I knew one of them, Samuel, having lunched with him and Ray once in New York: a man of about sixty, bald and jovial.
He approached me to ask quietly, ‘Do you know who’s handling the estate?’
‘That is Mona’s business.’
‘She hasn’t talked to you about it?’
‘Not yet . . .’
He went to speak to the brother as well, whom he must have asked the same question, because Bob Sanders shook his head.
Mona was driving her own car, since she would be going directly on from Pleasantville to New York. Although I had suggested that Isabel drive, Mona had said no to that, but had welcomed her company.
Behind the two women came the brother’s car, then mine, then the chauffeured limousine belonging to the Miller brothers, who looked like twins. Other Madison Avenue people followed, including Ray’s secretary, a tall, statuesque redhead who seemed more grief-stricken than Mona.
Many people whom I did not know. No announcements had been sent out, but the time and place of the funeral had been published in the papers.
I was familiar with the road, which was still bordered by mounds of snow, and the sun came out after only a few miles.
Mona had confided something strange to me the previous day; we had been alone in the living room while Isabel was out running some errands.
‘You’re the only one I can tell this to, Donald . . . I’m wondering if Ray didn’t do it on purpose . . .’
Nothing she could have said would have surprised me more.
‘You mean that he might have committed suicide?’
‘I don’t like that word. He might have helped fate along . . .’
‘He had problems?’
‘Not in business . . . In that department, he was succeeding beyond his hopes . . .’
‘In his private life?’
‘Not there, either . . . We were great pals, the two of us . . . He told me everything . . . Or almost everything. We didn’t show off or play-act in front of each other . . .’
I was struck by those words. So, there were some people who could behave naturally, face to face? Was that what Isabel had been seeking in my eyes for so many years? That I reveal myself? That I confess to her for once what was weighing on my mind?
‘Affairs . . . He had a lot of them. Starting with his secretary, that tall redhead, Hilda.’
She was the woman who had followed in one of the cars.
‘It’s hard to explain, Donald . . . I wonder if he didn’t envy you . . .’
‘Me?’
‘You studied the same things . . . He could have become a lawyer, that was his ambition when he started out in New York. Then he became legal counsel in that ad agency . . . He began to earn money and realized that he’d make more by selling contracts.
‘You see what I mean? He became a businessman. We rented one of the most beautiful apartments in Sutton Place and we gave parties there or went out every evening . . .
‘In the end, he was heartsick . . .’
‘He told you that?’
‘One evening when he’d been drinking, he confessed that some day he would be fed up with being just a puppet . . . You know how his father finished . . .’
Of course I knew. I had known Herbert Sanders well, having often spent the weekend at his home when I was at Yale.
Ray’s father was a bookseller, one of a rather special kind. He did not have a bookstore in the city. He lived in a house of the purest New England style on the road to Ansonia, and on the ground floor the walls of every room were entirely lined with books.
People came to see him not only from New Haven, but from Boston, New York, even farther away, in addition to which he received many mail orders.
He was in correspondence with most countries in the world, keeping abreast of everything being written in the fields of palaeontology, archaeology and the arts, in particular the area of prehistoric art.
He had two other obsessions: works on Venice and books on gastronomy, and he prided himself on having more than 160 such titles on his shelves.
A curious man, whom I can still see: young, distinguished, with a smile both ironic and kind.
His first wife, the mother of his two sons, had left him to marry a wealthy landowner in Texas. He had lived alone for a few years, acquiring the reputation of a skirt-chaser.
Then, suddenly, he had married a Polish woman whom no one knew, a gorgeous twenty-eight-year-old.
He was fifty-five. Three months after his marriage, one evening when his wife was out, he had shot himself in the head, among all his books, leaving no note, no explanation.
‘Now do you see what I mean?’ said Mona.
I refused to accept that revelation. Ray had to remain the man I had imagined, hard on himself and on others, cold and ambitious, the strong man on whom I had taken revenge against all the strong men on this earth.
I did not want a Ray disgusted with money and success.
‘You must be mistaken, Mona . . . I’m sure that Ray was happy . . . When people have a few drinks, you know, they tend to dramatize things . . .’
She looked at me as though debating whether to believe me or not.
‘He was starting to have had enough,’ she insisted. ‘That’s why he was drinking more and more. I began drinking with him . . .’
She added, hesitantly, ‘Here, I didn’t dare, on account of Isabel . . .’
She bit her lip, as if afraid she had wounded me.
‘You find Isabel forbidding?’
‘Don’t you? Ray thought so, too. He admired you . . .’
‘He admired me, you say?’
‘He said you’d chosen your life wisely and well, that you had no need to numb yourself, to go out every evening, to let yourself get carried away in affairs . . .’
‘He wasn’t making fun of me?’
I was dumbfounded. The reversal was complete.
‘According to him, a man able to marry Isabel, to live with her day after day . . .’
‘Why? Did he tell you why?’
‘Don’t you understand?’
She was amazed by my innocence, and I abruptly understood Mona’s attitude towards me during those past few days. For her, the strong man was not Ray, it was me.
And, quite naturally, it was my protection she had sought. When she looked at me, from deep in her armchair, when she brushed me with her shoulder, it was not simply a sensual thing.
‘I’ve often observed the two of you, Donald . . . With Isabel, you cannot cheat. You can’t behave beneath yourself, either, not even for a moment. She’s an extraordinary woman, and you have to be extraordinary to live by her side . . .’
I was so confused and upset that it took me more than two hours to fall asleep later that night.
‘Ray, he had his ups and downs, like everyone . . . Say, you’re not going to drop me, are you, now that he’s gone?’
‘But Mona, on the contrary, I ask only . . .’
I almost jumped up to rush over and take her in my arms. I was troubled, elated, beside myself.
‘Shh . . . She’s coming . . .’
Out in the snow we could see the little Volkswagen I had bought my wife for running her local errands. From a distance, I watched Isabel come out of the garage, carrying her bag of groceries: serene, clear complexion with always a touch of pink at the cheekbones, and the blue eyes, those eyes that refused all lying, all cheating.
I would have to rethink everything. Ray had admired me. That was the most staggering news.
Mona admired me, too; she had just admitted it in her own way. And I, poor fool, who that first night had not dared to reach out over the floor to touch the hand that held me so tightly!
What Mona did not know, when she was talking about my relationship with Isabel, was that I had been released. I, too, had admired my wife. I had even been afraid of her, afraid of a frown, of a passing shadow in her limpid eyes, of a mute judgement.
Because she has never said anything unpleasant to me. S
he has never reproached me.
I must have had occasion to be disagreeable, unjust, ridiculous, what have you, towards her or our children.
Not one word. Her smile never faded. There were only her eyes. And no one would have seen anything there. Her eyes remained as serene and clear as ever.
What would Mona have thought if I had confessed: ‘It’s not a woman I married, it’s a judge . . .’
Wasn’t that what Ray had felt, and hadn’t he pitied more than admired me? Unless he had been completely fooled.
He’d believed that I had married Isabel because I was a strong man, capable of accepting the challenge.
On the contrary. With her, I kept living in my mother’s skirts. I was still a schoolboy. I remained a Boy Scout.
Too bad for Ray. I did not regret a thing, except that he was depriving me of some guilt. I wanted to have killed him, to have desired his death and helped fate along insofar as I could.
If Ray hadn’t even struggled, if he had accepted death with relief, the tragedy I had experienced that night on my bench, in the barn, no longer made any sense.
I needed my revolt to remain total, of my own free will.
I was not a sheep, as people thought. I was cruel, cynical, capable of allowing my best friend to die without holding out my hand to him.
And while he was dying quietly in the snow, with one leg twisted, I was smoking cigarettes and thinking of all the times he had unwittingly humiliated me . . . And not just him! . . . There was Isabel, too . . . The two images blended together a little in my mind . . .
The funeral procession had to slow down two or three times. I tried to see Mona’s car, beyond the ones between us.
Was I in love with Mona? I was now able to consider questions frankly, without lying to myself, without cheating.
The answer was no. Not in love. Even if it had suddenly become possible, I would not have married her. I did not want to live with her day and night, either, to link my life with hers.
What I wanted, what would happen soon, was to make love with her.
Not tenderly. Not passionately. Who knows? Perhaps standing up, like Ray and Patricia at old Ashbridge’s house.
I wanted to take a female, like that, in passing, and in my eyes, Mona was a real female.
We arrived at the cemetery. The cars followed a number of paths in that metropolis for the dead until we reached a new section, on the hill.
There was snow everywhere. The evergreens looked like Christmas trees. No one was wearing boots, so we were all stomping our feet while the coffin was brought up.
The minister was brief. There were no other speeches. The Miller brothers slipped into the first row, because of the photographers; going closer to Mona, I lightly supported her elbow.
Bob Sanders noticed. He was a head taller than I and so looked down on me, with what I took to be haughty disdain.
A few days earlier I would have been ashamed, crushed. That day, I didn’t care. Neither did I care that my wife was watching me in some surprise, doubtless caught off guard by the audacity of my gesture.
We headed for the cars. I was walking next to Mona, whose arm I still supported as if she needed it, whereas she was perfectly calm. Bob Sanders strode up to catch her, ignoring my presence.
‘I must say goodbye now, because my plane leaves in less than two hours . . . If you need anything at all, if there are formalities to complete, here is my address in Bonn.’
He handed her a card he’d had ready, which she slipped into her purse.
‘Take care of yourself, then . . .’
He shook her hand almost militarily and went on ahead. His car was the first to leave the cemetery.
‘He doesn’t seem to like you . . .’
He had avoided acknowledging me.
‘No . . . I suppose he’s imagining things.’
Isabel came up to us.
‘Are you going back to New York alone, Mona?’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘Won’t it be too painful for you to return to an empty apartment?’
‘The maid, Janet, is waiting for me . . .’
Isabel looked at me. It was as if she had given me a hint. I could have offered to accompany Mona and come home that evening by train.
I did not even invite her to have a bite to eat with us. On the other hand, just when she was about to get into her Lincoln, I kissed her on both cheeks, gripping her arms rather hard.
‘Goodbye, Mona.’
‘Goodbye, Donald. Thank you . . . I suppose I’m going to need you for the formalities, the questions about the estate, and so on?’
‘Simply call me at my office.’
‘Goodbye, Isabel . . . Thank you, too . . . Without you, I don’t know what would have become of me.’
They kissed. One of the Miller brothers rejoined me after Mona’s car had driven away.
‘You’re her lawyer?’
‘I suppose so . . .’
‘There’ll be complicated questions to answer. Might I have your telephone number?’
I handed him one of my cards.
Isabel and I found ourselves alone in the Chrysler.
‘Were you thinking of having lunch along the way?’
‘No. I’m not hungry.’
‘Neither am I.’
I was at the wheel, she was beside me, as usual, and her three-quarter profile was at the right edge of my vision.
We drove for a good fifteen minutes in silence before Isabel spoke.
‘How do you think it all went?’
‘The burial?’
‘Yes . . . I don’t know what was bothering me . . . It was as if there were no cohesion, no order . . . I didn’t feel any emotion. I don’t think anyone did, not even Mona . . . It’s true that it hasn’t sunk in yet . . .’
Lighting a cigarette, I said nothing.
‘The hardest moment will be when she gets home . . .’
I still kept quiet. Now she was the one who felt the need to break the silence.
‘I wondered if you should have gone along with her . . .’
‘She’ll get along just fine on her own.’
‘Will you be taking care of the estate?’
‘She asked me to. The Millers want to be in touch with me as well.’
‘Do you think she’ll have enough to live on?’
‘More than enough, I’m sure.’
Was I strong? Was I weak? Was I clever? Was I naive? Was I cruel? Was I cowardly? They were the ones trying to find out, even Isabel, who no longer understood and had to puzzle over why, after the business with the cigarette butts, I was not acting more humble, if not scared.
At the house, we settled for a sandwich in the kitchen. It was three o’clock.
‘Are you going out?’ I asked.
‘I’ll be leaving soon to do my shopping.’
I, at least, found it a little odd to be alone together in the house. In so few days, I had lost that habit and wondered how we would behave living in tandem.
I went to the office. Higgins was waiting for me.
‘I hope you snagged the Sanders estate?’
‘I will certainly help Mona Sanders with my advice, but in a private capacity and without charge.’
Higgins made a face.
‘Too bad . . . That must be a big haul . . .’
‘I have no idea. On the other hand, it’s possible that the Miller brothers will engage me to dissolve the company, and that would be different.’
‘Everything went well?’
‘The way it usually does . . .’
I would have been hard put to describe what had happened at the cemetery, for the good reason that I’d been distracted by my thoughts, preoccupied only with Mona. Once in my office, I almost picked up the phone to call her to ask if she had arrived home all right, mostly to hear her voice.
And yet, once again, I was not in love. I know that is hard to understand, but maybe I’ll manage to explain myself.
I worked for two full ho
urs, on an estate, as it happened. The de cujus – the dear departed – had taken such careful precautions to avoid taxes that it was almost impossible to establish the value of the assets and divide them among the heirs. I had been studying the file for several weeks.
I dictated several letters to Helen while asking myself why, before her marriage, I had not thought of flirting with her. I looked at pretty girls, of course, including the wives of certain of my friends. Occasionally I desired them. But that desire remained, so to speak, theoretical.
It was forbidden. By what? By whom? I didn’t ask myself the question.
I was married. There was Isabel, with her eyes of such limpid blue and her bearing, so calm and relaxed.
Isabel and our daughters. I was fond of our girls, Mildred and Cecilia, and when Mildred was the first to leave us for boarding school, I had missed going to kiss her goodnight in her bed.
Now, except for two weekends a month, I had no more occasion to go upstairs. Mildred was fifteen.
If she were to marry young, in three or four years, five at the most, it would mean the first bedroom to remain empty in the house.
Cecilia’s turn would follow, for time was passing ever more quickly. The last five years, for example, seemed shorter to me than a single year when I was between ten and twenty.
Is that because the recent ones were less full?
I dictated. I thought. I looked at Helen, debating whether she was already pregnant and if, in that case, we would find a replacement. Ray had slept with his secretary. He’d slept with all the women who came within reach.
And he was the one Mona felt sorry for. Not finding what he had hoped for in life had demoralized him. So he drank and chased women . . . Poor Ray!
Did Helen realize that it was a new man she had before her? Did Higgins? Would all those I would be meeting discern that they were looking at a new Donald Dodd?
My actions, my attitudes, had not changed. Nor had my voice, of course. But the look in my eyes? Was it possible that my eyes had remained the same?
I went to stand before the bathroom mirror. My eyes are blue, too, a darker blue than Isabel’s, with brown flecks, while hers are really the colour of a springtime sky when there is no humidity in the air.
I made fun of myself.
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