Passion and Affect

by Laurie Colwin

  Then the subject of Arnold Milgrim was dropped, because the artifacts of dissatisfaction were dispelled by a series of painters, plasterers, and paperhangers who invaded the apartment. Guido had always wanted to have a closet papered with a map of eighteenth-century Paris—it was one of his low-level fantasies—and Holly spent two weeks looking for wallpaper with the right map on it. Monkeys climbing blue poles decorated with green squash blossoms appeared in the guest bathroom. Soft coats of unnecessary white paint were spread on all the walls. Five strange-looking men appeared on a Friday to scrape, stain, and wax all the floors. The Persian rugs came back from the cleaners glowing richly. Two boys who looked vaguely like Stanley showed up and fixed the kitchen by putting up some chic and useful shelves.

  Finally, the last dust cloth was taken up, the rooms no longer smelled of paint, the curtains swayed immaculately in the autumn breeze.

  One Saturday morning, the postman delivered a very heavy cream-colored envelope addressed to Holly. It looked as heavy as a wedding invitation—but it was a letter from Arnold Milgrim to say that he was coming to New York with one of his students. Embossed in gold on top of the page was the seal of Halifax College, Oxford.

  “This is the sort of paper they use when the Empress dies,” Guido said to Holly, who fired off a reply, inviting Arnold and his student for dinner.

  “Spear me another of those little Arnold Milgrims,” Guido said, and Holly absently dropped an Irish sausage on his uplifted plate.

  Arnold Milgrim called on a Tuesday afternoon, and at eight o’clock he appeared. To Guido he seemed to be the size of a bug and wore a suit the sheer smallness of which was touching. It looked as if it had been reduced to scale to fit a box turtle. His socks were the deep red of arterial blood and around his neck he wore a scarf long enough to wrap around an elephant’s midsection. On his arm was a thin girl whose toast-colored hair was so tenuously arranged that Guido was afraid to shake hands with her. She was introduced as Doria Mathers and she appeared to be asleep.

  Arnold Milgrim was bald and his face had the naked political sensuality found on busts of Roman generals. He wore round glasses and it was not odd to see him with such a tall, thin girl. They were both dressed to the nines, or some odd version of it. Doria Mathers wore a long yellow knitted dress and stockings that matched Arnold Milgrim’s socks.

  By the time drinks were finished, Arnold Milgrim had given Guido an excerpt from his new book for Runnymede. It was on the subject of the new metaphysics and was titled “The Amorphous Cage”. Doria, on the other hand, had not spoken, and although she said nothing and did not raise her eyes from the sight of her own knees, she was hardly a quiet presence. As she later said of herself: “I fill my own space with a kind of inaudible loudness.”

  Guido thought that perhaps she had invented a new form of communication, so he sat opposite her by the fireplace and said nothing. From time to time he filled her glass and she gave him a mysterious, vacant smile. Arnold had decided to divide his time equally between Guido and Holly, and, finished with Guido, he talked quietly with Holly on the sofa.

  “Doria is my most extraordinary student,” he said. “The sheer weight of her mind oppresses her. Sometimes she simply can’t speak because the process of thought is too intense. She thinks she sees birch trees where there aren’t any. Oxford does not compensate for a life spent in Blessington, Vermont. I think the birch trees are a metaphoric orientation for her.”

  After dinner, while Guido and Doria sat on the sofa in silent communion, Arnold Milgrim talked to Holly. He talked about the weight of Doria’s mind and, to Holly, he appeared to be almost out of his senses with love, but on the other hand, it was rather like the deep love a researcher might have for an experimental pet. Doria had uttered one entire sentence, at dinner, over the quiche, which Holly felt was a meal appropriate for people who had been on planes. Doria said: “Jet lag is the true disease of the late twentieth century.”

  As the evening wore on, she became more and more disarranged. She had taken off her shoes, which lay one on top of the other on the floor. Her tenuous hair arrangement had dissolved completely, and Holly, whose neatness was like the sheen on an Oriental pearl, could see that there was a lot to be said for dishevelment.

  On his side of the room, Arnold Milgrim said to Holly: “Look at her shoes. She always leaves her shoes like that and when I see them and I think of the power of her intellect, it almost brings me to tears. Once I found her slip crumpled up into the shape of a heart.” He sounded almost anguished. He asked Holly to show Doria around New York while he went to see his publisher. As they left, Holly asked Doria what she would like to see.

  “I’d like to go to all the knitting shops,” Doria said. “I love to knit. It’s like playing chess for me.”

  Life was back to normal, sort of. Holly said: “Now that we’ve had one set of dinner guests, it’s time to have Vincent.”

  “Vincent is part of a pair, now.”

  “I know, and I want to meet her. Besides, now that we’re consolidated, I want to see how it feels in front of real friends.”

  “I’m not sure what that means.”

  “It means that we’re really back together and it would be nice and tightening to throw it around in front of a crowd.”

  “It’s murk to me.” Guido said. “Besides, Vincent isn’t a crowd. Misty is a crowd.”

  He looked at his beautiful wife, his beautiful apartment. Life had all the accoutrements of grace. Their communal mornings were brisk and affectionate, their nights rhapsodic and passionate, but Holly conducted herself like a bird of paradise that had flown through the window of a house in Des Moines and settled down. She did not bother to explain her presence, or the reason for their parting, or her reason for coming back. She was simply, solidly there. His happiness in her company made Guido forget to mention his great bafflement on these issues when he was alone.

  He decided, in desperation, to maintain a policy of silence, and thus felt lurches in his heart when Holly so much as went around the corner for a bunch of parsley. Their separation had caused him severe underground pain, and he was constantly afraid that she would disappear.

  He knew it would wear off, but when Holly returned from shopping or getting the mail, he felt he had been given the kiss of life, or a Vermeer for his very own.

  The idea of dinner with Guido and Holly appalled Misty Berkowitz.

  “I will not sit around in some palazzo making small talk over a garbagy rack of lamb.”

  “You’re not getting rack of lamb. You’re probably getting chicken and Holly wants to meet you.”

  “I will not be observed,” shouted Misty. “I will not be checked out by a bunch of rich people. I will not be weighed on the heavenly scales and found wanting.”

  “Oh, Misty. How could you ever be found wanting? Guido likes you. I love you. How could anybody not?”

  “That’s an egocentric notion if I ever heard one,” Misty said.

  “I don’t ask for much,” Vincent said. “It’s only dinner with Guido.” He looked woebegone and puzzled.

  Misty lived in a nice, breezy apartment, filled casually with books, records, and plants she watered only when they were ready to expire. She was sitting in a worn old chair with her leg over the arm. She got up suddenly and stomped over to the window. Vincent stood beside her and turned her gently toward him. Her eyes were filled with tears. His heart failed.

  “Misty, what’s wrong? It’s only dinner.” To his intense amazement, she put her head against his chest and wept onto his shirt.

  He had known her for a year, and she had never cried in his presence, not even at the movies. He suspected that she cried in private, but her privacy was so private he could not know. She had kept their relationship light and bantering for a year, taunting him, torturing him, he often thought, and making him laugh. She never even snuffled. He was filled with awe and panic. A torrent of love swept over him with the force of a Japanese tidal wave.

  “Do you know how
much I love you?” he said into her hair.

  “If you love me so much, give me a handkerchief.”

  He looked steadily at her.

  “How can you be this way, Misty? How can you be so flip when I’m serious.”

  “You only get mushy when I cry.”

  “You never cried before,” Vincent said.

  “You think you’re serious, but only when you want to be.” She rifled his pocket and fished out a Kleenex.

  “Misty, do you care at all for me? Do you like me?”

  “Enough,” she said. “More than you deserve.” Then she pressed her head against the window and began to cry again. He took her into his arms, and asked her to explain.

  “What the hell am I supposed to wear?” she sobbed. “Oh, God, this is awful.” Vincent’s knees buckled. He dried her eyes with his handkerchief, and when he asked her to marry him, she told him he was only asking because she had broken down and then she suggested a game of gin.

  “If I win, will you marry me?” Vincent said. He shuffled the cards with professional aplomb.

  “How can you be so flip when I’m serious?” Misty said, and ginned out after four picks.

  The next day, in her office at the Board of City Planning, Misty surveyed what she had chosen for her lunch. The yogurt tasted like acrid library paste. The pear she had taken a bite of was abandoned in back of a cup of coffee; it was an unripe, unsweet, rocky little pear. She knew she was hungry, but her appetite had left her. She sat looking at the pear and thought of Vincent. Her left leg was cramped. She had the beginnings of a headache. She was suffering. She looked out the window into the soft fleecy sky and thought of Vincent again. Then she closed the door and tried unsuccessfully to cry. She knew all she had to know about Vincent: it was only a matter of time until the war of nerves she was waging played out. She knew she prized and loved him, and knew that she would continue to give him a hard time until the knowledge made real sense to her. She also knew that she treated him lovingly, but Vincent only understood loving gestures if they were accompanied by the kind of soppy utterance found in romance magazines. She never told him how much she loved him: after all, wasn’t he an emotional retard? Wasn’t he a cretin not to know how loaded every one of her gestures was? Wasn’t she giving herself away daily for all the world, except Blockhead Cardworthy, to see?

  Accused of nastiness, Misty said to Vincent: “If I expressed even a small amount of my tenderness, I’d be sobbing on your shoes at least eighteen hours a day. Don’t you know when you’ve got a good deal?”

  Her battle with Vincent was that he was worse than a blockhead, he was naïve and objective. She didn’t want to be a girl he loved, she wanted to be understood: the girl who was loving Vincent was a complicated little scrapper, and when he realized that, she figured she might give him a break.

  She piled the papers neatly on her desk and pulled on her coat.

  Out on the street, she windowshopped, staring with rapt depression at rows of mannikins in glossy trousers. A mood of gothic desolation moved in on her, and out of pique she bought a silk shirt she could not afford, and a recording of C. P. E. Bach’s cello concerto. Then she ambled over to a candy store she had hitherto only dared browse in front of, and went in to buy for Vincent a box of his beloved French marrons. When she was told the price of this item, she knew that reason had indeed deserted her.

  Vincent found Misty in her tiny office.

  “Guido says they want us tomorrow night for dinner.”

  It was early afternoon, and the sky was cloudy. Misty sat at her desk, bathed in the grayness, looking stricken.

  “O.K.,” she said, like a child acquiescing to a dentist’s appointment.

  They met after work and walked slowly downtown to Misty’s apartment. She had been behaving oddly all week, quiet, sad, remote, and she had cried. The part of Misty Vincent usually lived with was raucous, sharp, and frequently heartrending, but this was heartbreaking.

  He read the paper while she took a nap on the couch. He saw how tired and sweet and intelligent she looked, even sleeping. He thought he understood unhappiness, but he didn’t know if this was it. When she woke up, she sat for a long time without speaking. Finally Vincent pulled the hassock up in front of her, and took her hands.

  “Are you going to talk to me and tell me what’s going on with you? I can’t bear to see you this way.”

  She shrugged and held his hands tighter.

  “Does it help if I tell you I love you, or does it make it worse?” he said.

  Then she began to cry. It was the second time in two days, but its effect on him was not dampened by repetition.

  “O.K.,” she said. “This is it.”

  His heart seemed to stop. This was it. He felt a streak of instant desolation and misery.

  “Not what you think, you sap,” said Misty. “I just can’t keep this up much longer. Sometimes I wonder if you know what I’m like, and sometimes I think you do. I’m just sick of keeping you at arm’s length and not telling you anything. You have no idea how melodramatic I am. If you don’t know that I love you, then you’re God’s own fool, but don’t expect me to treat you the way you think girls in love are supposed to.”

  “I don’t think you’re remotely like anyone I’ve ever known.”

  “You think I’m bad to you, but I’m only bad to me, because I never believe anyone. When I’m not being nasty I don’t have any equilibrium. You may find yourself hooked up to a real soap opera, if I let go. Will you like that?”

  “I think I’d like almost anything,” Vincent said.

  They clasped each other in happiness and relief.

  “I think we earned this,” said Misty, who was in tears again.

  “I think we did too.”

  They drank a bottle of champagne before dinner and then tied up the telephone for an hour calling the Berkowitzs in Chicago and the Cardworthys in Connecticut to announce their intentions.

  When the champagne wore off, they were tired and headachy and they lay in bed in slight discomfort.

  “Are you having second thoughts?” asked Misty.

  “I’d be the happiest man on the planet if I didn’t have a headache,” said Vincent. “Are you?”

  “I never have second thoughts,” Misty said. “It’s against my religion to have second thoughts or enter the city of Mecca.”

  At breakfast, Vincent appeared to have been almost demolished by joy, but Misty, on the other hand was back to normal. Having carried her love around like a guilty secret, she felt as well placed in the world as a fresh loaf of bread. Vincent saluted her with a glass of orange juice.

  “Here’s to our happy future,” he said.

  “Your optimism is truly record-breaking,” said Misty.

  “What’s wrong with a happy future?” Vincent asked.

  “This is the twentieth century,” said Misty. “Not hardly the great age of happy futures.” She kissed him behind his ear. Vincent made the coffee.

  “There are happy futures for some,” he said.

  “You and your debutante fantasies,” she said, turning onto his plate a perfect omelet.

  Holly had promised to show Doria around New York, and they hit every knitting shop in town, until Holly thought she would overdose at the sight of another skein. Doria bought seven pairs of knitting needles and several pounds of wool. She shopped briskly, but otherwise she was a study in manifest chaos.

  Holly was impeccable: she had not opted for neatness, it had been thrust upon her by nature. She had simple, unadorned features, and thick straight hair that fell unalterably to her shoulders. Clothes on her looked somehow cleaner and more starched than they did on other people.

  Doria Mathers wore a dress of angora that had both shrunk and stretched. The heel of her left shoe looked as if it might break off at any moment. Her hair, after a day buying wool, looked frenzied, but decorative. She was possibly the world’s sloppiest knockout.

  During lunch, Holly learned that Doria had been tutored at ho
me, and in the process had learned Hindi and Bengali. No one in her family was particularly interested in Indian studies, but they all felt it was good intellectual training. She said she was going to write a book called The Architecture of Chaos. Then she said that Arnold Milgrim was the greatest man she had ever met, and possibly the greatest man who had ever lived. They were to be married in the spring, when Arnold’s divorce came through.

  “Arnold says I am a person of deep and sudden petulance,” she said.

  That night, at dinner, Holly asked Guido if he thought she was a person of deep and sudden petulance.

  “I think probably everyone in the world is except you,” he said.

  “Do you ever think things like that about me?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Doria told me that Arnold says that she’s a person of deep and sudden petulance.”

  “That girl,” said Guido, “is a person of deep and constant torpor, as far as I can see.”

  “I think it’s a romantic thing to say,” said Holly.

  “I think Arnold Milgrim is a person of deep and frequent idiocy,” Guido said.

  “Our natures are often at variance,” said Holly, over the peach mousse.

  Guido threw his spoon down on the table.

  “Goddamn it, Holly. You go off and leave me and can’t get out a coherent sentence as to why, then you come back and don’t explain yourself, and you want me to go around blathering about how you are a woman of deep and pensive magnetism. If you want someone who will make a poetic fetish out of each of your many qualities, go off with Arnold Milgrim and I’m sure his lady love will sleep through the whole deep and meaningful proceeding. Just being loved isn’t good enough for you.” With that he stormed into the library and brooded. He rarely lost his temper. To him it was like losing his keys, and he never did that either. When he was angry, he was a person he was not comfortable with, but as he sat in his armchair, he realized what righteous anger really was.