She and May drove him to the bus when the week was out. Thoroughly exhausted, he said, “Thanks for having me up. I’ll call as soon as you get back. When is that, the Monday after next? I’ll be over.” She sighed. “Call if you like. But I can’t see how things will change.” He couldn’t pursue this with May standing there. It was too mortifying. “Goodbye, May darling. It’s been marvelous seeing you. Drop me a line, don’t forget.” As he hugged her, May held herself rigid. That hurt.
Martin could envision exactly what awaited him at Jess’s. After the pleasantries, dinner, maybe some fooling around with Max, maybe some art world gossip, sooner or later she would say, “Well ... ?” His muscles went limp. No, he really wasn’t up to it just yet. What sorts of men sit alone like this in bus terminals? he wondered. Frankly, right now he didn’t especially desire either one of them. He desired only to be rid of his burdens, to slump over on the unyielding seat. No, he had to pull himself together. If he lived with Jess ... But could he ever actually live with those drums? He was very fond of the kid, but six more years of drums? In earnest, if he lived with her, would he eventually grow tired of her unfailing brilliance, her energy so like his own, her trim body? And then what? He glanced around. Directly opposite him sat a soft, honey-skinned Indian woman in a sari, her shining hair pulled back in a knot, a red teardrop on her forehead. She must be around thirty-two or -three, he imagined, and she was surrounded by four young children. The sari was something like the robes Madonnas wore. In fact, the pattern the group of them made—the woman with her head tilted towards one child in particular—reminded him of one of Raphael’s Madonnas. Where could she be going? There was only one large suitcase. Was her husband off buying the tickets or was she alone? And how did a sari work, anyhow? She had full, curving lips. Martin smiled at her tentatively. Respectfully—he might have been smiling in appreciation of the children, as strangers do. Her eyes seemed to smile back, then she bent over the smallest girl, fixing the barrette in her hair. A dark man in a white shirt approached, holding a handful of tickets. The woman smiled a welcome while the children clustered around him.
Oh, Martin, he thought, looking on at them, you are a sad case.
It was very unfair. He had served and worshipped all his life, while other men reaped the rewards. Nevertheless, one must go on. Take the next step, whatever that might be. He got up slowly, gathered his things, and headed for the exit. In a few minutes he would be at Jess’s. It would be dry and warm, at least. She would be glad to see him, for a while, at least. He must remember what he used to tell his students, in the days of strife and idealism. (Of wine and roses.) No matter how great your anger at injustice, never let it embitter you. Don’t lose your sense of joy. Remember that life is ... But the word wouldn’t come.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
These stories originally appeared in slightly different form in the following magazines:
“The Subversive Divorce,” Confrontation
“So You’re Going to Have a New Body!,” Mother Jones
“The Two Portraits of Rembrandt,” Moment
“The Last Frontier,” Witness
“Killing the Bees,” Tikkun
“What I Did for Love,” Prairie Schooner
“The Sound of Velcro,” Fiction Network
“The Painters,” Other Voices
“The Thousand Islands,” North American Review
“The Infidel,” Michigan Quarterly Review
Last stanza from “Advice for Good Love” in Love Poems by Yehuda Amichai, Copyright © 1979 by Yehuda Amichai. Reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.
copyright © 1987 by Lynne Sharon Schwartz
cover design by Kathleen Lynch
978-1-4532-8757-6
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
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The Melting Pot Page 25