Good as Gold

by Joseph Heller

  427

  not like that idea at all. don't*?" she

  "What kind of marriage will it be if we don i.

  in<?
  "An open truthful marriage," she replied with a rapt

  most fulfilling of relationships AfXr "

  whom today was revolting ^^^J^^re to what he felt was exemplary tact. We 11have mo lay about that before the weddmg darling

  *No secrets, Bruce, and nothing ^^'*^llCT you everything and I war* you* teU

  "I will tell you everything, ^ he ^^ taking her into his arms. "And if you wa^rf me to be honest> j wiU tell you now that I don ^want to be told everything." But it was the kitten, rather than the bedroom, in which the forerunners of ineluctable incompatibility seemed most prolific. Gold could forgive a frigid woman, almost as readily as he could forgive a passio­nate one, but how long could he suffer with an excellent grace a woman who in the kitchen was essentially oblivious? In time there would be cooks and maids, but who would oversee them? With each passing week the dreadful thought was gathering in his head like a low-hanging cloud that she was not perhaps merely slothful and uninterested in certain areas of domestic responsibility but also stupid. Three times he'd been forced to expound on slab bacon for her enchanted edification—once when frying thick slices for eggs, once for French toast, and once while dicing pieces with shrimp and scallions for inclusion in the Chinese fried rice he served with the clams in black bean sauce he succeeded in cooking for her to absolute perfection—

  428

  F and she was absorbed hypnotically in each repetition as though he had not dilated on the subject of slab bacon to her before. By the third time he was irascible, not tickled, at the oddity in circumstance that found him, a Jew, dissertating to her on the esoteric virtues of slab bacon. She did not help clear the dishes after that meal either, and he did not deign to ask.

  But it was the episode of the Estonian black bread that nearly took all the heart out of him.

  "Darling, where's that big Estonian black bread I brought down last time? I've searched everywhere." "I threw it out," she told him in innocence. Into Gold's eyes there crept a look of alarm. "You threw it out?" I "It was getting hard."

  "It was getting hard?" He listened in a sort of trance I and gave a hollow laugh. "Darling it's supposed to get

  £*rd. That was just the outside slice that got hard." I "The crulst wa$ hard too." I "Darling, Fh>££ust is always hard." I "I didn't know th9t> darling."

  "They bake such large Iqaves with a thick crust so they'll stay fresh for weeks, darting. Did you think we would eat a five-pound Estonian black bread in a day?"

  about anything but riding horses and owning money? They ate California oranges when they could get Florida and did not seem to know that Cornice pears were better than Seckels and-Anjous. Hopelessness enveloped him like an enervating fog at the mere idea of trying to convince her that the difference between an ordinary supermarket jam and Tiptree Little Scarlet Strawberry Preserves lay at the essence of their chances for a happy union.

  This was something Belle understood. "He's a gourmet and doesn't know it," Belle said with laughter many months back when they were still able to joke with each other. "He thinks he's just particular. I'd like to see one of these young girls please him for more than j a week. It would take her ten years just to learn how. 1 I'd like to see him even get one to try. When he asks for ] two-minute eggs he means three minutes. He wants his underwear ironed and thinks he doesn't. When we-^ out he takes longer to dress than I do. r^'iike to see J one of his college students figure out when he asks for 1 rye bread with seeds whether h^means caraway seeds | or black seeds. When h^ asks for fish for dinner he usually wants liver and when he asks for liver he wants

  / who both frightened and bored him; and he was about

  f to embark on a vulnerable new career in government

  and politics whose fate, at least initially, would be

  largely dependent on the patronage and goodwill of an

  I inhumanely selfish and malicious father-in-law who

  I disliked him intensely and sadistically. And as though

  his life with all that were not sufficiently complicated,

  I he tumbled head over heels into love the very next day

  I with another woman almost his own age who was

  separated from a mountainous husband with a brutal

  I temper and had four children: the eldest old and tall

  I enough to beat Gold to a bloody pulp with his fists

  should that notion possess him, the next in age a girl

  l worldly and pretty enough to seduce him should she

  r choose to, and the youngest pair, twins of different sex,

  I still tender enough in years for the tantrums, fevers,

  f and digestive upsets and messes of early childhood that

  t turn parenthood into an uncivilized nightmare. The first n? the series of events transporting him to

  this pass was a ph$&e call from New York from Belle, who ought at least to h^ve tried to cope with the crisis herself. Gold was stunned when he awoke in Andrea's

  bed and learned in routinely calling his hotel that there

  VTOLD was in a rage when he stormed into the office of the principal with newspaper clippings attesting to

  o S ,e Whites away* You're after headlines, aren't y°«iu , S the reason y°u're doing this, isn't it?"

  bhe s refusing to do homework. We can't verv well lower our standards, can we?"

  "That's progressive education," countered Gold And you can so lower your standards without harming or helping a single student. Read my piece called Education and Truth or Truth in Education.'"

  Vr. Gold," the woman tried futilely to explain, "if

  W?2«?er lnnand fail her' She'n be heId ^ack and °llWaf a Ml year's tuition; If she leaves there'll be

  refund "r°gat01T °n hCr reCOrd and y011'11 receive a "How large a refund?" "A fraction of the total." "Keep her in."

  "Dr Gold, I'm sure you wouldn't want us to overkx0* our rules Jus* to make an exception of your child." ^w.

  "Why not?" ^V.

  The woman could hait^Y have looked more surpris­ed. "You would?"

  "Yes. She is exceptional, isn't .she?" "In a recalcitrant, unproductive way."

  "You the one who's complaining?" "Oh no Dr. Gold. I'm her favorite. We re very close friends and it hurts me to see her stigmatized as an exception. She's really so exceptional."

  Gold looked into her sensitive gray eyes with the knowing interest of someone watching a new fish swim into his ken. He gave the softest gasp of appreciation when he realized that hers was probably the most beautiful face of a woman of his own approximate generation that he had ever seen. Her blouse and skirt were a bit on the shiny bright side, which was all to his taste, and she had good-sized breasts in a soft brassiere. A second later he knew he was on the very verge ot falling in love with her, and he glanced at his watch to see if he had time.

  "Ride downtown to my studio with me, he request­ed. "I want to talk longer with you."

  "I have a class in five minutes."

  "Cut it."

  She appeared a bit flustered bv 'nis air of cornmancj "At least," she said, "let mejfreshen up."

  He waited downstairs a a cab for her and they fell immediately into an orgy of lubricious kissing that d i dor ad i til h rid hi

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  doubt he would be disowned by his father, brother, and sisters and rejected by his children. The future looked bright.

  In the morning he conferred with his lawyer.

  "How much of your money do you want her to have?"

  "None."

  "I'm in favor of that."

  "On the other hand, I want her and the children to have everything they're accustomed to and never have to worry."

  "I may have to look for a loophole."

  In the afternoon he went for his medical examina­tion. Mursh Weinrock, smoking cigarettes like a smol dering mattress and waxing fatter and rounder even as the witnessing eye beheld him, consigned him to the inspection of the assistant now sharing his practice, a very serious, humorless young man who maintain^edfttu gravest silence for the longest time, rive*' Q^d i terror with implications of tragedv hv ^compreheti

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  VTOLD found him^^h.an ^niense unwillingness to admit that the closer n. ^w to marrying Andrea and serving as Secretary of State f* ^e deeper he fell i ntr doubt that he wanted to do eithC?f; An#fcr< nev«r helped with the dishes. She was not proving asnalleaa-

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  this penchant for falling in love. Whenever he was at leisure he fell in love. Sometimes he fell in love for as long as four months; most often, though, for six or eight weeks. Once or twice he had fallen in love for a minute. Confident that this new attachment had no better chance of surviving than the others, he yielded himself to it completely. In the throes of romantic discovery, he told her all about Andrea, and much about Belle. In the freshness and exhilarating sweep of adventurous new feeling, he asked her to come with him secretly to Acapulco on his trip with Andrea, scheduled during her Christmas vacation, and she quickly agreed.

  "I may have to bring two children."

  "That's out of the question,"

  "I'll leave them with my husband."

  "We may be followed," he thought it prudent to advise her, thinking of Greenspan.

  "My husband wouldn't go that far," said Linda Book, "although he's desperate for a reconciliation. He hates being separated from me."

  "Smart fellow," said Gold. "He'd be a fool to give you up."

  Linda blossomed like a rose. "You know how to make a woman happy. But I must warn you now. I'll never want to marry you."

  Gold could not find the right words for a moment. "The mold!" he cried at last. "They broke it! They broke the mold when they created you!"

  In the cold light of morning he lingered over breakfast with his head in both hands, wondering what the fuck he had done.

  435

  J3lD gave Gold a check for thirty-five hundred dollars. Gold put the check in his pocket.

  "I'll also need some advice, Sid, about Acapulco. I'm not really going for the government, and there'll be two of us."

  Sid pursed his lips in consternation. "I'm not sure the places I mentioned are right for Belle."

  "Not Belle, Sid. Belle and I are finished. We're not really together any more."

  If Sid was distraught he hid it well. "How come I haven't heard?" he asked with only mild surprise. "The girls still talk to her, don't they?"

  "I'm not sure she knows." This was growing to be an awkward confession to have to keep making. "I'm sort of hoping she'll catch on. There's this girl in Washing­ton I'm engaged to secretly and want to marry."

  "You're really in love, huh, kid?"

  "Yeah, Sid, I am. But that's with a different one."

  "You mean there are three?" Now Sid sat straight up and a look of keenest joy brightened his face.

  436

  Gold nodded sheepishly. "And there's also a Jewish FBI man named Greenspan who might still be checking me out for good character."

  "Te/i me something," Sid said after asking the waiter for another round of drinks. "Why aren't you marrying the one you're in love with?"

  "Her husband wouldn't let me," said Gold. "He doesn't even like the idea of being separated. He's a big violent man with a savage temper and I mustn't let him find out."

  "That's funny."

  "She's got four kids."

  "That's funnier." Sid was chuckling heartily. "Is she having her teeth capped?"

  Gold answered with amazement. "How did you know?"

  Sid merely smiled in a paternal way. Then he explained, "Every time I fell for a girl she decided she had to have her teeth capped."

  "Linda's having just a couple. I offered to pay."

  "Don't commit yourself for more."

  Gold was again embarrassed. "Two of her kids need orthodontia," he confessed, "and I told Linda I'd help there too."

  "Why are you marrying the one in Washington?"

  "She's a lovely girl, Sid," Gold answered with persuasive feeling, "really nice, and her father can help me with his influence. There's money there and that might make it easier for me to help Linda with those dental bills."

  "How's her teeth?"

  "Good, Sid, good."

  "Is she tall?"

  "Very. With long legs and very strong bones. Healthy, and really quite a beauty."

  "Then take her to Acapulco," Sid urged genially. "It sounds like you might have some fun."

  "I'm going to, Sid," said Gold, "but there's the problem. I don't like to be away from Linda and I want to sneak her along too."

  437

  "What's the problem?" Sid asked.

  "Is it possible?" asked Gold. "Can I really do something like that without getting caught?"

  "Sure, it's possible," Sid assured him with zest and called for two more drinks. "I've got this friend in Houston I do business with who goes with this Mexican television actress who goes with this airline pilot who's married to this woman with the Mexican Tourist Bureau who can help with travel and hotel reserva­tions."

  "She may have to bring two of her kids."

  "The more the merrier," Sid chortled, "if you can afford it. And a maid or baby sitter to take care of them so she's free nights."

  "I hadn't thought of that. Sid, how can I hide so many people? Two hotels? Three?"

  "One," answered Sid concisely.

  "One?"

  "Sure, one. It accounts for your being wherever you're seen and you don't waste time shooting back and forth. Please don't take offense, Bruce, but I think that maybe for the first time in my life I'm finally proud of my kid brother."

  "And all this while," reminded Gold, thrilling a moment with the compliment, "there's this FBI man who might find out and ruin everything. By the way, what's she like?"

  "Who?"

  "That Mexican television actress," said Gold.

  "Not bad, I hear, if you like them short, dark, shapely, and passionate. She goes off like a string of firecrackers, I'm told. And I always thought you were kind of stuffy. I never thought you had nerve for something like this."

  "Sid, I don't," Gold decided, wilting. "I'm going to call it off."

  "Over my dead body," Sid told him in an affronted voice that commanded the attention of others in the small restaurant. "I haven't had this much fun in fifteen years. What could go wrong? Boy, oh, boy—I wish I

  438

  could go along, but I don't think my heart or Harriet would stand it. Listen—we'll book you into the Villa Vera in two private cottages back to back. You'll have your own kitchen and private swimming pool with each and can avoid the public areas. I'll work out the right room numbers. The way I see it you won't
even have to worry about this Greenspan or the FBI."

  "Forgive me for intruding," said Greenspan of the FBI, "but I'd like to make a suggestion. He'll need a third room for himself to make and receive private phone calls from each of the ladies. He can use secret business with Washington as a justification. I recom­mend three connecting suites, with his own in the middle."

  "You seem to know an awful lot about this," Sid said appreciatively after Gold introduced them.

  "I've worked for Presidents," was Greenspan's understated reply. "Your place—it's a pigsty," he said of Gold's studio when they entered. "I say that more in sorrow than anger. I've been meaning to tell you for weeks."

  "Greenspan, don't butt in," said Gold with a look plainly indicating he was both worried and irked. "I don't want Belle to know anything about this."

  "She knows, she knows," said Greenspan in a soughing litany. "Everything but the names. Since when has Belle ever been guilty of stupidity?"

  "Then why hasn't she said anything?"

  "What can she say?" answered Greenspan with an expression of absolute grief stealing over him. "If you only knew how my heart bleeds for her every time I hear her talking to her mother or trying to pretend that nothing's wrong when she speaks to your sisters. What a woman she is, what a wonderful wife and mother she—"