Letting Go

by Philip Roth

  I went over to the set and turned down the volume knob. Settled into the two velvet-covered love seats that had been dragged in front of the machine were several of the paunchier, more afflicted men present. For the moment I only recognized and greeted Dr. Strauss, who had arthritis, and Sam Kirsch, my father’s diabetic accountant. My father himself was gliding about on black patent-leather shoes he’d bought in Germany; he was endearing himself to J.F. and Hannah Golden, but soon he slipped away from them and released his high spirits on poker-faced Henny Sokoloff, widower and diamond king. When he finally came around to the TV screen, Dr. Strauss raised the toe of his shoe toward my father’s seat. I heard my old man cackle, and, in his exuberant mood, he turned the sound up again. “Any score?” he asked. “Nothing nothing, it hasn’t started—get the hell out of the way,” Strauss scolded him. In the meantime, Mrs. Norton was standing beside the orange sofa, stirring her cube around. With the set blaring away again, carrying to all ears the measurements of the Penn linemen, she raced in tears for the nearest bathroom. Two startled people spilled drinks, and a silence drifted for a moment over the rest of the widows, widowers, and aging couples.

  Later I saw my father stroking Cecilia Norton’s hand, while she tried several gallant, coughy little smiles. Mrs. Norton had been a college friend of my mother’s; after her marriage she had moved to St. Louis, where her husband was in the beer business. There he had made millions, suffered four heart attacks, and then died of pneumonia brought on by a case of the mumps. A week later she had had a breast removed. When she came on home to New York, having finished up in St. Louis by paying three doctors, two hospitals, and a funeral home, she telephoned my father. It is an indication of all his thoughtfulness and all his blindness that he tried to interest Gruber in her. But if anybody should have wooed Cecilia Norton, if anybody should have unfurled a soft palm for that small lame bird to rest in, it should have been himself. He didn’t, however, and it probably did not even occur to him; all that had happened to him was drawing him now in another direction. He went off to Europe … But let me take things up in order, at least the order of that day.

  A buffet dinner was laid out during the third quarter of the game. There were bottles and bottles of liquor (aside from Mrs. Norton’s juice, and club soda for Sam Kirsch) and much of it had already been consumed when the appetizer was carried in. By the fourth quarter what appeared to be mouselike portions of turkey, candied sweets, and salad decorated my mother’s Moroccan rug. Its dull green was bleeding a little red with cranberries, and ice cubes melted at a slow pace under chairs. Millie went starchily to and fro—for she had memories of other Thanksgivings too—and knelt between people with her dust pan and a damp cloth. “They should know better,” she informed me, and then carried our slops back to her kitchen.

  The purpose of the party was to celebrate not only the national holiday, but the triumphant return to these shores of my father and Dr. Gruber. This accounted for much of the levity and a good deal of the whiskey; imbibing had never been important in our family Thanksgivings in the past. But for four months the two widowers had been gone from us, and now all the strays and waifs in New York had been gathered together to see that they were alive, kicking, and full of information as a consequence of their lengthy educational experience. They had drunk the water from Oslo to Tel Aviv, they had slept in forty-eight different beds, traveled in twelve countries, and snapped several thousand pictures—and now they were ours once again.

  The air of celebration hung on for a good long time, and even when the holiday spirit waned, the semihysteria of several of the women kept a decidedly Dionysian mood about the place. Then around half-past three came the first dying of spirits. Women stared for brief, deep moments over the shoulders of their companions; well-dressed, not too faded, sparkling women drifted away from us for seconds at a time, as though having visions of the past, of Thanksgivings clear back to Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts. Photographs began to appear; mince pie was balanced on laps, while little boys and girls growing up in distant corners of the world made their debut. “My daughter Sheila’s little girl in Los Angeles …” “Mark’s son in Albany …” “My Howard’s twins in Boulder, Colorado …” “Geraldine in Baltimore, Adam in Tennessee, Susanna and Debby in Ontario.” “Canada?” “Yes, Canada.” “That’s nothing,” said Dr. Strauss; he extended one arm back over the love seat and handed around a snapshot of Michael Strauss, age six months, in a baby carriage in Juneau, Alaska. Alaska! Sure, My son’s a metallurgist. But Alaska—how far is it by plane? Far, says Strauss, turning back to the football game.

  Suddenly there was traffic, most of it to the two bathrooms. Women repaired their eyes in all the mirrors of the house. Men blew their noses into expensive handkerchiefs. One’s son, one’s grandchild, one’s own flesh and blood, miles and miles away … For a short while well-fleshed backs were all one could see in the room. But through some miracle—the miracle of alcohol, companionship, of everybody feeling his obligation to the Pilgrim fathers—the party did not dissolve into old people collapsing on the floor and beating their hearts with their fists. For a suspenseful few minutes it hung just above that—Mrs. Norton almost turned purple with sadness right in the center of the emptying room—but then feet began to ache, stomachs became gassy, and a little heartburn had to be taken care of. Groans and sighs took precedence over the deeper pains, and full bellies rose and fell in exhaustion. The women sat with heads back and arms folded; the men slept. A general mellowing took place, and the knowledge spread—silent, but electric—that there were thousands and thousands in the world in exactly the same fix as those aged gathered here. With the food moving through the system, the blood thickening, there came the hour of philosophy; outside the window the day turned purple and gold. This was the way of life—separation and loss. To be eating, drinking, to be warm, to be left, that was something. At least those who remained, remained.

  I saw my father’s iron-gray hair dart down to a woman’s hand. This happened in the corner of the room near the spindly little Jane Austen desk, where the gas-and-electric bills had always been filed by my mother. The hand was not Cecilia Norton’s; she had departed fifteen minutes earlier, a slice of pie—for her maid—clutched in wax paper to her mink. Goodbye, goodbye, Mordecai. Goodbye, Cecilia, poor Cecilia …

  No, the hand to which my father had placed his lips had arrived draped on the arm of Dr. Gruber’s vicuña coat. At first I had taken her for a visiting relative of Gruber’s. Her name was Silberman, but Fay was the little word, the only word, that left my father’s lips after he had raised his head to speak. Fay was obviously tight, and tight a shade beyond the others. Every hair of her bluish-gray coiffure, piled and elegant, was in place, but she was not so lucky with her eyes, whose lids obscured half the bleary pupils, nor with her mouth, nor with her jaw which, set off by a splended pearl necklace, hung down just a little.

  Dr. Gruber had already plugged in the slide projector. Millie was pulling shut the curtains, a little wearily, like a seaman running up the sail for the twentieth time that day. Shut out gradually was the grapy, wistful, end-of-holiday sky. The bartender was unrolling the white screen, and Millie heaved to the last inch of curtain, and I was left with a last inch of sky, streaky and somber and unforgettable. I had then one of those moments that one feels he will possess till death, but are somehow gone by morning. My most poetic emotions took hold of me—as a result, I think, of a general giving in, an uncomplicated and unconditional surrender I allowed myself after all the genial, good-natured crap I had been handing out through the day, since the previous night, in fact, when I had stepped off the plane. I caught that last inch of sky, and if skies have messages that one did; it told me lives go on.

  A slide flashed; color, various and make-believe, came back into the living room.

  “This is Venice,” Dr. Gruber announced.

  “Florence!” cried a woman behind him.

  “Listen, Fay, all you saw was the vino.”

  �
��It’s Florence, lover-boy,” came Fay’s voice, “nevertheless.”

  Dr. Gruber cleared his throat. “This is Florence,” he said. “The water got me confused. That’s the Arnold. It’s very beautiful at night. And that’s their old bridge. The Germans blew up the other ones. The Italians hate the Germans.”

  Next slide. The bartender peered around at the screen, while running a dishtowel over some glasses.

  “The Bubbly Gardens,” Dr. Gruber said. He raised his hand, making a shadow across the picture. “Also Florence. It was too hot to walk around there, though. Very famous gardens. Right in the center of Florence there.” He changed the slide.

  “What’s that?” Everyone was laughing.

  “Ah, that’s cannelloni! Good old cannelloni! I ate it morning, noon, night, every day. That’s my hand, see, with the fork in it? Cannelloni! Mother’s milk!”

  He turned to show everyone his mouth, curled up, raising the ends of his mustache. He changed to the next slide and we were back in the Boboli.”

  “We saw that,” called Fay. “Get to the ones with me in it—”

  “That’s only a thousand, sweetie-pie,” answered Dr. Gruber.

  “Ah, there I am,” explained Mrs. Silberman. And there she was, in her orange life jacket, one elbow resting on the ship railing, the whole great gorgeous Atlantic sky a backdrop for her blue rinse.

  “This is Madame Pompadour in her evening gown,” Dr. Gruber informed us. “This is where the lovers met—our first life drill there on the Queen Elizabeth. Terrific service. And that’s her, you see, Queen Elizabeth herself, caught by Mordecai in an unguarded moment. We had to wait ten minutes for her to comb out her eyelashes.”

  “Not funny,” moaned Mrs. Silberman, Greta Garbo now in the dark reaches of the room. “Next slide, Dr. Gillespie.”

  “Mordecai in the market. He bargained that fellow there down to fifteen dollars for a straw hat for our companion. Mordecai’s the guy with all his teeth. Ah—there’s Queen Liz in her straw hat. Behind her is the Official Gallery there in Florence, which we didn’t get a chance to get inside. Queen Elizabeth was shopping.”

  “Where’s Queen Elizabeth?” asked some confused man, coming up out of a nap.

  “What?” I heard the Queen herself whispering; and then she broke into laughter, laughter that for a moment shocked me, so much did it sound like tears.

  “Rome!” a voice shouted.

  “That’s all of us”—Gruber threw a shadow again across the picture—“in the Roman Forum.”

  “Get your hand out of the way.”

  “That’s all of us in the Roman Forum,” he said. “Ain’t a helluva lot of it left, you see, but that’s where it all happened thousands of years ago. Caesar’s buried there—”

  “That’s Venice!” Mrs. Silberman announced.

  “Shhhhh.” My father was trying to quiet her giggling.

  “That’s Vienna, Stanley,” she called to Dr. Gruber. “Right outside Cannelloni—”

  “Quiet in the rear,” Dr. Gruber said over his shoulder. “That’s the Forum.” The slide flipped on.

  “That’s—oh, that’s that little town right outside Florence. That’s where we ate lunch. You see, there I’ve got it again, that’s me eating my cannelloni.” Gayly, Gruber moved ahead. “That’s … oh, Christ, that’s Oslo. Turn the lights on, will you? Mordecai, you got these all mixed up.”

  “That’s Australia,” Fay was saying. “That’s Cannelloni, Australia.” But now the lamps on two end tables were aglow, and everyone was sitting up and blinking.

  As I rose to leave the room, I looked back to see my father glaring down at his companion. She was sleeping—or pretending to—with her mouth open and her cheek resting on his shoulder. He did not see me look, but he must have seen me leave, for in a moment he was standing next to me in the hall.

  He said, “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “Your face looks different. Where are you off to?”

  “Nowhere. I have to run an errand later.” I had made certain to keep the errand—which I wasn’t even certain I would run—out of my mind all day. Now it came to my lips spontaneously, as unnecessary excuses are apt to. Adding mistake to mistake I said, “I was going to use the phone.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “You don’t mind—”

  “Not at all—”

  “—if I call Chicago.”

  “Call Cannelloni, Australia,” he said, giving me a smile brimming with uncertainty. More soberly he said, “Just don’t run off there on the next plane.”

  I touched his shoulder. “What are you talking about? I’m here for the whole weekend. I just want to say Happy Thanksgiving to a friend.”

  “A woman,” he said, taking my hand.

  “A woman who invited me for Thanksgiving dinner. What do you think of that? I gave her up for you.”

  “That’s my boy,” he said, rapping me on the arm with soft knuckles. “That’s fine. That’s terrific.” Then he moved so close that he stepped on my toes. In a conspiratorial voice he said, “Fay Silberman, Gabe, is a very nice woman. A very fine person. She’s had a lot of tragedy in her life. One sunny day she goes outside their place in South Orange and her husband is being driven all over the lawn in their power mower. He’s dead in his seat. It was a horrible thing. He crashed into a tree with that damn machine. She’s had a hell of a time. She’s a good companion. You didn’t think I could get around a whole continent with just Gruber, did you?”

  “She seems very nice.”

  “Give her a chance, Gabe.”

  “I didn’t say anything, honestly.”

  “You don’t seem to be having a good time all of a sudden.”

  “I ate too much,” I said, trying to smile. “I’m fine.”

  “Thanksgiving is a very hard day for all of us. She just drank too much. This was a great shock to her. It’s not even a year. What do you think, Penn whipped Cornell like that?”

  “Knew it all the time.”

  “Ah, the hell you did,” he said. Then he hugged me; and he hung on. He rubbed his bristly cheek against mine and started to say something, but had to stop and deal with a little trouble in his throat. At last he said, “Everything’s going to be all right. I’m a young man, I’m going to be all right. Knock on wood, I’ve got my health. I’m not going to be a burden to you any more.”

  “You’re no burden,” I said, but already he was moving back into the dark living room, where I heard Gruber holding forth. “That’s Lady Godiva and a bottle of Chianti wine in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I wouldn’t go up in that thing for a million dollars. I’ve got news for you, if they’re not careful—”

  The phone in Chicago was answered by a small girl with a mouthful of food. The operator said that New York was calling for Mrs. Reganhart; would the little girl please stop clicking the receiver and call her mother to the phone. The phone dropped and the child screamed, “Oh, Mommy! It’s Daddy!”

  My confusion did not really become full-scale until the mother answered with a timid and uncharacteristic “Yes? … Operator? This is Martha Reganhart.”

  “It’s not Daddy, however,” I said.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!”

  “Shall I hang up?”

  “Certainly not—my child’s drunk on Mott’s apple juice. How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Daddyland. New York.”

  “Oh, do excuse her. She gets overexcited when she’s not in school. I think she’s reacting to the company,” she whispered.

  “Who’s there?”

  “An old friend. He stimulates the children.”

  “And you?”

  “No, no. No—that’s true. Listen, I’m sounding tragic.” But she wasn’t; only forlorn. “How’s Thanksgiving? How’s your father’s party? Is there really a father and a party or is some tootsie nestled beside you in her underwear?”

  “I call
in the absence of the latter.”

  “It’s very sweet of you to call. Happy Thanksgiving.”

  “I’m having a nice unhappy one.”

  “Just a minute, will you?” She left the phone, but nevertheless I could hear her voice. “No, it is not Daddy! I am telling you the truth, Cynthia! Go talk to Sid, he’s all alone. Cynthia!” She sighed into my ear. “I’m back.”

  “Good.”

  Why it was good I couldn’t say; neither of us spoke.

  “Well,” she admitted finally. “What else is there to say?”

  She was right, of course, for we hardly knew each other; I had not realized how strange it was for me to be calling her long distance until I was in the middle of the call. I had taken her to dinner some weeks back, and we had laughed and joked until the waiters stared, but that had not increased our knowledge of each other very much. Then she had called to ask me—and a nervous little exchange it had been—to come to Thanksgiving dinner. And now this. Strangely, I found myself wanting to believe that I had some rights to her total concern and attention.

  I said, “I just wanted to say Merry Thanksgiving to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  I was preparing to hang up when she asked, “Shall I go ahead and invite you to another meal? Will you eat leftovers when you come back?”

  “I’ll be back Monday.”

  “Come then for dinner.”

  “Thank you, I will.” Then I said, “Who’s Sid?”

  “He’s a man who just asked me to marry him.”

  “I see.”

  “You’ll come Monday night.”

  “As long as you’re still single, I suppose so.”

  “Single as ever,” she said.

  “Does that upset you?”

  “Specifically no; generally I’m not sure. This is some long-distance conversation.”

  “Long distance should be outlawed anyway. Were you expecting a call from your husband?”

  “My ex-husband—from whom I have no expectations whatsoever.” I heard a loud noise rise up behind her. “Oh God, my son just hit my daughter with a chair or something. Give my love to the girl in her underwear.”