by Cecelia Frey
“I was not going to inquire into that. We talked shop, mostly.”
“Does he still do that mission work? Hampers for the poor and such?”
“We didn’t talk about it. But he once said that’s where he feels at home. Among the dispossessed. I suppose that’s how he regards himself.”
“He dispossessed himself.”
“That doesn’t make him any less dispossessed.”
“He always was a strange person. Remember when we first met him at university? Protesting the Vietnam war seemed like such a daring brave thing to do. I suppose that’s why Helena fell for him.”
“I don’t know about brave but certainly daring. I always thought there were better ways of confronting the problem. Hospital work, office jobs, that sort of thing was available.”
“But he was protesting his country’s involvement in the war as a whole, so he couldn’t morally have any part in it. Or so he used to say.”
“Well, to each his own. He was so full of ideals, such a shame that he had to hit the ground of reality so hard.”
“Still, we must help him.”
“It’s not easy to help Ben.”
“We should invite him for a drink.”
“He won’t come.”
“Maybe not. He thinks we’ve sold out to bourgeois materialism. Remember how he used to tease us? He had more sympathy for the efforts of Amanda and Reuben. I can still see the four of us waving them off when they left for the Coast in that old rattletrap car packed with all their worldly goods.”
“Like so many of the flower children they didn’t know what they were getting into. They had no experience with recreational gardening, let alone market gardening.”
“They’re not flower children any more,” said Esther.
“Getting to be flower middle-agers. I wonder if Amanda had it to do over again if she would do the same.”
“Oh I think so. She could never deny the existence of any of her children. She could never think, ‘I have too many’. After all, which one would she dispose of? No, they’re all precious in her sight. And she’d never deny her love for Reuben.”
“But living on that scrabble farm and eking out a living. It can’t be easy. Why didn’t she go back to nursing?”
“She’s always considered motherhood to be her career. She feels the world well lost for love.”
“Amanda has a genuinely good heart.” George tipped up his glass and noted that the bottle on the low table was empty.
“And Reuben is a dreamer.”
“They’ve been true to the revolution.”
“Unlike the rest of us.”
“We grew up.”
“Yes. I suppose saints and dreamers never do.”
“Saints and dreamers have a tough go of it.”
“But they’ve stuck together.”
“That’s something, in this day and age.”
“They’ve been happy in spite of not having much.”
“She always goes along with Reuben’s crazy schemes and he supports her quilting and painting and beads and jam making and god knows what else she sells at the local fairs. In the end, they’re a good match.”
“So are we.” A cloud arrived and settled momentarily on Esther’s face. “Except for my lack of intellectuality.”
“Don’t be silly. We’ve had this conversation so many times. I keep telling you that not being an academic doesn’t mean you’re not an intellectual.”
“Even when I can’t understand half the things you talk about in your book? Oh, I suppose I have some intelligence, but I don’t have a trained mind, not like you or Helena or Ben.”
“And I keep telling you that you are exactly what I want in a wife. I encouraged you to stay at home and take care of the house and Delores, and me I might add. My mother wouldn’t have dreamed of working outside the home. Being a housewife and mother is an important career on its own. You know I believe that. Is it that you wish now that you’d had more?”
“No, of course not.”
“Well, then, let the matter drop. No need to go over it again.”
“But in all honesty, I suspect it’s been a little easier for our love to flourish in these surroundings. We live in paradise. A paradise you’ve provided for us.”
“Thank you my dear. But a house is not a home until someone makes it so. Your interpretation of house mistress, cook, mother, is what has made this a home.”
They kissed, briefly. George reached to the table. He picked up the empty champagne bottle and looked at it critically. He turned to Esther. “What do you think?”
“Do we dare?” she almost giggled.
“Why not?”
“First chapters don’t get finished that often.”
“A little indulgence once in a while won’t hurt us.”
George rose and, empty bottle in hand, moved through French doors that led into the dining room and from there through a swinging door into the kitchen. Esther watched him, her dark eyes aglow. She thoroughly approved of his still thick curly hair, only recently flecked with grey, an attractive iron grey, his trim build, his light step, his grey flannel trousers, his wool plaid vest. She bought all his clothes. Without defining it as such, she consistently tried for the country squire look and was consistently successful.
George returned to the living room with a new bottle. He made a bit of a ceremony of pushing up the cork with his thumbs until it popped satisfactorily, nearly striking the ceiling, landing on the carpet beyond the opposite end of the sofa. The champagne threatened to overflow; he held it over the marble top. Esther leaped to the rescue with paper napkins, patterned in a large floral print. They laughed together. George poured them each fresh glasses. They sat back down on the sofa, closer to each other than before. George put his arm around Esther’s shoulder.
“Our shelter in the storm.” Esther raised her glass to her husband. “To us. Who have made it happen.” George raised his glass to his wife.
“Summer” was now shimmering to a close and George’s looks at his wife were becoming suggestive, although after more than twenty years of marriage he knew there was no chance before dinner. Yet, he actually preferred adventures before dinner, before he had eaten and drunk too much. It was a small thing, a very small thing he told himself, and practically the only thing upon which he and Esther did not agree.
“And to our first chapter.” Again, Esther raised her glass.
My first chapter, thought George. But it seemed churlish to nitpick the point. It was only Esther’s way. She liked to feel part of everything he did. She was so fond of him, and also perhaps she did not have enough stimulation in her own world. “Let’s hope it’s not the last,” he said for reply.
“Oh surely not.”
“Of course not,” said George. “My attempt at a joke.”
“You’re not worried are you?” The fine skin on Esther’s brow furrowed slightly.
“No, no. It’s just the old story. Preparation of lectures, classes, marking, committee meetings. Never enough hours in the day.”
“Well, we’re not going to think about those things this evening. This is our time.”
“How was your day?” inquired George, happy to change the subject.
“Well, Louise dropped my Lady Anne but I’ve told you about that.”
“Yes, when I first got home, but as I said, we can get another.”
“We can’t get that one. That one is irreplaceable. She’s irreplaceable. No, I don’t want another Lady Anne. She lived. She died. No other can take her place.”
“I understand how you feel. Still, I must point out, she was only a piece of china.”
“Yes, I know I’m being silly, but there it is. Louise felt dreadful, of course, but I don’t know how many times I’ve told her not to dust this room, that I’ll do it. Anyway, then I had lunch
with Anna. She gave me the lowdown on the Arlinsons. They’ve split up.”
“That’s hardly news. You could see that coming for a while.”
“But the thing is, James has left Gloria for another man. You’d think if he could tolerate the closet for twenty-five years he could manage a few more and go to his grave without upsetting the whole family.”
“Please, no talk about the grave. He’s only my age.”
“Well, you look twenty years younger. Mmmm.” Esther sipped and jiggled a loose slipper on her foot. “I do love champagne, those bubbles in my nose, like tiny balloons carrying me away.”
“Are you getting drunk?” George teased.
“Not drunk. Tipsy.” Esther put down her glass. She kicked off the loose slipper. With the flat of her hand she rubbed the back of George’s neck where the hair was short and bristly. She looked up into his face, still handsome, though somewhat puffy, especially around the eyes. In reply, he looked down into the complacent face of his wife and gave her thigh a little squeeze. They beamed at each other. “And,” she asked, “how was your day?”
“I did have a bit of a strange incident. After class, a student came to my office. Veronica something or other. One of those unpronounceable foreign names. She was distraught, on the verge of hysterics. She actually broke down and started crying.”
“Poor thing. What was the problem?”
“Apparently, she’s been in a relationship and the fellow wants to break it off.”
“How sad. But why is she telling you this?”
“I think she just started talking and everything spilled out. She’s alone here, without family, from the East. The reason she came to see me, of course, she wants an extension on a paper.”
“The young,” sighed Esther. “They’re always in love with someone or other. It’s as though they have to be. Still, it’s hard on them. They’re quite sincere in their broken hearts. Is there anything we can do to help her?”
“I don’t think so. By this time next week, she’ll have forgotten all about him.”
“She must be about the same age as Delores. She shouldn’t be alone. We must help her.”
George was relieved from replying by Vivaldi’s “Autumn,” which took that moment to recover from its melancholy mood and reassert itself in a burst of sound. At the same moment, a blast of winter struck the house, causing a shuddering rattle from the windows. The lights flickered.
George remembered that he was hungry. “I’m hungry,” he announced, setting his glass down, a little unsteadily since he had drunk the larger amount of champagne. He drew his arm from around his wife’s shoulders.
Esther, too, sat up straight. “Oh, I forgot to serve the hors d’oeuvres,” she said. “I bought an excellent expensive pate and a lovely piece of Camembert.”
“I have an idea,” said George, putting his hands on his knees. “Why don’t I stoke up the fire and we’ll have a picnic, right here on the rug. You bring out your pate and your cheese and I’ll open a bottle of red.”
“Will that be enough? I bought steaks.”
“We’ll have them tomorrow night. I don’t feel like anything heavy tonight.”
Gaily as two children setting off on a treasure hunt, they trooped off to the kitchen. Esther set a large teak tray, attractively, with plates and knives, cheeses and meats, fruits and crackers, a sliced baguette. George raided his wine cellar and brought up a good Bordeaux. Back in the living room, they set their hoard down on the coffee table. Esther went to fetch a cloth and George went back to the kitchen for salt and pepper. Esther spread the cloth on the rug and George put more wood on the fire. They set their lunch out and plunked themselves into the middle of it all. “I feel decadent,” Esther trilled.
George poured the red wine.
Esther watched George pour. “Isn’t it awful of us, two bottles of champagne and now on to a Chateau Bertinerie?”
“If we’re the privileged class we may as well act the part.” George raised his glass.
“Do you think we’re hedonistic?”
“Only tonight.”
“I do feel guilty about being so happy.”
“It’s the Catholic upbringing. Guilt and redemption.”
“I fear I will have to pay for it sooner or later.”
“Chuck ’em, those old superstitions.”
“It isn’t right that I’m luckier than my sisters. Helena with her broken marriage and no children. Amanda with husband and children but little else.”
“Working hard, trying to live a good, a decent, life. It isn’t luck when things turn out. It isn’t as though we haven’t earned what we have. Twenty years of marriage, raising a daughter, which was not always easy.”
“You’ve convinced me. I hereby resolve not to feel guilty about being happy.” Esther raised her glass.
They could hear the wind. Esther shivered. “I’m so glad we stayed in.”
“We might even go to bed early.” George put a warm hand on the side of Esther’s neck and slid it down the warm skin at the back of her gown.
“Ummm.”
“I have a better idea. We could take off our clothes right here. That’s one of the privileges of people who’ve seen their only child off to college.”
“I thought you were hungry!”
“At the moment, food is not what I’m hungry for.”
“But we just got all the food spread out.”
“We can unspread it. It will only take a moment.” By now George had moved his hand from Esther’s back to her front.
“Well...”
George stood up, a little stiffly, rising from the floor. They moved the food to the marble-topped table. Esther had her arms lifted to one side of her head to remove an earring. George had just finished reclosing the fire screen. They were stopped in their movements by the ringing of the phone, an extension on an end table near a wing chair.
“Don’t answer it,” George said.
Esther was torn. What if it was Delores? Needing them.
She reached out her perfectly manicured hand and picked up the receiver.
3. Across Town
“FUCK! DOES THIS MEAN we have to stay in?” Veronica held back a limp curtain provided by the landlord and peered through a frosted window into a sheet of snow driven horizontally by a howling wind.
Benjamin Levi was sitting in the halo cast by a desk lamp that he had screwed onto the edge of a vinyl-topped table. He was marking papers.
“Winter sucks!” With lips surprisingly full for such a narrow face, Veronica breathed a larger opening in the frost. She positioned one brown eye to the opening. Her nose nearly touched the glass.
“Why anyone would choose to live in this fucking country is more than I can understand! Anyone with brains would’ve dodged the draft in a warmer climate!” Her long mouth twisted down at the corners. “Goddamn fucking weather!” She flung back a thick strand of long blonde hair, her quick nervous fingers tucking it behind a delicate ear. “It’s all over the world too. What a fucking planet. Only November. And look at it!
“And it’s even worse in here.” She looked across her shoulder, her sharp wary eyes darting around the room, as though she feared something dark and furry might fly out of the shadows. “It’s fucking depressing in here.
“And you,” her eyes lighted on Benjamin, “you’re depressing. The way you sit there all the goddamn time marking those fucking papers. Do you think anybody cares?”
“Probably not.”
“You could be a full prof with a TA doing that. You had every fucking opportunity…”
“How do you know?”
“You told me.”
“When?”
“One night when you were drunk.”
“Christ.”
“You had all the advantages of rich parents…”
“Th
ey weren’t rich.”
“Compared to mine they sure as hell were. You had all the lessons, all the summer vacations at those expensive Jewish resorts, all the goddamn privileges that money can buy. You got all the scholarships, had the best teachers, and what have you done with your life? Just look at you! Forty years old and you can barely get one sessional course to teach. What sort of future do you have?”
“None.”
“Why do I stay with you?”
“You mustn’t stay. You must go.”
“And the time you spend on those papers! Do you think anybody cares about your pearls of wisdom that you cast so generously before us swine in the form of witty margin comments? Do you think those students understand your subtle sense of humour? Do you think they have time to read your witticisms? Let me tell you, they’re much more interested in who they’re fucking at the moment or how they’re going to make the payments on their new car. They’re involved in life. Life! That’s what makes the world go round, in case you’ve forgotten. They’ve got it figured out. You’re the bird with its head stuck in the sand, which in your case is piles of musty old books, trying to figure out what happened in the past, trying to put a different spin on it, as if anybody gives a shit, deciding who was right and who was wrong, the French or the English, the Germans or the Americans, as if it really matters. As if right and wrong weren’t arbitrary.”
“Give it a rest, Ronnie.”
“Look at me! I’m a person!”
Without moving his head, Benjamin raised his winter sea eyes up from the essay he was reading and looked at Veronica over the tops of his glasses. With a small frown he lowered them again.
Benjamin’s weary eyes were set into a weary face. Around that face, he had a great deal of brown curly hair that was drawn back by an elastic band. His complexion was sallow, like that of people in hospitals and prisons. His clothes were well worn but clean, which had not been the case as recently as a few months previous. On his feet were grey work socks with a red line around the top. On his chin was a growth of reddish stubble that he would dutifully scrape off on class day, once more into the breach, as he thought of it. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he sometimes thought how he would not have knuckled under like this ten years ago or even four years ago when Helena left. Let the fucks go fuck themselves. That’s what he would have said of the establishment then. But since then life had taught him a thing or two. Since then he had touched bottom.