by Philip Roth
“Harriet’s plane is late, so I drove home,” Brenda called.
“Where’s everyone else?”
“They’re going to wait for her and have dinner at the airport. I have to tell Carlota,” and she went inside.
In a few minutes she appeared on the porch. She wore a yellow dress that cut a wide-bottomed U across her shoulders and neck, and showed where the tanned flesh began above her breasts. On the lawn she stepped out of her heels and walked barefoot over to where I was sitting under the oak tree.
“Women who wear high heels all the time get tipped ovaries,” she said.
“Who told you that?”
“I don’t remember. I like to think everything’s shipshape in there.”
“Brenda, I want to ask you something …”
She yanked the blanket with the big O on it over to us and sat down.
“What?” she said.
“I know this is out of the blue, though really it’s not … I want you to buy a diaphragm. To go to a doctor and get one.”
She smiled. “Don’t worry, sweetie, we’re careful. Everything is okay.”
“But that’s the safest.”
“We’re safe. It’d be a waste.”
“Why take chances?”
“But we aren’t How many things do you need.”
“Honey, it isn’t bulk I’m interested in. It’s not even safety,” I added.
“You just want me to own one, is that it? Like a walking stick, or a pith helmet—”
“Brenda, I want you to own one for … for the sake of pleasure.”
“Pleasure? Whose? The doctor’s?”
“Mine,” I said.
She did not answer me, but rubbed her fingers along the ridge of her collarbone to wipe away the tiny globes of perspiration that had suddenly formed there.
“No, Neil, it’s silly.”
“Why?”
“Why? It just is.”
“You know why it’s silly, Brenda—because I asked you to do it?”
“That’s sillier.”
“If you asked me to buy a diaphragm we’d have to go straight to the Yellow Pages and find a gynecologist open on Saturday afternoon.”
“I would never ask you to do that, baby.”
“It’s the truth,” I said, though I was smiling. “It’s the truth.”
“It’s not,” she said, and got up and walked over to the basketball court, where she walked on the white lines that Mr. Patimkin had laid the day before.
“Come back here,” I said.
“Neil, it’s silly and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why are you being so selfish?”
“Selfish? You’re the one who’s being selfish. It’s your pleasure…”
“That’s right. My pleasure. Why not!”
“Don’t raise your voice. Carlota.”
“Then get the hell over here,” I said.
She walked over to me, leaving white footprints on the grass. “I didn’t think you were such a creature of the flesh,” she said.
“Didn’t you?” I said. “I’ll tell you something that you ought to know. It’s not even the pleasures of the flesh I’m talking about.”
“Then frankly, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why you’re even bothering. Isn’t what we use sufficient?”
“I’m bothering just because I want you to go to a doctor and get a diaphragm. That’s all. No explanation. Just do it. Do it because I asked you to.”
“You’re not being reasonable—”
“Goddamit, Brenda!”
“Goddamit yourself!” she said and went up into the house.
I closed my eyes and leaned back and in fifteen minutes, or maybe less, I heard somebody stroking at the cotton golf ball. She had changed into shorts and a blouse and was still barefoot.
We didn’t speak with each other, but I watched her bring the club back of her ear, and then swing through, her chin tilted up with the line of flight a regular golf ball would have taken.
“That’s five hundred yards,” I said.
She didn’t answer but walked after the cotton ball and then readied for another swing.
“Brenda. Please come here.”
She walked over, dragging the club over the grass.
“What?”
“I don’t want to argue with you.”
“Nor I with you,” she said. “It was the first time.”
“Was it such an awful thing for me to ask?” She nodded.
“Bren, I know it was probably a surprise. It was for me. But we’re not children.”
“Neil, I just don’t want to. It’s not because you asked me to, either. I don’t know where you get that from. That’s not it.”
“Then why is it?”
“Oh everything. I just don’t feel old enough for all that equipment.”
“What does age have to do with it?”
“I don’t mean age. I just mean—well, me. I mean it’s so conscious a thing to do.”
“Of course it’s conscious. That’s exactly it. Don’t you see? It would change us.”
“It would change me.”
“Us. Together.”
“Neil, how do you think I’d feel lying to some doctor.”
“You can go to Margaret Sanger, in New York. They don’t ask any questions.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“No,” I said. “I just know. I read Mary McCarthy.”
“That’s exactly right. That’s just what I’d feel like, somebody out of her.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” I said.
“You’re the one who’s being dramatic. You think there would be something affairish about it, then. Last summer I went with this whore who I sent out to buy—”
“Oh, Brenda, you’re a selfish egotistical bitch! You’re the one who’s thinking about ‘last summer,’ about an end for us. In fact, that’s the whole thing, isn’t it—”
“That’s right, I’m a bitch. I want this to end. That’s why I ask you to stay another week, that’s why I let you sleep with me in my own house. What’s the matter with you! Why don’t you and my mother take turns—one day she can plague me, the next you—”
“Stop it!”
“Go to hell, all of you!” Brenda said, and now she was crying and I knew when she ran off I would not see her, as I didn’t, for the rest of the afternoon.
Harriet Ehrlich impressed me as a young lady singularly unconscious of a motive in others or herself. All was surfaces, and she seemed a perfect match for Ron, and too for the Patimkins. Mrs. Patimkin, in fact, did just as Brenda prophesied: Harriet appeared, and Brenda’s mother lifted one wing and pulled the girl in towards the warm underpart of her body, where Brenda herself would have liked to nestle. Harriet was built like Brenda, although a little chestier, and she nodded her head insistently whenever anyone spoke. Sometimes she would even say the last few words of your sentence with you though that was infrequent; for the most part she nodded and kept her hands folded All evening as the Patimkins planned where the newlyweds should live what furniture they should buy, how soon they should have a baby—all through this I kept thinking that Harriet was wearing white gloves, but she wasn’t.
Brenda and I did not exchange a word or a glance; we sat, listening, Brenda somewhat more impatient than me. Near the end Harriet began calling Mrs. Patimkin “Mother,” and once, “Mother Patimkin,” and that was when Brenda went to sleep. I stayed behind, mesmerized almost by the dissection, analysis, reconsideration, and finally, the embracing of the trivial. At last Mr. and Mrs. Patimkin tumbled off to bed, and Julie, who had fallen asleep on her chair, was carried into her room by Ron. That left us two non-Patimkins together.
“Ron tells me you have a very interesting job.”
“I work in the library.”
“I’ve always liked reading.”
“That’ll be nice, married to Ron.”
“Ron likes music.”
“Yes,” I said. What had I said?
“You must get first crack at the best-sellers,” she said.
“Sometimes.” I said.
“Well,” she said, flapping her hands on her knees, “I’m sure we’ll all have a good time together. Ron and I hope you and Brenda will double with us soon.”
“Not tonight.” I smiled. “Soon. Will you excuse me?”
“Good night. I like Brenda very much.”
“Thank you,” I said as I started up the stairs.
I knocked gently on Brenda’s door.
“I’m sleeping.”
“Can I come in?” I asked.
Her door opened an inch and she said, “Ron will be up soon.”
“We’ll leave the door open. I only want to talk.”
She let me in and I sat in the chair that faced the bed.
“How do you like your sister-in-law?”
“I’ve met her before.”
“Brenda, you don’t have to sound so damn terse.”
She didn’t answer and I just sat there yanking the string on the shade up and down.
“Are you still angry?” I asked at last.
“Yes.”
“Don’t be,” I said. “You can forget about my suggestion. It’s not worth it if this is what’s going to happen.”
“What did you expect to happen?”
“Nothing. I didn’t think it would be so horrendous.”
“That’s because you can’t understand my side.”
“Perhaps.”
“No perhaps about it.”
“Okay,” I said. “I just wish you’d realize what it is you’re getting angry about. It’s not my suggestion, Brenda.”
“No? What is it?”
“It’s me.”
“Oh don’t start that again, will you? I can’t win, no matter what I say.”
“Yes, you can,” I said. “You have.”
I walked out of her room, closing the door behind me for the night.
When I got downstairs the following morning there was a great deal of activity. In the living room I heard Mrs. Patimkin reading a list to Harriet while Julie ran in and out of rooms in search of a skate key. Carlota was vacuum ing the carpet; every appliance in the kitchen was bubbling, twisting, and shaking. Brenda greeted me with a perfectly pleasant smile and in the dining room, where I walked to look out at the back lawn and the weather, she kissed me on the shoulder.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello.”
“I have to go with Harriet this morning,” Brenda told me. “So we can’t run. Unless you want to go alone.”
“No. I’ll read or something. Where are you going?”
“We’re going to New York. Shopping. She’s going to buy a wedding dress. For after the wedding. To go away in.”
“What are you going to buy?”
“A dress to be maid of honor in. If I go with Harriet then I can go to Bergdorf’s without all that Ohrbach’s business with my mother.”
“Get me something, will you?” I said.
“Oh, Neil, are you going to bring that up again!”
“I was only fooling. I wasn’t even thinking about that.”
“Then why did you say it?”
“Oh Jesus!” I said, and went outside and drove my car down into Millbum Center where I had some eggs and coffee.
When I came back, Brenda was gone, and there were only Carlota, Mrs. Patimkin, and myself in the house. I tried to stay out of whichever rooms they were in, but finally Mrs. Patimkin and I wound up sitting opposite each other in the TV room. She was checking off names on a long sheet of paper she held; next to her, on the table, were two thin phone books which she consulted from time to time.
“No rest for the weary,” she said to me.
I smiled hugely, embracing the proverb as though Mrs. Patimkin had just then coined it. “Yes. Of course,” I said. “Would you like some help? Maybe I could help you check something.”
“Oh, no,” she said with a little head-shaking dismissal, “it’s for Hadassah.”
“Oh,” I said.
I sat and watched her until she asked, “Is your mother in Hadassah?”
“I don’t know if she is now. She was in Newark.”
“Was she an active member?”
“I guess so, she was always planting trees in Israel for someone.”
“Really?” Mrs. Patimkin said. “What’s her name?”
“Esther Klugman. She’s in Arizona now. Do they have Hadassah there?”
“Wherever there are Jewish women.”
“Then I guess she is. She’s with my father. They went there for their asthma. I’m staying with my aunt in Newark. She’s not in Hadassah. My Aunt Sylvia is, though. Do you know her, Aaron Klugman and Sylvia? They belong to your club. They have a daughter, my cousin Doris—” I couldn’t stop myself “—They live in Livingston. Maybe it isn’t Hadassah my Aunt Sylvia belongs to I think it’s some TB organization. Or cancer. Muscular dystrophy, maybe. I know she’s interested in some disease.”
“That’s very nice,” Mrs. Patimkin said.
“Oh yes.”
“They do very good work.”
“I know.”
Mrs. Patimkin, I thought, had begun to warm to me; she let the purple eyes stop peering and just look out at the world for a while without judging. “Are you interested in B’nai Brith?” she asked me. “Ron is joining, you know, as soon as he gets married.”
“I think I’ll wait till then,” I said.
Petulantly, Mrs. Patimkin went back to her lists, and I realized it had been foolish of me to risk lightheartedness with her about Jewish affairs. “You’re active in the Temple, aren’t you?” I asked with all the interest I could muster.
“Yes,” she said.
“What Temple do you belong to?” she asked in a moment.
“We used to belong to Hudson Street Synagogue. Since my parents left, I haven’t had much contact.”
I didn’t know whether Mrs. Patimkin caught a false tone in my voice. Personally I thought I had managed my rueful confession pretty well, especially when I recalled the decade of paganism prior to my parents’ departure. Regardless, Mrs. Patimkin asked immediately—and strategically it seemed—”We’re all going to Temple Friday night. Why don’t you come with us? I mean, are you orthodox or conservative?”
I considered. ‘Well, I haven’t gone in a long time … I sort of switch…” I smiled. “I’m just Jewish,” I said well-meaningly, but that too sent Mrs. Patimkin back to her Hadassah work. Desperately I tried to think of something that would convince her I wasn’t an infidel. Finally I asked: “Do you know Martin Buber’s work?”
“Buber … Buber,” she said, looking at her Hadassah list. “Is he orthodox or conservative?” she asked.
“…He’s a philosopher.”
“Is he reformed?” she asked, piqued either at my evasiveness or at the possibility that Buber attended Friday night services without a hat, and Mrs. Buber had only one set of dishes in her kitchen.
“Orthodox,” I said faintly.
“That’s very nice,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Isn’t Hudson Street Synagogue orthodox?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you belonged.”
“I was bar-mitzvahed there.”
“And you don’t know that it’s orthodox?”
“Yes. I do. It is.”
“Then you must be.”
“Oh, yes, I am,” I said. “What are you?” I popped, ushing.
“Orthodox. My husband is conservative,” which meant, I took it, that he didn’t care. “Brenda is nothing, as you probably know.”
“Oh?” I said. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“She was the best Hebrew student I’ve ever seen,” Mrs. Patimkin said, “but then, of course, she got too big for her britches.”
Mrs. Patimkin looked at me, and I wondered whether courtesy demanded that I agree. “Oh, I don’t know,” I said at last, “I�
�d say Brenda is conservative. Maybe a little reformed…”
The phone rang, rescuing me, and I spoke a silent orthodox prayer to the Lord.
“Hello,” Mrs. Patimkin said. “…no … I can not, I have all the Hadassah calls to make…”
I acted as though I were listening to the birds outside, though the closed windows let no natural noises in.
“Have Ronald drive them up … But we can’t wait, not if we want it on time…”
Mrs. Patimkin glanced up at me; then she put one hand over the mouthpiece. “Would you ride down to Newark for me?”
I stood. “Yes. Surely.”
“Dear?” she said back into the phone, “Neil will come for it…No, Neil, Brenda’s friend … Yes … Goodbye.
“Mr. Patimkin has some silver patterns I have to see. Would you drive down to his place and pick them up?”
“Of course.”
“Do you know where the shop is?”
“Yes.”
“Here,” she said, handing a key ring to me, “take the Volkswagen.”
“My car is right outside.”
“Take these,” she said.
Patimkin Kitchen and Bathroom Sinks was in the heart of the Negro section of Newark. Years ago, at the time of the great immigration, it had been the Jewish section, and still one could see the little fish stores, the kosher delicatessens, the Turkish baths, where my grandparents had shopped and bathed at the beginning of the century. Even the smells had lingered: whitefish, corned beef, sour tomatoes—but now, on top of these, was the grander greasier smell of auto wrecking shops, the sour stink of a brewery, the burning odor from a leather factory; and on the streets, instead of Yiddish, one heard the shouts of Negro children playing at Willie Mays with a broom handle and half a rubber ball. The neighborhood had changed: the old Jews like my grandparents had struggled and died and their offspring had struggled and prospered and moved further and further west towards the edge of Newark then out of it and up the slope of the Orange Mountains’ until they had reached the crest and started down the other side pouring into Gentile territory as the Scotch-Irish had poured through the Cumberland Gap Now in fact the Negroes were making the same migration following the steps of the Jews, and those who remained in the Third Ward lived thp most squalid of lives and dreamed in their fetid mattresS of the piny smell of Georgia nights.