The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg

by Deborah Eisenberg

  The older one even had a wife, whom Corinne treated with a stricken, fluttery deference as if she were a suitcase full of weapons-grade plutonium. The younger one was restlessly on his own. When, early in the evening the three stood and announced to Corinne with thuggish placidity that they were about to leave (“I’m afraid we’ve got to shove off now, Ma”), Otto jumped to his feet. As he allowed his hand to be crushed, he felt the relief of a mayor watching an occupying power depart his city.

  Martin’s first squadron of children (Maureen’s) weren’t even mentioned. Who knew what army of relatives, step-relatives, half-relatives they were reinforcing by now. But there were—Otto shuddered faintly—Martin’s two newest (Laurie’s). Yes, just as Corinne had said, they, too, were growing up. Previously indistinguishable wads of self-interest, they had developed perceptible features—maybe even characteristics; it appeared reasonable, after all, that they had been given names.

  What on earth was it that William did to get children to converse? Whenever Otto tried to have a civilized encounter with a child, the child just stood there with its finger in its nose. But Martin’s two boys were chattering away, showing off to William their whole heap of tiresome electronics.

  William was frowning with interest. He poked at a keyboard, which sent up a shower of festive little beeps, and the boys flung themselves at him, cheering, while Laurie smiled meltingly. How times had changed. Not so many years earlier, such a tableau would have had handcuffs rattling in the wings.

  The only other representative of “the children” to whom Corinne had referred with such pathos, was Martin’s daughter, Portia (Viola’s). She’d been hardly more than a toddler at last sight, though she now appeared to be about—what? Well, anyhow, a little girl. “What are the domestic arrangements?” Otto asked. “Is she living with Martin and Laurie these days, or is she with her mother?”

  “That crazy Viola has gone back to England, thank God; Martin has de facto custody.”

  “Speaking of Martin, where is he?”

  “I don’t ask,” Corinne said.

  Otto waited.

  “I don’t ask,” Corinne said again. “And if Laurie wants to share, she’ll tell you herself.”

  “Is Martin in the pokey already?” Otto asked.

  “This is not a joke, Otto. I’m sorry to tell you that Martin has been having an affair with some girl.”

  “Again?”

  Corinne stalled, elaborately adjusting her bracelet. “I’m sorry to tell you she’s his trainer.”

  “His trainer? How can Martin have a trainer? If Martin has a trainer, what can explain Martin’s body?”

  “Otto, it’s not funny,” Corinne said with ominous primness. “The fact is, Martin has been looking very good, lately. But of course you wouldn’t have seen him.”

  All those wives—and a trainer! How? Why would any woman put up with Martin? Martin, who always used to eat his dessert so slowly that the rest of them had been made to wait, squirming at the table, watching as he took his voluptuous, showy bites of chocolate cake or floating island long after they’d finished their own.

  “I’m afraid it’s having consequences for Portia. Do you see what she’s doing?”

  “She’s—” Otto squinted over at Portia. “What is she doing?”

  “Portia, come here, darling,” Corinne called.

  Portia looked at them for a moment, then wandered sedately over. “And now we’ll have a word with Aunt Corinne,” she said to her fist as she approached. “Hello, Aunt Corinne.”

  “Portia,” Corinne said, “do you remember Uncle Otto?”

  “And Uncle Otto,” Portia added to her fist. She regarded him with a clear, even gaze. In its glade of light and silence they encountered one another serenely. She held out her fist to him. “Would you tell our listeners what you do when you go to work, Uncle Otto?”

  “Well,” Otto said, to Portia’s fist, “first I take the elevator up to the twentieth floor, and then I sit down at my desk, and then I send Bryan out for coffee and a bagel—”

  “Otto,” Corinne said, “Portia is trying to learn what it is you do. Something I’m sure we’d all like to know.”

  “Oh,” Otto said. “Well, I’m a lawyer, dear. Do you know what that is?”

  “Otto,” Corinne said wearily, “Portia’s father is a lawyer.”

  “Portia’s father is a global-money mouthpiece!” Otto said.

  “Aunt Corinne is annoyed,” Portia commented to her fist. “Now Uncle Otto and Aunt Corinne are looking at your correspondent. Now they’re not.”

  “Tell me, Portia,” Otto said; the question had sprung insistently into his mind, “what are you going to be when you grow up?”

  Her gaze was strangely relaxing. “You know, Uncle Otto,” she said pensively to her fist, “people used to ask me that a lot.”

  Huh! Yes, that was probably something people asked only very small children, when speculation would be exclusively a matter of amusing fantasy. “Well, I was only just mulling it over,” Otto said.

  “Portia, darling,” Corinne said, “why don’t you run into the kitchen and do a cooking segment with Bea and Cleveland?”

  “It’s incredible,” Otto said when Portia disappeared, “she looks exactly like Sharon did at that age.”

  “Ridiculous,” Corinne said. “She takes after her father.”

  Martin? Stuffy, venal Martin, with his nervous eyes and scoopy nose, and squashy head balanced on his shirt collar? Portia’s large, gray eyes, the flaxen hair, the slightly oversized ears and fragile neck recapitulated absolutely Sharon’s appearance in this child who probably wouldn’t remember ever having seen Sharon. “Her father?”

  “Her father,” Corinne said. “Martin. Portia’s father.”

  “I know Martin is her father. I just can’t divine the resemblance.”

  “Well, there’s certainly no resemblance to—Wesley—” Corinne called over to him.

  “Must you read the newspaper? This is a social occasion. Otto, will you listen, please? I’m trying to tell you something. The truth is, we’re all quite worried about Portia.”

  Amazing how fast one’s body reacted. Fear had vacuumed the blood right through his extremities. One’s body, the primeval parts of one’s brain—how fast they were! Much faster than that recent part with the words and thoughts and so on, what was it? The cortex, was that it? He’d have to ask William, he thought, his blood settling back down. That sort of wrinkly stuff on top that looked like crumpled wrapping paper.

  “Laurie is worried sick. The truth is, that’s one reason I was so anxious for you to join us today. I wanted your opinion on the matter.”

  “On what matter?” Otto said. “I have no idea what this is about. She’s fine. She seems fine. She’s just playing.”

  “I know she’s just playing, Otto. It’s what she’s playing that concerns me.”

  “What she’s playing? What is she playing? She’s playing radio, or something! Is that so sinister? The little boys seem to be playing something called Hammer Her Flat.”

  “I’m sure not. Oh, gracious. You and Sharon were both so right not to have children.”

  “Excuse me?” Otto said incredulously.

  “It’s not the radio aspect per se that I’m talking about, it’s what that represents. The child is an observer. She sees herself as an outsider. As alienated.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being observant. Other members of this family could benefit from a little of that quality.”

  “She can’t relate directly to people.”

  “Who can?” Otto said.

  “Half the time Viola doesn’t even remember the child is alive! You watch. She won’t send Portia a Christmas present. She probably won’t even call. Otto, listen. We’ve always said that Viola is ‘unstable,’ but, frankly, Viola is psychotic. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? Portia’s mother, Otto. It’s just as you were saying, there’s a geneti—”

  “I was saying what? I was saying nothi
ng! I was only saying—”

  “Oh, dear!” Laurie exclaimed. She had an arm around Portia, who was crying.

  “What in hell is going on now?” Wesley demanded, slamming down his newspaper.

  “I’m afraid Bea and Cleveland may have said something to her,” Laurie said, apologetically.

  “Oh, terrific,” Wesley said. “Now I know what I’m paying them for.”

  “It’s all right, sweetie,” Laurie said. “It all happened a long time ago.”

  “But why are we celebrating that we killed them?” Portia asked, and started crying afresh.

  “We’re not celebrating because we killed the Indians, darling,” Laurie said. “We’re celebrating because we ate dinner with them.”

  “Portia still believes in Indians!” one of the little boys exclaimed.

  “So do we all, Josh,” Wesley said. “They live at the North Pole and make toys for good little—”

  “Wesley, please!” Corinne said.

  “Listener poll,” Portia said to her fist. “Did we eat dinner with the Indians, or did we kill them?” She strode over to Otto and held out her fist.

  “We ate dinner with them and then we killed them,” Otto realized, out loud to his surprise.

  “Who are you to slag off Thanksgiving, old boy?” Wesley said. “You’re wearing a fucking bow tie.”

  “So are you, for that matter,” Otto said, awkwardly embracing Portia, who was crying again.

  “And I stand behind my tie,” Wesley said, rippling upward from his chair.

  “It was Portia’s birthday last week!” Laurie interrupted loudly, and Wesley sank back down. “Wasn’t it!”

  Portia nodded, gulping, and wiped at her tears.

  “How old are you now, Portia?” William asked.

  “Nine,” Portia said.

  “That’s great,” William said. “Get any good stuff?”

  Portia nodded again.

  “And Portia’s mommy sent a terrific present, didn’t she,” Laurie said.

  “Oh, what was it, sweetie?” Corinne said.

  Laurie turned pink and her head seemed to flare out slightly in various directions.

  “You don’t have to say, darling, if you don’t like.”

  Portia held on to the arm of Otto’s chair and swung her leg aimlessly back and forth. “My mother gave me two tickets to go to Glyndebourne on my eighteenth birthday,” she said in a tiny voice.

  Wesley snorted. “Got your frock all picked out, Portia?”

  “I won’t be going to Glyndebourne, Uncle Wesley,” Portia said with dignity.

  There was a sudden silence in the room.

  “Why not, dear?” Otto asked. He was trembling, he noticed.

  Portia looked out at all of them. Tears still clung to her face. “Because.” She raised her fist to her mouth again. “Factoid: According to the Mayan calendar, the world is going to end in the year 2012, the year before this reporter’s eighteenth birthday.”

  “All right,” Corinne whispered to Otto. “Now do you see?”

  “You’re right, as always,” Otto said, in the taxi later, “they’re no worse than anyone else’s. They’re all awful. I really don’t see the point in it. Just think! Garden garden garden garden garden, two happy people, and it could have gone on forever! They knew, they’d been told, but they ate it anyway, and from there on out, family! Shame, fear, jobs, mortality, envy, murder…”

  “Well,” William said brightly, “and sex.”

  “There’s that,” Otto conceded.

  “In fact, you could look at both family and mortality simply as by-products of sexual reproduction.”

  “I don’t really see the point of sexual reproduction, either,” Otto said. “I wouldn’t stoop to it.”

  “Actually, that’s very interesting, you know; they think that the purpose of sexual reproduction is to purge the genome of harmful mutations. Of course, they also seem to think it isn’t working.”

  “Then why not scrap it?” Otto said. “Why not let us divide again, like our dignified and immortal forebear, the amoeba.”

  William frowned. “I’m not really sure that—”

  “Joke,” Otto said.

  “Oh, yes. Well, but I suppose sexual reproduction is fairly entrenched by now—people aren’t going to give it up without a struggle. And besides, family confers certain advantages as a social unit, doesn’t it.”

  “No. What advantages?”

  “Oh, rudimentary education. Protection.”

  “‘Education’! Ha! ‘Protection’! Ha!”

  “Besides,” William said. “It’s broadening. You meet people in your family you’d never happen to run into otherwise. And anyhow, obviously the desire for children is hardwired.”

  “‘Hardwired.’ You know, that’s a term I’ve really come to loathe! It explains nothing, it justifies anything; you might as well say, ‘Humans have children because the Great Moth in the Sky wants them to.’ Or, ‘Humans have children because humans have children.’ ‘Hardwired,’ please! It’s lazy, it’s specious, it’s perfunctory, and it’s utterly without depth.”

  “Why does it have to have depth?” William said. “It refers to depth. It’s good, clean science.”

  “It’s not science at all, it’s a cliché. It’s a redundancy.”

  “Otto, why do you always scoff at me when I raise a scientific point?”

  “I don’t! I don’t scoff at you. I certainly don’t mean to. It’s just that this particular phrase, used in this particular way, isn’t very interesting. I mean, you’re telling me that something is biologically inherent in human experience, but you’re not telling me anything about human experience.”

  “I wasn’t intending to,” William said. “I wasn’t trying to. If you want to talk about human experience, then let’s talk about it.”

  “All right,” Otto said. It was painful, of course, to see William irritated, but almost a relief to know that it could actually happen. “Let’s, then. By all means.”

  “So?”

  “Well?”

  “Any particular issues?” William said. “Any questions?”

  Any! Billions. But that was always just the problem: how to disentangle one; how to pluck it up and clothe it in presentable words? Otto stared, concentrating. Questions were roiling in the pit of his mind like serpents, now a head rising up from the seething mass, now a rattling tail…He closed his eyes. If only he could get his brain to relax…Relax, relax…Relax, relax, relax…“Oh, you know, William—is there anything at home to eat? Believe it or not, I’m starving again.”

  There was absolutely no reason to fear that Portia would have anything other than an adequately happy, adequately fruitful life. No reason at all. Oh, how prudent of Sharon not to have come yesterday. Though in any case, she had been as present to the rest of them as if she had been sitting on the sofa. And the rest of them had probably been as present to her as she had been to them.

  When one contemplated Portia, when one contemplated Sharon, when one contemplated one’s own apparently pointless, utterly trivial being, the questions hung all around one, as urgent as knives at the throat. But the instant one tried to grasp one of them and turn it to one’s own purpose and pierce through the murk, it became as blunt and useless as a piece of cardboard.

  All one could dredge up were platitudes: one comes into the world alone, snore snore; one, snore snore, departs the world alone…

  What would William have to say? Well, it was a wonderful thing to live with an inquiring and mentally active person; no one could quarrel with that. William was immaculate in his intentions, unflagging in his efforts. But what drove one simply insane was the vagueness. Or, really, the banality. Not that it was William’s job to explicate the foggy assumptions of one’s culture, but one’s own ineptitude was galling enough; one hardly needed to consult a vacuity expert!

  And how could one think at all, or even just casually ruminate, with William practicing, as he had been doing since they’d awakened. Ott
o had forgotten what a strain it all was—even without any exasperating social nonsense—those few days preceding the concert; you couldn’t think, you couldn’t concentrate on the newspaper. You couldn’t even really hear the phone, which seemed to be ringing now—

  Nor could you make any sense of what the person on the other end of it might be saying. “What?” Otto shouted into it. “You what?”

  Could he—the phone cackled into the lush sheaves of William’s arpeggios—bribery, sordid out—

  “William!” Otto yelled. “Excuse me? Could I what?”

  The phone cackled some more. “Excuse me,” Otto said. “William!”

  The violin went quiet. “Excuse me?” Otto said again into the phone, which was continuing to emit jibberish. “Sort what out? Took her where from the library?”

  “I’m trying to explain, sir,” the phone said. “I’m calling from the hospital.”

  “She was taken from the library by force?”

  “Unfortunately, sir, as I’ve tried to explain, she was understood to be homeless.”

  “And so she was taken away? By force? That could be construed as kidnapping, you know.”

  “I’m only reporting what the records indicate, sir. The records do not indicate that your sister was kidnapped.”

  “I don’t understand. Is it a crime to be homeless?”

  “Apparently your sister did not claim to be homeless. Apparently your sister claimed to rent an apartment. Is this not the case? Is your sister in fact homeless?”

  “My sister is not homeless! My sister rents an apartment! Is that a crime? What does this have to do with why my sister was taken away, by force, from the library?”

  “Sir, I’m calling from the hospital.”

  “I’m a taxpayer!” Otto shouted. William was standing in the doorway, violin in one hand, bow in the other, watching gravely. “I’m a lawyer! Why is information being withheld from me?”

  “Information is not being withheld from you, sir, please! I understand that you are experiencing concern, and I’m trying to explain this situation in a way that you will understand what has occurred. It is a policy that homeless people tend to congregate in the library, using the restrooms, and some of these people may be removed, if, for example, these people exhibit behaviors that are perceived to present a potential danger.”