In Love With Alice: A Thirtover Novel

by Alon Preiss

  She didn’t really want an answer, and Ewell did not supply one. Alice sighed, and Ewell stared down at his feet, looking very sad.

  “But,” Alice continued, “the truth is that, probably, you remind me of my failure. It’s probably not fair. It’s just the result of the worst sort of coincidence. I can try to remember” — she scrunched up her face, in a weird parody of deep concentration — “I can try hard to remember how I felt just before I got that phone call.”

  And now she remembered, a memory that surprised her with its intensity, and she stopped breathing for a moment. She had loved Ewell. Was it possible that she had loved Ewell so much, and then just stopped loving him? And then forgot about loving him, and even forgot all about Ewell? Christ, almost an unbelievable, impossible and perfect love.

  “You loved me, then,” Ewell said.

  “For a few days, I suppose,” she said now, and she tried to sound nonchalant, but her voice trembled. She smiled, and Ewell saw an Alice who seemed almost like the Alice he’d kept with him for all these years, the Alice who lived only inside that moment in the bright sunshine. This realization — the knowledge that she had once loved him — seemed to befuddle Alice, and it also seemed to bring her pleasure. “Can that be love?” she asked. “It isn’t really love if it lasts really strong for just a few days?”

  “It’s not gone,” Ewell insisted. “Listen to yourself. You see now that I’m not wrong.”

  Still smiling; still the old Alice for only another second. Then she vanished; the other Alice, the mean Alice appeared.

  “I can see all this with my eyes shut,” she explained. “I can transport myself back to a moment, a place, a feeling. Then when I open my eyes, land with a thud back here, back in the present....” She just blurted it out: “I just don’t love you, don’t even like you at all. I don’t want to be anywhere near you. Can’t even stand to have you around. I know that I had those feelings, those strong feelings for you, Ewell, but for the life of me, I can’t imagine why.”

  In such a sad voice: “You could be nicer, Alice.”

  “I say this so bluntly because I want you to realize there’s definitely no future in this dream,” she said. She put her hand over his, and then, with a frown, she pulled it away. This was true, and she hoped he would believe her. “Ewell, I have barely ever thought about you in all these years. I want you to go back to your wife, get her pregnant, raise a little kid to adulthood, grow old and die in your spouse’s arms. I want you to do all of those things, and I want to do all of those things too. And I want us both to forget each other, except as a strange little memory of an interesting, maybe wonderful thing that happened once.”

  “Well,” Ewell said. “Maybe I’m glad I came, because I made you remember how much you loved me. It won’t be so easy for you to forget, now that you’ve said it.”

  “Okay,” Alice said. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll try to remember.” Then, as an afterthought: “I want each of us to be happy for each other, okay?”

  He nodded, and he looked up at her. “I want to tell you something.”

  This again. “Ewell, please don’t.”

  “Just a fact about myself. An interesting thing, maybe. Not embarrassing, not personal. Just maybe interesting even to someone who doesn’t know me.”

  “All right, then.”

  “Something I didn’t tell you on our trip, because I didn’t want to sound arrogant.”

  “Go ahead,” she encouraged him, hoping to get this over with soon. “Don’t be afraid to be arrogant, Ewell. I want to hear it.”

  “When I was a child, I learned how to read the most difficult languages in the world — Chinese, Korean, Japanese. The doctors said I was a genius — I could pick up these languages in a matter of weeks. In every other way, I wasn’t so damn smart. In my teens, I was translating ancient historical texts. Reading one of those old books, I discovered a case history of a cure worked on Wang Mang, a usurper emperor in China.”

  “Wang Mang?” Alice laughed. “That’s Eden’s favorite Chinese emperor.”

  “Not a bad emperor,” Ewell said impatiently. “He had good ideas, but events conspired to ruin him.”

  Alice nodded. “Poor guy. He failed, but it wasn’t his fault. His reign was only half-finished. That’s why Eden loves him.”

  “Anyway,” Ewell continued, “Wang Mang was very sick, then his doctor made him well again. I figured out why it worked, and I have now used my knowledge to create a cure for a terrible disease. I will ease the current suffering of hundreds of people and, through the next decades, thousands. Many have hope now, because of me. I am not just a silly European man. Also, I am remarkable.”

  She nodded, and Ewell could tell that this little story really was quite interesting to her, even though she didn’t want to find anything about him interesting. For her momentary interest, even if inadvertent, he felt grateful. Perhaps she would go back to her friend in her big beach house and tell her the story. Maybe, someday, she would tell her husband about the man she had once loved who had been a genius, and who had discovered the cure for a terrible disease.

  “I will be in textbooks,” Ewell said. “History will remember me.”

  Then Alice laughed. “History will forget me,” she said evenly. “And you will too. Right, Ewell?”

  Ewell supposed not. But he gave up. He said goodbye. He did not try to shake her hand, and did not even considering kissing her cheek. After he’d walked a certain distance, he turned back, and he saw Alice and her girlfriend, two silhouettes on the beach, in the starlight, arms about each other.

  The next morning, before his speech, the sting of romantic failure still fresh, and his resounding triumph receding in his mind as something that barely mattered, Ewell sat in his hotel room, his hands shaking, trying his best to concentrate on his stack of index cards, each labeled with precise, computer printed prompts that included reminders to smile, to pause in a relaxed and audience-friendly manner, to emphasize a certain point with a particularly thoughtful and photogenic pose, and even, at one point, to laugh a little bit. He thought that perhaps he might ignore that last directive. He’d spent the morning practicing his laugh in his room, laughing into a little tape recorder, and the playback had been utterly dispiriting. He decided: he would not laugh. He would smile as scheduled, and he would hold each smile the proper number of beats, but he would not laugh. Ewell shut his eyes, and he could picture Alice the day before, looking a little older than he remembered, but not much, her eyes shut and her face lit up by the memory of the love that she had felt for Ewell for such a brief little puff of time, how many years ago? When he shut his eyes, that was all that he would see. His Alice, enveloped so completely in their utterly perfect love.

  Ewell began his talk with a joke. It was a joke that concluded with a colloquial English expression, reputedly common in everyday American speech. Ewell had expected the joke to receive a big laugh. A visiting American medical student had told him about the phrase — everyone agreed that it would sound funny in Ewell’s accent, and in his generally comical voice. Other Americans were consulted. Most agreed that it would be a good opening line. But it did not receive the expected laugh. Some in the audience tittered. That was all. Then Ewell realized: he had forgotten to smile. Without thinking, he corrected himself, and he smiled. Understanding that he was late with his smile, he dropped it from his face. A few nervous murmurs ran through the audience.

  Perched at the beginning of his triumphant lecture, he wondered, now, what favor he had really done these patients, and he yearned to turn from his notes. Upon receiving their diagnosis of terminal illness, each had been given a gift that Ewell’s mother and father had been denied — the chance to write the end to his life. For months, his patients knew what to expect. Their sickness would steal their nutrients, their cachexia eat their organs, the heart, the lungs, the brain. They would waste away, they would become demented. Ewell would drug them silly. They only had to plan how to get through the next few terri
ble months. Here is the time I have left. Here is what I must do. This is how to organize my remaining moments on Earth. Thursday, I must cut my brother out of my will. On Monday at noon, I shall apologize to my friend for that awful betrayal, and I will seek to obtain his forgiveness, which he will surely give, because just look at me! Tuesday, I must say goodbye to my girlfriend, for the last time. In the end, for each one of them, it would be the same. His brain would run out of oxygen, sight, hearing, consciousness fade away, darkness close in on him, as though he were in a tunnel looking at a light that was very far away, but the tunnel were collapsing. In the midst of the darkness, opiates would flood the living cells of his brain, and he would see very briefly visions of life and joy and color, and he would think that he was in Heaven. Then his pupils would widen, until they were big and round, like a Black Hole. One by one, his cells would die out, like the lights of each room in a big office building here in downtown New York City. His skin would go all gray. Had he been happy? Did it matter? Ewell thought that it did matter, but he did not know why.

  Now, of course, all his patients had to figure out how to get through the next few terrible decades. They would face the heartbreak they had come to disregard. Those that were failures would be failures again. Those that were unloved would be unloved again. Those that could not live without a beloved they could never have again would be forced once again, like Ewell, to face this terrible emptiness. One day, he assumed, perhaps weeks or months or years, or even many years from now, every one of the patients he’d saved would curse him. Perhaps not in so many words — perhaps not even realizing that the demon cursed was Ewell, the kindly savior.

  Ewell had a new topic for his speech: Why Life? It would either be proclaimed as a work of genius or cause his downfall. It was falling neatly into place; he knew what would say, and inside his head, it sounded brilliant. Why, he would ask, do we want so terribly to live?

  He paused, staring out at the increasingly nervous crowd. He felt his passionate discourse right there in his mouth, ready to break free. Then the urge subsided. He shook his head, turned back to his notes.

  In the end, Ewell simply explained his discovery in dispassionate detail. Translators began speaking again. Some audience members exhaled a few sighs of relief. The speech was clear and, in its medical terms, completely optimistic, and included x-rays, photographs, and some charts and graphs, all showing a vicious disease in full retreat. The speech was very organized, and Ewell proved himself well-prepared, engaging and, in a goofily awkward style, immensely likable. He answered a number of skeptics with complete assurance. By the end, the audience was on his side.

  On the ocean liner, returning home, Ewell received a wire from Aila. We have heard rumors about your speech, she wrote. Your wife will say nothing. Tell me, is it true? He held the message crumpled in his left hand, staring over the blue of the ocean. His old friend, the Atlantic Ocean. Tears almost came to his eyes, and he welcomed them, but then they did not come. Ewell would return home. He would impregnate his wife, and they would raise a child, or maybe two. He would live a life. Not a bad life, after all, as it appeared to him now. Not the best life he could have lived, had everything fallen into place just so. But probably not a bad life.

  The ocean spray struck his face, and quickly evaporated in the sun.

  After Harriet left the island, Maurow sat down in the big room behind the dance floor, got on the radio and managed a connection to Carly’s apartment. He was numb and angry at the same time, unable to believe that Carly had somehow managed to destroy both the fragile peace he’d brokered with the union and his sparkling new romance with his ex-wife. Carly’s answering machine came on. Carly must have just discovered the prologue to Laurie Anderson’s Oh Superman, which Maurow recognized only because it used to be on a lot of answering machines back in the early 1980s. He identified himself, told Carly that it was urgent — “Not urgent like before, but end-of-the-world urgent” — then found himself yelling over the phone, demanding that Carly please tell him that she had not reneged on their Burmese arrangement without consulting him, while feeling confident that she had, and that she therefore deserved to be yelled at. “If this is true,” he said, “then my company’s connection with you will turn out to be a net minus for us. I suggest you reconsider your decision, unless you’re ready to become a bigger joke than you already are.” He listened to these words in his head, wished that he had not said them. He thought of saying something else to take back these words, to explain them, something like, But of course, Carly, you’re not a joke, but it didn’t seem worth the effort. So instead, he just shouted, “Carly, if you’re there, pick up!” and he waited about fifteen seconds then threw down the receiver without another word.

  He packed, tossed his bag in the boat and steered himself through choppy midnight waters until he hit the mainland. He abandoned his boat right on the shore, took a cab to the airport, bought a ticket for the first available plane in the morning back to New York (which required two transfers, one in Texas and one in Minnesota, of all the stupid places!), checked himself into an airport motel, and sat at the edge of his bed for hours, watching but not understanding whatever was on television.

  In America, he called Carly from the airport in Texas, and then in Minnesota, and then, when he returned to New York, he called her from Kennedy, then called his home message service and finally his work phone mailbox, where at last he found a message from Carly. She expressed a few disgruntled sentiments about all the messages he’d left on her machine, then flooded the phone line with a tidal wave of obscenities. She’d done nothing wrong, she was only standing up for herself for maybe the first time in her life, for the first time ever she was thinking about what was right for her and not what was right for her public or the media or some big corporation, and that he couldn’t support her now only proved that he wasn’t her friend in the first place, and it was just a good thing that she’d finally found this out. He was a son-of-a-bitch, she wanted him to know, and also a bastard. “Let me tell you, you’re not the hot shit you think you are,” she said. “You kiss my ass.” Then she hung up, and he never again spoke with Carly Barrows.

  The car he’d ordered was waiting for him. Alice was nowhere to be seen. When he arrived at his apartment, she wasn’t there. There was something strange. The apartment felt new, untouched. Almost lifeless. She didn’t return home his first night back in New York.

  Back at the office, there were messages and e-mails and hysterical memos. Lawyers had been contacted, tabloid reporters were rumbling. The Times business section had called. The morning of his return, Maurow sat in a meeting for hours. Some vaguely important sorts of guys had flown in from somewhere or other to talk about this for hours. To his surprise, although yelling occurred with some frequency during the meeting, no one yelled at him, and no one blamed him for anything. In reality, Maurow knew, he had lost his temper, but the only person making the accusation was Carly Barrows — between a double vodka martini and a gin and tonic — so no one could believe it, and so no one asked him about it. Mostly, everyone sat around badmouthing Carly, wondering whether they’d need to discontinue the line of clothing and distance themselves from her, or whether, somehow, something could be salvaged. Maurow said he could call the union lawyer — that’s actually what he said, the “union lawyer” — and offer to double the money they’d intended to pour into their foreign human rights work. The corporation would offer its apology in lieu of Carly’s. Maurow himself would stand at a press conference, admit that he personally had done wrong, if it meant that Carly could take a walk on this one. Nods all around. Meeting over. That was easy, Maurow thought, and he started to feel better.

  When Maurow called Harriet, he clicked right into her voice mail.

  “Pointer,” he said. “Don’t feel particularly comfortable spilling all this on tape, but given the urgency....” He laid out their deal: no apology from Carly, but a staggering amount of money to keep her out of this. The Burmese factories would be cu
t loose, as originally planned, and a full accounting would be provided to her client. “And we will apologize. I will personally apologize, Pointer. I’m sorry. And I am sorry, you know, for all of that. I will stand there, and I will say any awful thing about myself and my company that you want. Just write me a script.” He mentioned a few minor details, then decided to shut up. “I’ve enjoyed working with you,” he said gently, and then he hung up the phone.

  His second day back at the office, Alice didn’t call him at all during the day, and he didn’t call her. He saw her the next day, passing through the apartment as he was getting ready for bed. She seemed slightly surprised to see him. “Blake,” she said, kissing him. “You’re home early.”

  He said that he’d finished everything up ahead of time, which was actually true, if one wanted to be literal. Alice just nodded. She said that she and Eden had been out at the beach for a few days. Maurow nodded. Alice said: “You know how I feel about you,” but it lacked the usual urgency.

  The next day, he called her from the office and left a message on her answering machine, but she didn’t call him back. He had something to tell her, something that couldn’t wait, a scheduling thing, so he phoned Eden, who sounded startled. Without the standard courtesies, Eden put Alice on the phone, and he talked to his wife for a minute. When Alice said goodbye, she laughed, and at first he laughed with her, out of habit, thinking that something funny must have happened, something that he hadn’t understood. Then, in mid-laugh, he heard a click, and he realized that she was laughing while she was hanging up the phone, at the moment between the receiver leaving her ear and the disconnection occurring, when Maurow was still there in the room but his presence wasn’t felt, like an invisible man, or a fly on the wall. Maurow wondered what the laugh was for. Then he realized that he’d heard a second laugh. Alice and Eden laughing together as Alice hung up on him. He felt laughed at. He felt hung up on.