by Alison Lurie
“When I saw her having coffee Thursday I thought, What a dumb-looking girl.”
“You saw her Thursday,” Erica says, choosing the words as if out of a barrel of live wet crabs which her best friend had just proffered to her.
“Yeh. In the Blue Cow.”
Erica’s head begins to hurt more, especially toward the back; to vibrate like the electronic music on Jeffrey’s records. Among the vibrations is one which announces to her that Brian has begun another scummy affair, this time with an ugly girl. It is the new affair of which Danielle has heard.
“Who told you about it?” she asks through the electronic static.
“Oh, it was one of our TAs; Gail Farber her name is. She’s kind of a chatterer. We were having coffee, and this girl came in. Gail waved to her—she knows her from the Krishna Bookshop—and then she told us who she was.” Danielle’s voice is apologetic, warm with sympathy.
“What else did she say?”
“Nothing else. Of course she didn’t know I’m a friend of yours.”
“Did she tell you the girl’s name?”
“I don’t think so. She said she was a graduate student in psychology. Hey!” Danielle bounces forward. “You know what I think? I think the actual reason Brian doesn’t want you to work for Barclay is that he’s in the psych department. He’s afraid you’ll meet this girl, or hear something about her. Hell, I’m positive that’s it.” The temperature of her voice has risen to a rolling boil.
“I never thought of that,” Erica says falteringly, staring around the living room. “But I guess you might be right.”
“What a lousy trick. Hey, I’m really sorry.” Danielle puts her hand on Erica’s arm, a comforting gesture.
“That’s all right.” Erica shifts nervously, causing her friend’s hand to fall off; she dislikes being touched, and hates to be pitied; which always implies to her that she is pitiable. “I suppose everybody in that department knows by now,” she says. “I suppose even Barclay knows.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, he—”
“Probably he knew when he interviewed me.” In contrast to Danielle’s, her tone is cool, even cold. The words seem to fall onto the Oriental rug like invisible lumps of ice.
“I’m sure he didn’t. He’s not the type to hear gossip. He’s never been friendly with students, as far as I know.”
“Mm.” Erica does not want to enter into a discussion of Mr. Barclay’s social contacts. Her vehement wish is to get out of Danielle’s living room and be alone to think. “Listen,” she says. “What time is it? ...I’d better get home, B—” (she suppresses the name, unvoiced) “—the children will be wondering what’s happened to me.”
And what has happened to me? Erica thinks as she walks with her headache along the uneven sidewalk in the direction of her car, a block away. Danielle’s street is near the university, and dominated by two large fraternity houses; there is always a parking problem. The curb is lined with dented metal and stained plastic bins, overflowing with the week’s offal. There are also paper bags full of bottles and beer cans, and bundles of rainsodden newspapers tied with string. In front of one fraternity a maroon overstuffed chair, badly spotted, lies on its side vomiting kapok—apparently a casualty of last night’s brawl. Garbage, Erica thinks. Litter, pollution, filth.
Walking through the muggy afternoon, she thinks that she had believed the filth was gone, that she had begun to forget it; and now it has appeared again, and worse; much worse. She had thought that by casually and lovelessly screwing a pretty girl Brian had polluted and dishonored their marriage as much as he possibly could. But she was wrong. Now he has gone further in dishonor—he is screwing an ugly girl. He has become unclean, revolting—like that can there, tipped over and spewing out beer bottles and old bones.
Litter and lies. Danielle was right: Brian has concealed his real reasons for not wanting Erica to work in the psychology department He has invented false arguments and spoken of The Children, pretending a false concern for their welfare, blaming her for lacking concern. And even that evening last week, when she agreed not to take the job, and he put his arms gently around her, and stroked her back smoothly the way she likes, and called her “princess,” he was lying, lying. Erica feels dizzy with rage and grief; she stumbles on the broken sidewalk and puts one hand on the nearest object—a telephone pole, stained dark-brown and with a numbered aluminum label nailed to it—to steady herself. He had pulled off her shoes gently, one at a time, and said—But this is too much to bear thinking of; Erica takes a breath, lets go of the telephone pole, and walks on.
To protect his ugly, trashy affair, Brian has lied and manipulated her into giving up something she really wanted to do, and needed to do. Then, instead of thanking her for her generosity, he has blamed her for having even thought of it. He has shamed and bullied her; he has managed to make it appear that wanting to hire a housekeeper and take an ordinary part-time job, something thousands of women in America do, is selfish and reprehensible. Again, just as last spring, she has been maneuvered into the wrong; into a deep moral hole.
Turning the corner, Erica sights her car next to another heap of rubbish. It is a shiny bulging tan station wagon which Brian bought last spring, and which she has not yet been able to get used to. It is slow to start, clumsy to drive—and impossible to parallel-park; after trying on one memorable occasion, Leonard Zimmern had named it The Jar of Peanut Butter. Erica, who does most of the daily driving, recently suggested that they might trade it in for a smaller car, like Danielle’s Peugeot. This had infuriated Brian, who is suspicious of all foreign goods, and opposed to their purchase on economic grounds. If she didn’t like the car, why hadn’t she said so before he bought it?—i.e., before she knew. Then Brian had delivered a lecture on responsibility for one’s choices and the balance of trade, which ended as usual lately with Erica dug farther down into her moral hole. It is very disagreeable and unattractive there, and Erica knows that she herself is becoming rapidly more disagreeable and unattractive, like most prisoners.
But now, this afternoon, a ladder has been lowered into the hole, and she can climb out. Yes. It is Brian who is guilty now; it is Brian who can be exposed. Erica stands with her hand on the door of the station wagon, thinking hard through her headache. She must climb carefully; she must remember what happened last time, how Brian had eventually turned his guilt into hers. She must be armed against every possible counterattack. She must stay cool and not expose her own weakness—no sobbing this time, no passionate jealousy; no accusations without evidence.
But what evidence has she? Frowning, Erica gets into the hot Jar of Peanut Butter, slides behind the wheel, and slams the heavy door. When she confronts him Brian may deny everything. He may put on his professional manner and say that her accusation is not based on historical evidence, but on malicious secondhand or thirdhand gossip. He may accuse her, and Danielle, and Danielle’s acquaintance, of being malicious, suspicious, credulous women.
She turns the ignition key; the engine, as usual, roars once boastfully and dies. Suppose she is in fact suspicious and credulous. For a moment Erica considers this possibility, and what she feels is not relief. She sees her ladder being pulled up, up, out of the moral hole. If Brian is not guilty, she is as deep in the wrong as ever; and she will be in even deeper if she accuses him falsely. Though she does not yet quite put it to herself in these words, she wants him guilty.
Arroor, roor, rr ... Again the motor gives out. The air in the automobile is hot and thick; the plastic brocade of the seat feels sticky against Erica’s thighs, and the wheel is warm and damp. What she needs is more time, more ammunition: she needs to wait and watch Brian, to stockpile evidence and gather her forces before she attacks. There will not be too long to wait, Erica judges; and meanwhile she will have the satisfaction of knowing that whatever Brian may do or say, she is in the right again—triumphantly and thoroughly in the right.
5
IT IS LATE OCTOBER. The high winds have begun to blow
and the trees to change color and fall apart, and everything in Brian’s life is changing color and falling apart and going wrong. His colleagues, against his advice, are altering graduate requirements; his students, against his advice, are altering their consciousnesses—in both cases for the worse. Constantly—at lunch in the faculty club, in class, even in committee meetings—arguments about national or campus politics replace discussions of the matter at hand. The war in Southeast Asia is escalating, and. Jones Creek is polluted with detergent.
At home too everything is falling apart. Most obviously the children, whose early adolescent rebellion, instead of running its course, has been escalating. In the past Brian has usually been able to ignore their behavior, but recent changes in his and their schedules have made this impossible. For years he has had no early classes, and therefore has been able to rise and eat breakfast peacefully after Jeffrey and Matilda have left for school. This term he has a nine o’clock. Moreover, the children have now succeeded, after a prolonged and disagreeable contest, in having their bedtime advanced to ten on weekday nights and eleven on weekends. This means that they are always around when he is home; that the radio and/or phonograph is always on, the best chairs in the sitting room occupied, the refrigerator door left hanging open, and the sink full of dirty dishes. Rational protests and attempts at serious discussion of the principles of family living seem to have less and less effect, and Erica is apparently completely unable to cope.
Things have got to the point where there is not just a conflict of generations at the Tates’, but a condition of total war. Hostilities begin when Jeffrey and Matilda wake at seven a.m. and continue throughout the day.
This morning it was Jeffrey who started it; he could not find his left sneaker. Explosions of shouting and cursing; banging of doors and drawers above; Erica leaving Brian’s breakfast on the stove to run up two flights and scuffle among the foul debris in Jeffrey’s closet; two fried eggs rusted to the pan.
Meanwhile Matilda attacked passively, by not getting out of bed. When she finally appeared in the kitchen, after prolonged bombardment, she was dressed for battle. She had recently dyed her hair (and the bathroom wash basin) a vivid and ugly salmon-pink, and was wearing purple flowered bell-bottom jeans and a boy’s skimpy sleeveless undershirt, stretched vulgarly taut by her developing breasts. She stood by the sink cramming jam toast into her mouth and exchanging insults with her father, mother and brother. When it was time to leave for school she pretended not to be able to find her social-studies book; Jeffrey simultaneously announced a rent in his jacket.
After the last door had slammed behind them Brian sat down at the kitchen table, already exhausted, though it was only eight a.m. The angry voices of his wife and children rang in his head still, and all around the room, like the echo of bombs and flak, along with his own angry voice:
“I can’t find my fucking shoe, that’s why!”
“Aw Dad, don’t be disgusting. I haven’t got time to change. Can’t you leave me alone for once?”
“There’s some awful stink in here. If you burned something, I’m not going to eat it.”
“What’s this crap?”
“Hey, Matildy, you really look grungy today.”
“Oh, why don’t you blast off?”
“Screw you.”
“Asshole.”
“Shit.”
“What’s the matter up there, for God’s sake?”
“Do you really have to shout like that?”
“All right, Jeffrey. Pick up that disgusting piece of toast you dropped on the floor.”
“You’ll, miss the bus! And don’t think I’m going to drive you to school this time. You can walk.”
Brian and Erica, like their friends, students and colleagues, have spent considerable time trying to understand and halt the war in Vietnam. If he were to draw a parallel between it and the war now going on in his house, he would have unhesitatingly identified with the South Vietnamese. He would have said that the conflict, begun a year or so ago as a minor police action, intended only to preserve democratic government and maintain the status quo—a preventive measure, really—has escalated steadily and disastrously against his and Erica’s wishes, and in spite of their earnest efforts to end it. For nearly two years, he would point out, the house on Jones Creek Road has been occupied territory. Jeffrey and Matilda have gradually taken it over, moving in troops and supplies, depleting natural resources and destroying the local culture.
From the younger Tates’ position, however, the parallel is reversed. Brian and Erica are the invaders: the large, brutal, callous Americans. They are vastly superior in material resources and military experience, which makes the war deeply unfair; and they have powerful allies like the Corinth Public School System. The current position of Jeffrey and Matilda is, from their own viewpoint, almost tragic. In spite of their innate superiority and their wish for self-government, they remain dependent on Erica's aid and Brian Tate’s investments. Worse still in some ways is the barrage of propaganda and lies they have to endure. Brian and Erica keep insisting publicly that they are not trying to destroy Jeffrey or Matilda, but instead fighting to preserve the best, the most enlightened and democratic elements within them. When they hear these lies, the younger Tates naturally feel exploited and furious. They refuse to negotiate, and retreat into the jungles of their rooms on the third floor, where they plan guerrilla attacks.
Brian and Erica are at a moral and psychological disadvantage in the war because they want to save face both at home and abroad. They have been favored by environment and heredity, and wish to think themselves worthy of their good fortune. They therefore desire (against all reason) to enjoy the affection, respect and gratitude of the people they are at war with and whose territory they have invaded; and they never cease to be deeply hurt and indignant that they are not receiving this affection, etc.
Externally too Brian and Erica have a reputation to uphold. For many years they have been generally regarded; and have regarded themselves, as democratic peace and freedom-loving persons, devoted to decent and humanitarian goals. So great was their need to preserve this reputation that they had never declared war officially, but continued to speak of the conflict as a peace-keeping effort and to insist that they were acting in an advisory capacity. Nevertheless, the true facts are widely known, and have earned them the bad opinion of the rest of their world—including, that of other parents who are currently engaged in their own undeclared wars. Jeffrey and Matilda, on the other hand, do not have to worry about public opinion. They know they are right. They know that any belligerent action they might undertake will be applauded by their contemporaries, some of whom have already gone even further in terms of overt hostility. The magazines they read, the songs they hear, their whole culture supports them. Even on the enemy side there are many who dare to take their part, repudiating natural adult allegiances in the cause of revolution and truth.
As yet, Brian has won most of the pitched battles; but the effort of winning is exhausting his resources, and he knows it. He knows that time is against him, and he cannot win the war. Even now his victories are all negative ones: he has, once more, beaten off an attack on some stronghold, or contained the enemy within the existing combat zone. He can, for example, wearily congratulate himself on the fact that his children do not—as far as he knows—steal cars or bomb buildings or inject themselves with drugs; that they have not got themselves arrested by the police yet, or pregnant. Sometimes Brian wishes they had done so; then at least they would be somewhere else—in jail or an unwed-mothers’ home—and someone else would be responsible for them.
What makes the war most exhausting for Brian now is that his ally, Erica, has deserted him. She has declared, not so much verbally as by her recent actions, that she cannot fight any more, that she is giving up the effort. This defection seems to him profoundly unjust; even dishonorable. For years the Tates’ domestic life has been governed according to the principle of separation of powers: Erica functioning a
s the executive branch, and Brian as the legislative and judicial. He has always left it to her to supervise the children in everyday matters. Now when—possibly as a consequence of her management—the children have grown into selfish, rude, rebellious adolescents, she resigns and declares that it is his turn. Which is as if the President and his Cabinet should abdicate and turn over the task of suppressing a colonial revolt to Congress and the Supreme Court.
Under normal circumstances Brian would not have permitted this. But circumstances are not normal; Erica is not normal. For the last six weeks especially she has been behaving in a very abnormal way. She is alternately watchful and abstracted; curious about his work and openly bored by it; overtalkative and silent. In bed she feels peculiar: half stiff, half limp; she comes late with a wrench and an angry cry, or does not come at all. She appears on campus at odd times of day with no explanation, and serves supper up to half an hour late with no excuse. It has not occurred to Brian that his wife suspects him of having an affair, since he cannot imagine she would keep silent about that. What he fears is that she is coming down with a mental illness; and since yesterday, Wednesday, he has feared it more.
On Tuesdays and Fridays, Brian has lunch with Wendy in her Collegetown apartment; on Mondays and Thursdays with his colleagues at the Faculty Club. On Wednesdays, however, he has a class until one-fifteen followed by a committee meeting at two. He therefore buys coffee from the machine in the basement, and Erica packs his lunch (sandwich, fruit, and cake or cookies) in a brown paper bag. At the same time she also packs lunch boxes for the children, washes the breakfast dishes, sweeps the kitchen, and takes out the trash—the bottles and papers and cans to one container, the garbage, in a paper bag, to another.
This Wednesday after his class, Brian returned to the office accompanied by a radical graduate student named Davidoff who had proposed a dubious project for his seminar paper. While outlining his objections to this project Brian sat down at his desk, uncovered his container of coffee, and upended his paper bag. Instead of lunch, what fell out onto the blotter was a heap of coffee grounds, crushed eggshells, orange rinds, crusts of toast stained with jelly, and soggy Frosted Flakes.