Women with Men

by Richard Ford

  He waited. He thought Joséphine might say something, something ironic or clever or cold or merely commonplace, something that would break her little rule of silence and that he could then reply to and perhaps have the last good word, one that would leave them both puzzled and tantalized and certain that a small but important moment had not entirely been missed. But she did not speak. She was intent on there being nothing that would make her do anything different from what she did naturally. And Austin knew if he had simply climbed out of the car right then, without a goodbye, she would've driven straight away. Maybe this was why her husband had written a book about her, Austin thought. At least he'd known he'd gotten her attention.

  Joséphine seemed to be waiting for the seat beside her to become empty. Austin looked across at her in the car darkness, and she for an instant glanced at him but did not speak. This was annoying, Austin thought; annoying and stupid and French to be so closed to the world, to be so unwilling to let a sweet and free moment cause you happiness—when happiness was in such short supply. He realized he was on the verge of being angry, of saying nothing else, of simply getting out of the car and walking away.

  “You know,” he said, more irritably than he wanted to sound, “we could be lovers. We're interested in each other. This isn't a sidetrack for me. This is real life. I like you. You like me. All I've wanted to do is take advantage of that in some way that makes you glad, that puts a smile on your face. Nothing else. I don't need to sleep with you. That would cause me as much trouble as it would cause you. But that's no reason we can't just like each other.” He looked at her intently, her silhouette softened against the lights above the hotel gate across the street. She said nothing. Though he thought he heard a faint laugh, hardly more than an exhaled breath, intended, he presumed, to express what she'd thought of all he'd just said. “Sorry,” Austin said, angry now, swiveling his knees into the doorway to get out. “Really, I am.”

  But Joséphine put her hand on his wrist and held him back, not looking at him, but speaking toward the cold windshield. “I am not so strong enough,” she whispered, and squeezed his wrist.

  “For what?” Austin said, also whispering, one foot already on the paving stones, but looking back at her in the darkness.

  “I am not so strong enough to have something with you,” she said. “Not now.” She looked at him, her eyes soft and large, her one hand holding his wrist, the other in her lap, half curled.

  “Do you mean you don't feel strongly enough, or you aren't strong enough in yourself?” Austin said, overassertive but feeling good about it.

  “I don't know,” Joséphine said. “It is still very confusing for me now. I'm sorry.”

  “Well, that's better than nothing,” Austin said. “At least you gave me that much. That makes me glad.” He reached across and squeezed her wrist where she was holding his tightly. Then he got out of the car into the street. She put her hand on the gearshift and pushed it forward with a loud rasp.

  “If you come back,” she said in a husky voice through the doorway, “call me.”

  “Sure,” Austin said, “I'll call you. I don't know what else I'd do in Paris.”

  He closed the door firmly, and she drove away, spinning her tires on the slick stones. Austin walked across the street to the hotel without looking back at her taillights as they disappeared.

  AT ONE A.M., when it was six p.m. in Chicago, he had called Barbara, and they had come close to having a serious argument. It had made Austin angry, because when he had dialed the number, his own familiar number, and heard its reassuring ring, he'd felt happy—happy to be only hours away from leaving Paris, happy to be coming home and to have not just a wife to come home to but this wife—Barbara, whom he both loved and revered. And happy, also, to have effected his “contact” with Joséphine Belliard (that was the word he was using; at first it had been “rapprochement,” but that had given way). Happy that there were no bad consequences to rue—no false promises inspiring false hopes, no tearful partings, no sense of entrapping obligations or feelings of being in over your boot tops. No damage to control.

  Which was not to say nothing had taken place, because plenty had—things he and Joséphine Belliard both knew about and that had been expressed when she held his wrist in the car and admitted she wasn't strong enough, or that something was too strong for her.

  What does one want in the world? Austin thought, propped against the headboard of the bed that night, having a glass of warm champagne from the minibar. He was in his blue pajama bottoms, on top of the covers, barefoot, staring across the room at his own image in the smoky mirror that occupied one entire wall—a man in a bed with a lighted bed lamp beside him, a glass on his belly. What does one want most of all, when one has experienced much, suffered some, persevered, tried to do good when good was within reach? What does this experience teach us that we can profit from? That the memory of pain, Austin thought, mounts up and lays a significant weight upon the present—a sobering weight—and the truth one has to discover is: exactly what's possible but also valuable and desirable between human beings, on a low level of event.

  No easy trick, he thought. Certainly not everyone could do it. But he and Joséphine Belliard had in an admittedly small way brought it off, found the point of contact whose consequences were only positive for each of them. No hysteria. No confusion. Yet not insignificant, either. He realized, of course, that if he'd had his own way, Joséphine would be in bed beside him right now; though in God knows what agitated state of mind, the late hours ticking by, sex their sole hope of consolation. It was a distasteful thought. There was trouble, and nothing would've been gained—only something lost. But the two of them had figured out a better path to take, which had eventuated in his being alone in his room and feeling quite good about everything. Even virtuous. He almost raised his glass to himself in the mirror, only it seemed ridiculous.

  He waited a while before phoning Barbara, because he thought Joséphine might call—a drowsy late-night voice from bed, an opportunity for her to say something more to him, something interesting, maybe serious, something she hadn't wanted to say when they were together in the car and could reach each other.

  But she didn't call, and Austin found himself staring at the foreign-looking telephone, willing it to ring. He'd had a lengthy conversation between himself and Joséphine playing in his mind for several minutes: he wished she was here now—that's what he wanted to say to her, even though he'd already decided that was distasteful. Still, he thought of her lying in bed asleep, alone, and it gave him a hollow, almost nauseated feeling. Then, for some reason, he thought of her meeting the younger man she'd had the calamitous affair with, the one that had ended her marriage. He picked up the receiver to see if the telephone was working. Then he put it down. Then he picked it up again and called Barbara.

  “What did you do tonight, sweetheart? Did you have some fun?” Barbara was in jolly spirits. She was in the kitchen, fixing dinner for herself. He heard pots and pans rattling. He pictured her in his mind, tall and beautiful, confident about life.

  “I took a woman to dinner,” he said bluntly. There was no delay on the line—it was as if he were calling from the office. Something, though, was making him feel irritated. The sound of the pans, he thought; the fact that Barbara considered fixing her dinner to be important enough to keep doing it as she was talking to him. His feeling of virtue was fading.

  “Well, that's wonderful,” Barbara said. “Anybody special, or just somebody you met on a street corner who looked hungry?” She wasn't serious.

  “A woman who works at Éditions Périgord,” Austin said sternly. “An editor.”

  “That's nice,” Barbara said, and what seemed like a small edge rose in her voice. He wondered if there was a signal in his voice, something that alerted her no matter how hard he tried to seem natural, something she'd heard before over the years and that couldn't be hidden.

  “It was nice,” Austin said. “We had a good time. But I'm coming home tomorro
w.”

  “Well, we're waiting for you,” Barbara said brightly.

  “Who's we?” Austin said.

  “Me. And the house. And the plants and the windows. The cars. Your life. We're all waiting with big smiles on our faces.”

  “That's great,” Austin said.

  “It is great,” Barbara said. Then there was silence on the line—expensive, transoceanic silence. Austin felt the need to reorganize his good mood. He had nothing to be mad about. Or uncomfortable. All was well. Barbara hadn't done anything, but neither had he. “What time is it there?” she said casually. He heard another pot clatter, then water turn on in the sink. His champagne glass had gotten warmer, the champagne flat and sweet.

  “After one,” he said. “I'm sleepy now. I've got a long day tomorrow.”

  “So go to sleep,” Barbara said.

  “Thanks,” Austin said.

  There was more silence. “Who is this woman?” Barbara said somewhat brittlely.

  “Just a woman I met,” Austin said. “She's married. She has a baby. It's just la vie moderne.”

  “La vie moderne,” Barbara said. She was tasting something now. Whatever she was cooking she was tasting.

  “Right,” Austin said. “Modern life.”

  “I understand,” Barbara said. “La vie moderne. Modern life.” She tapped a spoon hard on the rim of a pan.

  “Are you glad I'm coming home?”

  “Of course,” Barbara said, and paused again while Austin tried to particularize for himself the look that was on her face now. All the features in her quite beautiful face seemed to get thinner when she got angry. He wondered if they were thin now. “Do you think,” Barbara said, trying to sound merely curious, “that you might just possibly have taken me for granted tonight?” Silence. She was going on cooking. She was alone in their house, cooking for herself, and he was in a nice hotel in Paris—a former monastery—drinking champagne in his pajamas. There was some discrepancy. He had to admit that. Though it finally wasn't very important, since each of them was well fixed. But he felt sorry for her, sorry that she thought he took her for granted, when he didn't think he did; when in fact he loved her and was eager to see her. He was sorry she didn't know how he felt right now, how much regard he had for her. If she did, he thought, it would make her happy.

  “No,” Austin said, finally answering her question. “I don't think I do. I really don't think so. Do you think I ever do?”

  “No? It's fine, then,” Barbara said. He heard a cabinet door close. “I wouldn't want you to think that you took me for granted, that's all.”

  “Why do we have to talk about this now?” Austin said plaintively. “I'm coming home tomorrow. I'm eager to see you. I'm not mad about anything. Why are you?”

  “I'm not,” Barbara said. “Never mind. It doesn't matter. I just think things and then they go away.” More spoon banging.

  “I love you,” Austin said. The rim of his ear had begun to ache from the receiver being pressed into it with his shoulder.

  “Good,” Barbara said. “Go to sleep loving me.”

  “I don't want to argue.”

  “Then don't argue,” Barbara said. “Maybe I'm just in a bad mood. I'm sorry.”

  “Why are you mad?” Austin said.

  “Sometimes,” Barbara said. Then she stopped. “I don't know. Sometimes you just piss me off.”

  “Well, shit,” Austin said.

  “Shit is right. Shit,” Barbara said. “It's nothing. Go to sleep.”

  “Fine. I will,” Austin said.

  “I'll see you tomorrow, sweetheart.”

  “Sure,” Austin said, wanting to sound casual. He started to say something else. To tell her he loved her, again in the casual voice. But Barbara had hung up the phone.

  Austin sat in bed in his pajamas, staring at himself in the smoky mirror. It was a different picture from before. He looked grainy, displeased, the light beside his bed harsh, intrusive, his champagne glass empty, the night he'd just spent unsuccessful, unpromising, vaguely humiliating. He looked like he was on drugs. That was the true picture, he thought. Later, he knew, he would think differently, would see events in a kinder, more flattering light. His spirits would rise as they always did and he would feel very, very encouraged by something, anything. But now was the time to take a true reading, he thought, when the tide was out and everything exposed—including himself—as it really, truly was. There was the real life, and he wasn't deluded about it. It was this picture you had to act on.

  He sat in bed and felt gloomy, drank the rest of his champagne and thought about Barbara in the house alone, probably doing something to prepare for his arrival the next afternoon—arranging some fresh flowers or preparing to cook something he especially liked. Maybe that's what she was doing when they were talking, in which case he was certainly wrong to have been annoyed. After thinking along these lines for a while, he reached over and began to dial Joséphine's number. It was two a.m. He would wake her up, but that was all right. She'd be glad he had. He would tell her the truth—that he couldn't keep from calling her, that she was on his mind, that he wished she was here with him, that he already missed her, that there was more to this than seemed. But when he'd dialed her number the line was busy. And it was busy in five minutes. And in fifteen. And in thirty. So that after a while he dispiritedly turned off the light beside the bed, put his head on the crisp pillow and passed quickly into sleep.

  4

  In the small suburban community of Oak Grove, Illinois, Austin meant to take straight aim on his regular existence—driving to and from the Lilienthal office in nearby Winnetka; helping coach a Little League team sponsored by a friend's Oak Grove linoleum company; spending evenings at home with Barbara, who was a broker for a big firm that sold commercial real estate and who was herself having an excellent selling season.

  Austin, however, could sense that something was wrong, which bewildered him. Although Barbara had decided to continue everyday life as if that were not true, or as if whatever was bothering him was simply outside her control and because she loved him, eventually his problem would either be solved privately or be carried away by the flow of ordinary happy life. Barbara's was a systematically optimistic view: that with the right attitude, everything works out for the best. She possessed this view, she said, because her family had all been Scottish Presbyterians. And it was a view Austin admired, though it was not always the way he saw things. He thought ordinary life had the potential to grind you into dust—his parents’ life in Peoria, for instance, a life he couldn't have stood—and sometimes unusual measures were called for. Barbara said this point of view was typically shanty Irish.

  On the day Austin returned—into a hot, springy airport sunshine, jet-lagged and forcibly good-spirited—Barbara had cooked venison haunch in a rich secret fig sauce, something she'd had to sleuth the ingredients for in a Hungarian neighborhood on West Diversey, plus Brabant potatoes and roasted garlics (Austin's favorite), plus a very good Merlot that Austin had drunk too much of while earnestly, painstakingly lying about all he'd done in Paris. Barbara had bought a new spring dress, had her hair restreaked and generally gone to a lot of trouble to orchestrate a happy homecoming and to forget about their unpleasant late-night phone conversation. Though Austin felt it should be his responsibility to erase that uncomfortable moment from memory and see to it his married life of long standing was once again the source of seamless, good-willed happiness.

  Late that night, a Tuesday, he and Barbara made brief, boozy love in the dark of their thickly curtained bedroom, to the sound of a neighbor's springer spaniel barking unceasingly one street over. Theirs was practiced, undramatic lovemaking, a set of protocols and assumptions lovingly followed like a liturgy which points to but really has little connection with the mysteries and chaos that had once made it a breathless necessity. Austin noticed by the digital clock on the chest of drawers that it all took nine minutes, start to finish. He wondered bleakly if this was of normal or less than normal du
ration for Americans his and Barbara's age. Less, he supposed, though no doubt the fault was his.

  Lying in the silent dark afterwards, side by side, facing the white plaster ceiling (the neighbor's dog had shut up as if on cue from an unseen observer of their act), he and Barbara sought to find something to say. Each knew the other's mind was seeking it; an upbeat, forward-sounding subject that conjured away the past couple or maybe it was three years, which hadn't been so wonderful between the two of them—a time of wandering for Austin and patience from Barbara. They wished for something unprovoking that would allow them to go to sleep thinking of themselves the way they assumed they were.

  “Are you tired? You must be pretty exhausted,” Barbara said matter-of-factly into the darkness. “You poor old thing.” She reached and patted him on his chest. “Go to sleep. You'll feel better tomorrow.”

  “I feel fine now. I'm not tired,” Austin said alertly. “Do I seem tired?”

  “No. I guess not.”

  They were silent again, and Austin felt himself relaxing to the sound of her words. He was, in fact, corrosively tired. Yet he wanted to put a good end to the night, which he felt had been a nice one, and to the homecoming itself, and to the time he'd been gone and ridiculously infatuated with Joséphine Belliard. That encounter—there was no encounter, of course—but in any case those pronouncements and preoccupations could be put to rest. They could be disciplined away. They were not real life—at least not the bedrock, realest life, the one everything depended on—no matter how he'd briefly felt and protested. He wasn't a fool. He wasn't stupid enough to lose his sense of proportion. He was a survivor, he thought, and survivors always knew which direction the ground was.

  “I just want to see what's possible now,” Austin said unexpectedly. He was half asleep and had been having two conversations at once—one with Barbara, his wife, and one with himself about Joséphine Belliard—and the two were getting mixed up. Barbara hadn't asked him anything to which what he'd just mumbled was even a remotely logical answer. She hadn't, that he remembered, asked him anything at all. He was just babbling, talking in his near sleep. But a cold, stiffening fear gripped him, a fear that he'd said something, half asleep and half drunk, that he'd be sorry for, something that would incriminate him with the truth about Joséphine. Though in his current state of mind, he wasn't at all sure what that truth might be.