Riven Rock

by T. C. Boyle

  “No, no, no,” he said, gesturing, the limp garments draped over both arms, “you don’t understand. You see, I order my longjohns specially from Dunhill & Porter in London, and they come in eight gradations of weight so as to meet every possible contingency, from, from, well snow to the sunshiniest day in August, when, of course, one wouldn’t want to suffocate—and he let out a strange hollow yelp of a laugh. ”Don’t you see?“ he said, bending now to the steamer trunk and patiently folding the garments in his arms. She could see that he was laughing still, chuckling to himself and shaking his head. ”She wants me to freeze—“ he said, addressing the depths of the trunk, ”—my own w-wife.“

  She crossed the room to him, murmuring, “Here, let me help,” but he stiffened and turned away from her. “Stanley,” she said, “please. It’s not cold at all—it must be fifty-five or sixty degrees out there—and they’re sure to be having Indian summer weather in Paris this time of year....”

  He paid her no mind, but kept folding and unfolding his underwear and carrying it from one bag to another, and no sooner did he settle on a place for it than he pulled it back out and started the whole process all over again.

  “We’re going to miss the train,” she said. “Stanley. Are you listening to me? We’re going to miss the train.”

  His eyes went suddenly to hers and there was a pleading look in them, a look that both begged for help and rejected it at the same time. “I can‘t,” he said. “I’m, I’m not ready. I can’t.”

  Her mother’s voice came up the stairwell then, tremulous and interrogatory: “Katherine?”

  “Leave it,” Katherine urged. “Leave it for the servants to send on. We’ll buy you new things as soon as we get in, better things, Parisian things, and all this will be on the next train if you need it. Come on,” she said, taking him by the arm, “come on, Stanley, we’ve got to go.”

  He wasn’t violent, he wasn’t rough, he wasn’t pettish or peevish, but he was immovable all the same. He looked down at her from his height, looked at her hand urgent on his arm, and said, simply, “No.” Then he pulled away from her and crossed the room to his suitcase, trailing the vacant legs of his longjohns behind him like pennants.

  Suddenly she was angry. “Stanley!” she snapped, and she couldn’t help herself, honeymoon or no honeymoon. She stamped her foot; her voice shot up a register. “You stop this now!” she shouted, and here she was, shrill as a fishwife on the second day of her marriage, but her patience was at an end and the train was rolling into the station and she wanted to go, to go now, and no more frittering or vacillating or neurotic displays.

  She was about to stalk across the room and take his arm again when she started at a sound behind her and turned around, expecting her mother. It wasn’t her mother. It was Stanley’s mother, Nettie, the ogre herself, the rain beaded on her hat and caught in a fine sparkling mist on the collar of her fur coat. Her jaw was wet and her mouth barely moved as she spoke. “I’ll handle this,” she said.

  Nettie did finally get Stanley moving—how, Katherine would never know—and they both emerged from the room within half an hour, the suitcases and trunk neatly packed and secured and standing watch at the door, Nettie on Stanley’s left arm, his coat draped over his right, but still they missed the first train and the evening was ruined as far as Katherine was concerned. There was some satisfaction in finally getting under way, sitting there in the intimacy of their compartment with her erect and proper husband at her side, even if she did have to share him with his mother and hers, but it wasn’t what she’d hoped for. They made small talk, gazed out the window at the dark French countryside and the flitting lights, dined pleasantly enough, but all the while Stanley seemed tense and wooden, nodding his head automatically at any remark addressed to him, his hand—the hand she held in hers—as stiff as a marionette’s. And if he was wooden, if he was a puppet, then who was pulling the strings? Katherine gazed at Nettie’s tight self-satisfied smile as the train shot smoothly through the night and they talked in small voices of French painting, escargot, people they’d known in Chicago and the unsuitability of birds as pets, and she felt as depressed and deflated as she’d ever felt in her life.

  When they finally arrived, Stanley was visibly drained. The whole business of the wedding and the move out of his hotel to Prangins for a night and then out of Prangins for Paris must have wrought havoc on his nerves. He was emotionally delicate, Katherine knew that, and she appreciated that in him—he was sensitive, artistic, retiring, as kind and thoughtful as any man in the world, the sort of husband women dream of. But the exhaustion was written on his face for anybody to see and when finally they were shown to their suite at the Elysée Palace, he merely wished her good night, ducked into his room and shut the door firmly behind him. She stood there a moment in the center of the salon, exhausted herself, thinking she should go to him, if only to pet and comfort him, but then she heard the sudden sharp rasp of the latch falling into place on the inside of the door and she sank into the nearest chair and cried till she was all cried out.

  In the morning, Stanley was his old self, smiling and relaxed, and Katherine felt renewed too—they’d both been tired, that was all. They breakfasted in their room, treating each other with the exaggerated tenderness of a couple celebrating their golden wedding anniversary, and everything seemed right, the way she’d pictured it, gentle and soothing and intimate. Until Nettie showed up, that is. She burst in on them at nine, wanting to know if Stanley had taken his fish-oil capsule and if they were still planning to tour the Musée du Jeu-de-Paume or the Louvre. Immediately, Stanley’s mood changed. A moment before he’d been gay and communicative, slathering his toast with butter and reminiscing about how he and Harold used to play at Indians when they were boys and steal out into the yard to eat their toast dry beneath the shrubbery, and now suddenly the words died in his throat. No, he admitted, he hadn’t taken his fish-oil capsule, but he had it right here somewhere, and he would, and yes, they were planning on the Louvre, but he needed time to finish, well, his breakfast, and he hoped his mother wouldn’t be too disappointed if they left at ten?

  If Stanley’s mother was going, then it was only right that Josephine should go too, and Katherine tried to make the best of it, chatting with her mother and snuggling beside Stanley in the carriage on the way over. But as they strolled through the galleries, Stanley quietly commenting on one painting or another, he unconsciously took his mother’s arm, and Katherine and Josephine were left to bring up the rear. Then there was lunch. Nettie had invited some horrid missionary’s wife who apparently ran a boardinghouse where Stanley had stayed while under the tutelage of Monsieur Julien. Her name was Mrs. van Pele, a dumpy, opinionated, undistinguished woman in her sixties, and Stanley nearly jumped out of his skin when she entered the room. He shot up from the table so precipitously he nearly knocked it over, his face flushing, and if it weren’t for the potted palm behind him he might have fled the restaurant altogether. “Adela,” Nettie chirped, trying to cover Stanley’s confusion while the waiter looked on suspiciously and Katherine and Josephine gaped in bewilderment, “how nice of you to come. You know Stanley, of course, and this is his wife, Katherine, and her mother, Mrs. Josephine Dexter.”

  Stanley didn’t offer his hand, nor did he bend forward to accept Mrs. van Pele’s; he just stood there, his face crimson, staring down at his feet and clenching his fists. “So nice to see you again, Stanley,” Mrs. van Pele said, settling into a chair with the assistance of the maître d‘, “and congratulations. I wish you all the best.”

  “I’m so ashamed,” Stanley murmured, raising his head to address the entire table, the maître d’ and the waiter as well. “I don‘t—I, well, I’ve never told anybody, I’m so ashamed, but I was impure and violated my mother’s wishes and your hospitality too—” “

  “Nonsense,” Nettie said, and her voice cracked like a whip. “Sit down, Stanley. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of.”

  A silence fell over the table as Stanle
y slowly sank back into his seat. The tinkling of silverware and the buzz of voices became audible all of a sudden. Katherine was bewildered. She tried to take her husband’s hand, but he pulled away from her.

  “Utter nonsense and rubbish,” Nettie said after a moment, as if for clarification. “You’ve just been married, Stanley. You have responsibilities now—you’re not a boy anymore.”

  The waiter had retreated a few steps, wincing and sucking at his teeth, and Mrs. van Pele and Josephine began talking simultaneously, when Stanley stood again. “Excuse me,” he murmured, pushing back the chair, “I need to, well, freshen up—that is, I mean, I’ll be right back.”

  “Sit down, Stanley,” Nettie said, peering up from beneath the armature of her hat.

  Stanley didn’t listen. His face was heavy, his shoulders slumped. He looked round the table as if he didn’t recognize anyone there and then strode directly across the room, up the three steps to the entrace and out the door and into the street, and he never looked back.

  Katherine didn’t know what to do. She looked at her mother, at the missionary’s wife, and then finally at Nettie: her husband, for some reason fathomable only to him, had just deserted her in a public place. On the third day of their honeymoon, no less. She was stunned. “Where could he possibly—?” she heard herself say.

  Nettie said nothing.

  “He’s probably just gone out for some air, dear,” Josephine said, and then she glanced over her shoulder and made a face. “It is a bit stuffy in here.”

  Mrs. van Pele agreed. Wholeheartedly.

  And now suddenly Nettie was on her feet, a short brisk square-shouldered woman of sixty-nine who looked several years younger, dressed in the latest fashions from the Parisian couturiers and as used to the prerogatives of command as any mere Napoleon or Kaiser. Her hat alone—a massive construction of felt, feathers and velvetta—could have inspired awe in any officer corps. “Adela, Josephine,” she said, “would you excuse me for just a moment—I’m sure Stanley’s quite all right; if anything it’s just the excitement of seeing you again, Adela, so soon after the drama of the wedding, and I see now that perhaps we shouldn’t have surprised him—but I do need a moment to speak privately with Katherine.” She gestured for Katherine to rise and follow her. “You’ll come with me into the next room, please? It’ll only take a minute.”

  Puzzled, Katherine rose from the table and followed Nettie’s brisk martial form through the main dining area and into the ladies’ salon, where Nettie settled herself in a plush chair in front of an oval mirror in a gilt frame and directed Katherine to the chair beside her. There were two other women present, at the far end of the room, conversing in low tones. Katherine sank into the chair with an air of impatience—she was beginning to feel distinctly irritated, and who was this woman to think she could command her too?

  “I’ll get right to the point,” Nettie said, drawing her mouth tight and staring into Katherine’s eyes. “I don’t pretend to know what’s upset Stanley this afternoon, but I will say this”—she paused—“change has been very difficult for him. He’s the best boy in the world, fine and bright and loving, but he suffers from a nervous condition. It’s his extreme sensitivity, that’s all, his artistic side coming out, but of course we’ve had him examined by a number of specialists because of his older sister, Mary Virginia. You see, Mary Virginia has been diagnosed as—”

  Katherine cut her off. “Yes, I know. She suffers from dementia praecox. Stanley told me. Ages ago. But I really don’t see how that should affect him in any way.”

  “Exactly. But he is delicate emotionally, and for some years now he’s had bouts of nervous prostration, and I thought I’d better just tell you what you’re in for, since you were so anxious to come between him and is family. He doesn’t need coddling, not at all, but he does need understanding, and he does have his moods.”

  Katherine watched herself in the mirror, her face pale and eyes alert, the slightest movement of her hands and forearms duplicated as she smoothed the skirt over her knees. “I’m perfectly well aware of that,” she said, and her tone couldn’t have been colder or more final.

  Nettie leaned forward, all the combative lines round her mouth and eyes drawn into fierce alignment. “I don’t know if you appreciate what I’m saying: we’re afraid his condition could worsen. We hope not—I pray every night for him—and the reports are encouraging, or at least most of them, but there is that possibility. Are you prepared for it?”

  Katherine was already getting to her feet. “I don’t know what you think I am, but I’m no child and I resent being treated like one. I’m fully aware of Stanley’s neurasthenia and fully prepared to do anything I can to see him improve. It’s not as if he‘s—”

  “Yes? Not as if he’s what? Crazy? Is that what you mean to say?”

  “Of course not,” Katherine said, but even as she said it the idea was there in her head, ugly as a scab that refuses to heal. “I meant it’s not as if his behavior is cause for alarm, not to me, anyway, because I know him in a way you never will. He’s my husband, don’t you understand that? He’s not yours anymore—he’s mine.”

  The old woman in the armorial hat just stared at her out of two eyes that were exactly like Stanley’s. It took her a moment, and then, in a voice so low it was barely audible, she said, “Yes. That’s right. He’s yours.”

  They stayed a month in Paris, occasionally making overnight motor excursions in the Renault Stanley bought, and they switched hotels at Katherine’s whim—from the Elysée Palace to the Splendide to the Ritz. “I need a change,” she would tell Stanley as he staggered through the door with the bundle of string-bound parcels and hat boxes that represented the day’s removable offerings, but she never gave him a reason beyond that. The reason, of course, was Nettie. She was entrenched in her suite of rooms at the Elysée Palace like a fat swollen tick, sucking the blood out of everyone, and Katherine only wanted to get away from her—and to get Stanley away too. That was the important thing. That was essential. Because they’d be all right if she would just leave them alone, Katherine was sure of it.

  But Nettie was tenacious. She insisted on lunching and dining with them daily and consulting on every purchase they made, from the andirons, vases and oil paintings that would grace their future home to the white fox tippet and muff and tourmaline bracelet Stanley picked out for his bride, and Katherine’s only recourse was to use her own mother as a buffer every step of the way. It was like a game of checkers: Nettie advanced a square and Katherine countered with Josephine. “Should we go to the theater this evening?” Nettie would propose at lunch, and Katherine, looking up languidly from a book or catalogue, would say, “Why don’t you and mother go?—Stanley and I are exhausted, aren’t we, Stanley?”

  Stanley was a prince through it all, though he refused to hear any criticism of his mother—he wouldn’t even allow Katherine to mention her without bunching up the muscles of his jaw till they began to shift beneath the skin like some sort of abnormal growth. He was dutiful and patient, the soul of propriety, and never once did he let a thought of socialism or Eugene Debs come between him and the determined campaign of acquisition Katherine had embarked on: they did have a house to fill, after all. Or would have soon. There was only one thing in which he continued to fail her, the biggest thing, the ultimate thing, the thing all the creatures of the earth did as naturally and unconsciously as they drew breath and ate and gamboled in the fields, and there was no fulfillment without it, no security, no consummation, no hope.

  Each night was a repetition of the first. He was busy. He was worried. The Harvester Company. Correspondence. Accounts. Bills. If she would just give him a minute, just a minute.... Alone, in their rooms, just before retiring, he would take her hand, bend to her with a formal kiss and excuse himself, and no matter how seductive she tried to be, how suggestive or shy or elaborately unconcerned, he sat at his desk in a sea of paper until she gave up and found her bleary way to bed. That was her hidden affliction, that
was her sorrow, and she blamed Nettie for it—the proximity of Nettie, Nettie’s face and image and her fierce emasculating will: if she couldn’t have her son, then no one could.

  Finally, in desperation, Katherine hit on the idea of a motor tour to the south of France, a tour that would be certain to deflect both mothers, what with the dust and mud and sheer barbarity of the lurching, fuming, backfiring monster of a contraption they would be expected to immure themselves in for days at a time, and hadn’t Nettie sworn she would never set foot in an automobile as long as she lived? Yes, of course: a motor tour. What could be better? Katherine woke with the inspiration one crisp morning in October and let it incubate while the maid laid out her clothes and she brushed her hair and studied her face in the mirror. She waited till the waiter had brought their breakfast and Stanley was poking idly through the newspaper, and then she let out a little gasp and clasped her hands together, as if the notion had just come to her. “Stanley,” she exclaimed, “I’ve just had the most wonderful idea!”

  But yet again, Katherine had underestimated her adversary—and her own mother, for that matter. Both women greeted the plan enthusiastically, and when the morning of their departure arrived, Nettie and Josephine appeared at the Ritz in identical motoring costumes, a sort of pale dust-colored webbing that covered them from crown to heel and suggested nothing so much as beekeeping or an escape from the seraglio. Stanley climbed into the front seat beside the chauffeur and took the wheel himself, while Katherine and the cocooned mothers jostled for position on the narrow rear seat. They got no farther than Montrouge before the first tire blew, and after languishing beneath an unseasonably warm sun for an hour and a half while Stanley and the chauffeur patched it, they made two brisk miles to Bagneux before mechanical failure forced them to call it a day.