Letting Go

by Philip Roth

  He did not even have to bother; the next question she asked herself. “I don’t know why. I just thought, why shouldn’t we? We never go out to dinner, we hardly have been able to go out anywhere—and that’s because of me too, and my health. Why shouldn’t we? Do you see? And besides, I wanted to,” she said. “It’s as simple as that. I mean isn’t that still simple—to want to? But then I went ahead and behaved worse than anybody, I know I did. Oh, Gabe was all right—even she was all right, in a way. I understand all that. She’s not a bitch probably. She’s probably just a sexpot, good in bed or something, and why shouldn’t Gabe live with her anyway? He’s single, he can do whatever he wants to do. I’m the one who started the argument. All I do lately is argue with people. And cry. I mean that keeps me pretty busy, you can imagine.”

  Lumin remained Lumin; he didn’t smile. In fact he frowned. “What do you argue about? Who are you arguing with?”

  She raised two hands to the ceiling. “Everybody,” she said. “Everything.”

  “Not Paul?”

  “Not Paul—that’s right, not Paul. For Paul,” she announced. “Everybody’s just frustrating the hell out of him, and it makes me so angry. It makes me so furious! That John Spigliano! Gabe … Oh I haven’t even begun to tell you what’s happened.”

  “Well, go on.”

  “What?” she said helplessly. “Where?”

  “Paul. Why is this Paul so frustrated?”

  She leaned forward, and her two fists came hammering down on his desk. “If he wasn’t, Doctor, oh if they would just leave him alone!” She fell back, breathless. “Isn’t it two?”

  At last he gave her a smile. “Almost.”

  “It must be. I’m so tired. I have such lousy resistance …”

  “It’s a very tiring thing, this kind of talking,” Lumin said. “Everybody gets tired.”

  “Doctor,” she said, “can I ask you a question?”

  “What?”

  “What’s the matter with me?”

  “What do you think’s the matter?”

  “Please, Dr. Lumin, please don’t pull that stuff. Really, that’ll drive me nuts.”

  He shook a finger at her. “C’mon, Libby, don’t threaten me.” The finger dropped, and she thought she saw through his smile. “It’s not my habit to drive people nuts.”

  She backed away. “I’m nuts already anyway.”

  For an answer he clasped and unclasped his hands.

  “Well, I am,” she said. “I’m cracked as the day is long.”

  He groaned. “What are you talking about? Huh? I’m not saying you should make light of these problems. These are real problems. Absolutely. Certainly. You’ve got every reason to be upset and want to talk to somebody. But”—he made a sour face—“what’s this cracked business? How far does it get us? It doesn’t tell us a hell of a lot, would you agree?”

  She had, of course, heard of transference, and she wondered if it could be beginning so soon. She was beaming at him; her first friend in Chicago.

  “So …” he said peacefully.

  “Really I haven’t begun to tell you things.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  “When should I come again? I mean,” she said more softly, with less bravado, “should I come again?”

  “If you want to, of course.” He looked at the appointment book on his desk. “How’s the day after tomorrow? Same time.”

  “That’s fine. I think that would be perfect. Except—” Her heart, which had stopped its pounding earlier, started up again, like a band leaving the field. “How much will it be then?”

  “Same as today—”

  “I only brought,” she rushed to explain, “ten dollars.”

  “We’ll send a bill then. Don’t worry about that.”

  “It’s more than ten, for today?”

  “The usual fee is twenty-five dollars.”

  “An hour?”

  “An hour.”

  She had never in her life passed out, and that she didn’t this time probably indicated that she never would. She lost her breath, voice, vision, all sense of feeling, but she managed to stay upright in her chair. “I—don’t send a bill to the house.”

  “I’d rather you wouldn’t,” Lumin began, a kind of gaseous expression crossing his face, “worry about the money. We can talk about that too.”

  Libby had stood up; now she sat down. “I think I have to talk about it.”

  “All right. We’ll talk.”

  “It’s after two, I think.”

  “That’s all right.”

  But what she meant was, would he charge for overtime? Twenty-five dollars an hour—that must be nearly fifty cents a minute. “I can’t pay twenty-five dollars.” She tried to cry, but couldn’t. She felt very dry, very tired.

  “Perhaps we can work it out at twenty.”

  “I can’t pay twenty. I can’t pay fifteen. I can’t pay anything.”

  “Of course,” said Lumin firmly, “you didn’t expect it would be for nothing.”

  “I suppose I did. I don’t know …” She got up to go.

  “Please sit down. Sit.”

  She almost crept back into the chair as though it were a lap. “Don’t you see, it’s all my doctor’s bills in the first place. Don’t you see that?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, I can’t pay!” But she couldn’t cry either. “I can’t pay!”

  “Look, Libby, look here. I’m giving you an address. You go home, you give it some thought. It’s right here on Michigan Avenue—the Institute. They have excellent people, the fee is less. You’ll have an interview—”

  “I married Paul,” she said, dazed, “not Gabe—this is ridiculous—you’re being ridiculous—excuse me, but you’re being—”

  He was writing something.

  She shouted, “I don’t want any Institute!”

  “It’s the Institute for Psychoanalysis—”

  “Why can’t I have you!”

  He offered her the paper. “You can be interviewed at the Institute,” he said, “and see if they’ll be able to work you in right away. Come on now,” he said, roughly, “why don’t you think about which you might prefer, which might better suit your circumstances.”

  She stood up. “You don’t even know they’ll take me.”

  “It’s research and training, so of course, yes, it depends—”

  “I came to you, damn it!” She reached for the paper he had written on, and threw it to the floor. “I came to you and I told you all this. You listened. You just sat there, listening. And now I have to go tell somebody else all over again. Everything. I came to you—I want you!”

  He stood up, showing his burly form, and that alone seemed to strip her of her force, though not her anger. “Of course,” he said, “one can’t always have everything one wants—”

  “I don’t want everything! I want something!”

  He did not move, and she would not be intimidated: she had had enough for one day. Quite enough. “I want you,” she said.

  “Libby—”

  “I’ll jump out the window.” She pointed over his shoulder. “I swear it.”

  He remained where he was, blocking her path. And Libby, run down, unwound, empty-minded suddenly, turned and went out his door. He provoked me, she thought in the elevator. He provoked me. He and that son of a bitch Gabe. They lead me on.

  Ten minutes later, in Saks, she bought a sweater; not the white cashmere, but a pale blue lamb’s-wool cardigan that was on sale. It was the first time in years she had spent ten dollars on herself. She left the store, walked a block south toward the I.C. train, and then turned and ran all the way back to Saks.

  Because the sweater had been on sale she had to plead with two floor managers and a buyer before they would give her back her money.

  At home later she tried several different ways of committing suicide, but the problem was that she didn’t want to die. The problem was that she wanted to live. When she turned on the gas, she very soon turned
it off, fearing an explosion. She went into the bedroom where she stretched out on the unmade bed and put a pillowcase over her head. But it was hot and uncomfortable, and every few minutes she kept releasing the opening around her neck to let air in. She remained on the bed for nearly an hour—what she began to want was for Paul to come home and catch her in the act. Sometimes she would pull the pillowcase off entirely, but as soon as she heard a footstep on the stairs, or even the least little noise in the building, she would jerk it back over her, clamp tight the bottom, and wait. She wondered at various times (there was nothing much else to do but think) if she should write a note and take off her clothes and die—be caught dying—naked. Maybe he would come in, find her unclothed, and ravish her. And she would keep the pillowcase over her head all the while he devoured her body. But by four-thirty he was not home. She slipped the case, which was warm and damp from her breathing, back onto the pillow, and made the bed.

  She paced the apartment, looking—for what she did not really know. In the living room she sat down on the floor and began to sort through their books. When she came up with a gayly jacketed book in her hands, she thought that perhaps unconsciously it was this book she had been searching for. That day she believed strongly in the guiding light of the unconscious self; what with the conscious self doing such a rotten job, she had to. The book she held in her hand was not Faulkner, Fitzgerald, nor a book of verse; it was the volume the rabbi in Ann Arbor had given her as a present after she had been dunked in the pool at the Y, and converted. The Wonder of Life it was called, and subtitled, “Suggestions for the Jewish Homemaker.” Her eye moved eagerly over the blurb on the inside flap. “… creative, contemporary home life … traditions and ceremonies … how to build a Jewish record library … chapters on family fun, painting, music, literature, the community, household finances … the place of the woman in a beautiful tradition … basic recipes … special holiday menus … how to plan a wedding, how to name a baby …”

  When everything had ended with Paul’s family, when they had slammed down the receiver at the news of Libby’s conversion, this book, she remembered, had been tossed aside; it had—remembering more clearly—been kicked aside. But never thrown out. Books were really all they owned, and wherever they moved, from Ann Arbor to Detroit to Iowa City to Reading to Chicago, from poverty to sickness to humiliation, every single book was carried with them. Some were read, and others unread but coveted, and others just came along for the ride. That she had not even opened this one in all those years was understandable, since she was not religious or pious by nature. She was no worse a Jew, however, than she had been a Catholic—religion had always seemed to her “extra.” And perhaps thinking that was her mistake. Perhaps (listen, she told herself, is this my unconscious at last making itself heard?), perhaps the adoption agencies know what they are talking about; maybe Marty Rosen’s question about the rabbi had not been improper after all. Not that one could force oneself to believe—no, something else. The family … the home. What she had always taken for granted about Jewish life was the warm family environment. And what an irony! Look at Paul’s parents; Paul himself. In the most Protestant household in America there could be no more coldness than had surrounded her first five years of marriage. But perhaps the fault was partly hers. Perhaps there was one final way out of all this mess that was not psychoanalysis, or money in the bank, or carnality, or self-pity, or madness: Religion. Not all that Christ and Mary hocus-pocus; not even a belief in God necessarily—though who could tell, maybe God Himself would come in time. But first something basic and sustaining, something to make them truly ready for, deserving of, a baby; something warm, sacred, worth while: traditions and ceremonies, holy days and holidays and customs …

  Thirty minutes later she was in the kitchen. The Wonder of Life was spread open before her. Egg shells, peelings, onion skin and flour were all over the table and the book; there was flour on the bridge of her nose, and on her forehead where she had touched her perspiring brow. She had been grating for ten minutes, but unfortunately she had tiny wrists and was still on her first potato. Grating and grating, and oh it was so idiotic. It was insane really, the end of a disastrous day, and still she grated. And because she was Libby and she had suffered; because the more she suffered the further dignity and usefulness seemed to flee; because her right hand was pulsating, aching, with the effort to bring a little religion into her house; because finally she no longer believed in the restorative powers of anything or anyone, these latkes included, while she grated, she shed a few tears. Where the body found the reservoir to hold them, she could no longer imagine.

  But life is full of surprises, or thought of another way, is one long one. She heard a creak in the hallway. It was not the first creak she had heard that afternoon—and she turned, not the first time for that either. There stood Gabe Wallach. He has come for me, she thought. And now I’d better go. Nothing else is left.

  Then Paul was there, coming down the hallway behind Gabe, dark and shambling. Was she dreaming? Her two men. They have come for me, the two of them. All day they have followed me around and seen every stupid and selfish move. Gabe and Paul. Paul and Gabe. They are going to do something to me … But I am sweet and good. I deserve as much as anybody—

  “I brought Gabe Wallach home,” Paul said, moving past his silent companion into the kitchen. She recognized his shoes, and the expression on his face. Too clearly. She was not dreaming. “What are you doing? What’s on your forehead?”

  “Flour, nothing—”

  “Libby, what are you up to?”

  “Nothing! I’m just making dinner!” She tried to push everything together on the table. She shouldn’t have raised her voice. But what she was doing was nobody’s business but her own; at least not with Gabe so icy and hostile in the doorway. Curtly she acknowledged his presence. “How do you do?”

  He gave no acknowledgment back; he waited. And for what? Paul’s fired! Why else would that son of a bitch be here? He can smell bad news! He hates us and we hate him and that’s it. Just last night … But the world had spun so in one day that she wondered if she might not be mixed up about the night before. Hadn’t they all separated forever?

  “He has—” Paul was saying, his hands way down in his coat pockets, ruining his posture, “he has some news for us. I want you to hear it.”

  “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  Paul removed a hand from his pocket and started bouncing an invisible ball with it. “All right, all right, calm down, please.”

  In front of Gabe, why must he treat her like a child! Who was on her side? Who was left?

  To Gabe, Paul said, “You had better come in.”

  He only moved forward one grudging step. Paul sat down and motioned for Libby to sit too.

  Wallach took a deep breath. “Look, I spoke to Paul this afternoon about a baby.”

  Libby listened for more, but no more was immediately forthcoming. She had a sudden sense of having been violated—shame, shock, fear attacked her. The deepest chamber of her heart had been forced open, and a secret stolen—a secret she had not even known she’d had. The two men whom she had turned against each other had come together and pooled their knowledge. They had made a decision for her about her life. She was going to have to bear a baby even if the two of them had to hold her down to do it. Oh no! Yes! She had ovaries and tubes, didn’t she, all the necessary equipment? So what if it was a little risk—everybody had risks to take for everybody else. Hadn’t Paul taken plenty for her? But that very patient doctor in Reading had carefully explained to them that childbirth might kill her. You see, Mr. Herz, she needs care, this frail girl of yours; she’s hardly more than a child herself. How can she carry a foetus, bear a baby—she needs care and love, this one. Well, stop laughing—I do! What’s wrong with that? I can’t have a baby! I have bad kidneys! You can’t make me have a baby, either of you! I might die!

  When Gabe failed to go on, Paul said to her, “He knows of a baby. He thought we should
be told about it.”

  “What?” Libby said. “What baby?”

  Gabe remained in the doorway. “A private adoption.”

  “Why don’t you sit down?” Paul said to him. “Would you, please?” He suggested the chair next to his wife. “I want you to hear this,” he said then to Libby. “I want you to understand it all.”

  Gabe came as far as the chair, but chose not to sit down. His coat had a velvet collar. The dandy! The fairy! He probably couldn’t even do it himself, the cold-hearted rich bastard!

  “There’s nothing to hear,” Gabe said. “I told you everything there is to tell. It’s up to you. You can tell it to her easier than I.”

  Paul said, “I’d like Libby to hear it from you. Please. I don’t want her to get confused.”

  Why was he making her out to be such a handful? I protect him—why can’t he protect me! “I do not get confused,” she said.

  “Please, Libby, only listen. I want you to listen and decide. I asked him to come here,” Paul said, “so all the terms of the thing would be straight in your mind.”

  “What about you …?” she began, but her husband quieted her, this time with only a glance, with only the pain in his eyes.

  “Somebody’s pregnant,” Gabe said, closing his eyes for a moment. “She doesn’t want the baby. You can adopt it—” He turned to Paul and threw up his arms. “Look, that’s what I told you. It’s still the same. You can do with this whatever you want.”

  Slowly, his elbows moving through several of the ingredients on the table, Paul turned to face his wife. “You see,” he explained, “it wouldn’t be through an agency. I want you to understand this. It would be private. That’s a little more involved; however—”

  “Are they married?” she asked.

  “The girl doesn’t want the baby,” Paul said. “She’s not married.”

  Libby looked up at Gabe. “Who is she?”

  “A girl,” came the answer.

  “Well, I mean, who is she? For you to say a girl—”