Acceptable Losses

by Irwin Shaw

  The first thing he ordered for himself was the great two-volume edition of the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary in micro-print, that came with a magnifying glass to enlarge the words. After all, he thought, excusing himself for the extravagance, words were his trade and if anything in this century could be considered permanent, it was the English language.

  Then he ordered a handsome copy of the King James Bible in large, elegant print. His own was tattered and worn, and the pages were yellowing, and the print seemed to grow smaller and smaller with each year.

  Then, in a disorderly spate, he ordered Don Quixote, the collected essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Goncourt Journals, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Nicholas Nickleby, The Brothers Karamazov, Ortega’s The Revolt of the Masses, Auden, Lowell’s The Confederate Dead, Freeman’s immense biography of Robert E. Lee and for balance the memoirs of General Grant, whatever book Marlowe’s Tamburlaine and Dr. Faustus were in (the topless towers of Ilium—sweet Helen make me immortal with a kiss), thought sadly of how the word topless was used these days. After that, Hugo’s and Rimbaud’s poetry, in French. Long hours of venturing into a new language that he had not really spoken since his last year in college. Who knew—he and Sheila might want to travel in the wintertime, when the seaside climate was hard to bear. Boswell’s The London Diaries would be another kind of traveling too.

  Except for the Hugo and Rimbaud, he had bought most of the books before or had borrowed them from libraries or had loaned them to friends who had promised to bring them back and had forgotten to do so. One must collect the past—precious baggage.

  The list he gave to the clerk who was waiting for him had finally grown to more than a hundred titles. A mere drop in the boundless sea of literature, spanning the ages between the Greek dramatists and Saul Bellow. He might drop in tomorrow, he told the clerk and order some more. Let the rapture continue. Dear Mrs. Genevieve Dolger, with her Threnody, who had made this afternoon possible. Bless her sentimental housewifely heart, might all her pies come out crisp and delectable. Let Zalovsky curse as his visions of ill-gotten wealth, which he probably now regarded as his rightful heritage, dwindled. Let his voice whine in beggary instead of sneering in threat. Standing at the salesman’s desk, going over the long list of books that would now be his, Damon resolved, almost joyously, that he would unplug the answering machine, take the telephone calls himself, coolly agree to meet Zalovsky the next time he called and go fearlessly and contemptuously to meet him, no matter what the hour or place. This afternoon he had purchased an amulet, a charm, that would protect him. It was unreasonable, he knew, but that was the way he felt and he was prepared to act on it.

  He told the clerk to gift-wrap the books for Oliver and Miss Walton. The other books he would save in their cartons in the locked space in the cellar where they stored things. He would not open the cartons until they made the move to Connecticut. Otherwise Sheila would weep in despair at the enormous added clutter they would make in the apartment.

  He walked out of the shop gloating at the prospect of all the reading he had ahead of him, was about to turn downtown toward home when it occurred to him that while during the afternoon he had provided for the spirit, he had neglected the flesh. There was a fine wine and liquor store on Madison Avenue that he patronized on special occasions because they had the widest choice of bottles in New York and he hurried to get there before the shop closed. Inside, he browsed among the shelves, reading the great names on the labels, Montrachet, Chateau Lafite, Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, La Tache, Gorton Charlemagne, Möet-Chandon, Dom Perignon, Chateau Petrus, Chateau Margaux. The names chimed like wedding bells in his head.

  Yes, young man, you may take my order now. A case of this, a case of that, three cases of the Lafite. I know it won’t be ready for drinking for at least eight years. I don’t have a proper cellar to store it in the city, but you can keep it in your warehouse until I’m ready for it. I intend to move to my house in Connecticut shortly, there’s an excellent cellar there. Oh, it is difficult, if not illegal, to transport wine or spirits across state borders? No matter. When the time comes, I’ll hire a U-Haul truck to put the cases in, I’ll be moving a great many books and pictures and things like that at the same time, I don’t foresee any problems. And I imagine you have some champagne in the refrigerator, I’ll take two bottles of Mumm’s, please wrap them carefully, I’ll take them with me now.

  With a flourish he signed a check for twenty-six hundred and seventy-three dollars and forty cents and went out of the shop, the cold bottles of champagne added to the packages that contained the gifts for Oliver and Miss Walton, gifts he would have to wait until tomorrow to present because the office would be closed by now. Loaded down as he was, the walk downtown would be tiresome so he hailed a cab. The champagne would still be the right temperature when he opened the first bottle for Sheila and himself.

  When he opened the door to the apartment, he shouted, “Sheila,” but there was no response. The light in the foyer was on and as he put down the packages, he saw the note in Sheila’s handwriting on the little table.

  Dear Roger [he read], Mother’s had a stroke and is in serious condition. I’ve gone up to Burlington, where she’s in the hospital. I tried to call you at the office, but by four o’clock, when you still hadn’t come back, I had to run to catch the plane. Oliver wants you to stay with them until I get back or if that doesn’t suit you, he’ll come and stay with you in the apartment. Please don’t be stubborn about this. And please don’t think of joining me. A hospital with a dying old lady who wouldn’t want to see you at the best of times is no place for you to be now. Besides, I called my sister and she’ll be there, too, with her dreary husband and I know how you feel about them. She told me Mother’s sister, the aunt who is the mother of Gian-Luca, will also be there and that’s a meeting I would like to avoid and you certainly shouldn’t be bothered with. Just call me at the Holiday Inn in Burlington, so that I know you’re all right. And pray for Mother.

  Love, Sheila

  Slowly he put the note down, the elation he had felt all that afternoon drained away, replaced by a sense of guilt. While he had been spending money like a drunken Texas oil prospector whose gusher had just come in, Sheila had needed him and he had not been there. He did not like the old lady and she certainly had never liked him, but he didn’t want her to die. He didn’t want anyone to die. Or anyone, Sheila especially, to be confronted with death this week.

  He went into the living room, turned on the light. He saw that the answering machine had been unplugged, remembered that he had decided to disconnect it himself as soon as he got home. Telepathy. He sat down heavily and stared at the telephone. He dared it to ring. It did not ring.

  He reached over and picked up the telephone, dialed the operator, got Information in Vermont to give him the number of the Holiday Inn in Burlington. It was the wrong name for a hotel in which you were staying waiting to find out whether your mother was going to live or die. In other days Americans had been more apt in naming places—Tombstone, Arizona; Death Valley; Laughing Water. The language, like so much else, was declining.

  Sheila sounded calm when she came to the phone. She had already been to the hospital, she said, and had just come back to the hotel to check in and have a bite to eat. Her mother’s condition was stable. “Whatever that means,” Sheila said. “Her left side is paralyzed and she can’t talk and I don’t know if she recognized me or not. You wouldn’t think vegetarians would have strokes.” She laughed harshly. “Eating all that grass for nothing.”

  “Sheila, darling,” Damon said, “are you sure you don’t want me to come up there?”

  “Absolutely sure,” Sheila said firmly. “Have you called Oliver yet?”

  “No. I just got into the apartment.”

  “Will you call him?”

  “Yes.”

  “You won’t stay alone in the apartment tonight?”

  “No. I promise.”

  “Roger …” She hesitated.

&nbs
p; “What is it?”

  “I had lunch with Oliver today …” She let the words trail off as though she wasn’t quite sure how to continue.

  “Yes?” Damon could tell that whatever else they had spoken about over lunch, she and Oliver had discussed him.

  “He happened to see your notebook, Roger,” Sheila said. “You left it open on your desk.”

  “So?” He couldn’t be angry. He and Oliver went casually back and forth to each other’s desks all the time.

  “It was open and he saw the beginning of your two lists—personal enemies and professional enemies. He could only make out one name. Machendorf. I can guess why you started that list, but …”

  “I’ll explain when I see you, dearest,” Damon said gently.

  “What I want to tell you, what I must tell you, is that Oliver and I started a possible list of our own. I hate to do this over the phone, but who knows, one day later may be too late …”

  “I think I covered the ground pretty completely,” Damon said, sorry he hadn’t hung up earlier. “I don’t think either you or Oliver could …”

  “Did you think of Gian-Luca?” Sheila asked, interrupting him. “His mother’s up here and I asked about him. He’s dropped out of sight. For all anybody knows, he’s dead. But all the same …”

  “I’ll be on the lookout for Gian-Luca if he ever shows up,” Damon said, wanting to end the conversation.

  “One more,” Sheila said, persisting. “Oliver told me about that Mr. Gillespie, who went crazy …”

  “He hasn’t been back since,” Roger said impatiently. “Actually, I have the feeling that nobody, not anybody that you and Oliver thought of or anybody I dragged up is of any importance. Maybe nobody is of any importance, or it’s somebody out of the blue, somebody who’s …” He stumbled a little. “Well, it’s hard to put into words—somebody who’s unknown, a random evil spirit and we may find out tomorrow or we may never find out. Darling,” he said, “you have enough to worry about. Forget about this for the time being. Please.”

  “All right,” she said. “Just promise me once more that you won’t stay alone tonight.”

  “Promise. One more thing …”

  “What’s that?” Sheila sounded fearful, as though the one more thing would turn out to be another blow.

  “I love you,” Damon said.

  “Oh, Roger,” Sheila said brokenly, “I’ve sworn not to cry. Good night, my darling. Take care.”

  Damon put the telephone down, closed his eyes, thought of the mean old vegetarian lady who had never liked him lying stricken, at last speechless, in the hospital bed. It wasn’t a lucky month. Troubles arrived in bunches. He remembered the French saying—jamais deux sans trois. Well, Sheila and he had had their two. Be prepared for the third. And why only two without three? Why not three without four? Ten without twenty?

  He opened his eyes, shook his head to rid it of further dire speculation. He was grateful to Sheila for refusing to let him come to her side, sparing him from the swamp of her family’s grief, the blowsy sister with the dreary husband, the weeping aunt whose son he had thrown down the stairs.

  He remembered his own father’s death, just after the war, in the hospital in New Haven. The wasted hand searching for Roger’s, the last bond of family dissolving. Well, if Sheila was on a family visit, he decided, it was a good time for himself to pay a visit, too.

  He dialed Oliver Gabrielsen’s number. “God,” Oliver said worriedly, “where the hell have you been?”

  “Just around,” Damon said. “I had some errands to run.”

  “You know about Sheila’s mother …”

  “Yes. I just talked to Sheila. Her mother’s in a stable condition.”

  “Do you want to come up here?” Oliver said. “Or do you want me to come down to your place?”

  “Neither.”

  “Roger,” Oliver said, pleading, “you can’t stay in your place alone tonight.”

  “I won’t be staying,” Damon said. “I’m going out of town for a few days.”

  “Do you want to tell me where you’re going?”

  “No,” Damon said. “Keep the office going. I’ll be in touch.” He hung up. Oliver would have to wait for his blue flannel blazer.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  HE ROSE EARLY THE next morning and went directly from the motel just outside Ford’s Junction to the cemetery. The cemetery bordered the tracks of the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad on one side and one of the two main streets on another. It was well-kept but because of its position between commerce and transportation was not an adornment to the town, although its inhabitants had not made any known complaints. Its population had grown considerably since the last time Damon had been there for the funeral of his father.

  The Damon family plot had three stones on it, with a place for a fourth, himself. His father had been a thoughtful and family-loving man. Damon stared down at the three graves, that of his mother, his brother Davey and his father, green with the sprouting April grass. Damon had not been at his mother’s funeral because she had died while he was at sea. He had been too young, his parents agreed, to assist at his brother’s funeral.

  There were no other Damons in the cemetery because his father had immigrated to Ford’s Junction from Ohio as a young man.

  If Damon had been asked why, after all the years since he had last visited the family graves, he had come this morning, he would have been hard put to phrase an answer. He knew it had something to do with the recurrent dreams he had been having lately in which his father figured, and at his age it was more or less natural to have thoughts about death and a last resting place, but his decision to rent a car and drive to Ford’s Junction the night before after the telephone conversation with Sheila had been almost automatic, instinctive. Now that he was there, paying homage to people he had once loved, he felt an easing of tension, a melancholy but not sorrowful sense of peace, which was not disturbed by the clicking of a train going south to New Haven or the sounds of work and conversation from a nearby plot where two men were digging a new grave, the smell of the fresh earth a springlike loamy odor, defying death or at least making death bearable.

  Three good people who belonged to him, his father gentle and honorable and hard-working, his mother a staff to lean on at all times, his brother too young to have sinned. Family, family …

  Yes, it had been a good idea to drive up from New York to his boyhood home to commune with his only family and to see for himself that their modest tombs had remained proper and fitting receptacles for those irreproachable and beloved souls.

  The day after he had heard the Mozart Requiem he had looked up the words of the Mass. His memory was good and his schoolboy Latin served well enough so that he could remember the first section. He said it to himself above the tombstones.

  Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

  Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion, et tibi reddetur

  Votum in Jerusalem.

  Exaudi orationem meam, as te omnis caro veniet.

  He skipped the repetition of the first three lines of the Mass and whispered the last two somber resounding phrases—“Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison.”

  Honor thy father and thy mother, as the Lord God hath commanded thee, that thy days may be prolonged and that it may go well with thee …

  With a feeling of shame that he had left their care to others for so many years, he went out of the cemetery, found a florist’s shop nearby, bought some branches of early-blooming white lilac and went back to the plot and carefully laid the fragrant fragile blossoms against the three stones. Repose, gentle souls, he thought, and intervene for me …

  That it may go well with thee …

  Impossible to prevent some form of selfishness to intrude in even the most devout of actions.

  With a last look backward, he left the cemetery and slowly drove the rented car through the town.

  Steeped now in the past, he resolved to visit the places
of his joyous boyhood and youth, an old man feeding the springs of memory, remembering the times when he had been carefree and unwounded to balance, for a day, the blows and erosion of age. He would go to their old house, he decided, where he was born and in which he had lived for eighteen years before he went off to college and which he had never lived in since. He would stroll past the high school he had attended, remember the Latin classes, the verses of “The Ancient Mariner” which the English teacher had read aloud, the prom where he had first danced with a girl, the football field where he had cheered the team on crisp October afternoons … Maybe, he thought, I will look into the telephone directory and see if any of the friends who I had thought would remain comrades for life and had soon forgotten, still remained in the town.

  Now for the living, he thought, or the still living. He turned toward the hotel and, postponing breakfast, telephoned the Holiday Inn in Burlington.

  Sheila’s voice on the telephone was grave. “She’s still about the same. That’s a good sign, the doctor says. Doctors …” She sighed. “We hang on their words, try to interpret them in the best light possible, put our faith in them. It’s not their fault, but there’s no escaping it. How about you? How are you?”

  “Fine,” he said.

  “Is Oliver with you?”

  “No. I drove to Ford’s Junction last night. I’m in the motel there. I thought it might be useful to get out of New York for a couple of days.”

  “Ford’s Junction,” she said almost reproachfully. “Don’t you have enough to remember these days without that?”

  “I’ve had a most rewarding morning,” he said. “Believe me. It’s turned out to be a very good idea.”