But if she found it, he trusted Mary to behave well, not to embarrass him, even if he was dead. After all, this was why he had loved her. And his wife, when she found out about the other woman after he was dead? How could any woman, reading the letter he had written, not love him even more? He was happy that the letter was so careful and transparent. In a way, he thought, I should die now, tonight. Then I would fulfil my obligation to her, to make things right.
He said goodbye to Mary on the sidewalk. He wished now that he had, not now, but earlier in the affair, bought her something precious, a necklace or earrings. But a gift on parting would have been vulgar, a kind of severance pay. Yes, it was part of her attraction that she wanted nothing from him – and anyway, how could she explain an extravagance to her husband? – but now he regretted never having given her a relic, even something small and insignificant, for her to treasure secretly. So they had their memories. So be it.
She gave him a shy, patient smile, and when he saw that the moment saddened her, he hugged her and kissed her on the lips. His tongue left his mouth and flicked her teeth. So she was opening herself to him too. They stopped. He knew he was cheating a little, already bending his resolve to be pure for Anna for ever, but he decided to forgive himself. He would even tell Anna about this goodbye if she asked him; it was here that his problem, his weaknesses, could be brought into their life; after they had repaired the marriage, why couldn’t he tell her about his temptations and his struggles? He couldn’t expect himself, or he couldn’t imagine Anna expecting him, never again to look at another woman, or even meet a woman and fall a little bit in love, and have her fall a little bit in love with him. What was to be expected was self-discipline, and an eventual cessation of uncontrollable desire. Why that? Because as the years passed, and there would be years, the attention to only one person, the devotion to the other, would focus the heart, and in the end become an obsession. This would be love, he told himself, the great project of his life, now that he was rich, what other work was more important? Charity? Yes. I will give to good causes, thought Frank. And not only the popular charities. I will give money to the library. I will give to the poor.
It was two o’clock when he left the restaurant, and the traffic was slow. He hated himself for taking so long to say goodbye to Mary. And he could still taste her, still smell her. Well, if I get there just in time, Anna will be angry with me for almost screwing up, and she won’t want to kiss me, not on the mouth. She won’t taste Mary. She might smell her. He thought of asking the limousine driver to smoke, to cover Mary Sifka’s scent, but he would have had to leave the back seat and sit next to him, and how could he ask for that?
Frank asked the driver for a cigarette. The driver gave him one, and Frank lit it. He had once smoked for a few years, in college, and he took a few puffs, and let the cigarette burn near him, for the smoke, or the ash, to settle on his jacket and in his hair. He didn’t want the cigarette on his breath, but Anna, in the frenzy of getting ready for the flight, would not likely feel romantic. He was sure she suspected something; the rush to take the trip had betrayed a necessity greater than the need for relaxation.
He took another puff of the cigarette, and the little charge of the nicotine, a pleasant dizziness, bought him a moment’s happiness. This is a drug, he thought. No wonder people still use it. He took a few more drags and put the cigarette out. Will I smoke again? It was impossible to say.
The traffic was slow, and the plane was leaving at three o’clock. At two-thirty he knew he would never get to the airport in time. At 2.45 he was still a mile away. He would never make it. This was going to be a mess, since Anna had his ticket and his passport. He would have to ask her to find someone at the airport to hold them for him, and who knew if that kind of request could be honoured? There was a phone in the back seat of the limousine, and he called Information for the phone number of the airline. There was no number for the terminal, but the reservations clerk gave him another number. He asked to have his wife paged, and explained why, although he wasn’t asked for a reason.
Anna was on the phone quickly, in less than a minute.
‘I have your ticket and passport, and you’re going to miss the plane,’ she said, without any introduction. It bothered him that she didn’t even ask how he had found her. How had she known it was him? Who else could it be? People knew they were going away, but nobody knew which airline they were flying.
‘It’s the traffic’
‘Where were you, why couldn’t you leave earlier?’ She was angry and suspicious.
It was still time to lie. ‘I tried. I couldn’t get away. It was important.’
‘Nothing you do is important, Frank.’
‘Anna, please, what are you saying?’ Something awful was about to happen. She was saying something to him in a voice she had never used with him before, but it was the voice she used with people when she had lost all patience, when she stopped trying to see things their way.
‘Oh, Frank, now what are we going to do?’ Was she backing off from this frightening rage? And what was he scared of? That she would drown Frank in a flood of insights into his failings, that she would finally tell him who he really was?
‘You take this flight now, and I’ll take the next flight. Can you find out when the next flight is leaving?’
She was gone a moment. ‘There’s a flight to Acapulco at six. What if it’s sold out?’
‘It won’t be. If I can’t fly coach I’ll fly first-class. There’s always an empty seat in first. And if I can’t come today, then I’ll come tomorrow.’
‘Are we going to lose money on your ticket?’
‘A little, yes.’ He had bought the ticket at a discount, but it couldn’t be exchanged. Though they had enough money for first-class they always flew coach, no matter how much they spent on a room. Although they never said this to anyone else, there was something about this frugality that they thought of as charity, that the money for first-class was a silly waste, and better spent on other things, or given away to people who needed it. They would have a suite in Mexico with a private swimming pool for six hundred dollars a day, and still they looked for the cheapest seats. Paying the extra money for the first-class ticket was a tax on today’s bad behaviour, he knew, a tax for licking Mary Sifka’s teeth. It was turning into an expensive lunch.
‘Do I need a reservations number when I get to the hotel?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll give your passport to the gate agent.’
‘And the ticket,’ said Frank.
‘And the ticket,’ she said, with a note of something in her voice, what was it, impatience, annoyance.
He heard Madeleine in the background. She wanted to speak to him. ‘Is that Madeleine?’ Why did he ask if he knew? ‘Put her on.’
She wouldn’t come to the phone.
‘They’re calling us to board now.’
‘Have a good flight.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘I told you I was sorry.’ Why was she swearing at him? He could feel something awful was about to happen.
‘No you didn’t.’
‘I’m saying it now.’ He said this in a way to calm her down, as though he was rational and she was insane, and he hated his tone of voice, it sounded rehearsed and out of scale with Anna’s rising anger.
‘There wasn’t enough room in my suitcase for all of Madeleine’s clothes, so I had to put some in yours.’
Something in the universe was tearing. He couldn’t think quickly enough to sew it back up.
‘Oh?’ he asked, but he knew what was coming.
‘I read the letter.’
He could only say, ‘So you know I love you.’ He was disturbed with how quickly this came to him. Here he was, taking from her the right to be angry. He wasn’t being fair.
‘I don’t know anything any more.’
‘You were supposed to read it tomorrow. I was going to give it to you while I took Madeleine for a walk. The beach or something. Maybe to town.
’
This is good, thought Frank, I am acting like someone bewildered by his sins.
‘Why are you late? Were you with her?’
‘If you read the letter, then you know I love you.’ He said this slowly, talking her down from the window ledge.
‘We’ll talk about it in Mexico.’ There was a hopeful sound to this; she wasn’t ready to leave him. It seemed to him that she was also puzzled by the affair, that she wanted to understand it, clinically.
‘I’ll see you tonight.’ His relief might have been premature, but he said this in a way that assumed the amnesty she would grant him.
‘Frank, you’re an asshole.’
‘I want to have another baby. Let’s have the baby.’ Why did I say this now? he asked himself. How much uglier can I make myself?
‘You don’t want another baby, Frank.’
‘Yes, I do.’ I have to say this.
‘No, Frank, you don’t want another baby, you just want me to think you love me now, that’s all.’
‘But I do love you.’
‘No you don’t.’
She hung up. The flight was leaving in five minutes, but he was at a red light half a mile from the airport. He could never catch the plane.
2
The Gate
Frank was twelve minutes late when he ran to the ticket counter. There was a long line, but he pushed ahead to the closest ticket agent and told her who he was and what had happened. I was supposed to be on flight two-twenty-one. My wife and daughter made the flight and she said she was going to leave the ticket and passport here for me.’
A couple in the line behind him complained loudly that he had run ahead of everyone.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said to them, ‘but I think I just missed my flight.’
The woman at the counter was black. Her name-tag had ‘DONNA’ on it, in quotes. Did the quotes mean that Donna was her nickname?
‘Two-twenty-one just left the gate.’
‘My wife said there was a flight at six.’
He leaned against the counter, and he thought that he might be fainting. The agent asked him if he was all right.
‘To Acapulco? Let me check.’
‘And my ticket and passport. She probably left them at the gate.’
‘Let me check,’ she said.
Donna made a call and told the story, and then said, ‘Someone will be right down with them.’
‘And is there room on the six o’clock flight?’
‘Let me check.’
Frank watched the agent type something on a keyboard and then wait for an answer on the computer screen. The agent smiled, as though she had actually done something to be proud of. ‘Yes, we have seats available.’
‘And can I exchange my ticket?’
‘Let me check.’
Some more typing.
‘You had a restricted ticket, but let me check.’ The agent made another call, and while she did, another woman in a blue jacket arrived with an envelope. While the ticket agent explained the situation to someone on the phone, she opened the envelope and took out the passport and ticket. She looked at the passport picture and mouthed, ‘It’s you,’ while listening to the person on the other end of the line.
‘Thank you,’ said Frank. The agent held on to his ticket.
She hung up the phone and told Frank that the surcharge was a hundred dollars. She apologized.
Frank gave her his credit card, and the new ticket was printed up.
She asked if he had any luggage.
‘My wife had it.’
‘Have a nice flight.’
‘At least I won’t be late for this one,’ said Frank, trying to make her smile.
‘Flights aren’t announced, you know, so you have to be at gate forty-seven at least a half an hour prior to departure.’
‘I’ll be there,’ said Frank.
He left the counter and walked up a flight of stairs to the terminal.
If he had not kissed Mary, or if he had not had the saké, Frank would have been on the plane. But now that Anna knew about Mary Sifka, now that she had read the letter, wasn’t it actually better that he was coming into Mexico three hours later? Given the disaster of Anna’s discovery of the letter, flying separately was a blessing. How could he have had the talk he wanted if they were on the plane? If she was going to find the letter, if that’s what Fate wanted for him, then Fate had also protected them both by clogging the roads with so many cars, slowing him down, making him late. This way, there would be no painful silences, no tug-of-war for Madeleine’s attention.
But has Fate really made things better for us? he wondered. He had planned the vacation and the timing of the letter to shrink all of the emotional battles into one act, but the strategy had failed. He had a made a mess of things.
He passed the magazine and gift shop, walked beyond it, and then, without thinking, drifted back into it and studied a few of the magazines, but decided to wait until just before the flight to buy anything, because if he bought them now he would read them in the three hours he had before take-off, and then he’d have nothing to read on the plane. He looked at the paperbacks, but he didn’t have the energy to read a book.
He went to the bar and ordered a beer. He never drank during the day, but he told himself to relax, he was on vacation now. He had to enjoy himself. He thought about wanting a cigarette, not that he wanted one, but that he understood that the taste of the cigarette in the limousine, which was fading now, had awakened an old addiction. That would be something, he thought, to show up in Mexico, smoking again. What would that look like, to Anna? That I smoked with Mary Sifka, that my sins were unremitting.
The beer came, and he took a long first sip and then put it back on to the counter. He smiled at the bartender, a black woman, and she smiled back. He thought she would have liked to chat, but he lowered his eyes and took another sip of the beer, and thought about the horrible moment when Anna would open the door to the hotel room in Mexico.
I check in at the desk. The manager knows what happened, not about the letter, but about the missed flight. ‘Señor Gale, the traffic in Los Angeles, it’s worse than ever, no? But you should see Mexico City now. Terrible. We’re glad you could find an empty seat on the next plane, this is a busy time for us. You have room three-forty-five, do you need a bellboy to show you the way? There’s nothing for you to sign, you’re all checked in. Three-forty-five.’
What’s going to happen when I get there? First I’ll shower, and then get into fresh clothes, from my suitcase, and right away I’ll have to think about the letter, and where it was hidden. Not hidden, tucked away. No, hidden. I owe her the truth.
The wrong turn in the hall, and then doubling back, and then the room. A deep breath outside the door, for the audience of his own attention. He knocks. Madeleine, excited by the trip and missing her father, might still be awake, and if she is, Anna tells him to get something to eat.
‘I’m sure you didn’t eat on the plane. You must be hungry. Why don’t you go to the dining room? Or you can get something to eat in the bar.’ This would be her way of asking him to leave, so she could save all of her feelings until they were alone, so she wouldn’t have to pretend to an emotion in front of their little girl. He wouldn’t be hungry, but he would put on a cool shirt and then wander through the resort and find a bar with a few women who would smile once at him, see his wedding ring, and go back to their drinks and cigarettes.
Outside the terminal there was nothing but planes and the grey sky and the grey buildings of the airport. Foreign planes, Alitalia, Iberia, Korean Air, passed by, and with them he thought of changing his resolutions and just finally walking out on his family. I have the money, he thought. I could be ugly, I could go to Italy for a few weeks, and come home, and accept the divorce. Or Korea, I could go to an industrial city a hundred miles from Seoul, some place where the only Americans who visit are on business, and I could be a tourist, I could walk in this strange city and think about my life.
> He finished the beer and he looked forward to the next drink he’d have that day, in the bar in Acapulco. The next drink on land. He’d have a drink on the plane, Bloody Mary, for the spices, which would keep him focused on sensation, keep him from thinking about emotion. In the hotel bar he would have a margarita, on the rocks, no salt. Or maybe with salt, why not, and he’d finish the complimentary basket of tortilla chips, and go through two little ceramic bowls of salsa. The chips in Mexico always come stuck together – something about the oil they use, it’s heavy. The Mexican food in America is better, but he wouldn’t care, because after his second margarita he’d flirt with a team of sunburned women sitting at the bar. There are always teams of women from the States, and at the more expensive resorts, some of them are even of my class, he thought, college graduates, good-looking, maybe divorcees down from Brentwood; some of them were pretty enough to have landed rich first husbands, who leave them with a little money, and their jewellery. Frank liked the type. Mary Sifka wasn’t that type, but he liked hard women who drank too much and liked to fuck, loose enough on vacation to fuck a stranger and not waste time feeling degraded. He had never done this, but he had seen these women. He ordered another beer. No, he couldn’t drink while he was downstairs at the bar in the resort. A drink would violate his resolve to follow the path of honour. When his beer came, he paid for it and then left, without drinking it. If he drank a second beer, he would get sloppy inside. Anna didn’t drink, not even wine at dinner parties. She used to, when they met, but she stopped after the baby was born, and she was nursing. She liked being sober, she said, and she kept to it. He could say to her, if he met an irresistible inclination to be pitiless, that he missed the drinker. He could say that to her when she asked him why he had this affair. Maybe he would. Maybe it would be good for her to hear this. And then maybe in Mexico she’d order a margarita. Or two. Or three. He thought it might be good for both of them, good for their marriage, if they got sick drunk together, if they woke up with hangovers together, if they got too drunk to screw. Would it be so terrible if they purged something together, if they held each other’s hands while she vomited five Bloody Marys into the toilet? Or did he need to see her at her worst, to make her his moral equal?
Among the Dead Page 3