Letting Go

by Philip Roth

  Have plane ticket.

  Take quilt.

  Call taxi by ten.

  Call airport first, check etc.

  Mail applications!

  Enough cash.

  Call Jaffe.

  Call Bigo

  Number eight was crossed out. It was then written in again. The process was repeated three times over.

  At eight—the Herzes were still enjoying dinner at the Cape Cod Room—Rachel woke up and cried briefly. He gave her a bottle. He stood by the crib, thinking over and over all that he had been thinking over and over for days. There were no new thoughts for him to have. He referred to his list of things to do. At eight-fifteen he telephoned Gary.

  “I’d like to speak”—yes, this was safe, this was wise—“to Theresa Bigoness, please.”

  He heard the broom bang against the ceiling.

  “Hello?”

  “Theresa?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “This is Gabe Wallach.”

  “Who?”

  “Martha’s friend … Mr. Wallace.”

  “You want to speak to Harry?”

  “I wanted to speak with you. Privately. To say hello … Just to make sure everything is all right. Is everything …?”

  “… I’m okay.”

  “I was sorry I couldn’t get to see you—”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “—when I came to talk to your husband.”

  “Maybe you better talk to him.”

  “I wanted to tell you that Mr. Jaffe’s looking forward to seeing you on the twenty-ninth, you know. You remember Sid Jaffe—he got your letter, of course.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Everything’s all right then?”

  “I feel okay.”

  “And we’ll be seeing you on the twenty-ninth?”

  “I’ve got a job.”

  “I know. The twenty-ninth, of course, has been taken care of.”

  “The mill’s all closed up, I have to work—”

  “Hasn’t your husband told you that you’re coming into town on the twenty-ninth?”

  Silence.

  “Theresa, you’re coming, right? You have to, you know. That was all made clear to you by Mr. Jaffe.”

  “I have to work.”

  “… I’ve paid your salary for that day, more than your salary already.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Theresa, are you listening to me? You do remember me?”

  “I have to go upstairs now.”

  “When you were in trouble, Theresa, everybody up here was very kind to you. You were taken care of—weren’t you?”

  Again she did not see fit to answer immediately.

  “Well, isn’t that so?”

  “No.”

  “It is so, Theresa. Don’t you remember how unhappy you were?”

  “Not everybody was nice to me.”

  “Who wasn’t?”

  “Not everybody,” she whispered.

  “Your husband has agreed to come up to Chicago. Hasn’t he told you that?”

  “I didn’t have to be treated like that.”

  “What are you talking about? Like what?”

  “I have to hang up now. I can’t talk long, count of it’s Mr. Phelps’s phone, not mine.”

  “Theresa—”

  Time passed. The Herzes were finishing up at the Cape Cod Room AM 3-4582; Rachel lay on a blanket on the living room floor, where her sitter had carried her—where, for some fifteen minutes, he had been looking at her. Once again he called Gary.

  “I’d like to speak to Harry Bigoness, please.”

  The broom.

  “Hullo?”

  “This is Wallace, I’m calling from Chicago.”

  “Look, you just call my wife?”

  “No.”

  “What do you want anyway?”

  “I wanted to give you a ring, to make sure everything was all right.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes, that’s all.”

  No answer now from the husband.

  “Everything’s okay then, about the twenty-ninth?”

  “My kid was in the hospital.”

  “Who?”

  “Walter.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Something with his insides. They don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “—won’t be able to …”

  “What?”

  This round the words were sharp and clear; Bigoness took his time with them. “I said I don’t think I can make it.”

  It was Gabe’s turn to be silent.

  And Bigoness’s to lose his temper. “Did you try to talk to Tessie before?”

  “I’ve promised you your money, Mr. Bigoness—”

  “My kid is sick!”

  “Well, that costs money—”

  “God damn right it costs money. What do you think it costs, nothing?”

  He said nothing—and not out of strategy; he had no strategy, only confusion.

  “Look,” said Bigoness carefully, “I ain’t got time to talk. I’m meeting with a friend. I got some business …”

  “You just can’t change your mind like this.”

  “I’m too busy.”

  “What are you going to do then?”

  “I told you.”

  “… What do you want, Bigoness—more?”

  “You asking?”

  “I asked you a question, that’s right.”

  “You want to talk about money?”

  “How much do you want—don’t be coy, God damn it.”

  “I’ve been talking to the lawyer down the union. I’m talking to a friend here—he knows something too.”

  “So? What?”

  “I know my rights, Wallace.”

  “No one’s tried to deprive you of your rights.”

  “I know what you been full of crap about, and what you ain’t.”

  “How much money do you want?”

  “If I wasn’t hard up I wouldn’t ask a guy like you for a God damn penny.”

  “I understand.”

  “Five hundred bucks.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I ain’t the doctors, Mister—” Bigoness began rapidly. “I ain’t the President of the United States. I ain’t Khrushchev or any of those guys. I didn’t give my kid bad inside troubles. I need five hundred bucks. Take it,” and there was a tremor in his voice, “or you know what.”

  “And what’ll it be next?”

  “What next?”

  “Tomorrow. What will it be then, another five hundred? What’ll it be by the twenty-ninth? This is crazy, Bigoness. Whoever you’re talking to is giving you the wrong information. You can’t go around extorting money from people; that’s against the law. Why don’t you follow your own instincts?”

  “See,” said Bigoness, “you don’t trust me.”

  “What?”

  “You son of a bitch.” It was said for what seemed to be the simple pleasure of saying it.

  “What’s going on with you, Bigoness? You’re ashamed of asking for this money yourself. Bigoness—don’t hang up—”

  “I got business upstairs.”

  “Bigoness, you’re a father yourself—”

  But the phone clicked.

  He removed his jacket from the closet, where Libby had neatly hung it beside his coat. He opened his checkbook and wrote out a check. Then he came back into the living room and tried to play with Rachel. He was able to make her smile. He checked the time; the Herzes were entering the movie. He could drive down in forty minutes, back in forty minutes, allowing himself at least an hour in Gary. He would hand the check over to Bigoness and this time be given proper assurance. But he could never be properly assured. Nor could he leave Rachel alone … He would mail the check tonight, and fly to New York tomorrow—

  Nothing would work. He was rocking Rachel now, to get her back to sleep. It’s all become too abstract, he thought, holding the child. Bigoness did not believe Rachel
was as real as Walter. He had to be put in touch with the simplest of human facts. He was stupid, but he had feelings. If he could meet Paul, see Libby—see Rachel. If he could be Gabe, rocking her. In one way it was all so simple.

  He asked the operator for Gary again.

  “May I speak to Harry Bigoness?”

  “What is this, a joke?”

  “Please, I’m calling from Chicago.”

  “So what!”

  “Can you get Harry Bigoness to the phone?”

  “You the guy’s been calling all night?”

  “I’m sorry, please, I’d like—”

  “A little peace and quiet, that’s what we’d like!”

  The phone was dropped; he waited to hear the broom beat on the ceiling.

  “Yeah?”

  “Mr. Bigoness—this is Wallace.”

  “You son of a bitch, I told you not to talk to my wife, didn’t I?”

  “I felt it was important to speak to her.”

  “How about what other people feel, huh?”

  “I want to talk to you now—”

  “What were you going to tell her to do, that’s what I want to talk about!”

  “I wanted to find out whether you were still coming.”

  “Then what?”

  “That was all.”

  “You’re trying to screw up my life for me—”

  “That’s absurd—”

  “Everything’s that way to you! Not to me! You leave off Tessie, you hear?”

  “I’ve written out a check for five hundred dollars.”

  “… Oh yeah, is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I got to see it,” Bigoness said. He was not managing to sound as cool as he intended. “Before I believe it,” he added.

  “I’ve got to be sure about you too.”

  “I’m plenty reliable, don’t worry about me. You’re the one don’t strike me as a safe bet.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I want to see that check before I make any promises. I want to make sure it don’t bounce, to put it blunt.”

  “I can assure you it won’t.”

  “Maybe you better bring cash.”

  “Bigoness—look, I want you to realize, I don’t want you to forget—a child—”

  “Look—”

  “A child, like Walter—”

  “You don’t believe Walter was in the hospital. I’ll tell you whose fault it is too; that kid ain’t never recovered from the shock of you, Mister—”

  “All I’m saying, all I want to make clear—” he broke in, “is that the child, the parents … Bigoness, is this clear to you? They’re all as real as you and I. They’ve got feelings—”

  “I got feelings, damn it! Who don’t have feelings! You just stay away from my wife, do you hear? She’s home now and she’s staying home. Soon as I get work she’s going to start learning to be a good mama—”

  “Nobody’s trying to get her away from you.”

  “If I catch her ass down that Fluke’s place—”

  “Why don’t you listen—”

  “I’m listening all right. We’re talking about whether that check of yours is going to bounce.”

  “Do you understand about this child?”

  “Oh yeah, I know. She’s my responsibility and she’s my legal problem. Don’t worry, Wallace, I got some advice about that too. I told you what I’d do if you keep bugging me now—”

  “You won’t understand.”

  “It’s you,” Bigoness said maliciously, “won’t understand.”

  “Bigoness—you’re at home tonight?”

  “I told you, I got business—”

  “You stay where you are. Don’t you move!”

  He took what was his from the closet. His watch showed that the movie had just begun. No one would ever know; he would set it right; the knowledge of how close he had pushed them all to failure would be his own—as would the knowledge of his final success. That was fair. He carried Rachel into her bedroom and dressed her in a red snowsuit and a pair of white shoes; he dressed her right over her woolen pajamas. He lined a wicker laundry basket that he found in the kitchen with a double thickness of blanket; then he wrapped the child in still another blanket and carried her in the basket down the stairs of the old building.

  Up till now he had stopped before the end. Now with the basket beside him on the front seat, he started the car. Someone was to get what he wanted! Someone was to be satisfied! Something was to be completed!

  Finish! Go all the way!

  He began to tremble. But why? What had he to bring to Bigoness’s attention but the very simplest facts of life? Bigoness would have to see the child to believe it, to stop bargaining over it. A life! A life! What was there left to appeal to, but the man’s human feelings?

  He tucked Rachel securely in the basket. Then with the motor rocking beneath him, he picked her up and held her to him. And it was not out of pity or love that he found himself clutching her; the mystery of her circumstances was not what was weighing him down. He clutched her to himself as though she were himself. It was as though the child embraced the man, not the man the child. He ground his teeth, locked his arms: if only he could be as convinced as he was determined; if only he could tell which he was being, prudent, imprudent, brave, sentimental … A bleeding heart, a cold heart, a soft heart, a hard, a cautious … which? Oh if he could only break down and give in and weep. But there was no comfort for him in tears, or in reason. He had passed beyond what he had taken for the normal round of life, beyond what had been kept normal by fortune and by strategy. Tears would only roll off the shell of him. And every reason had its mate. Whichever way he turned, there was a kind of horror.

  Seven

  Letting Go

  1

  The waiter boned her fish for her, then left them to themselves. Libby said, “I don’t feel very much like a mother tonight.”

  “And what do you feel like instead?”

  “A—the girl in The Tempest. What’s her name? I don’t mean to be too precious, but since you’re asking …” she said, preciously.

  “Prospero’s daughter—” But he could not give undivided attention to the task of remembering the daughter’s name. His eyes, unable to come to rest on the face opposite his own, kept moving off to a table very near the wooden booth in which they sat. A woman in the party of four dining only a few feet away struck him as familiar; yet neither she nor her companions looked like anyone he might know. She had blond hair and a pointed chin, and a topaz pin clipped to her dark suit. Though she seemed to be engaged by every syllable spoken at her table, she had the air of someone who knows she is being looked at.

  But he did not care to have the air of someone who is staring, and he tried to stop. Because of what this evening meant to Libby, because he had promised before they had left the house (promised himself, while Gabe was shown the bottles, the warming pan, the baby powder) that he would do nothing to spoil these few hours, he pretended to think of the name of Shakespeare’s heroine, all the while trying to give a name to the woman at the next table. Eventually she looked over and their eyes met. He swung rapidly back to Libby—catching her eye with equal embarrassment. It was not, however, the same embarrassment that had been settling and resettling over their table since they had entered the restaurant; it was not shared.

  “—easier than imagining yourself Hamlet, don’t you think?”

  “Yes.”

  “Or maybe that’s because I’m a woman.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, trying to get the drift of her words.

  “I wonder if it’s not a theory at all, but a failure of my own mind. That’s always a possibility.”

  “You’re too hard on that mind of yours.”

  “Oh, darling Paul, I know what I am. Well—truly—you can probably understand what it’s like to be Desdemona, can’t you, as well as Othello?”

  “That question has a slight drunken lilt to
it.”

  “Are these silly questions?”

  “Well, no.”

  But his response had apparently not been quick enough, gentle enough, loving enough, reassuring enough; apparently not, for her brow was instantly furrowed. “I think,” he said, gentle, loving, reassuring, “I missed what you started to say at the beginning …”

  “Aren’t you listening?” she asked, directly.

  “I am.”

  “I said it’s easier to identify with Shakespeare’s—Are you really at all interested in this?”

  “Yes.” He had no right to disappoint her tonight. “We used to talk about Shakespeare all the time.”

  “I know.”

  He realized that his remark had done nothing to reassure her about the present. Without exactly feeling shame, he felt disloyal to their earliest days. Then he did not even have to glance over: he knew who the woman with the topaz pin was. He remembered the name of the Shakespearean heroine too, but did not choose to interrupt again whatever it was that Libby wanted to get on to.

  “Go ahead—I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I didn’t think—I thought I was boring—”

  “I was thinking about my mother’s coming. Excuse me. Go on … do.”

  Out of respect for his troubles, she looked apologetic; he knew what would make her forgiving. Yes, he had learned how to move her about as he wanted. “It’s not important,” she was saying. “Now that I consider it—turn upon it,” she said, smiling, bubbling up instantly, “the broad beam of my intelligence, I don’t even think it holds water. The fact is you can’t really believe in Ophelia either. I was being morbidly romantic. I was being high.”

  “You said you could identify with Ophelia?”

  “I said one could. Then”—she flushed—“I said I could. Easier than Hamlet, I meant though, whom I find incredible. Is this heresy?”

  “No—”

  “Miranda!”

  “Oh—yes.”

  “Prospero’s daughter.”

  “Oh yes, that’s it.”

  “Oh brave new world—isn’t that The Tempest too?”

  “I think so.”

  “Isn’t that funny …” She went back to eating. “Though Miranda is quite incredible too. If it’s fair to Shakespeare to talk about credibility in terms of that play—How are your frog’s legs?”