Letting Go

by Philip Roth

  “I can’t pay no lawyer. Oh boy,” she cried. “I need a doctor. Now Martha Lee told me—”

  “You’ve got to calm yourself. You don’t have to pay anybody anything.”

  “I paid somebody a hundred dollars already. And I don’t know where he is at all.”

  “Who?”

  “He was goin’ to get me a doctor …”

  “You can’t find him now?”

  She shook her head.

  “That’s too bad,” I said.

  She widened her eyes. “That’s awful.”

  “Look now, you don’t have to worry about anything like that. You won’t pay anything. The lawyer arranges the necessary papers so that it’s all legal. You simply have to grant permission to the couple so that they can adopt your baby. The baby. The lawyer will speak to you about the arrangements. His name is Sidney Jaffe. He’s right here in Chicago, so there’s no trouble or expense—”

  “He’s a Jew?” she asked, a twang in the last word.

  “I think he is.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It just makes me sort a nervous.”

  “Well, don’t be.”

  “Mister?”

  “My name is Wallach. Gabriel Wallach.”

  “I want to go to a Catholic hospital, mister. With the sisters. I ain’t goin’ by no Jewish hospital, you better tell that to that lawyer.”

  “I will.”

  “I want to go by the sisters, you understand now? There was a boy, back home? And he got hit by a car, and he was just alayin’ there in the road? And then they take him in the ambulance to the Jewish hospital—and they set all his bones and everything, and they gave him ether and all stuff like that, so he was knocked out good, and then counta he was a boy, they made a Jew out of him.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You know,” she said, “what they do to ’em.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Oh mister …” she cried, and she put her head right down on the table and let the giggles sweep in and conquer her. It took awhile, but finally she sat up and told me, “That’s what they say anyway. He was a nigger, so must be. You ever been to Shelby County?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s my home.”

  “Theresa, are you a Catholic?”

  “I gotta right to be anythin’ I want,” she said sharply. “This here is a free country.”

  “I was only curious. I didn’t think there were many Catholics in Kentucky.”

  “Well, you’re wrong!” she shot back. “You must be thinkin’ of Republicans.”

  I said I supposed I was.

  “At least you’re a Catholic, somebody takes care of you, I’ll tell you. I want to go by the sisters. Now you got to tell that lawyer—I don’t want no Jewish hospital!”

  “I’ll tell him. I don’t think there’ll be any difficulty. Now Theresa”—I took a breath—“could I ask you when—”

  Suddenly she was blowing out air, as though she’d just finished a race. “I don’t think I feel too good. I think maybe, maybe I ought to go right on home.”

  “Well, if you’re not well, sure—”

  “I’m just a little tired out.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you know where the train is?”

  “You don’t have to take the train. I’ll—”

  “I think maybe—” But then she wasn’t thinking anything; she ran off to the lady’s room.

  As I was driving her to Gary, Theresa said to me, “I think I need some gum.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t have any.”

  “Can’t we stop?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “See that diner up there? Could we stop there?”

  I pulled off the road and onto the gravel parking area around the diner. I wondered if the girl was going to be sick again and quickly got out of the car and came around to open her door. Inside I saw Theresa running a comb through her orange hair and twisting the rear-view mirror to get a look at herself.

  There was a glow in the sky, a dusty red light thrown up from the mills in Gary; directly above our heads a neon sign gave off a steady buzzing. All it said was EAT. I held the door of the diner open for her and the only verb to describe her movement then is sashay. She sashayed on through.

  Inside, the counterman said, “Look who’s here,” but did not unfold his hairy arms. He was leaning against the sandwich counter, a fellow with a brow like a bumper. “If it ain’t Miss Dixie Belle,” he said.

  “How are you, Fluke?” Her tone astonished me; she’d become patronizing.

  “We heard you was dead,” he answered.

  “Well I ain’t.”

  “No kiddin’,” Fluke said.

  “No—no kiddin’!” She tossed her head, then let it whirl all the way around so that she was looking over at me, where I hung back by the door. I smiled. Theresa smiled back. It was like seeing a balloon deflated—and then the next moment seeing it full of air.

  Fluke, however, did not seem to expect anything else from Theresa but this display of verve and wit. He did not appear to be too crazy about her, but exhibited the deference, at any rate, that one gives to people who are always on their toes. With a less benign look in his undersized eyes, he looked at me. It was obvious that he took a particular dislike to my clothes.

  “What can we do for you, Tessie?”

  “I’d like some Blackjack,” she said, “if you don’t mind.”

  “Oh I don’t mind.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “You’re sump’n, Dixie,” Fluke said, and with a groan—the groan of a man who totes around more thick dull tissue than the rest of us—Fluke raised himself off the sandwich bar and went toward the cash register.

  “Five cents,” he said when he came back with the gum.

  Theresa took the pack and turned to me.

  “Oh yes,” I said, coming forward. I could not find any change in my pockets and had to give Fluke a dollar from my billfold. He didn’t like the billfold any more than the coat and hat. He put my change on the counter, mostly nickels.

  “Here,” Theresa said to me, and handed me a stick of gum.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “It’s your nickel,” she said, significantly. Then to Fluke, “You don’t look like you’re workin’ too hard.”

  “There’s a recession startin’. Don’t you read the papers?”

  “I read plenty of papers,” she retorted.

  “Oh yeah?” said Fluke, and looked my way again as though I had introduced her to the pernicious habit.

  “I read the Tribune,” Theresa said. “I read the Sun-Times, and I read the Chicago Maroon, which you probably ain’t even heard of down here.” The last named was the University student newspaper.

  “You’re a big reader,” Fluke said.

  We stood knee-deep in the wake of that exchange for several minutes. Theresa unpeeled her stick of gum, and we all paid undue attention to the operation.

  Fluke said, “Where you workin’?”

  It was the question she’d been waiting for. “No diner, I’ll tell you that.”

  “Yeah?” said Fluke, shutting his eyes. “Where you workin’? You workin’ even?”

  “In Chicago,” said Theresa. “The Hawaiian House.”

  “Big deal,” Fluke said.

  “At least the customers wash their hands,” Theresa informed him, “after they come out of the john.”

  She must have had him there, for it took him a while to regroup his troops. “You’re workin’ up by that school,” he said, “you better watch out or the Comm-uh-nists’ll get you.”

  “So what am I supposed to do about that?” She tossed her shoulders and her coat fell open.

  Fluke whistled. “Still the fashion horse, huh?”

  “I do all right.”

  “It’s gonna cost some guy a fortune just keepin’ you in underwear.”
r />   “That’s not funny—that’s plain dirt.” She turned away, and I put my hat back on.

  “At least, at least”—Fluke couldn’t keep a straight face for this one—“at least I didn’t say ‘panties,’ did I?”

  “That’s not funny any more, Fluke,” she said. “You don’t know where to stop, that’s your trouble.” She came over and took my arm.

  “Yeah?” Fluke said. “I oughta wash my mouth out with Mr. Clean.”

  I opened the door—Theresa was waiting for me to. Fluke called, “Watch out for those Reds, Dixie, before they kidnap you back to Russia.”

  She turned just her head, and that with disdain. “It so happens that people up there ain’t people down here.”

  “You got it, kid, you got it,” said Fluke mysteriously. “Take it easy, Tessie. Take it easy, sport.”

  Sport was me; Theresa had already swept out when I looked back to discover that Fluke had become a well-wisher; he raised a hand, and made a circle with his thumb and index-finger. Then he winked.

  As I stepped out under the EAT sign, Theresa barged back across my path. She shouted in through the open doorway, “You can tell Dewey he can go straight to hell!”

  When we were back in the car, driving south, Theresa offered me a nickel.

  “That’s all right,” I said, and she put the nickel away.

  She asked, “Can we turn the radio on?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you mad?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “He’s just got a dirty mind. Fluke ain’t even his real name. He’s just a Polock.”

  “I understand.”

  She turned on the radio. “Which you like better?” She mentioned the names of two Chicago disc jockeys.

  “Whichever you want,” I said.

  She tuned her station in with care and patience, fiddling with the tone as well as the volume. Then, with the music pounding, she said, “See—I used to work there.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s not very nice down there,” she told me.

  We drove on toward the outskirts of Gary where Theresa lived. As we approached, the red in the sky grew more intense, and we could see two pilot flames burning stiff above their towers.

  Theresa was singing along with the record.

  “Earth angel, earth angel,

  Will you be mi-ine?

  Earth angel, earth angel,

  Will you be mi-ine?

  “You better give me directions from here on,” I said, interrupting.

  “Down by the next light you turn right.” She went back to her singing. The disc jockey was shortly telling all us guys and gals driving home in our cars, or sitting in our living rooms, or just moping around the house missing that special someone, where to buy a used car. Then he put on a new record, the words of which were equally familiar to my companion.

  “I take it you feel better,” I said.

  Her head was back on the seat. “I appreciate all you’re doin’, Mr. Wallace. Are you Martha Lee’s steady?”

  To save wear and tear, I said, “No, just a friend.”

  “Look—” she said, “you—you’re not the fella who’s goin’ to adopt my baby?”

  “I’m not. If I was I would have told you.”

  She considered what I had said a moment. “You better turn left now,” she mumbled.

  Making the turn, I said, “I told you, I’m the intermediary.”

  “Well, I didn’t mean nothin’ by it!”

  “I didn’t think you’d meant anything by it.”

  “You’re not mad, are you?”

  “Look, I’m not ‘mad’ about anything.”

  “Turn left and down the block,” she said, in a voice suddenly full of disappointment.

  The street—endless tiny front yards and high brick stoops—must have looked no less bleak in the daylight than at night. Trains often pass through miles of just such streets and houses upon entering and leaving our great cities. In the gutter were five or six Christmas trees still waiting for the garbage man.

  “There,” Theresa said, and I pulled up near the end of the block. The house she pointed to still had screens on its windows.

  The radio was playing rock and roll, and Theresa asked if she could stay until the record ended. Her head moved with the beat, and when I looked over at her, I saw that her nose tugged up on her lip so that in profile you could see her two front teeth. She did not look as though she could add two and two.

  “Who do you like?” she asked. “Frankie Avalon or Fabian?”

  “I’m not sure which is which.”

  “Well, you were listenin’ to Fabian.”

  I said that it seemed to me that he could carry a tune. We sat in the radio’s glow for a moment, and then when the record was over, Theresa began to cry. I turned off the motor.

  “Certain songs make you think of certain people,” she said.

  “I guess so.”

  She blew her nose. “Mr. Wallace?”

  “What is it?”

  “You been so nice. And kind.”

  “Everything will be all right soon,” I said.

  “You’re the most polite man I ever met. All that standin’ up and sittin’ down.”

  “You’re in an unfortunate predicament.”

  “You don’t need to tell me,” she whimpered. “Can you walk me to my door? I think I’m feelin’ funny again.”

  She waited this time until I came around to her side and opened the door; it had all become a meaningless parody of decency. At the top of the stoop, she took out her keys and let us in. The hallway had the tomby smell of an unvacuumed place; at the rear we came to another door, which she unlocked. Inside I could see the foot of a bed and, on the linoleum floor, a pair of snappy imitation-leopard slippers.

  I said, “Theresa, the next thing will be for Mr. Jaffe—”

  But she had turned and was sniffling again, her frame dropped against my own.

  I put my hands on her arms. “It’ll be all right. Try to keep control. Mr. Jaffe—”

  “Do I see you again?”

  “It’s best for you to see the lawyer—”

  “Don’t I see you again?”

  “If it’s necessary,” I said.

  Meekly: “Could you come in and talk to me, Mr. Wallace? I just feel awful.” She stepped inside and pulled a string; the bulb lit up four flowered walls, the bed, a cardboard closet—a hulking thing that reminded me of Fluke—a stained little sink, and a table jammed with soaps and powders. Photographs torn from magazines, all of pudding-faced boys in open-necked shirts, were pinned to the walls.

  “What’ll happen about the doctor?” Theresa asked.

  “I told you. It’ll all be taken care of.”

  Her coat dropped off her, though I had not seen her undo the dollar-sized buttons. She left it where it lay on the floor, and dropped, sighing, onto the bed. The springs sang, and I could not believe in the blind willfulness of my body’s parts. Theresa hit the bed—and my blood responded, as though she were some other woman; as though she were a woman.

  “What is it you want to talk about?” I asked.

  “I thought there was more you wanted to talk about back in the restaurant.”

  “For instance?”

  She couldn’t think of anything; not right off. “Suppose it’s twins.”

  “That’s nothing to worry about.”

  “What d’yuh mean? People have ’em. Ain’t you never seen twins? Twin boys or somethin’?”

  “Twins, triplets, or whatever, you have nothing to worry about.”

  “Suppose it’s a moron.”

  “It’s not going to be a moron,” I said. She seemed to take this as a compliment. “Is there anything more?”

  “Well,” she said, “I just thought there was more you wanted to talk about.”

  “I don’t think there is.”

  “You been a regular gentleman, Mr. Wallace. You don’t see much of that in the North, you know.” Then
her eyes filled up again. “You been so polite and nice …?”

  “Goodnight, Theresa.”

  “Mr. Wallace?”

  “What?”

  “I ain’t never been this way before. I don’t know if I can do it alone.”

  “I’m sure it won’t be as difficult as you imagine.”

  “What happens when it starts hurtin’? I’m all alone.”

  “But you’re not alone, you see.” “I sure am.”

  “I meant to say we’re all trying to help.”

  “I’m still alone,” she said. “It ain’t easy for a girl. I’m always hearin’ people turnin’ my doorknob and all kinds of funny things. There’s always somebody behind me, you know? I don’t like it alone.”

  “What is it you’re asking me, Theresa?”

  “I don’t know …”

  “Are you asking that I stay with you?”

  She looked away from me. “I don’t understand.” But then she shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “If you don’t know, don’t provoke.”

  “I don’t understand you,” she said in a mean, Southern drawl.

  “I said don’t invite trouble!”

  “I don’t understand what you’re shoutin’ for! Who said you got a right to shout at me!”

  I took her blouse button out of my pocket and set it on the foot of the bed. “They’ll get in touch with you,” I said, and holding the door open only for myself, I left, unable to believe in my body’s pulsing, unable to believe in my own temptation.

  6

  The apartment I returned to was not Martha’s but my own—cold, musty, and unlived-in. I did not even bother to turn on the lights. The shades were drawn, making it black and to my purposes; I sat down in my bent-laminated-wood chair and tried to find sense in the lust that had so recently visited me, in the desire I had not willed, wanted, or satisfied. I contemplated the desire as though it were the act itself … For if in the eyes of the law there is a no man’s land of innocence between the itch and the scratching of it, in the eyes of the citizen himself, who has his own problems, the one may render him just about as culpable as the other. I looked for sense; I looked for cause. I did not remain alone there in my hat and coat trying to be especially hard on myself—hardness or softness had little to do with it. I was, I think, in a state of dread. At bottom I did not feel certain about what I would say or do to the next human being I made contact with. I cannot say for sure whether, in the bedroom of that unfortunate girl, something had been hooked up inside me or disconnected, but what I knew, what I felt rather, was that within that maze of wiring that unites a man’s mind, heart, and genitals, some passage of energies, some movement, vital to my being, had taken place. There are those synapses in us between sense and muscle, between blood and feeling, and at times, without understanding why, one is aware that a connection that has occurred in oneself—or that has failed to occur—has been a pure expression of one’s character. And it is that which can bring on the dread.