The Husband

by Sol Stein

  Margaret took the hint.

  Rose beckoned Peter to follow her up the stairs. A small alarm went off in his senses.

  He followed Rose into the bedroom. She went around behind him to close the door. He heard the sound. He turned to see her pulling the zippered front of her one-piece outfit completely open. She hadn’t a thing on underneath. She stepped out of the suit and came over to him and did something she knew out of long practice would arouse him instantly.

  Chapter Ten

  Thoughts strode through Peter’s head like lectures.

  A woman who has successfully seduced a man before, however long ago, can do the same again.

  In sexual relations, past experience with an individual counts more than past experience with other individuals.

  If a woman tries to get something by means of sex, and if sex has never been of special moment to her, then what she wants must be important.

  Peter thought of fighting back the temptress, as it might have happened in an old movie, with the man all stilts and bones jerkily moving about, getting back into his clothes, fleeing against one wall and then another, hiding under the bed, inside a closet, while a piano banged chase music into every corner of the house.

  But Peter, being Peter, was fleeing his own way, by letting her do what she wanted, while his lecturing mind ran wild with propositions.

  A rejected wife has the seductive power of a stranger.

  Not exactly. Reframe.

  A rejected wife has the seductive power of a stranger, plus a catalog of experience.

  Rose, he thought, was going through every item in the catalog. If only she knew how distracted he was.

  “Why don’t you relax?” she said into his ear.

  Why do people say “relax”? Sex was one of the least relaxed experiences mankind was capable of, ordinary people performing an olympian event. Relaxation is not the route to orgasm.

  “Peter,” she was saying, “Peter, Peter, Peter.”

  “Rose,” he was tempted to say, “Rose, Rose, Rose,” but it would be too funny. He thought of stopping, getting off the bed, dressing, tipping his hat (what hat?), and leaving.

  Sex once begun was the least frustratable of sequences. Unless the equipment failed. Why was his equipment not failing? Why did his body want to finish the process, the sooner the better, but finish?

  For the first time he could remember, he thought, it’s only a lay. He had heard that from so many men who were regularly and unimportantly unfaithful to the wives, men who kidded him for, as they put it, not getting a piece now and then from another store.

  Was Elizabeth his new wife? Was he now, at this moment, committing adultery with Rose?

  Peter started to pull out when Rose began a very low rolling sound. Her eyes were shut but her mouth was moaning. He had never seen her fake excitement quite that way. Had she learned it? Had she studied, practiced, was she conscious of what she was trying to do?

  He had better stop.

  It was too bold a performance to stop.

  Get it over with. He plunged on. What am I doing here? On and on, and then, suddenly, the clear sound, footsteps bounding up the stairs.

  He stopped.

  Rose’s eyes were open with alarm.

  Was the door locked?

  A knock at the door. Another knock at the door.

  “Get up, quick,” said Rose.

  Her recovery was instantaneous.

  “Yes, yes,” she was saying to the door, fixing her clothes hurriedly and motioning him to get his on as well.

  “Hurry up, Mom!” Jonathan was yelling through the door.

  “What is it?”

  “Hurry up, something’s in the laundry room.”

  “Something’s what?”

  “Burning in the laundry room. Hurry up!”

  Rose closed the door behind her as she left. Peter was still adjusting his clothes. He glanced in the mirror. Okay.

  He opened the door.

  Jonathan was following his mother down the stairs. Hearing Peter, he stopped and turned. He was obviously startled to see his father coming out of the bedroom.

  “Go ahead,” said Peter. “I’ll follow you.”

  The boy clattered down the rest of the stairs, Peter following, and then on around through the kitchen and down the basement stairs. Smoke was pouring out of the laundry room.

  Rose stood, paralyzed. In a second Peter saw what must have happened. An armload of clothes had been dropped on top of the dryer, and over at the corner, where the dryer-flame burner vented, a part of some garment had caught and was blazing, and now the rest of the bundle was smoldering. He always had said there should have been a second fire extinguisher inside the house, not just in the garage. Damn! Peter quickly got to the other side of the basement and the garage doorway. He yanked the small extinguisher, intended for emergencies at his workbench, out of its holder and quickly tried to remind himself of the instructions as he hurried back to the laundry room.

  “The fire alarm is on the corner,” said Peter to Jonathan. “Pull it. Hurry.”

  “Go out the front door,” he yelled at Rose, “so you can direct the firemen down here when they come.”

  She watched him turn the extinguisher on and went up the stairs. The smoke smarted his eyes. He didn’t seem to be able to get close enough to what was burning. Now the damn extinguisher wouldn’t stop. Maybe it’s not supposed to, once it’s started. With one hand he got out his handkerchief and held it under the tap, and then, holding the soaked handkerchief against his face, he got closer to the burning bundle. He remembered to aim not at the smoke, but at what was causing the smoke, zeroing in on the point of combustion, barely able to see for the tears streaming out of his eyes, coughing terribly, wondering how much the flames would spread before the firemen got here. What was keeping them? It seemed interminable, as he had to back off more and more because of the choking smoke, his small extinguisher no longer effective at that distance. What to do?

  A strong arm yanked him back and motioned him out of the way.

  The fireman in his helmet seemed a giant as he leveled a large extinguisher at the flames. At the laundry room door, there were two others, one with an ax. Peter hoped he wouldn’t have to use the ax.

  The third fireman, he now saw, was holding the neck of a gigantic hose, which wound its way up the stairs. Peter went up the stairs to what he wanted most—fresh air.

  Margaret and Jonathan were near the door, where another fireman was guiding the large hose snaking out to the street and being connected to the hydrant. Peter gulped the air. The neighbors were out in force, especially the children, all of whom seemed excited by the turn of events, with the singular exception of Jonathan, who was looking at his father in a very strange way.

  “Are you all right, Dad?” asked Margaret.

  He nodded, wiping his face now with the wet handkerchief. “Just smoke.”

  Peter sat down on the stairs at the front of the house. Some of the neighbors knew, didn’t they?

  As soon as Peter felt his breathing coming normally, though ever so deeply, he went back inside, out of the way of the stares. He slumped into his chair. He didn’t have any idea how much time passed till he looked up and saw one of the firemen, the one with the ax, coming around from the kitchen.

  “It’ll be okay, mac,” said the fireman. “Gotta watch those gas dryers.”

  Peter hadn’t really thought about gas dryers even when he was living with one, but the fireman was being friendly, and he couldn’t say that was the woman’s department or that he was just upstairs for a quick one with the lady of the house.

  “Are you the owner?” asked the fireman.

  Ah, Peter could have given a long and complex response to that unanswerable question.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You better let your insurance company know.”

  “Thanks,” said Peter and went downstairs to the basement.

  The two firemen in the laundry room looked like they were w
ashing clothes. Each was bent over one of the twin sinks, kneading away at blackened garments. One of them said, “You always gotta do this on a laundry fire. Burned clothes rubbed so every cinder is out dead. Otherwise, we leave and then the fire starts up all over again.”

  “I see,” said Peter.

  “Then it’s our necks in the wringer,” continued the talkative one. “They find out who covered the first alarm, and did they rinse and wring the clothes.”

  “You’re doing fine,” said Peter.

  “Almost finished,” said the fireman, wringing a wet bundle that had once been a nightdress of Rose’s.

  As they finished up, Peter himself checked around to make sure there wasn’t a spark left anywhere. It would be some mess to clean up.

  He offered a five-dollar bill to the talkative fireman. “I do appreciate you fellows coming to the rescue. Here, get some cigars for the guys.”

  “We’re not allowed to,” said the fireman, taking the money. “But, okay. Thanks.”

  “Thanks,” said the second fireman, his sole verbal contribution to the proceedings. All three of them, with a last look at the hopeless mess in the laundry room, went upstairs, Peter leading the way.

  The hose was almost completely gathered up by that time and was being reloaded onto the huge red truck. It seemed an awfully big vehicle for the job that had to be done. Well, thought Peter, you never can tell the size of the job in advance, can you? And the men had to get there somehow; might as well be on the fire truck. He wondered how much it cost the city to douse his laundry room.

  The fireman who seemed in charge, and who had not once stirred from the command car which had followed rather than preceded the truck, now came up to Peter with some advice. “Those dinky extinguishers don’t do much good. If I were you, I’d get a Blazebuster unit. Keep one in the basement and one in the garage. Get two.” He handed Peter a leaflet on Blazebusters. Peter thanked him and noticed the code key rubber stamped on the corner of the coupon. He wondered how much of a commission the fireman got for each of the extinguishers purchased this way.

  The neighbors were dispersing. One or two waved at him, and he waved back.

  Peter closed the large front door of the fortress. It seemed very quiet in the living room. Rose, sitting in her favorite chair, seemed remarkably cheerful. The kids waited for him to say something. He was very tired.

  “I guess it’s okay if I sit down,” he said, half to himself.

  He wondered how he would describe this day to Elizabeth. Would he ever?

  “You were real good, Dad,” said Jonathan.

  “Thanks,” said Peter wearily. “When I was six or seven, I wanted to be a fireman. Just didn’t think I’d have to wait this long.”

  Margaret and Jonathan’s laugh was tense. Peter sat still.

  “Well,” said Rose.

  The children recognized the cue. “I guess we can go out,” said Jonathan.

  “There’s quite a bit of cleaning up to do,” said Peter, who wanted them to stay.

  “I could get a garbage can down to the basement,” said Jonathan, “and stuff all the burned things in it.”

  “You can take a can down,” said Peter, “but you’d better let Mom make an inventory of the things before they’re thrown out. The insurance company will want to know what was damaged and how much each item cost.”

  Rose seemed genuinely grateful for his practicality.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Sure,” he said. Sure, what? It sounded stupid.

  “Peter?”

  “Uh huh.” He was completely unprepared for what she said.

  “Could you arrange to move your things back this evening?”

  She was out of her mind. No she wasn’t; this was a natural response for Rose. Like the virgins in school who after the first time want to know when the engagement will be announced. Was it the fire, the momentary threat of danger to the house, that brought them together?

  No, for Rose it was the near-sex, or whatever it had been in the bedroom, his going along, lending himself to Rose’s design. Did she think it committed him to anything? Not on your life, he was tempted to say. That kind of thing doesn’t have the force of union, much less marriage.

  Rose wouldn’t understand.

  Peter was silent for a time, taking in the room as if with a camera, snapping this wall, that wall, recording familiar objects, storing the views away for later.

  “Were you about to say something?” asked Rose, her tone mellow. He even thought there was a note of pleading in it.

  Could he tell her—hadn’t he already told her through word and deed—that their marriage had been a mistake which they now had a chance to rectify? Partnerships made sometimes had to be dissolved. Few friendships lasted a lifetime. Few lasted over the years. Was marriage so different from a friendship that didn’t last? You didn’t have children with friends; yet that wasn’t completely true. Sometimes you’d get close to a friend’s kids, and some of that closeness would remain when you saw the kids or thought of them, even when the friend himself was rarely seen and rarely thought of.

  “Are you feeling all right?” asked Rose. “Is the smoke still bothering you?”

  He shook his head.

  Peter didn’t want to be rude. But above all, he didn’t want to lie now, not a fundamental, soul-crushing lie. He gathered himself together. He closed his eyes for a split second so that the camera would stop recording, lifted himself from the chair, and went out the door without saying a single word.

  Through the closed door behind him he could hear Rose crying, not the fake tears he had heard from time to time in the young years of their marriage, but sobbing grief because she had been so certain and her hopes had been so high.

  As he went down into the subway, he realized he hadn’t said good-bye to the kids. There were lots of other things he hadn’t said or done, not only today but over the years.

  The past is past, he thought, knowing it wasn’t. If it were, why would he be thinking now of his own childhood, and his parents, who had stayed together as most parents did in another age?

  He put the token into the turnstile and hurried his steps because he could hear the roar of the incoming train below.

  Chapter Eleven

  “When’s the son of a bitch getting here?” said Jack. Rose watched Jack pace on the far side of the living room. She had noticed his glances at the bar. This late in the afternoon the whiskey mechanism was rumbling in his head, wanting that first after-work drink. She had not offered Jack a drink. Work would not be over until after Peter left.

  “When’s the son of a bitch coming?” repeated Jack.

  Rose sighed. “Please don’t call him that.”

  “Call him what?”

  “Son of a bitch,” said Rose a bit hesitantly.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I don’t like that word.”

  “You just said it.”

  “I want him to come back.”

  “Well, you won’t get him out of the sack with Miss what’s-her-name by sitting around the house moaning.”

  “It’s been three weeks since I’ve seen him.”

  “You’ve got to leave things to me,” said Jack.

  “He just walked out of here without saying a word. A word.”

  “Look, Rose,” Jack said, taking her hands in his, “why don’t you buy yourself a new hat or girdle or low-cut dress or something? Isn’t that what women do when they’re down?”

  Rose gently took her hands out of his. “Do I look that bad?”

  “Jesus, Rose, you look fine, fore and aft. I’m no close-range expert.”

  He was getting ready to take her hands again. Rose quickly said, “You’re close enough, Jack.”

  He slumped into the nearest chair. “I didn’t mean to rush things.”

  Rose came around behind the chair and put her hands on his shoulders. “You’re galloping.”

  “At my age,” he said, and Rose had never heard his voice so li
nty with weariness, “all you see at the end of the line is the glue factory.” Jack was tempted to look around at her, but it was safer not seeing her reaction.

  “I’ve had a yen for you for a long time,” he said without turning.

  Your job, Rose thought, is to get Peter back here with the kids and me.

  “Remember when you sat in my lap that time?” asked Jack, his voice subdued.

  “I remember.”

  “Well, my lap didn’t forget.”

  Rose had always thought she was good at pity for other people, but pity for herself so filled her now it was no use trying.

  “I guess I’m blunt,” said Jack.

  “A little.”

  “I guess I’m fat, too.”

  “A little.”

  “I guess I just don’t cut a figure like Peter.”

  “I wish he’d get here,” said Rose.

  “What time’d he phone?”

  “Ten. That’s when I called you.”

  “I don’t like the two of you talking on the phone without witnesses.”

  “Oh, Jack, please! He’s my husband.”

  Jack stood up, a high color in his face. It was barely a whisper when he spoke. “You’re an exciting-looking woman, Rose.”

  “We’ll find somebody for you, Jack. Just give us time.”

  He looked forlorn.

  “I need your help, Jack.”

  Slowly he let the lawyer’s mask slip into place. “Okay, kid,” he said, “but leave things to me. Promise?”

  “I have to.”

  “If he’d done this to me,” said Jack, the gristle returning to his voice, “I’d have killed him.” He pursued Rose to the corner of the room. “I don’t understand you, Rose. Don’t you want to punish him?”

  “There’s still a lot of feeling left.”

  “For that half-assed idiot?”

  “I can’t get the cobwebs of that many years out of my system in one sweep.”

  “He did.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “You’re soft, Rose.”

  It was a moment before she said, “If I were soft, he might not have left.”

  They froze at the sound of footsteps outside. “You better let me do the talking.”