"Is there anyone you…?"
"Anyone I can snare on the rebound? No one in the picture right now. Another thing that scares me. Let's face it, luv, we're both getting long in the tooth. You've kept your body, but the rare beef and bourbon are catching up with me. Plus more than my share of one-night stands. I look like an old broad; I know it."
Zoe murmured something about going on a diet, cutting down on the drinking, buying some new clothes. But Madeline Kurnitz wasn't listening. She was staring off into the middle distance, the glass of vodka held near her lips.
"I've got to be married," she said. "Don't ask me why, but I've got to be. What the hell else can I do in this world? I wouldn't know how to earn a living if my life depended on it. I'm too old to peddle my ass, and just the idea of spending eight hours a day in some stinking office is enough to give me the up-chucks. I don't know how you do it."
"It's not so bad."
"The hell it isn't. While other women are having lunch at the Plaza and buying out Bonwits… I couldn't stand that."
Zoe went to the kitchen again and brought back the bottle of white wine and a bowl of ice cubes for Maddie. They sat in silence for a few moments, sipping their drinks. Maddie kicked off her shoes, pulled up her feet, began picking reflectively at the silver polish on her toenails.
"You know, sweetie, my whole life has revolved around men. It really has. I mean I've depended on them. My daddy spoiled me rotten, and then I went from husband to husband like there was no tomorrow. And what have I got to show for it? A dead father and four flopped marriages. I suppose the women liberationists would say it's my fault, I should have done something with my life. Been more independent and all that horseshit. But Goddamnit, I like men. I like to be with men. Why the hell should I work my tuchas to a frazzle when there was always a guy ready to pick up the tab?"
"You'll find someone new."
"Yeah? I wish I could believe it. I'll take enough out of Harry's hide so that money won't be a problem. For a while at least. But I Just can't live alone. I can't stand to be by myself. You can handle it, but I can't."
"Sometimes you have no choice," Zoe said.
"That's what scares me," Maddie said. "No choice. Thank God I never had any kids. Life is shitty enough without worrying about brats. Did you ever want to have kids, Zoe?"
"Once maybe. Not anymore."
"That fucking Harry sure pulled the plug on me. He's got me feeling sorry for myself-something I've never done before. That lousy turd. God, I'm going to miss him. Two years ago, for my birthday, he bought me a purple Mercedes-Benz convertible with my initials on the door."
"What happened to it?"
"I totaled it on the Long Island Expressway. I was drunk or I would have killed myself. But that's the way he was. Anything I wanted. He spoiled me rotten like my father. Oh Jesus, baby, I must be boring you senseless."
"Oh no, Maddie. I'm glad you came to me. I just wish there was some way I could help."
"You've done enough just listening to me. I don't know what-"
Suddenly Madeline Kurnitz was weeping. She cried silently, tears welling from her eyes and straggling down her powdered cheeks. Zoe went over to the couch, sat next to her, put an arm across her shoulders.
"God, God," Maddie wailed, "what am I going to do?"
Zoe Kohler didn't know. So she said, "Shh, shh," and held the other woman until she stopped crying. After a while, Maddie said, "Shit," blew her nose, took her bag and went into the bathroom.
She came out about ten minutes later, hair combed, makeup repaired. Her eyes were puffy but clear. She gave Zoe a rueful smile.
"Sorry about that, luv," she said. "I thought I was all cried out."
"Maddie, would you like to stay the night? You can take the bed and I'll sleep out here on the couch. Why don't you?"
"No, kiddo, but I appreciate the offer. I'll have one more drink and then I'll take off. I better get home before that shithead changes the locks on the doors. I feel a lot better now. What the hell, it's just another kick in the ass. That's what life is all about- right?"
She sat again on the couch, put more ice in her glass, filled it with vodka. She stirred it with a forefinger, then sucked the finger. She bowed her head, looked up at Zoe.
"Seeing as how it's hair-down time," she said, "how about the sad story of your life? You never did tell me what happened between you and-what was his name? Ralph?"
"Kenneth. And I told you. Don't you remember, Maddie? At that lunch we had at the hotel?"
"You mean the sex thing? Sure, I remember. You never got your rocks off with him. But there's got to be more to it than that."
"Oh… it was a lot of things."
"Like what?"
"Silly things."
"Other people's reasons for divorce always sound silly. First of all, how did you meet the guy?"
"He was with an insurance company and was transferred to their agency in Winona. He handled all my father's business policies, and Daddy brought him home for dinner one night. He called me up for a date and we started going out. Then we began getting invited to parties and things as a couple. Then he asked me to marry him."
"Handsome?"
"I thought so. Very big and beefy. He could be very jolly and charming when there were other people around. But about six months after we were married, he quit the insurance company and my father hired him as a kind of junior partner. Daddy was getting old, slowing down, and he wanted someone to sort of take over."
"Oh-ho. And did your husband know this when he asked you to marry him?"
"Yes. I didn't know it at the time, but later, during one of our awful arguments, he told me that was the only reason he married me."
"Nice guy."
"Well… a handsome man says you're beautiful, and he's in love with you, and you believe it."
"Not me, kiddo. I know all he wants is to dip Cecil in the hot grease."
"I believed him. I guess I should have known better. I'm no raving beauty; I know that. I'm quiet and not very exciting. But I thought he really did love me for what I am. I know I loved him. At first."
Maddie looked at her shrewdly.
"Zoe, maybe you just loved him for loving you-or saying he did."
"Yes. That's possible."
They were subdued then, pondering the complexities of living, the role played by chance and accident, the masks people wear, and the masks beneath the masks.
"When did the fights start?" Maddie asked.
"Almost from the start. We were so different, and we couldn't seem to change. We couldn't compromise enough to move closer to each other. He was so-so physical. He was loud and had this braying laugh. He seemed to fill a room. I mean, I could be alone in the house, and he'd come in, and I'd feel crowded. He was always touching me, patting me, slapping my behind, trying to muss my hair right after I had it done. I told you they were silly things, Maddie."
"Not so silly."
"He was just-just all over me. He suffocated me. I got so I didn't even want to breathe the air when he was in the house. The air seemed hot and choking and smelled of his cologne. And he was so messy. Leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor. Throwing his dirty underwear and socks on the bed. I couldn't stand that. He'd have dinner, belch, and just walk away, leaving me to clean up. I know a wife is supposed to do that, but he took it for granted. He was so sure of himself. I think that's what I hated most-his superior attitude. I was like a slave or something, and had no right to question what he did or where he went."
"He sounds like a real charmer. Did he play around?"
"Not at first. Then I began to notice things: women whispering about him at parties, his going out at night after dinner. To see customers, he said. Once, when I took his black suit to the cleaners, there was a book of matches in his pocket. It was from a roadhouse out of town. It didn't, ah, have a very good reputation. So I guess he was playing around. I didn't care. As long as he left me alone."
"Oh, Zoe, was it that bad?"
&nb
sp; "I tried, Maddie, really I did. But he was so heavy, and strong, and sort of-sort of uncouth."
"Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am?"
"Something like that. And also, he wanted to do it when he was drunk or all sweated up. I'd ask him to take a shower first, but he'd laugh at me."
"Hung?"
"What?"
"Was he hung? A big whang?"
"Uh, I don't know, Maddie. I don't have much basis for comparison. He was, uh, bigger than Michelangelo's David."
Madeline Kurnitz laughed. How she laughed! She bobbed with merriment, slopping her drink.
"Honey, everyone is bigger than Michelangelo's David."
"And he wanted to do disgusting things. I told him I wasn't brought up that way."
"Uh-huh."
"I told him if he wanted to act like an animal, I was sure he could find other women to accommodate him."
"That wasn't so smart, luv."
"I was past the point of worrying if what I said was smart. I just didn't want anything more to do with him. In bed, I mean. I would have kept on being married to him if he just forgot all about sex with me. Because I felt divorce would be a failure, and my mother would be so disappointed in me. But then he just walked out of the house, quit his job with my father, and left town. Lawyers handled the divorce and I never saw him again."
"Know what happened to him?"
"Yes. He went out to the West Coast. He got married again. About a week ago."
"How do you know that?"
"He sent me an invitation."
Maddie exhaled noisily. "Another prick. What a shitty thing to do."
"I was going to send a gift. Just, you know, to show him I didn't care. But I, ah, tore up the invitation and I don't have the address."
"Screw him. Send him a bottle of cyanide. All men should drop dead."
"Oh, Maddie, I don't know… I guess some of it, a lot of it, was my fault. But I tried so hard to be a good wife, really I did. I cooked all his favorite foods and I was always trying new recipes I thought he'd like. I kept the house as clean as a pin. Everyone said it was a showplace. We had all new furniture, and once he got angry and ripped all the plastic covers off. That's the way he was. He'd put his feet on the cocktail table and use the guest towels. I think he did those things just to annoy me. He swore a lot-dreadful words-and wouldn't go to church. He wanted me to wear tight sweaters and low-cut things. I told him I wasn't like that, but he could never understand. He even wanted me to wear more makeup and have my hair tinted. So I guess I just wasn't the kind of woman he should have married. It was a mistake from the start."
"Oh, sweetie, it's not the end of the world. You'll find someone new."
"That's what I told you," Zoe said, smiling.
"Yeah," Maddie said, with a twisted grin, "ain't that a crock? Two old bags drinking up a storm and trying to cheer each other up. Well… what the hell; tomorrow's another day. You still seeing Mister Meek?"
"I wish you wouldn't call him that, Maddie. He's not like that at all. Yes, I'm still seeing him."
"Like him?"
"Very much."
"Uh-huh. Well, maybe he's more your type than Ralph."
"Kenneth."
"Whatever. You think he's interested in getting married?"
"We've never discussed it," Zoe said primly.
"Discuss it, discuss it," Maddie advised. "You don't have to ask him right out, but you can kind of hint around about how he feels on the subject. He likes you?"
"He says he does."
"Well, that's a start." Maddie yawned, finished her drink, stood up and began to gather her things together. "I've got to get going. Thanks for the booze and the talk. You were right there when I needed you, honey, and I love you for it. Let's see more of each other."
"Oh yes. I'd like that."
After Maddie left, Zoe Kohler locked and bolted the outside door. She plumped the cushions on couch and armchair. She returned the bottles to the kitchen, washed the glasses and ashtrays. She took a Tuinal and turned off the lights. She peeked through the Venetian blind but could see no sign of the watcher across the street.
She got into bed. She lay on her back, arms down at her sides. She stared at the ceiling.
Those things she had told Maddie-they were all true. But she had the oddest feeling that they had happened to someone else. Not her. She had been describing the life of a stranger, something she had heard or read. It was not her life.
She turned onto her side and drew up her knees beneath the light blanket and sheet. She clamped her clasped hands between her thighs.
He was probably trying to get his new wife to do those disgusting things. Maybe she was doing them. And enjoying them.
It was all so common and coarse…
There was a luncheonette near 40th Street and Madison Avenue that Zoe Kohler passed on her way to and from work. It opened early in the morning and closed early in the evening. The food, mostly sandwiches, soups, and salads, was all right. Nothing special, but adequate.
On her way home, the evening of May 21st, Zoe stopped at the luncheonette for dinner. She had a cheeseburger with French fries, which she salted liberally. A cup of black coffee and a vanilla custard.
She sat by herself at a table for two and ate rapidly. She kept her eyes lowered and paid no attention to the noisy confusion churning about her. She left a fifteen percent tip, paid her check at the cashier's counter, and hurried out.
She went directly home. Her alimony check was in the mailbox and she tucked it into her purse. In her apartment, door carefully locked, bolted, and chained, she drew the blinds and changed into a cotton T shirt and terry cloth shorts.
She took out mops, brooms, vacuum cleaner, cans of soap and wax, bottles of detergent, brushes, dustpan, pail, rags, sponges, whisks. She tied a scarf about her hair. She pulled on rubber gloves. She set to work.
In the bathroom, she scrubbed the tub, sink, and toilet bowl with Ajax. Washed the toilet seat with Lysol. Removed the bathmat from the floor, got down on her knees, and cleaned the tile with a brush and Spic and Span.
It had not been a good day. On the street, she had been pushed and jostled. In the office, she had been treated with cold indifference. Everyone in New York had a brusque assurance that daunted her. She wondered if she had made a mistake in coming to the city.
Emptied the medicine cabinet of all her makeup, perfume, medical supplies, and soap. Took out the shelves, washed them with Glass Plus and dried them. Replaced everything neatly, but not before wiping the dust from every jar, bottle, box, and tin.
The very size of the city demeaned her. It crumbled her ego, reduced her to a cipher by ignoring her existence. New York denied her humanness and treated her as a thing, no more than concrete, steel, and asphalt.
Shined the mirror of the medicine cabinet with Windex. Changed the shower curtain. Brought in a clean bathmat. Hung fresh towels, including two embroidered guest towels, although the old ones had not been used.
In the city, people paid to hear other people sing and watch other people feel. Passion had become a spectator sport supported by emotional cripples. Love and suffering were knacks possessed by the talented who were paid to display their gifts.
Emptied the wastebasket and put in a fresh plastic liner. Flushed Drano down the sink and tub drains. Changed the Vanish dispenser in the toilet tank that caused blue water to rush in with every flush. Sprayed the whole bathroom with lemon-scented Glade. Washed fingerprints from the door with Soft Scrub. Turned off the light.
Still, the anonymity of life in New York had its secret rewards. Where else but in this thundering chaos could she experience her adventures? If the city denied her humanity, it was big enough and uncaring enough to tolerate the frailties, vices, and sins of the insensate creatures it produced.
In the bedroom, she changed all the linen, replacing mattress cover, top and bottom sheets, and pillowcases. Made up the new bed with taut surfaces and sharp hospital corners. Turned down the bed, the top sheet overlap
ping the wool blanket by four inches.
Why had she sought adventures, and why did she continue? She could not frame a clear and lucid answer. She knew that what she was doing was monstrous, but that was no rein. The mind may reason, but the body will have its own. Who can master his appetites? The blood boils, and all is lost.
Dusted the dresser, bureau, and bedside table with Pride. Not only the top surfaces, but the front, sides, and legs as well. Cleaned the telephone with Lysol. Washed and polished the mirror with Windex. Wiped the ashtrays clean and dusted the bulbs in the lamps.
During her adventures, she quit the gallery for the stage. Never had she felt so alive and vindicated, never so charged with the hot stuff of animal existence. It was not that she donned a costume, but that she doffed a skin and emerged reborn.
Used her Eureka canister vacuum cleaner on the wall-to-wall carpeting, moving furniture when necessary. Dusted the slats of the Venetian blinds. Cleaned fingerprints from the doorjambs. Lubricated the hinges of the closet with 3-in-One Oil.
Why her desire to live should have taken such a desperate form she could not have said. There were forces working on her that were dimly glimpsed. She felt herself buffeted, pushed this way and that, by powers as impersonal as the crush on city streets. The choice was hers, but so limited as to be no choice at all.
Rearranged all her clothing into precisely aligned stacks, piles, racks. Put a crocheted doily under the empty glass vase on the bedside table. Replaced the Mildewcide bags in the closet. Added more lavender sachets to the dresser and bureau drawers. Looked around. Turned off the lights.
She smiled at the theatricality of her existence. She relished the convolutions of her life. It was a soap opera! Her life was a soap opera! All lives were soap operas. At the end, just before the death rattle, a whispered, "Thank you, Procter and Gamble."
In the kitchen, she took everything from the cupboards, cabinets, and closets. Washed the interiors with Mr. Clean. Dusted every item before putting it back. Wiped the doors. Applied Klean 'n Shine to get rid of fingerprints.
Who was she? The complexities defeated her. It seemed to her that she lived a dozen lives, sometimes two or more simultaneously. She turned different faces to different people. Worse, she turned different faces to herself.
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