by May Sarton
“There,” she said, setting it down beside Ned, “How is that?”
Then she saw that Ned had not been able to resist changing her bunch, had picked a spray of white anemone while she was making up her mind. Now he placed it deftly in the center of the Venetian glass, with her flowers.
“Perfect,” he announced. “I bought that vase in Venice, I’ve always liked it.”
And Anna, eager to make peace, said, “Let’s take it home with us.” For she knew it was quite absurd to let a little thing like this bunch of flowers create tension between them.
“If you wish,” Ned said, and it was clear that he himself did not wish. “Finish your pie, Anna.”
“Do you think the apartment is the trouble?” she asked for she realized that she had herself hesitated as she used the word “home.”
“Whatever are you getting at now?” Ned asked. “Can’t we even disagree about a bunch of flowers without its becoming an issue between us?”
But Anna couldn’t stop now. “The apartment doesn’t feel like home. It has become the place where we don’t meet, the place where we wrangle and sleep. That’s what I meant. You have to admit that you did hesitate when I suggested we take your precious Venetian glass there, didn’t you?”
“Oh, come, Anna, you are making a mountain out of a molehill!” He would never admit it to Anna but with her x-ray mind for sensing things, she had sensed that he did not want to take the vase to the apartment. He sometimes felt that he could not stand being pin-pointed like this another day. It was like living with some sort of witch. “Can’t we have a little peace, even here?”
“Only on the surface,” Anna said.
“Well, for God’s sake, let’s settle for the surface then.”
“Very well, you beast, you prehistoric animal, lumbering off for cover at the slightest whisper from a human being!”
“We are not going to have a scene, Anna, and spoil this day.” And once more she was being put down like an importunate child. How well she knew Ned’s look, his mouth in a thin closed line, his whole face closed against her.
“You never give me credit for anything,” she said. “I didn’t turn a hair when Paul insulted me and tried to get a rise out of me the other night. I behaved very well.”
“Yes, you did. For once. And now I suppose you have to make up for it by attacking me.”
Whatever happened it always had to be her fault. And perhaps, after all, it was her fault. That was what made Anna feel like a cripple or a mad person most of the time. It was she, true enough, who “made the scenes.”
“You talk about love,” Ned said, taking a cigar out of the box on the table and lighting it carefully, “but all I see is hatred and violence.”
“And all you give me is coldness and withdrawal when I try to reach you, try to make you understand. If only you would listen, once, Ned, really listen, not rush to close the door on me whenever I try to talk honestly with you!”
“Am I allowed to smoke out here on the porch?” he asked with cold courtesy.
“Yes, if you blow the smoke out of my way. Oh Ned, what is the matter with us?” It was an attempt to break the spiral of anger which over and over again in the past year wound itself tighter and tighter but it was too late. “Do you think I enjoy being angry? Do you think it’s a pleasure?”
“I sometimes think you are an addict—as some people take to the bottle, you take to anger.”
“But why should I?”
“From what you tell me you have always been an angry person. You had tantrums as a child. How many times you come back from a concert furious at someone or something! I suppose it breaks all that tension you talk about, but it never occurs to you apparently, that other people bear the brunt of it. You may feel better as a result but I feel real resentment at being your whipping boy.”
“Yes,” Anna said, “I know you do.” Then she added half to herself, “It’s like a maze. You can’t break your way out of a maze … you have to discover the pattern, find your way through … only I don’t know how to do that. Does anyone ever criticize you, Ned? Are you so powerful at the bank that you are above criticism? Has it never occurred to you that you are not always right? And that other people are not always wrong?”
“There’s no point in this,” Ned said icily. “We aren’t getting anywhere.”
“I wish I knew how you regard me, what you really think I am.”
“Do you really want to know?” He was looking straight at her, but with a look so cold, of such distaste that Anna hesitated, but after all she had to say “yes.”
Ned took a puff of his cigar. “I think you are two people, Jekyll and Hyde. One is a great personality, a lovable, beautiful woman, with a touch of genius.”
“And the other?”
“The other is a screaming peacock—you call me arrogant!—a wilful witch who cannot be criticized without an outburst, totally self-indulgent. You asked for it,” he added. He might as well have slapped her hard on the face. And for a long moment Anna was silent, while her heart thumped like an animal inside her.
“I’m whole,” she said then, “I cannot compartmentalize myself. I’m not two people, one good and beautiful, the other bad and ugly. I’m one whole person, Ned.” Where was the clue to this dreadful maze? How would they ever find the way out? “You have to take the whole person.”
“I can’t do that. I do not find what you call the whole person acceptable.”
“You ask me to censor myself all the time—I am becoming the prisoner of your ethos, and it is making me ill. I have an awfully scary performance ahead. How can I sing when I have to censor myself all the time?” The words tumbled out.
“Well, concentrate on your performance then and leave me out of it, leave the prehistoric animal out of it!”
“Oh Ned, I can’t. I can’t compartmentalize as you can. You can apparently go off to the office perfectly calm and do your work after one of these awful fights. I feel it in my throat, in my voice itself, like a dreadful crack. Can’t you see?” She was crying now and got up, rushed out to the kitchen to find a Kleenex and try to pull herself together. When she came back she asked through her tears, hating the tears, the weakness of it. “Have you never cried, Ned?”
“No.”
“Not when your father died?”
“No. I hated my mother’s endless tears too much. I hate your tears.”
“You have made that abundantly clear.”
“Where’s Fonzi?” Ned asked, suddenly aware that though Fonzi had been with them in the garden, he had not been seen for an hour. He ran out into the garden calling, “Come dog! Fonzi, come!”
There was total silence. Then after what seemed an eternity they heard a short bark from somewhere in the bushes behind the house.
“It’s all right,” Ned called back. Fonzi, it appeared, had found a chipmunk hole and had been digging furiously and made himself absolutely filthy. Even his ears were covered with dirt and his nose was black. Ned carried him into the house. Anna followed.
“We’ll just put him in the tub,” she said, “right now,” and she turned the water on while Ned held him.
“It’s lucky I didn’t shower … I’m filthy, too.”
Fonzi couldn’t lead them out of the maze, Anna was thinking, as she lathered him with a cake of soap, but he could give them a respite.
And Ned said, “You gave us an awful scare, Fonzi. What if you had been run over, you dirty little dog?”
Chapter IV
Going home in the car they were silent, Fonzi lying between them. Ned had turned the car radio on and they listened to a Beethoven sonata. Every now and then Anna stroked Fonzi’s ears, still a little damp after his bath.
Ned was thinking that it would be a relief to have Anna away for a few days. Maybe he could get back to normal, sort things out, cease to feel every hair on his head prickle with irritation. The day had started out so well, why had she spoiled it? Over nothing. A bunch of flowers. There had been laughter over th
at at first, and then it all turned to rage. What in hell have I done to be the target of so much anger? Watching her walk across the lawn in her shorts he had felt a moment of desire, then of course it all got mixed up, blotted out, and all he could feel was a wish to be left alone, not to have to cope with this irrational woman whom he had once thought he loved, whom he had taken into his life, taken into himself … it was like going to bed with a bunch of nettles, he thought.
“What are you thinking?” she finally asked on the outskirts of Boston as the traffic began to slow them down.
“I was thinking that a few days of peace without you are going to be highly desirable.”
“Yes,” she said. “I know.”
For now as usual Anna was filled with remorse and anxiety. Always after these fights she struggled with herself, to get under the anger to what was really happening and to face the dragon in its lair. Something had to change. But she was too realistic to imagine that she could change radically … people don’t change, she knew. Hilda had talked about accepting Paul, about their accepting each other. So they had managed to stay together. But at what cost? Still, Hilda was painting and painting well. Had she done that by shutting Paul out? By living along beside him without asking or expecting communion and understanding? How far could she, Anna, compromise, for peace? A marriage then became like a burnt-out house in which two people managed to exist among the ruins. How could she sing, stifled and censored? Ned had suggested that she leave him out of it and concentrate on music. Very well, Anna thought, that is what I shall do.
But it was easier to think about this than to bring it to pass, she discovered the next morning when she was going over the score with her teacher, Mariana Protopova, an old Russian woman who had worked with Anna for the past two years.
“Your voice is not clear,” Protopova said after they had worked for a half-hour, going over one section a half-dozen times. “And besides, you are not breathing quite easily, are you? Whatever have you been doing, Anna? The sound is blurred.”
“I know,” Anna said, pushing her hair back. “I don’t feel well.”
“But the concert is on Saturday!” Protopova was not easy on her pupils. For her the music was what mattered and she was visibly irritated if not actually hurt when Bach was ill-served, especially by Anna Lindstrom. “Come, take a deep breath. We’ll start again. Concentrate, Anna!”
But Anna was now paralyzed by fear. The concert was on Saturday. She could never do it. Protopova was bent over the piano entirely concentrating herself on the accompaniment, singing in a hoarse voice, apparently unaware that, far from taking a deep breath, Anna was standing there, numb, unable to make a sound.
“You’ve missed the entrance, donkey!”
“I can’t do it,” Anna said. “That review eats into me like a poison … ‘not mature enough’ …”
“You are behaving like a naughty child, Anna. You know perfectly well that the critic was quite right … only he didn’t see that you were tortured by the conductor. We can’t have this sort of childishness. There is no time for it. You are going to sing now.”
“I’ll try,” Anna held herself together through her tightly clasped hands, and this time her voice came through. At least she was making a sound, and the moment of panic had been overcome. But she was not singing from her whole being … something was held back still. She could not let out the strong full tone she could usually command at will. The room seemed small and constricting, the velvet curtains, always a little dusty, oppressed her.
“Can’t we open a window?” she asked, as Protopova got up and came over to press her diaphragm.
“You are not breathing properly, Anna. I told you. Here,” she said, pressing down hard, “the breath must come from here. You don’t need air from a window, you need air inside your lungs. We really should not be having to struggle with such primary matters!”
Her head had been bent as she wrestled with Anna as a physical being. But then she looked up and let her hands fall and gave Anna a penetrating look.
“So, you are upset, Anna. But you can’t let that, whatever it is, diminish Johann Sebastian Bach! When you enter this room you have to leave everything but the music behind!”
Protopova was apt to have the effect of a cold shower. The shock, the intensity of her being could, Anna had sometimes thought, break through rock. And under the attack, she finally laughed with relief.
“It is not a laughing matter.”
“No, I was thinking, dear Protopova, that you are Orpheus, who could make the stones sing!”
“Now let us have a little glory, then,” she said gleaming her teasing smile at Anna. “You have cracked open a little at last. I can tell you I have been working hard this morning. We can’t afford to waste any more time.” And they went back to the same passage. Anna took a deep breath and at last heard her voice soaring out, the good pressure inside her whole frame, the sense of power released.
“Well,” Protopova said, taking out a handkerchief to wipe her hands, “that was better. But come here a moment … look, just there, don’t be afraid to hold it. You seemed a fraction too quick—see, just there.”
“I wish you were coming with me,” Anna said.
“You don’t need me. You will find Solti extremely patient and helpful.”
“We have only one rehearsal.”
“All the more reason to work hard before you go.” And work hard they did, for another hour.
“Are you feeling better?” Protopova asked as Anna put on her coat.
“Yes, you wizard. Yes, I am.” And Anna stooped to lift the old hand to her lips.
“You see, Bach is all that matters. What else is there?”
Anna walked down Newbury Street towards the French restaurant where she was meeting her mother, thinking about it, thinking about Protopova’s capacity to serve music to the exclusion of everything else. For this electrifying bundle of energy and genius it was true. Music was her one consuming passion and she served it and had served it all her life with total dedication, expecting her pupils to do the same.
Was this possible if one was primarily a critic—and was it impossible for an interpreter? Even Protopova had noticed a change in Anna’s voice in the first months of her marriage. “It comes from deeper,” she had said. “It is épanouie, as the French would say.”
Anna remembered blushing and then the austere Protopova had, for once, embraced her pupil. Ned had set her free, had made her feel wholly human. Now he was denying her humanity and censoring the being he had freed. How was she to handle that? How live with that?
Seated at a corner table in the restaurant opposite her mother, Anna ordered soup and a salad, but she was not hungry and when Teresa commented, she shook her head.
“I simply don’t know how I shall do in Pittsburgh. I feel so tired today I can hardly walk. And Protopova was savage … rightly. I’m such a mess.”
Teresa had had long experience of Anna’s storm of nerves. It might seize her several days before a performance and that was best, for sometimes she seemed quite calm and then was suddenly paralyzed with fear in her dressing room just before the concert.
“You go through this every time, you know, when all the tension builds up, then is released in a marvelous way when you sing.”
Anna shook her head and pushed her plate aside.
“Eat a mouthful. You’re hungry after your lesson, only you don’t know that yet.”
“Oh Mama,” Anna groaned, “I wish I could just disappear. Nothing feels right any more.”
“It’s Ned, I suppose,” Teresa ventured. Since her marriage Anna had talked very little about Ned, but Teresa was quite aware that the euphoria of the first months had gone. She considered that was normal.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. Nothing I do is right.”
“Marriage and a career such as yours are hard to manage in tandem, I expect. But you mustn’t ask for the impossible. You are so intransigent, Anna.”
“Am I?” An
na was astonished. She did not think of herself as intransigent. “I don’t understand why Ned makes me so angry, why I can’t accept him as he is.”
“Does he accept you as you are?”
“Of course not. Everything about me irritates him.”
“Everything?” Teresa lifted an eyebrow.
“He wants me to be the imaginary person he sees and hears when I sing, some kind of delightful songbird, who is never tired or cross, not a human being at all.”
“If so, he is quite a foolish man.” Teresa chuckled.
“I tried to talk about it with him the other day and he said I was two people, one possible and the other impossible, Jekyll and Hyde! That’s crazy, Mama. The whole trouble is that I’m one person who reacts to everything that happens to me with all of myself! The loving one is also the angry one. Why can’t he see that?”
But as her mother was silent, Anna twisted her glass of wine round and round slowly. One of the good things about their relation, Anna was thinking, was that they could be silent, and often were.
“It has always puzzled me,” Teresa said finally, “why people fall in love with people so unlike themselves and then apparently can’t be satisfied or happy till they have tried to change the other into a likeness of themselves. You used to think Ned was wonderful because he was so reserved, so sure of himself, so at home in the world. I remember you said, ‘he makes me feel safe.’”
“I did?” Anna asked, amazed.
“Yes, you did, and I remember because it was one of the things that persuaded me he was the right man for you, my tempestuous, talented, insecure Anna!”
“‘At home in the world.’ … Well he is, of course. But instead of making me feel safe, it makes me feel attacked. I’ll never be at home in his world, Mama. It’s like a secret society. They take so much for granted—Ned does. He cannot imagine what insecurity is.… I don’t mean financial insecurity, though that too. But for generations his family and his mother’s have assumed that their way of doing things was the only way.”
“Strange,” Teresa said, “I think of Mrs. Fraser as a pathetic person—self-pitying, self-indulgent, under that disguise of good works and sweetness.”