A Complicated Marriage

by Janice Van Horne

  We sat on chairs and on the steps. There were speakers, some formal, some testifying from the heart of personal experience. I remember little. Through it all, I sobbed as I had never sobbed before. Before we dispersed, we held each other in prayer and then let our balloons go, each with their message, REMEMBER. That was hard for me. I knew I would remember, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to let her go. But I did. I was still overflowing with tears as some of us gathered for an early dinner, and then another leave taking, again so difficult.

  On the train to New York and to Clem, I knew that before that day, I had known only that our baby had died, but not that she had lived. Now we knew each other. I knew she forgave me for not letting her into me, just as I had forgiven her for leaving me. Our anger was gone. She was at peace. I was at peace.

  Clem and I sat, drinks in hand, in the living room. I hadn’t wanted to join him in his office, where a book was always too close at hand. I turned on only one lamp; I wasn’t ready for more. I told him about my experience, much of the time with tears in my voice. The telling didn’t take long. So much compressed into so little. He was uneasy but attentive as I revealed what had happened to me, but not in a psychological or pragmatic way, the parlance we usually used. My feelings were raw and deep and went beyond neuroses and their effects on behavior and relationships. I held his hand as I talked of acceptance, catharsis, and healing. There was little conversation. When I had finished, we sat for a while. Then I told him our daughter’s name, kissed him, and went to bed.

  I had whispered her name to Clem. It felt so private. A name is a powerful thing. At her birth I had recoiled at the very thought of naming her and thereby acknowledging her existence. In the late seventies I had run across a 1962 document confirming the cremation of Baby Greenberg. Clem had never mentioned the arrangement, just as I had never asked about what had happened to her. The letter had ended up in a carton of miscellaneous correspondence that Clem, along with the rest of his correspondence, donated over the years to the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. They had returned that particular document, along with a pile of other letters, citing its “personal nature.” As I read it, my body went cold. When the shock had passed, I soothed myself with the thought: She has a name. It’s Emily.

  I hated that Clem and I had never been able to find a way to talk about our loss. My tears and words had frozen in time. But I had seen his tears, more abundant than my own, when our baby died. They would have to be enough for both of us. As for words, we had been unable to speak about such unspeakable things. I had seen his tears before her death and would see them again and again, and I knew how deep they ran. The first year we were together I had seen him cry, usually in front of the mirror as he shaved in the morning. Always about his son, Danny. At first because of Clem’s terrible remorse over their irreparably damaged relationship, and then again in the years following the late sixties, after Danny disappeared and we never heard from him again. Clem cried for his lost children. We often talked about Danny. But about the loss of our daughter? That night after I came home from Washington was as close as we would get.

  Back in Santa Monica, our first year there came to a close. Russ had now joined Alcoholics Anonymous. I was happy for him and happy for me. I knew little about twelve-step programs—amazing, considering all the addicts, from my stepfather on, who had passed through or lingered in my life. However, none of them had ever seriously considered joining AA. I watched Russ start the process. Sometimes he faltered, most often he did not, and sometimes it was like watching grass grow. Sometimes it was painful; the grim, jackhammer determination that occasionally burst into anger at daily minutiae, or at the world, but mostly at himself.

  During those months, I was moved by his courage and by the immensity of the undertaking. Life-changing. I couldn’t begin to imagine what that must have felt like. I had often changed the circumstances of my life, the people, the geography, but I was witnessing Russ grab on to the steps toward changing himself from the inside out, bringing all his high energy to bear on the process. And once he hit his stride, never did he let go. He taught me that alcoholism is not a hopeless disease.

  As Russ’s recovery deepened, I was aware that I was experiencing a journey of my own. I felt a lightening, as if I had put down a burden that I hadn’t even known I was carrying. I had underestimated the psychic energy it took to maintain my protective detachment from the bingeing. Yes, the shield had been effective, but how could I have not seen its flimsiness? Though tamped down, the tension and vigilance had taken their toll. Now it was as if I had given myself the license to take the next, right step.

  As the next year lengthened, what had been an occasional tug toward New York became stronger. I was feeling farther away from Clem and Sarah, too far, and was going to New York more often and staying longer. They were both experiencing difficult transitions. Sarah’s relationship with Nabil had ended badly. They had been together since her senior year at Vassar, but the previous year had been stormy and dramatic. Now it was over. For the most part, Sarah was relieved, but she had also been jolted by the suddenness and finality of the break.

  Adding to her pressures were the increasing difficulties she was experiencing in keeping her SoHo art gallery afloat. She had opened Greenberg+Wilson in 1988, and by 1991, with the economy faltering and the money squeeze filtering down to the art market, she had had to close the gallery. As usual, her resilience served her and she soon regrouped, notched up her social life, and enrolled at NYU’s Stern School of Business to get her MBA.

  As for Clem, I could no longer take his good health for granted. With each visit I noticed a decline in his stamina and increased shortness of breath. He always passed it off as a bit of asthma, a condition he’d had as a child. But I wasn’t buying it. Still shaken by my own diagnosis of emphysema and with the wispy voice of my father still in my ears, I dragged a reluctant Clem to a doctor, who listened perfunctorily to Clem’s chest and gave him an inhaler to use “as needed.” Of course, Clem never for a moment considered cutting back on smoking, any more than he would have considered cutting back on booze. That he was less able to metabolize alcohol now presented a whole new laundry list of “what ifs.”

  Two years earlier I had considered returning to New York, but, afraid that I would be taking a step back rather than forward, I had pushed the thought aside. Now I was sure. Not only would I be going forward, I would be going where I was needed and where I needed to be. My clarity reassured me. I knew that I had taken important strides: I had opened my heart to Emily and grieved her loss, witnessed Russ’s remarkable recovery, acknowledged my need to be closer to Clem and Sarah, and, after a string of important productions, finally come to believe that my work was a portable resource that would thrive wherever I might be.

  I had learned years before that knowing when to leave a relationship or a situation was a high art, one I had never mastered. I had a habit of staying too long at the fair. And then, whether it had been a career or a relationship, I would be out like a shot, leaving confusion and hurt behind. It was no accident that Fine Line had spilled out of me about that very thing—that sad, comic little play.

  However, there was nothing comic about my situation with Russ. As much as I wanted to leave with a semblance of grace and gentleness, I did it badly. Guilt overwhelmed me for having pushed for our move to Santa Monica and now reneging. The words thick in my mouth, in the early spring of 1992, I talked to Russ about my decision to leave. As usual, he understood, although this time it was, with good reason, an icy understanding layered with anger and resentment. And the timing couldn’t have been worse. There would be no pot of gold. With the housing market in a slump, we were fortunate to get out with what we had paid for it.

  As best we could, Russ and I retreated to neutral corners for the next months, and in the beginning of August, as soon as the house sold, I left for New York. We would be okay in time, better than okay. We were never out of touch, and, perhaps because we were smart enough to work at leaving th
e past where it belonged, we would build a loving, enduring friendship.

  part four

  Our Last Years

  HOME AGAIN

  IT WAS AFTER EIGHT o’clock when I opened the door and called out, “Hi, it’s me.” Everything as usual. The front hall dark, as Clem hurried from his office; he never turned on a light until he couldn’t see a guest across a room or a word in the book he was reading at his desk. A kiss on the mouth that always took me by surprise with its eager intimacy, a hug, and a determined grab for my suitcase, which he carried, over my protests that it was far too heavy, into “Sarah’s room,” as we called it. It would now be my room. I bitched and moaned at the mountain of accumulated catalogs and God knows what on the coffee table. As often as I asked him to toss out the junk, Clem could not overcome his reverence for the US Postal Service; if someone bought a stamp and mailed it, if someone else delivered it, it had earned the right to be opened and acknowledged.

  Did I want a drink? I most emphatically did. He refilled his own glass and we settled into his office. “You look wonderful,” he said, not for the last time that night or for the last time during the days and months to come. No matter what state of ill health, despair, or dishevelment I might be in, for Clem this was an indispensable affirmation that all was well in his world.

  Did we talk about the life-altering transition that was staring at us? Probably not. Clem did not noticeably break stride for such things. In any case, it was hardly big news, I had told him of my intentions months ago. Had he had any qualms about my permanent return? After all, twenty-two years. No, not really. His “As long as nothing changes” rang rather hollow at this stage of our journey together, but I had nonetheless assured him it would be so. His daily routine, his social life, would remain unchanged; far from diminished, his life would now be easier. Mine, too.

  Having had a record of rocky transitions, I scrupulously mapped my course this time and took every precaution to cushion my reentry. The plummeting real estate market that had worked against us in Santa Monica turned out to be a godsend in New York. With my share of the proceeds from the house, I was able to buy, on the cheap, a mini–one bedroom at 225 Central Park West, henceforth known as “my office.” No valleys of despond this time—I had a plan. I would continue my playwriting. I would join a theater group in the city. Every morning I would go to my office down the street. I would buy the Times on the way. I would learn to like coffee and maybe see the point of reading a newspaper.

  Within twenty-four hours Clem and I had assumed the comfortable routine of old married folk. Nothing could have been easier; I was ready and willing, and Clem’s rituals, from morning to night, had never changed. Not that it was all housewifery. In between the sunny-side-up eggs and charred bacon that stank up the house, trips to the deli for Clem’s center-cut tongue and chopped liver, and the broiled lamb chops and mashed potatoes, I was setting up my new office space. I had underestimated the amount of time and labor it would take. And patience.

  While waiting, I enlisted Sarah’s help to go up to Norwich, where I had left things in storage after the house had sold. Sarah, who was still at NYU, would be leaving shortly for a fall semester at the London Business School, before receiving her MBA in the spring. In Norwich I particularly wanted to reclaim the old oak pieces from the loft to furnish my new place. As for the rest, thanks to Sarah’s ruthless practicality, what I hadn’t been ready to let go of a few years before, I now disposed of to old neighbors and Goodwill in two days.

  But there was one thing I was not able to leave behind: the story of Steve and the young girl dead in the quarry. He was in Attica, still serving his time. I had started a play about the tragedy during my last months in L.A. and planned to resume it as soon as I got back to work. With that in mind, Sarah and I squeezed in a few hours at the Norwich Library, copying the reports of his trial from the local newspaper. Then, finally, with relief, I left Norwich for the last time.

  A few weeks after Labor Day, I was in my office with the morning sun, the trees, and my computer. Through a playwright friend, I had joined a workshop on Forty-second Street. It wasn’t as heavyweight as the groups in L.A., but it provided a much-needed outlet for my Norwich play. Creatively I was stymied, hung up between reality and dramatic fiction, and succeeding on neither level. The emotional baggage I was bringing to my experience of Steve and his story had bogged me down. But at least I was working.

  And I was singing, having been recommended to a vocal coach a few blocks away. Once a week, with her inspired help, I explored a new range to my voice. The quiet child inside me who had lived in the secret village of her mind, and the woman who had spent the last months in L.A. keeping her mouth shut now took flight. Once again, as in Woodstock, I experienced the freefall exhilaration that only the fullness of sound could make me feel. My daily abundance filled me up. I was doing what I loved best—juggling a new life.

  At the beginning of October, Clem and I went to the Pollock house in Springs, where he had been asked to talk about Jackson and Lee. The director, Helen Harrison, sent a car; we would spend the night in the house and be driven home the next day. I was surprised that Clem had agreed, knowing how reluctant he had always been to speak personally about the Pollocks, but he had specified that he would be talking only about their work and the art of their time. We hadn’t been to East Hampton in three decades. Though I was curious, part of me would have preferred to keep that chapter closed.

  Late that Saturday afternoon we were in the small living room jammed with people, many of them grad students from Stony Brook University, which oversaw the operation of the old farmhouse. From where I sat, off to the side of Clem, I found myself watching the audience watching him. There were the expected, familiar faces from the city, but it was the young faces that I was drawn to. What did they make of this old man who was talking about Jackson, this survivor among the depleted ranks of the “first generation”? He wasn’t spouting the hackneyed spiel that filled the myriad books and articles by people who had never known Pollock or who should have known better than to write the firsthand treacle and/or vitriol that they had.

  If the students had hoped to hear about the iconic antihero of American art’s golden years, or a rehashing of all the myths about the bad-boy trailblazer, they would have been disappointed. After placing the painter in the context of the art and artists that had preceded him, Clem talked about Jackson as a workaday man; as a painter who had good days and plenty of bad days, who painted great pictures and failures, and who, contrary to myth, never painted when he was drinking; and as a good friend. I was pleased that Clem finally let his guard down and talked of Jackson’s struggles—creative, financial, and with alcohol—and of his relationships with his contemporaries.

  The students could not have known how unusual it was to hear Clem speak so intimately. After finishing his short talk, Clem moved easily into a free-flow give-and-take, the part of public speaking he preferred. Maybe it was being in that house, maybe it was the informality of the occasion and that his audience was mainly students. Whatever the reason, Clem was having a good time.

  The house was a disappointment. A shrine, everything sanitized and barren, even the studio and grounds. What had I expected after so many years? I wondered at the power of this place that, even though I had known it for only a short time, had scarred my memory so indelibly. And, like a child opening a creepy attic door, I looked for what was no longer there: each cigarette burn, stain, coffee-pot dent, each with its tale of drama and discord—the life-and-death urgency that charged the conversation, the threat of imminent conflagration that could, though rarely did, happen. I had never experienced anything like it before or since. I felt again its oppressive effect, and the confines of the shell I had crawled into to escape it.

  As for the protagonists, I summon them easily, she more than he. His face slips away, blurred by the countless photos that perpetuate his image: the young, vibrant, achingly handsome Jackson whom I knew not at all. I only smell his beard
that, as beards do, tell me the history of his day, at least the food, drink, and tobacco of his day. And I see his eyes squinting through the smoke, unfocused. But Lee—I’m startled by the clarity and immediacy of her. The bark and bray of her voice, which matches the blunt angularity of her gestures. The mouth, face, suddenly twisting into ugliness, the body never still. Androgynous, imperious, like a cannon she explodes into a room, into a conversation, into my mind.

  And I see myself, the girl who drinks, smokes, listens until she stops listening. She seldom utters a word. She looks placid but she’s not. She is scared that her life will always be filled with times like these. She has no future, no plans. Worse, she doesn’t trust Clem to protect her from such debilitating boredom. How can he? As much as he complains about it, he is incapable of protecting himself from it.

  Much later, after Clem’s talk and a dinner party at the Harrisons’, Clem and I were returned to the farmhouse for the night. I lay on Lee’s bed; Clem opted for the guest room. Lord, what a hard, damp slab of a bed. Lee’s legacy to me. I was still paying dues, but for what crimes, I would never know. I still wondered what her final rampage at me had really been about. I could hear Clem saying to me, “We don’t leave this house in anger.”

  Why not, what better reason? I hadn’t said, as I crept up the narrow stairs that night to fume in my sour rage of helplessness.

  Oh, yes, Lee, there was always a crisis. But I wasn’t angry now. Just cold and sleepless. Just think, Lee, I’m older than you were then; now it’s only my tired body that’s unforgiving. I even missed your presence this afternoon, and especially at the rather dull dinner. You would have livened things up. But I do hope to God you didn’t die in this bed.