The War Between the Tates: A Novel

by Alison Lurie

  “It was awful ...Not that he was any of the things my mother said—he wasn’t hateful, or cruel, or cold-hearted, or neurotic. But he seemed to be ... I don’t know ... a Canadian. A middle-aged Canadian businessman, with a large wife and three small children. Quite good-looking—I knew that already; I’d always thought of him as the handsomest man in the world. But he was a lot older than his photographs; and he was tired, and worried, and not very successful or well-educated. He didn’t read much. He liked watching hockey, and camping—Nothing to do with me, that was the main thing. But there I was.” She laughs, not very successfully.

  “At first it was really terrible. My father and Myra thought I must have come to ask for money, so they were very stiff and cautious, and took pains to show me how hard up they were—cotton-flannel sheets on the bed, and corned-beef hash for dinner, and a lot of talk I didn’t understand about Canadian taxes. Once they found out it wasn’t that they were nicer to me, but puzzled. When I left two days early they were very relieved, and even friendly. They took my picture in front of the house and gave me a box of maple-sugar candy in the shape of maple leaves, each in a little green pleated paper cup.”

  “I bet you didn’t eat it.”

  “No.” Erica laughs. “I gave the whole box to Marian when I got home.”

  “Did you tell her where it came from?”

  “I never told anyone.” She laughs again briefly, like a cough. “I felt too stupid, going all that way for nothing ...That last night, in their spare room—only they didn’t have a spare room, it was the oldest boy’s really, with newspaper-supplement photographs of Canadian sports stars tacked to the wallpaper—I thought—I lay awake, and I thought that the reason my father never came back to rescue me all those years was, he didn’t want to.” Her voice is strained. “He didn’t want the responsibility of children. He was really more or less a child himself.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I lay there in the bed, sort of diagonally across it because it was too short, one of those youth beds; and I made up my mind then that I would never be like that; and I would never marry anyone like that, anyone who wasn’t dependable and grown up, no matter how handsome and nice he was ...Oh, Sandy. Please don’t laugh at me.”

  “I’m not laughing.”

  “But you know, Brian wasn’t like my father when I married him,” Erica insists, sitting forward on the day bed. “He was serious, and responsible. I don’t know what happened.” She looks down into her mug of mint tea. “He changed. I suppose people do change.”

  A silence. Then Zed says, “Brian didn’t change. He’s always been the same. A typical double Capricorn; he needs to appear responsible and serious in the eyes of the world. But most people are like that. They want to look good. You’re eccentric; you want to be good.”

  “I’m not eccentric,” Erica exclaims, setting down her mug. “I’m quite a conventional person really. At least, I’ve certainly never thought of myself as unconventional.” She gives the last word, which was one of her mother’s terms of praise, a particular bitter intonation.

  “Oh, Erica.” Zed does laugh now, out loud. “Don’t give me that. The conventional thing for you would have been to refuse to divorce Brian and refuse to speak to Wendy.”

  This speech seems a little overfamiliar, even rude. But Erica decides to excuse it; after all, Sandy is a very old friend. “Maybe so,” she says. “At least, that’s what I guess Brian expected me to do. Really, what I think he wanted was to keep us both,” she adds.

  “He would.” The tone in which Zed utters this reminds Erica of what she has once or twice thought: that Sandy not only does not care very much for Brian, but for some reason actually hates him. “With his Capricorn moon where it is.”

  Erica does not comment. She frowns slightly, sits back. “Do you really believe all that?” she asks, in a cooler voice. “About the movements of the stars influencing people’s lives?”

  “Not the stars, the planets.” Zed also shifts position: he moves his feet to the top of his ladder and rests his elbows on his knees.

  “But it seems so deterministic.” She smiles now, glad to have changed the subject. “I look at the horoscope column in the paper sometimes—I suppose everyone does—and it’s always about how if you’re born in September, you’re very fussy and critical, and you can’t do anything about it, especially not on Wednesdays.”

  “Those daily columns are a fraud. Dangerous, even; most serious astrologers despise them. The point of astrology is that every individual is unique. Of course, there’s fate—your planets—but there’s also human will. You can’t reverse your nature, but you can use it for better or worse. That’s very comforting; it provides both encouragement and an excuse, whichever you need at the time.”

  “Yes.” Erica laughs. “But all the same—What good does it do, really?”

  Zed smiles at her between his long narrow hands. “You’re still asking that. I remember back in Cambridge it was one of the things about you that most impressed me. I was less morally ambitious than you, even then. I didn’t aspire to do good; that seemed too difficult. I only wanted not to do harm.” He sighs. “Even that—I think sometimes I ought to close this place down and just do charts.”

  “You think you’re doing harm here, in the bookshop?”

  “Hard to say.” Zed has been unknotting his old black knit tie; now he pulls on one end, dragging it out from under the frayed collar. “It was all right at first. But now there’s too many people coming in all the time wanting me to solve their life problems—answer their spiritual doubts, tell them what to do, what to think. They write down whatever I say, including all the stupid things, and repeat them back to me. I don’t know how much longer I can take it. I’m not like your husband; I don’t like to be worshiped. It gives me claustrophobia.”

  Erica laughs, starts to speak, and stops. She has always despised people who mock and disparage their ex-spouses, and has a horror of becoming one of them. Months ago she resolved never to speak against or even discuss Brian’s character with anyone but Danielle; she has cut off many conversations beginning “You know, I always thought Brian was—” with a cool “I’d rather not talk about him, if you don’t mind.” She is too fond of Zed to say this to him; instead she looks at her watch, sighs a little, consciously, and stands up.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “I think I’d better; it’s nearly eleven. I should go back to Danielle’s party—I sort of promised I’d help her clean up when it’s over.” Erica sighs again less consciously. For the first time in almost an hour she has remembered the woman she saw in the mirrors: worn, creased, no longer really pretty. It is this creased un-pretty person who must return to the party, and stay there perhaps for hours.

  She lifts her fur coat from a stack of book cartons and begins to put it on; Zed scrambles off the ladder and attempts to help. “Here. Let me.”

  “That’s all right.” Erica fastens her coat; she picks up a long rose-colored mohair shawl which has fallen to the ground, shakes out the dust, and wraps it around her head and shoulders. Zed, apologizing for the condition of his floor; follows her to the front of the darkened shop.

  “It’s still going on,” she exclaims. Beyond the black silhouettes of books, the shopwindow is gray and clotted with wet flakes and clumps of snow.

  Drawing back the bolts, Zed opens the front door on a solid block of heavy, exploding snow. Erica’s car, a few steps away under the street lamp, is a blurred white mound.

  “Oh, heavens! Look at that.” She takes two steps out into it; is at once surrounded, blinded; retreats. “The street hasn’t even been plowed. What am I going to do?”

  “You could wait here awhile, and see if it stops,” Zed suggests, shielding his face with one arm.

  “Maybe I’d better.” Erica steps back into the shop, stamping her boots. “I wonder how long it’s going to last Did you hear any weather reports on the radio?”

  “I don’t have a radio.” He shuts the door�
�the first time unsuccessfully, for snow has blown into the frame; then with a slam.

  “I could call Danielle, I suppose.” Erica remembers that Sandy also has no telephone. “Is there a phone anywhere near here?”

  “There’s one in the Chinese restaurant. But it’s probably shut by now.”

  “You ought to have a phone.” Zed makes no comment. “Well, I expect if Danielle looks out of her window she’ll realize what’s happened, and ask someone else to help her. Her friend Dr. Kotelchuk, for instance.” Erica pulls off her shawl, which is filmy with moisture. “I mean her suitor,” she adds, loosening her coat and following Zed to the back of the shop.

  “I can’t get over that you know,” she continues. “Did I tell you he proposed to her in the liquor store at the Co-op? I mean, really.” She laughs.

  “He should have chosen a more romantic scene?”

  “Yes, why not? At least a more private one. Wouldn’t you?”

  “I’ve never proposed to anyone,” Zed says, taking Erica’s coat and laying it carefully over the cartons for the second time. “But yes; I suppose I’d probably wait for more auspicious circumstances. Of course that way you might miss your chance. Would you like more tea?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Erica pulls her shawl around her shoulders. It is growing chilly, for Zed’s landlord, economically, only provides heat during business hours. “The whole idea is impossible, really,” she continues. “How could anyone want to marry a man named Bernie Kotelchuk?”

  “Or Sanford Finkelstein.” Zed is stooped over the sink, rinsing out their cups; his voice is flat. “Maybe that’s why I—”

  “It’s not the same thing at all,” Erica lies gaily, inwardly reproaching herself. “Not at all.”

  He shakes his head. “It’s a ludicrous name.” His voice mixes with the wet uneven sound of water running. “I’ve always disliked it.”

  “So you changed it.”

  “Yes.” He turns off the tap.

  “Why did you choose the name Zed? What does it mean?”

  “Nothing. It’s the last letter of the alphabet.” He opens a tin and spoons tea into the pot.

  “I understand why you might not like Finkelstein,” she says. “But what is wrong with Sanford, by itself?”

  “I don’t know.” Zed looks round, shrugging his bony shoulders. “Perhaps it had become too familiar—too closely associated with a famous character in literature.”

  “I don’t remember any Sanford in literature,” Erica says, puzzled. “Whose books is he in—Henry James’s?”

  “Yours.”

  “Mine? Oh. But that wasn’t—I didn’t mean—” She hears her voice rise falsely, falter. “It was just a name.”

  “You turned me into an ostrich.”

  “I’m sorry,” Erica says, alternately meeting and dodging his half-smile. “It just seemed the right sort of name—He was a nice ostrich, you know.” She looks guiltily at Zed, who is taking a box of wheat-germ crackers from the top of a bookcase. In her mind she sees superimposed the colored drawing in which she had depicted Sanford with one long, knobby leg up, helpfully reaching down some chocolate cake which the mother of Mark and Spencer had concealed on a high shelf.

  “I didn’t think you’d ever see those silly books,” she says. “Nobody does usually, unless they have children; and I didn’t think you’d ever have children.”

  “No,” he agrees in a strained chirp.

  A short silence. Erica reproaches herself again, more severely. Zed, his back turned, does something with a plate. “I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I didn’t mean—Do you mind that very much, not having children?”

  “I used to.” He turns around. “That’s not true; even now sometimes, when I see little kids—But I realize it doesn’t matter ...God’s will.” He shrugs again. “Creating beings who resemble you physically—that’s the lowest form of immortality. It’s a joke—a pretty bad joke, sometimes.”

  “Yes.” Erica thinks of Jeffrey and Matilda, both of whom have been said to resemble her.

  “It’s better to have “spiritual children. Like Sanford.”

  “Maybe so ...You didn’t mind really, did you? About the books, I mean.”

  “No. I was glad to know you still thought of me sometimes.”

  “But I did, you know,” she protests. “Not just because of the books.”

  “Really.” Zed raises his eyebrows. “I thought of you too, sometimes,” he adds mockingly, leaning back against the bookshelves.

  Erica smiles with relief, and the beginnings of a flirtatious manner. “That reminds me, Sandy. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask: Did you know Brian and I were living here when you moved to Corinth?”

  “No, I—” He hesitates. “Yes, I knew. That’s why I chose it.” From his expression it is impossible to tell if this is a joke.

  “I thought you came back because you’d been to college here.”

  “It was a sort of double feature.” He grins.

  “But then you were in town for months, and you never called us or anything,” she complains coquettishly. “And Brian said he came down here once, last fall, and you didn’t want to tell him who you were.” Erica smiles; she is enjoying herself. “Anybody would think you were trying to hide from me.”

  “Not at all, I—” Again he falters. “That’s not true either. I don’t know what’s the matter with me; I haven’t told any lies for quite a while, but I seem to be lying to you. What happened was, I knew Brian when he came into the store, but he didn’t recognize me—he only saw me a couple of times years ago, when I had more hair. I didn’t want to give him my name because I thought he’d remember it and tell you, and I didn’t want that. I wanted it to happen the right way. Like you said about Dr. Kotelchuk proposing in the liquor store.” Zed smiles.

  “I don’t think you wanted it to happen at all,” Erica protests. She hugs her rose-colored stole around her shoulders, delighted to have rediscovered this old, charming, light-hearted self. “When you’d been here absolutely for months without calling. I don’t think you have any idea what you want.”

  The kettle is boiling; he turns to fill the pot. “No,” he says over his shoulder. “I know what I want.”

  “And what’s that?” She is almost laughing.

  “You.” Zed turns his head, giving her, for the first time, the pale intense stare with which Brian and the habitués of the Krishna Bookshop are already familiar.

  “I—” Erica’s laugh is extinguished, leaving her mouth empty. “Sandy, that’s absurd,” she says in the tone of one gently rebuking a child. At the same time, almost unconsciously, she gets up off the day bed and puts a chair between herself and Zed. “I mean, heavens, you’ve known me for twenty years.”

  “I’ve wanted you for twenty years,” he says stubbornly.

  An involuntary satisfaction rises in Erica. She stamps it down, hard, realizing that she has brought this declaration on herself. Because there is nobody now she can safely flirt with, she has been flirting with poor old Sandy; provoking him to console her for having had an awful time at a party and for feeling creased and plain.

  “You can’t mean that literally,” she insists, smiling, holding on to the back of the chair. “You must have had affairs.”

  “Yes,” Zed admits after a slight pause. “But not very many lately. And not very successfully.”

  “I thought you gave all that up along with meat and telephones,” she says, attempting a light manner.

  “No ...But none of them were ever quite real to me, you know. You’re the only woman in the world, as far as I’m concerned. The others always seem to me like imitations—bad copies.”

  There is no doubt now that he is serious. But Erica forbids herself to be pleased or flattered. “Oh, Sandy. That’s just silly,” she announces sharply to both of them.

  Zed says nothing to this, and makes no move. He leans back against the bookshelves in his old white shirt, with his bony shoulders raised. Most of the light has gone o
ut of his eyes. He is not going to make any move, she thinks with some surprise; she is quite safe. She sighs with something like relief.

  But this relief is followed by shame. Sandy is one of her oldest friends; he has provided her with countless cups of coffee and tea, listened to her worries about final examinations and faulty plumbing, lent her books, carried her groceries, loved her for twenty years. And how has she repaid him? She has used his name as a joke in some silly children’s stories, made him go to a large bad party, and first provoked and then insulted him. No wonder he looks at her now with mute pain and reproach, like a large scrawny wounded bird, shot out of season.

  Somehow she must make amends. She comes out from behind the chair, toward him.

  “I’m sorry, Sandy,” she says, putting her hand on his arm. To her distress, it is actually trembling under the shirt. “I didn’t mean—”

  “That’s all right.” He smiles painfully, indicating that it is not all right. Erica feels terrible. What can she do? Like Brian in a similar situation, it occurs to her that if she were to kiss Sandy affectionately, he might feel better. She approaches the gesture awkwardly, for she is unused to taking the initiative and has not kissed anyone in months. Another difficulty, one which has not occurred in twenty years, is Zed’s height; she has to stand on tiptoe to reach his cheek.

  His reaction to the kiss is odd: as she comes near he almost flinches, then he looks surprised; finally he smiles, but stiffly.

  “You’re not angry?” she asks.

  Zed shakes his head unconvincingly. Obviously he does not believe either in her apology or her affection. He believes that she finds him and his feelings “absurd” and “silly.”

  How could she have said those words, been so thoughtless, so unkind? How can she take them back and heal the injury she has given?

  But even as she asks this, the only possible answer occurs to Erica. That it will require greater self-sacrifice than anything she has done yet first frightens and then-begins to convince her. If you know of someone who wants your old clothes, your day-old bread, it is wrong to keep them selfishly in the cupboard; she has always believed this. For years she used to save all their stale bread, and once a week she and Jeffo and Muffy would go down to Reed Park and scatter it in the bird sanctuary.