Schmidt Steps Back

by Louis Begley

  He got to the airport at Roissy in plenty of time. Quarter of six for a seven o’clock flight. Alice’s plane for Nice left from Orly at five. Perhaps that lout Popov fondled all his colleagues’ behinds, male and female. What was that to Schmidt! He didn’t have Alice’s telephone number in Antibes, and even if he did he doubted he would dare call her at her father’s house, knowing that the old gentleman’s friend was ill. The thing to do was to call Alice’s number in Paris and leave a message in his best French: Je t’aime follement. The call went through. He heard the first ring, and then the second, and then Alice’s voice. Astonished, he hung up. Had she missed her plane? Had the situation in Antibes changed? How stupid he had been to hang up instead of speaking to her. He dialed again. The line was busy and continued to be busy up to the very last minute before his flight, when first-class passengers were called to embark.

  As usual, he fell asleep during takeoff. It was a tic: the response of his helpless body to being strapped into a seat and carried aloft in that infantilized state. The chatter of the stewardesses offering refreshments awakened him. The plane had reached its cruising altitude, and the loudspeaker announced that passengers were free to move about the cabin. Schmidt decided that the Herald Tribune could wait, even though he hadn’t looked at it all day. Sipping a bourbon, and devouring the mixed nuts as though he had skipped lunch, he puzzled over the failed call to Alice. No plausible explanation seemed likelier than any other. He would try to reach her the next day—Saturday afternoon her time—and leave a message explaining that taken unawares he had, like a fool, hung up instead of asking her whether anything was the matter, and trying to ring again found he couldn’t get through. She’d call him back after she had listened to that message. That same day, if she was in Paris, or on Sunday, when she returned from Antibes.

  Against his will, his thoughts turned to the interlude with Pani Danuta. A huge blunder. For one thing, how was he to make sure it remained an interlude? They had parted on the best of terms. Would she not expect the vodka-sodden orgy à deux to be repeated on his next visit to the Warsaw Center? How would she respond if he demurred? Would a spiteful account reach Mike Mansour? He supposed that Mike the bon vivant would laugh at his huffy WASP employee’s caper, but his moods were unpredictable. In any event, Mike’s shrugging off the incident did not make Schmidt’s appallingly stupid behavior right or any less stupid. Here is what he should have done: directly after the stroll in the Łazienki Park take or send that sex maniac home. Beyond that, what were the larger implications of his misconduct, what did it say about him? Had he ever said no to a woman who offered herself? Yes, if the transaction involved payment of money; otherwise he could point to no opportunity he had rejected, except perhaps the flirtatious propositions of old hags in the Hamptons, widows of writers or editors or agents gone to seed. He had recoiled from the mere thought of physical contact with even the best preserved of them. But with the student he recruited on the West Coast, Corinne the babysitter, Hecate-like Carrie, Alice—indeed Alice—and now Danuta, the pattern was the same. The bugle sounds, and Schmidt jumps into the saddle. Was it because he was too unsure of himself to risk taking the first step that a woman’s making herself available made him lose his head? Or was it, more simply, his unabated appetite for sex with new partners, a curiosity he hadn’t outgrown. He thought it could be tamed if he lived with Alice, but not otherwise. Was there a moral distinction to be made between that “curiosity” and Tim’s homosexuality that would make Schmidt’s misconduct less repugnant to Alice? He wasn’t sure. Did his couplings with Pani Danuta prove that his protestations of love for Alice were in bad faith? It seemed to him that such an inference was not inescapable. He was in love with Alice or as close to love as was possible at his age. Was that really true? Could his short acquaintance and still limited knowledge of her justify claim of anything more than an infatuation? He concluded it could. A lifetime of experience told him she was splendid. Another six months of knowing her would not change that judgment.

  A practical problem also called into question his good faith. She was so much younger! He had been asking her in various formulations to tie her life to his. How could he ignore the disadvantages and risks inherent in that fact: the inevitable diminution of his libido and potency, incapacitating illnesses he might suffer, the near certainty that he would be the first to die? She was likely to become a widow the second time at an age when finding a suitable man to share her life would be more difficult than now. There were countervailing considerations: his interest in women that he thought was livelier than that of many men her own age; his excellent health that might postpone or fend off those illnesses and debilities; his modest but perfectly sufficient fortune that should assure a comfortable life for both of them while he lived and for her afterward. Indeed, he thought she would like the way he lived. East End of Long Island and Manhattan: not a bad combination. On the other side of the balance sheet, there was the sacrifice that moving away from Paris would entail, although he would gladly spend as much time there with her as she wished. He had tried to discuss these worries with her thoroughly and objectively. But whenever he tried to discuss their future, she would become impatient; she would sigh and say things like Schmidtie, why must we talk about that? We’re having a very good time together, isn’t that enough? The one time she had seemed willing to listen, she told him that all these concerns were real, but none of them would stand in her way. But that was where she stopped: in the conditional mood. They would not stand in her way, if she decided to accept his suit. But plainly she was not yet ready to do so.

  He wished Gil were at his side to help him sort out this jumble.

  X

  THERE WAS NO MESSAGE from Alice when he got home to Bridgehampton late that Friday evening. He did, however, find one from Charlotte, recorded in the afternoon, and a note on the kitchen table from Carrie, beside a vase full of white and pink peonies from his garden, saying Welcome, Schmidtie, we have news for you. It was a few minutes past midnight, much too late to call Charlotte. The pool house and Bryan’s apartment over the garage were dark. If Bryan had met him at the airport, he would have told him Carrie’s news unless it was to be a surprise and she had sworn him to silence. But he had been picked up instead by one of Mike Mansour’s chauffeurs in the security detail’s huge gray SUV. The news, and the telephone calls to Alice and Charlotte, would have to wait until morning. Sy was on the kitchen table, looking at him with adoring eyes and tapping on his sleeve. This was a message Schmidt never failed to understand. It said, I want a snack, and I want it now!

  He was up early, and although it was Saturday he was sure that Carrie and Jason would be up as well. Operations at the marina started at eight. His breakfast finished, he put the New York Times aside and was about to go over to see them when they both appeared. It was three weeks since he had last seen her. The hillock under her paisley top had become an alp. And she had become more beautiful to a degree he thought was supernatural. When had she been a waitress at O’Henry’s, the local steak and hamburger joint? Almost four years ago? O’Henry’s, the joint where she would serve him his meal, and when she was tired late in the evening remind him of Picasso’s Woman Ironing. Picasso had never painted a Madonna. If he had, before the need to push his art forward led him to decompose faces and bodies, the result might have been a likeness of Carrie as she was now. Or if Bellini had fallen in love with an olive-skinned, languorous working girl, perhaps a street urchin bearing a child of an unknown father, whom he had invited to pose in his studio. Jason beaming beside her, the blond mountain—whose paintbrush had painted him? Of course, Norman Rockwell! Portrait of a young line repairman, in his overalls, setting out for a day’s work after a hurricane.

  Hey Schmidtie, she cried after embracing him, big news! Jay and I are lawfully wedded! We went to Riverhead last Friday morning and did it! Isn’t that something? Bryan and one of the girls from O’Henry’s were the witnesses.

  It is big and wonderful news; I’m so ha
ppy for you. He embraced Carrie again and once again vigorously shook Jason’s hand. I only wish I could have given a wedding lunch for you!

  We didn’t want you to, Carrie said, it’s a hassle. That’s why we were sneaky and got it done while you were away.

  Carrie’s extraordinary tact: in truth Schmidt had been turning over in his mind what he would do when those two finally got married. A reception on the lawn following a morning ceremony? Something in the house or under a tent if it was in the evening? Should he have a band or a DJ or no music at all? And above all, who would be the guests? Carrie’s parents, Mr. Gorchuck, the Board of Education employee, and Mrs. Gorchuck, the Puerto Rican cook with swollen limbs, Mr. and Mrs. McMullen, Jason’s Nova Scotia father and mother, Mike Mansour and Gil and Elaine Blackman, Mike’s staff, at least those whose services at Mike’s house could be temporarily dispensed with, the boys and girls from O’Henry’s, and who else? Perhaps Jason’s pals from the New York police force, if he had kept up with them. A strange group and a strange social occasion! Now he would be spared this trial. That left little Albert’s christening. He was to be the godfather! Would he be expected to give a reception, presumably for the same group?

  Dear Carrie and Jason, he replied, I would have so much liked to do it here, on the lawn.

  That half lie took him right back to Charlotte’s wedding, to her cruel—in his opinion—and stupid choice of a restaurant in Tribeca as the setting, rather than the house in which she had been brought up. He took a moment to collect himself.

  It’s too early in the morning to talk about such things, but I want to give you a handsome wedding present. Jason, you listen to me. You’re the practical one in the family. You figure out what would be best and tell me. The sky is the limit.

  In that at least he was 100 percent sincere.

  Gee, thanks, Schmidtie, was Jason’s response.

  He might have said more, but Carrie took over. Say it with cash, Schmidtie, she told him, the new house, little Albert, the marina, it’s like a drain. Money goes out, and very little comes in.

  Consider it done, Schmidt said.

  Hey, we have more news. Little Albert! The doctor wants him to come out on June fifteenth. He’s so huge and well developed he thinks I may have made a mistake figuring out his due date. She laughed and nudged Schmidt with her elbow.

  Another overwhelming wave of feeling. Because the baby was almost there, because the earlier it had been conceived the less certain was the paternity of the blond Viking nodding and wiping tears on his sleeve. In which case—no, he wasn’t going to think about it yet. Let the baby come, let his features tell the tale. But for the record he told them: I’m so glad I’m back and that I’m not going anywhere until sometime in June. Hooray for Albert, Mama and Papa, and the doctor!

  Schmidtie, that’s not all! Carrie replied. We’ve signed the contract on the house in East Hampton. The closing is in eight weeks to give the people living there time to move out, and the guys are going to get to work on it right away. We’ll be out of your hair before Labor Day!

  Out of my hair! Never, never. The door will be always open; when you’re here, you’re at home.

  They said it was about time they headed for the marina, and he accompanied them to the front door. Holding it open, he watched them get into Jason’s pickup. His elected family: Carrie, his young mistress; the blond giant who virtuously and rightly had taken her away from him; and the mysterious child about to be brought into the world.

  Nine o’clock. In a half hour he could safely call Charlotte. He poured himself another mug of coffee and began to go through the stack of mail. Ninety percent was junk. The rest was bills that he set aside along with his bank statement and communications from his two investment advisers, who seemed to be sending more and more bulletins on the state of the economy and its future. Out of a sense of duty, he skimmed them. What a waste of paper! Every reader of the Times knew that George H. W. Bush had bequeathed to Clinton a mess that the Republicans seemed bent on making worse, but the investment advisers found it in themselves to see the good in their shenanigans. Of course, their clientele wasn’t all mavericks like Schmidtie, disloyal to their social and economic class. The poor guys had to play to their public. The country really had deserved better than that silly man with his silly preppy personality and habits. It must be easier to fool the country than your high school classmates. Schmidt knew people older than himself who had been to Andover with Bush and were ready to certify that even then he was a creep. All the same, Schmidt was taken aback by his own rush to judge and condemn. Silly Bush. Appalling Popov. Why exactly had Popov been so appalling at college and ever after?

  Clearly, Popov’s being a Bulgarian didn’t help. Knowing nothing about Bulgarians, Schmidt didn’t like them. They were a backward nation, he believed, steeped in Eastern Orthodox religion, using the Cyrillic alphabet, and teeming with bearded and unwashed married priests. Could anything be more unattractive? Popov fit right in. There was something unwashed about him as well, then and now. That black suit, for instance, that he had worn at a time when practically no one at Harvard College wore a suit unless going to a funeral or a wedding, and, even then, nothing like that black double-breasted number plus a shirt of dubious whiteness, a frayed necktie narrow like a ribbon, and an outrageous red pocket square. Did any of that really matter? No, it didn’t, but it managed to make Schmidt uncomfortable. The two or three men who wore suits whom Schmidt liked and respected were golden-haired boys born with gold or silver spoons in their mouths. Was it then Popov’s seeming poverty that made him repellent? No, it really was more the pasty white face and evident want of personal hygiene. All right, Popov was a slob, and a slob whose roommate Bill, also Gil’s friend, was an even bigger one. Yes, but who was Schmidt? A dress-code enforcer or a housemother inspecting her little charges’ fingernails? No, there was more to it. Popov had made him uncomfortable, talking over his head, pulling rank as a sophisticated European—a European born into a powerful family, a fact that was not then unknown to Schmidt—taking advantage of an American who wouldn’t get to Europe until the summer after his sophomore year, for whom the ballet and the opera were terra incognita, and, worse yet, so far as Popov and his actor roommate were concerned, who believed that Truman had been right to go to war over Korea and didn’t consider Eisenhower a moron. Gil, the wonder-boy Jew from Brooklyn, already held the full set of requisite liberal ideas—including an unshakable conviction of Alger Hiss’s innocence—played the piano, had brought a record player and a stack of opera LPs with him to Cambridge, and had been to Europe twice. Gil’s father was a surgeon and his mother a dress designer, and so Brooklyn wasn’t somewhere in East New York but a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. It was obvious to Schmidt why he wasn’t meanly envious of Gil, why he didn’t resent him: he had had a late-blooming schoolboy’s crush on him that in some form still endured. One thing was certain: Schmidt’s dislike for Popov would not have taken on so sharp and invidious an edge without its lining of resentment and guilty curiosity.

  Half past nine. He called Charlotte. After three rings, a sort of milestone of promptness in his telephone communications with her, she answered.

  Dad, where were you?

  You mean yesterday?

  Yes, I called three times and finally left a message.

  Actually I was on a plane returning from Paris. I made another short trip. But I sent you a letter before leaving, with my itinerary and all that.

  Jon or I must have tossed it. We had such a stack of junk mail when we got back.

  Of course, thought Schmidt, who would bother noticing his return address on the envelope?

  I’m sorry, he told her. I didn’t change the message on my telephone because people now say that if your message announces that you are away you’re inviting burglars. There have been a couple of burglaries around here. Did you have a good time?

  Are you near a chair? Yes, then sit down. Dad, I am pregnant. The baby is due in September! And we know it’s
a boy! I haven’t told anyone except Jon’s parents until now. I wanted to be sure he’d stick around. We’re calling him Myron. Jews can’t name a child for a living parent, but Renata has an uncle whose name is also Myron, so that’s all right. We’re in the clear.

  He wished she hadn’t told him about that name just yet, but really it didn’t matter, not at all. With great effort he managed to speak: Sweetie, sweetie how absolutely marvelous, I’m so happy. How I wish your mother were alive! She would have been over the moon. Is Jon there? I would like to congratulate him.

  That would have been the first time he had spoken to his son-in-law in a long while, longer than he cared to remember, and he was relieved to learn that it was not to be. Jon was at the gym and afterward would be heading straight to the office. She would transmit Schmidt’s congratulations. He decided he would put the question—perhaps, given the truce they had declared, it was not out of order and wouldn’t bring her wrath on his head. Was there any chance of luring her and Jon to Bridgehampton—for instance, over the Memorial Day weekend?