollen, thighs wider, face chubbier, big dark aureoles, and so on. Same position and look in both, so he doesn’t know which one he had to lie to get. He cut the borders off them and then some of the porch and sky till they fit into one of the plastic sleeves of his wallet’s photo section under another photo. Doesn’t remember what photo they were under then—maybe the same one as now, which is of his mother, standing between his uncle and aunt, their arms interlocked, posing merrily at Denise’s and his wedding reception. Meantime he’s gone through three or four almost identical wallets. He wishes he’d taken nude photos of her when she wasn’t pregnant. Soon after he met her, for instance, when he said if Playboy had a pictorial essay planned on nude assistant profs, she’d be a great choice (she wasn’t flattered, said his remark was dumb and young), or about six months after she had Eva, when she’d slimmed down to her lowest adult weight, done lots of muscle-toning exercises and swimming and jumping rope. Even her buttocks were getting hard. Taken pornographic photos, even. Front, back, lying down, legs spread apart, fingering herself, shots of them making love taken with the aid of a timer, from behind with her rear raised, vulva opened, head turned around to him. He once asked her to pose nude when she wasn’t pregnant—a simple shot, standing and smiling—when she was stepping out of the shower and he held up the unopened Polaroid camera. But she said the only reason she let him keep the nude ones he had of her was because they didn’t resemble her except for the skeptical expression somewhat when she’s doing something she doesn’t really want to but oh what the fuck, and her hair when it had been dried by the sun after a shampoo, brushed hard and pinned up.
If Gail knew about the photos and letters and little tricks he used to get or lose an erection and how he felt about her, she never let on. Years. Then she tells him their marriage is a sham and she wants a separation. Springs it on him. First she asks him to sit. He’d come back from work, hung up his jacket, put his briefcase and books on the living room chair he always puts them on, the three girls were playing somewhere, he went over to kiss her, she put her hands up to back him off, asked him to sit, get a drink if he wanted—a hard one preferably, even if that seemed, she said, like something someone might say in a bad movie or lousy book, but it might be useful to have, though she hoped not to throw at her. “What do you mean? What is it? You’re making me nervous. Are you ill? Can’t be if you’re talking about throwing drinks at someone.” That’s when she says their marriage is a sham, she’s known it for a year, she doesn’t believe a kind or polite word he says to her except when it’s about what she cooks or when she in any way makes life easier for him, and she’s been faking for months, as she suspects he has, her sex and most of her orgasms with him, what there were of them. “I’m surprised about the sex part,” he says. “Your orgasms particularly seemed every bit authentic. I for sure have been involved in it almost every second. As for the other stuff, I’m surprised but not as much, since I’m not very convincing when I say just about anything I want very much to get across and especially affectionate and complimentary things, and I also have a way of saying things that come out sounding opposite of what they mean.” “Horsecrap. Anyway, what I’m getting to is we should separate. For half a year, let’s say, so the girls will begin getting used to it while still holding some hope we’ll get together again, which I guarantee you there’s no hope of since my ultimate aim is to get an unacrimonious divorce.” “Absolutely not. I mean, sure, unacrimoniously, if it ever came to that, which I don’t want it to, for one reason because it’ll hurt the kids too much—my two and Susan. And why the hell a divorce? I love you and feel very strongly we can work out whatever it is you think’s fouling up things and also that I can convince you, despite my speaking problems, that you’re dead wrong about what you think I feel and don’t feel about you. First off, let’s talk about what brought all this up. You think, for instance, I’ve had a lover or two? One-shot flings even?” “No, though maybe you have. When you bring it up like that, it’s usually true. Not that I’d care, now, unless she was carrying something communicable. Because I now have one, you know. But why would you know? You mainly think of yourself and would probably be glad he was taking some of the sexual pressure off you. He’s clean though. If you’ll permit me: bags first till I had him medically checked out. I’m smart enough not to get temporary or terminal anything because I suddenly got the hots for someone. An untemperamental mature man whom I’ve little emotional feeling for but I adore sleeping with and being with sometimes too. He can be a gas. Are you upset?” “Sure, yes, very, what do you think? Screw it. You want to take lovers and don’t believe we can work things out—” “Never, even if I wanted to.” “Then better you do leave. Though I’m sorry about Susan. In my own way I love her, so I’ll miss her. I can continue—we all can—to see her, can’t we?” “Certainly your girls. And you too, if she wants. She probably will, for a while, when we move to a new neighborhood and her social life sags, but then she’ll consider having to see you a stiff pain in the ass. She’s practical and unsentimental and you pretend to be the reverse. Can you ever stop being a fake?”
He says some words to her, she to him, then: “Fuck you,” “Eat shit,” “Same here,” “Stick it up your skinny hole,” “Oh, very fine words,” he says, “You miserable shriveled-up prig should talk?,” he pushes her, she takes a swing at him and he twists her arm till it hurts, all three girls have come downstairs and been watching, she leaves the next week, the two never saying a word to each other and trying to be in different rooms till then, his girls see Susan regularly but she won’t see him no matter how many times he apologizes on the phone for having hurt her mother. They divorce, she moves in with her lover, meets someone on a business trip and settles in the city he works in. His daughters thought of Susan as their sister, they tell Howard. “We’ll take a trip West this summer,” he says, “drive through where she lives and you can spend a day or two with her. More if she has time and you want. I’ll stay in the motel and read and do some work.” “Marrying someone with a child can be a disaster for us,” Olivia says. “Next time fall for someone without one. Then if you want to have another, do it with her so the baby will have to stay or later on be shared.” “I’m too old for another child and I don’t want another wife. I’ve never loved any woman since your mother and I seriously doubt I could. I didn’t even tell Gail that. That was mean of me. From now on I only want to be with you kids till you’re all grown up. After that you can visit or stay but it’ll be best if things go bad for you with someone else that you try to hack it out on your own. Do you understand?” “No.” “‘Hack.’ It’s too dated a word. Work it out with him, or if you’re without him, then by yourself, in other words. Clearer?” “It’s not that. Just most times you seem a lot healthier and not so strange when you’re with someone. That last thing with Gail we won’t count. Eva and I are going to try and find a nice lady for you.”
Years. He doesn’t go out with any women. Wrong. One he took to a movie, shook hands goodbye at her door and didn’t call again. She did and he said h
e was sorry. Another for dinner at her apartment. He thought maybe he should try something, just to take the big plunge again and she seemed responsive, and he made a move and she said she had nothing like that in mind when she invited him over, and showed him the door. It’s not that he’s lost his sex drive, he thinks. Sex drive; funny term. Or not that much, but how can he tell? He does it to himself much less often than he did after Denise died and before he met Gail; that should be an indicator. Even those are mostly motivated by health reasons to avoid something with the prostate. Doctor’s suggestion. But then he still stares after women’s behinds and legs as much, fantasizes having sex with women he sees and meets, gets plenty of spontaneous erections and they seem to be as hard most of the times and stay up as long. He’s sure it’s mainly because his kids are older now and he’s afraid of getting caught by them or leaving some sign of it around. When he does do it it’s usually afternoon when they’re in school though he’d prefer it late at night when he’s in bed. It’s also not as exciting anymore, no matter what drugstore and picture aids he might use, which could be another indicator. And though it doesn’t take any longer than it used to he often thinks while doing it that he should be doing the whole thing with someone, not just this by himself, and that takes away something.
A couple of friends want to hook him up with this woman or that but he never wants to. He usually says he likes the way things are, not so hot as they might be at times, and also doesn’t want to hurt his daughters again, and other excuses: couldn’t for the life of himself call up a woman for a blind date, wouldn’t want a woman calling up him for one, would never go to a dinner arranged just so the host could make a match. Uncomfortable. A large party partly for that or just to go to has been OK but so far all the available women he’s met at them didn’t interest him. Only other way would be to meet a woman accidentally. In an elevator even. Times he has and was interested he didn’t know what to say quickly enough before they got away, and then wouldn’t call them, when he knew who they were or how to reach them, because he didn’t feel he knew them well enough to call to arrange something. Then Olivia talks about her Russian teacher in high school. “She’s divorced, no children, very intellectual, unstrange and nice. She carries these enormous nontextbooks with her everywhere and you can always see her reading them when she’s not teaching, and scribbling down notes about what’s inside them I suppose, even when she walks to the parking lot. And she’s pretty as anything, with this big athletic body, and she used to be a beauty contest winner too.” “I never liked the type. Not the athletics. That can be all right if it’s not where she gets carried away. Goes pro or runs three times as much as she needs to keep her weight down or build up her lungs. Or is afraid, missed one run, ‘Oh my goodness, I’ll decay in a day’ or I’ll become a balloon.’ But the kind of mind, I mean, that would enter such a contest, much less to win. ‘Tuck in your turn, Hon, and grin for the pubic’—excuse me, but that sort of thing.” “She knows, but that was around ten years ago and she pooh-poohs it too.” “Ten? Then she’s much too young for me. It wasn’t a thirty-and-over contest? No? Then the age gap could never be jumped.” “I heard she goes for older guys and you’re still relatively good-looking, youthfullike and crazy-excessive sometimes and so on.” “For your sake then or just to prove something, I’ll have a look at her next time I visit the school. More. I’ll do what I’ve done since you started kindergarten and that’s to check out your teacher while checking up on how you’re doing from her point of view.”
Olivia points her out at the next parent-teacher meeting. Already admired her at the last one without knowing who she was. Attractive, intelligent face, nice body from what he can remember and now see of it in a seated position from about twenty rows back, neat, nicely simply dressed, hair becomingly done, smiles when something’s bonafidally funny, frowns same time he does at several of the speakers’ shortsighted or long-winded or just simpleminded remarks. After the auditorium meeting he goes to her classroom. Large library of great Russian books for the students. Travel posters of Russian cathedrals and long Leningrad buildings. Poster-sized blowups of modern Russian novelists and poets. Corner table with a samovar on it where Olivia’s said the teacher and students occasionally have pechenie and Georgian tea. Listens to her conversations with parents before him. Soft voice, clear speech, common sense, good choice of words, a few he doesn’t know or has forgot and jots them down. Exomorph, vertiginous, chimerical, philippic, quid pro quo. Olivia’s doing exceptional work; he says she always has. He’s done a heck of a job with her alone; her mother laid it down year by year for him in a notebook, even how to braid the girls’ hair. Then what else can she tell him about Olivia except more praise? Pasternak, Chekhov, Babel, Leskov, Mandelstam, Ahkmatova, Nabokov, “Tsvettava… I can never pronounce it, less ever spell it.” She does both, says he came close, quotes some lines in English from poems he’s never read. “Beautiful. Naturally I didn’t altogether get them. Oops, there are daddies behind me, so I’ll go. Maybe another time we can go on with our non-Olivia talk if she continues to do as well.” “I’d be delighted; you know where I am.” She’ll never be interested in him, and tells Olivia that on the way home. “I’ll speak to her and find out.” “No, please, forget it. I don’t want to start again and I certainly don’t want to get you involved. She might lower your mark to an A-plus.” “Grade. And she’s way above that.” “Mark, grade. I don’t know why I always make that mistake. It’s from before I taught. you make the mark, you mark the grade. But ‘Oakujava’ I think is how you pronounce his name. As for the spelling—as with Tsvetaeva before Ms. Munder told me—I could only guess. I should’ve mentioned him, is what I’m saying, rather than just poets and fiction writers. Wouldn’t have narrowed me.” “She’s played him for us. Also for his perfect diction. O-k-u-d-shav-a.” “Really, you got to swear you won’t. If I later think differently about myself in relation to her, I’ll call her or just arrange to bump into her by chance as she leaves school. Like ‘Oh, I was on my way to pick up Olivia. She’s not expecting me, and just between the two of us I’d rather talk lit and troubadours with you.’ But she needs someone younger, stronger, smarter, singler, handsomer, head hairier, clothes clothier, in every way still shiny and on the way up, and not some seemingly semicontentedly cloistered dumpy grump who prizes just good wine, a few soups, a number of records and books, that hard-crusted bread we get delivered from Canada, and you girls.”
Olivia comes home next day and says “Amby wouldn’t mind your calling her. She said ’Your dad seemed intelligent, cultured, obviously serious at what he does, and we have some of the same interests, including you,’ meaning me, which was the one part of what she said I didn’t like. Too trying-to-please-me and maybe through me, you, something I never saw in her before. ‘So,’ she continued to say, which you can tell from my voice change, ‘I don’t see why we couldn’t spend half an hour over coffee, unless it would disturb you,’ meaning me again, which was OK this time, since she was showing she was aware of the possible conflict, she being my teacher and me so often still talking of my mother, and things.” “You do? Me too, my sweetheart.” He calls her. They have coffee after her school lets out. Olivia waves to them and then points them out to her friends as they walk down the hill to the coffee shop. Start seeing each other, marry. She wants a child. He says he doesn’t think he has the energy to help bring up another one but if she wants it, fine, all right, “Three was what we originally planned… Denise and I. Excuse me. Nothing there meant that wasn’t there, but you know what I mean.” They have a girl. He’s never really in love with Amby. She’s nice, all that, but something keeps interfering. He just doesn’t feel what he’d love to for her. It’d so simplify things. This way’s unrealistic, bordering on the crazy, can only make him unhappy, also Amby and the girls. She’s still very pretty, good figure, nothing she does or says puts him off, but he hardly even ever wants to put his arms around her or kiss her. No long deep ones when he does as he sometimes even di
d with… he can’t believe it, forgot her name, Susan was her daughter; Gail. Rarely gets erections. When he does they’re rarely full. A few times she’s said “What’s wrong? Something I’ve done? Anything I can do?” and he said “It’s nothing, maybe my bloodless age, I’ll see a doctor if it doesn’t get better.” They usually have to work hard before anything happens with him. He looks at Denise’s photos when she’s not around. Especially the pregnant ones, nude and clothed. Remembers how he felt then. Sex just about every day till she went to the hospital three weeks overdue. They were warned not to. Hates looking at the photos he’s in with her. Not because he looks so much younger. Hell, he was much younger, so no problem there. It’s that he was much happier then and in them. He can’t think of life without Denise. Exaggeration. Sometimes he thinks he can’t live without her. Another way. The three girls, they’re wonderful, he loves them, always wants to be with them, if something happened to one of them he doesn’t know what he’d do. Forget it. What he said about life and living without Denise expresses a lot about how he feels. He prays she’ll come back. “Dear God,” he says in his head, Amby asleep beside him, “I don’t believe in you but will in every possible way if you bring her back and in the condition she was in before she got sick plus whatever natural aging and minor-illness effects that would have taken place. I’ll make everything good for this hurt. Which will probably only have to be to Amby, but whatever you want, I will.” This is silly, he right away thinks, praying and this prayer. If there’s a God, He can see straight through it; if there isn’t, then what’s the sense? He writes poems to her, most going something like this: “My love, my dove, it’s what I feel, awfully unpoetical as these lines must be to your trained ears, but it’s tearing at my entrails and is that any better than gripping my gizzards or quickening my doom? Come back, I’m on a rack, the birds have stopped singing for me and now I don’t even see them when they pass close overhead on a clement day or beg for attention or crumbs at my feet. What do I mean? I’m a bird. I’m going cuckoo for you. Cuckoo, cuckoo, I miss and worship you, my fellow indivisible cuckoo.”
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