The Trouble with Eden

by Lawrence Block

  “That would stand to reason.”

  “The only thing is that sometimes we’re together and he’s not really there. I can tell that he’s not really listening. He’s hearing some conversation his characters are going to be having in the next chapter.”

  “What’s the book about?”

  “He doesn’t like to talk about it. So I don’t ask. I asked him the title and he said Two If by Sea, but he was joking. Of course. I don’t think it’s about the war. I don’t know what it’s about.”

  “Maybe it’s about you.”

  “What a thought. No, I don’t think so. I think it’s about him.”

  “Isn’t every book about its author?”

  “I mean that it’s a more personal book than he usually writes. He’s as much as said so. That he’s getting into, things more deeply than he ever has before. I think he means he’s giving more of himself.” She put out her cigarette. “I’ll get to read it as soon as he’s through with the first draft. I’m not sure when that will be. I’m very anxious to read it, and at the same time it scares me.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I’m afraid I won’t like it, for one thing, and then what do I say?”

  “That you like it.”

  “Isn’t it better to be honest?”

  “No. It’s been my observation that honesty is rarely to be treasured in human relationships. Writers and artists don’t want honesty, anyway. They want praise. There are a few masochists who truly want constructive criticism, whatever that means, but they’re few and far between.”

  “Suppose your husband—”

  “Paints something dreadful? What do I say to him? Why, I tell him I think it’s very sensitive and forceful and effective, of course. In the first place I don’t trust my own artistic judgment enough to say otherwise, and in the second place dispassionate criticism is supposed to come from dispassionate people. Strangers. The people who love you are supposed to give you support.”

  Linda considered this. “I think I’ll probably like the book, anyway, I’ve liked all his earlier work, and he’s too much a professional to like a book as much likes this one and be dead wrong about it.”

  “It doesn’t always work that way, but I suspect right in this case. That’s not really what you’re worried about anyway, is it?”

  “No, I guess it isn’t. I guess what it comes down to is that I want him to be finished with the book and I don’t want him to be finished with the book.”

  “Why?”

  “When he finishes it he’s going to ask me to marry him.” She lowered her eyes, not wanting to see Olive’s reaction. “He hasn’t said anything. Not exactly. And I may be capable of misreading things, God knows I’ve been capable of misreading all kinds of things in the past, but I think I’m right this time. There are things he’s said. Feelings I can’t help picking up. I don’t know how much of it is me and how much of it is the right place and the right time. He’s been divorced a long time and he’s ready to get married again. He’ll talk about the loneliness of that big house of his. Nothing concrete, but just a lot of remarks he wouldn’t make to me unless he had marriage in mind. He’s too conscious of the effect of words to say these things otherwise.” She thought for a moment. “I think she’s got a lot to do with it.”

  “Anita?”

  “Who?”

  “His ex-wife.”

  “Oh. I don’t think he ever referred to her by name, Anita? No, I was thinking of Karen. His daughter.”

  “How does she—”

  “I think he’s starting to see himself as a father, as a part of a family. I can’t explain this very well. I’m just barely aware of the pieces, I don’t know how they fit together. Or if they really do.”

  “You’ve met her?”

  “Several times. And I feel I know her better than I do because he talks about her a great deal. They have this very open relationship. She can stay out all night or bring boys home with her, and everything is open and aboveboard. He takes a great deal of pride in this.”

  “You sound unconvinced.”

  “Maybe because it’s so impossible to imagine having that kind of relationship with my own parents. Maybe I’m envious, as far as that goes.”

  “Do you like her?”

  “Surprisingly enough I do.”

  “Why is that surprising?”

  “You know, I don’t know why I said that. I suppose because it’s traditional for a daughter to resent her father’s female friends. ‘Female friends’—what a stilted phrase. But it’s natural for there to be resentment. And vice versa. I don’t think she resents me, and I like her well enough. One thing—she makes me feel old. Not because I’m going out with her father. I don’t think that’s what it is. And not because she relates to me like a mother substitute, because she doesn’t. I think it’s just that she’s so much younger. So much less mature.”

  “And he wants to marry you.”

  “Yes, I’m sure he does. And I’m pretty sure he knows he does.”

  “So the question is—”

  “Do I want to marry him? Yes, that’s the question. And I’m not sure of the answer. Do I love him? That’s another question and I’m not sure of the answer to that one either. I enjoy being with him. I care about him. I feel … important when I’m with him. And comfortable. I don’t know if that adds up to love. I’m not sure I have the capacity for a more total sort of love. I know I’m sick of floating, of everything being temporary. It would be very secure to marry Hugh.”

  “It would certainly be financially secure.”

  “Yes, and I’m not sure how important that is.”

  “Very important.”

  “But also secure in other ways. I love his house. I love the grounds, the woods. The whole way of living. I can see myself being a part of that. Very easily, I can see myself being a part of that.”

  “I gather you’re sleeping with him.”

  “Not literally. I’ve been to bed with him. I haven’t slept over.”

  “Because of the daughter?”

  “Oh, no. She knows we go to bed. That’s part of their beautiful open relationship. They don’t have to keep secrets from each other. It works both ways. No, I go home at night so that he can go straight to the typewriter in the morning. To tell you the truth, I think I prefer it that way. The cozy family group around the breakfast table the next day, I don’t know that I’m ready for that togetherness.”

  “No, I don’t think I should be, either. Suppose you married him. Would the breakfast table scene bother you then?”

  “I don’t think so. I think I could handle them now, as far as that goes, but until he’s done with the book it’s a moot point.”

  “So the question is whether or not you want to marry him. Not that you have to have the answer yet, not until you’re asked, but it’s still something you’d want to settle ahead of time in your own mind. As much as you can. Is the bed part good? Because it won’t be a good marriage if it isn’t, and it’s not something that gets better with time. Either it’s there from the beginning or it never comes around.”

  “It’s good. He’s very good for me that way. Am I blushing?”

  “Not that I can see.”

  “I feel as though I am. No, that part is good.” Her mind filled suddenly with an image, a memory, Hugh touching her in a certain way and her own electric response, and now she knew she was blushing. “It’s fine,” she said. “Just fine.”

  “Well, what are the other traditional tests? Would you use his toothbrush? That’s supposed to be an acid test, although I can’t see it myself. It strikes me as old-fashioned. Would you want to have his children?”

  “If I wanted to have any children, which is something I’m not sure of either way. But if I did, yes, I’d want to have his.”

  “Would you want your children to look like him?”

  “Oh, definitely. He’s a very handsome, man. I like his looks. I’d certainly rather have my children look like him than
like me.”

  “Oh, Linda, that’s ridiculous. You’re a very attractive woman.”

  “I’m not unattractive, I know that. And I don’t detest my own looks, but I’ve always felt I wouldn’t want to have children who look like me. Make of that what you will, good Dr. McIntyre.”

  “Hmmm. Well, I make it that we ought to get the check and take a walk over the bridge, don’t you think? He’s picking you up at nine, and you’ll want time to get ready.”

  The sky was starting to darken as they left the restaurant. The air was still warm but the heat of the day had passed and there was a breeze coming off the river. They walked almost to the bridge in silence.

  Then Olive said, “Let me tell you a story. I don’t suppose you ever heard mention of Jimmy Doerfer. No reason why you should have. He lived with his mother a few miles the other side of Doylestown. Country people, Bucks residents for generations on both sides. Henrietta Doerfer was widowed when the boy was about six years old. An only child.

  “The father, also named Jimmy, was known as a womanizer, which will give you an idea how long ago this happened. I can’t recall how long it’s been since I’ve heard that word spoken seriously. Well, everyone felt properly sorry for Henrietta, having to put up with this, but there’s no record that she ever voiced any objection. The point is that James Senior’s death was on the colorful side. A farmer up around Allentown caught James Senior in bed with his wife and used a shotgun on the pair of them before putting the barrel in his mouth and blowing his own head off in the bargain. All this to the immense delight of everybody within fifty miles, as it gave them something to talk about besides aren’t we going to get any rain this summer. I could tell you the farmer’s name except that it’s slipped my mind. Couldn’t be less important, actually.

  “Now Jimmy Junior grew up into a carbon copy of his father. The same sort of hell raising, after everything in skirts, married or single made no difference to him, except that he went on living at home with his mother. And how she would carry on about him. All about how she wished he’d get married and settle down and leave off chasing other men’s wives before he wound up the same way his father did. And from what she said it was obvious she knew just what the boy did and where and with whom, and after you’d heard it all a few times, you got the feeling she was proud of the little rascal.

  “She couldn’t have been more than thirty-five when the farmer’s shotgun made a widow out of her, but she never remarried. Her farm was a profitable one and she was a good enough looking woman, but if any man got interested, she didn’t encourage him. She lived to over sixty and Jimmy lived with her until she died, and in all that time he went on raising hell and never gave a thought to marrying and settling down.

  “Then she died, and Jimmy himself was between thirty-five and forty when they buried his mother. Two months later he married a Doylestown girl, and if he ever once stepped out on her for the rest of his life no one ever heard a word of it. Worked hard, fathered four children, and spent his nights at home. He only lived another fifteen years but as long as he lived I think he would have been true to that woman. His heart finally killed him. There were rumors it was the late stages of syphilis that were responsible, that he’d had from his younger days, but you have rumors all the time in cases like that.”

  They walked for a few minutes in silence. Then Linda said, “Are you going to tell me the point of the story or do I have to work it out for myself?”

  “I’d tell you if I knew what it was. Stories don’t always have a point, do they?”

  “I have a feeling this one does.”

  “Well, I have the same feeling, but I can’t put my finger on it. Something we talked about earlier must have put it in my head, but I’d be hard put to say how or what or why. Easy enough to say it’s just another example of the strange things people find to do with their lives and let it go at that.”

  “I could read all sorts of things into that story if I wanted to.”

  “You could, and it might be a good idea and it might be a bad one. Well, that was a better meal than I’d have had alone, Linda. Thank you for keeping me company.”

  “It’s my place to thank you, and you know it.”

  “You needn’t thank me for the story, though.”

  “I hadn’t intended to,” said Linda Robshaw.

  When he picked her up she told him she didn’t want to make it a late night. “I haven’t felt well today,” she said.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Well, cramps, actually. It’s that phase of the moon. I suppose it’s not so bad, especially when I consider the alternative.”

  “The alternative? Oh, I see.”

  But it wasn’t that time of the month, not quite. Her period was not due for two days, and she had had no cramps. She wondered why she said she did. Because she did not want to make love, obviously. And yet she had said the words before she had consciously realized that she did not want to make love,

  He asked her if it bothered her to sit in the car, and she said it didn’t, and he suggested a ride up Route 32 along the river. She asked how the book had gone, the inevitable question, and he answered that it had gone very well, which had lately been the inevitable answer. He turned north on Main and drove north along the Pennsylvania side of the river, along a winding tree-shaded road banked here and there with old stone houses.

  Some twenty miles up they stopped for a drink at a Colonial tavern. They sat at a table in a dark corner and nursed scotch and sodas. He lit her cigarettes and kept his pipe going.

  He did most of the talking. This night he talked not about the book and not about his daughter. Instead he was telling her a great deal about his earlier life. The vague and aimless period after the war. The first novel, and his marriage, and elements of his life that followed. She sensed that he was purposely showing her parts of himself which he habitually kept concealed, and she found herself wondering how many other women had found him as open as she did. It was impossible for her to know this, but she felt there had been few, very few. It was a conceit to think that no woman since his wife had known him as well as she herself did now, and yet although she recognized it as a conceit she could not avoid it. The thought pleased her, even warmed her, and at the same time in some indeterminate way it unsettled her.

  Her mind kept picking up threads of the story Olive had told her. There was the suggestion of an obvious parallel there, but she suspected the story’s relevance might lie elsewhere. And she did not want to think about it. She knew that much, that she did not want to think about it.

  He did want to marry her. She had been quite certain of this, although perhaps less certain than she had let on to Olive. His conversation tonight made his intent unmistakable.

  It would be very pleasant to be his wife. He was a thoughtful man and a good lover. He would cherish her. That was a good word—cherish. No man had ever cherished her, ho man had ever thought her someone to cherish.

  And it would be secure to be his wife, both financially (which Olive said was important, and which probably was) and emotionally. There would be stability in her life, and she had lived too long with too little that could be called stable. She could belong to that fine old house. She could put down roots in those woods. His home could be her home as no place had ever been home to her. And it seemed now that she had never had a home. The house in which she grew up, even that had never been her home.

  Did she love him? Well, she supposed that she did. She loved him but was not in love with him—the schoolgirl distinction which somehow persisted over the years. But had she ever been in love with anyone? She rather thought not, although she had thought herself thus from time to time. Did she love him enough to be married to him? Now that was another question, wasn’t it?

  She had been married once. She could review that marriage, as she so often had done. She could try to see it in the context of the love that had or had not been there, as she could review her relationship with Marc. But it was hard now even to
remember that marriage, and there were times when an accurate memory of her time with Marc seemed similarly elusive. It was hard to remember what it was like at the time, hard to summon up the person she herself had then been. And whoever she had been, she was in so many ways different now.

  Would she want to have his children? Yes, if she wanted to have children at all. Would she want her children to look like him? She regarded him thoughtfully, projecting his strong features onto the countenances of children. Yes, she would like to have a son who looked like this man. Or a daughter—a daughter in his image would be unquestionably attractive, she thought, and then realized that he already had a daughter in his image. Karen had his features down to the last decimal place.

  Karen. Was that the problem? Was that what bothered her? It seemed to be the point of Olive’s story, certainly, some aspect of the father-daughter relationship.

  He asked if she was feeling better, and for an instant she forgot her story about menstrual cramps. Then she remembered, and said that she was feeling a good deal better, that he seemed to be good for her. His smile told her she had found the right thing to say.

  “But I’d better get you home,” he said. “It’s getting late.”

  On the way back her thoughts turned unpredictably to Peter Nicholas. She remembered their one night and felt herself responding to the memory. How unfair, she thought, to force Hugh to compete with ghosts. Because that was what the night had been. A phantom experience, shadow rather than substance. Hugh was a better lover than Peter, an infinitely better lover for her than Peter, but the night with Peter had been forbidden, the love they shared doomed in advance. Thus there had been nothing held in reserve, no worry about where the relationship might lead because it was a foregone conclusion that it could lead nowhere.

  And yet. And yet—

  As they reached the outskirts of New Hope she realized, quite suddenly, that she wanted him to make love to her. She was sitting close to him, her head on his shoulder, her seat belt gloriously unfastened, and his arm was around her and the wind was in her hair and she felt the moon drawing tides in her liquid flesh. When he parked in front of her building, she kissed him with a special urgency, pressing her body to him and clutching him. He held back at first, then matched her passion. Boldly she dropped a hand into his lap and took hold of him.