Letting Go

by Philip Roth

  “This is the stop,” she said.

  The office was in a ten-story apartment building near Grand Circus Park. In the entryway downstairs there was a brass plate:

  THOMAS SMITH

  DOCTOR OF OSTEOPATHY

  ROOM 307

  Passing the plate, Paul thought for the first time about the police.

  The nurse said, “Herz?” when they walked into the waiting room, and then disappeared into the doctor’s office; she wore glasses and had fat red peasant cheeks. Libby picked up a copy of Look and held it in her lap. Paul flipped sightlessly through an osteopathic journal. A close-shaven, gray-at-the-temples corporation executive came out of the doctor’s office. “Hello there. I’m Doctor Tom,” he said. “Come on in.”

  In the examination room both Herzes stood at attention before his desk. When he motioned for them to sit down, only Libby obliged. The doctor himself—chiseled features, leathery skin, a large brown mustache—placed himself on the edge of his desk, one leg swinging athletically. Paul noticed his hands: large and sculpted.

  “Well,” the doctor said, “what’s the fundamental condition here?”

  “We think my wife is pregnant. We want an abortion.”

  The only noise in the room was made by Libby—a small sound, neither of denial or agreement. Following a moment of blinding fatigue, Paul took command. “We had a rabbit test,” he said. “The result was positive.”

  “Uh-huh.” The doctor stood up, cracked his knuckles and furrowed his brow, thoroughly professional. “When was your last period?” he asked Libby.

  They had themselves been over and over this ground; she answered instantly. “January sixth to January eleventh.”

  “Young man,” said Dr. Smith, “why don’t you step out of the room?”

  He hung back for only a second, then did not look at Libby as he left. The nurse was stretched out on a leather chair in the waiting room. Above her hung a painting of two men duck hunting. One of her shoes dangled from either hand, and from her feet rose an appalling but universal odor. Not the doctor, but the nurse, was along the lines of what he had been expecting. In all her pores, all he saw was dirt, dirt and germs. He began to read in one of the osteopathic magazines about Dr. Selwyn Sales of Des Moines, the Osteopath of the Month.

  “Don’t be nervous,” the nurse said. “Doctor Tom does beautiful work.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “His whole life is osteopathy. No family, no outside clubs, don’t even pick up a book unless it’s osteopathy. He wouldn’t tell you himself, but he’s a power in the field. People come to him from all over the world. He’s already been asked to talk in Missouri twice.”

  “What’s in Missouri?”

  All at once, he had an enemy. She narrowed her eyes at him—or brought her great cheeks up to cover the bottom lids. “What do you think, it’s a picnic for a doctor like Doctor Tom? This here is a dedicated man. Women tumble at his feet—but his whole life is osteopathy. He has a rotten foe in that AMA. Think they own everything. You know an osteopath is better trained than a medical doctor, you know that, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know much about osteopathy,” he said apologetically, but too late.

  “You know who controls the AMA, don’t you? A man comes along like Doctor Tom, a man with an American background like his, six generations of Smith Smith Smith, and then you see them putting their noses together, turning the pressure on.”

  He flipped through the osteopathic magazine to the editorial page. Somewhere down the column he spotted the name: Dr. Thomas Smith.

  “We have a woman comes in here with an allergy condition. MDs have been taking her for a ride for years. Dr. Goldberg’s wife got six minks already, and this poor lady still can’t breathe. She can’t sleep, can’t eat, and I’ll tell you, she was growing poor from the way those country-club doctors was bleeding her. She finally saw Doctor Tom, and what was it but a problem of manipulation. A lesion in the joints of the neck. Right here. And this is the kind of thing the AMA is against, this is the kind of battle Doctor Tom has on his hands. You don’t make a mistake when you come to an osteopath. I’ll tell you where medicine comes from—it comes from Europe! Osteopathy is American, through and through. Someday, you wait, the osteopath will have his day. It’s a damn shame—all that training, and they make our boys go into the service as privates. You know who’s pulling the strings down in Washington, don’t you? You know who’s got the influence—”

  Doctor Tom’s head came through the door. “Mr. Herz?”

  Libby was sitting up on the examination table, fully dressed except for her shoes. Doctor Tom was standing by the calendar on the wall. “When’s best for you?” he asked. “Tomorrow night all right? About eight?”

  “She’s definitely pregnant?” Paul asked, for he had stepped back into the office hoping for a miracle.

  “Uterus is enlarged, breasts tender, a little swollen—the morning sickness, the rabbit test …” He smiled, cracking his knuckles. He looked over at Libby; she said nothing.

  “Doctor—” Paul asked, “how much?”

  “For a D and C, four hundred dollars. For the anesthetic, fifty more. We do it right here in the office, Mrs. Kuzmyak assists me. You’ll be in and out in an hour.” The time element seemed to fill him with pride.

  “Who administers the anesthetic?”

  “Mrs. Kuzmyak.”

  “She’s—” But he left off, and fortunately the doctor seemed not to have guessed what he was going to say.

  “She’s fine right away,” Doctor Tom said. “You go home from here, and she can go back to work next day.”

  At last, Paul looked directly at his wife. Immediately she directed her attention to the calendar pinned to the wall. “It’s safe?” he asked.

  The doctor smiled. “Two hundred percent.”

  “The police—”

  “As far as I’m concerned,” said Doctor Tom, bringing a giant fist down into his palm, “a D and C is not illegal. What the AMA and that crowd thinks is their business.”

  “I meant about the law.”

  “You come in here at eight, Mr. Herz, I’ll have you out by nine. You go home, your wife here gets a good night’s sleep—if you want, let her stay off her feet the next day, and that’s it. You have nothing to worry about.” He crossed his arms and raised his chin. His lower lip came out, reaching up for his mustache. Was he nervous? Hadn’t he ever done this before? Why didn’t he answer the questions?

  All Paul said was, “Four fifty is a little high.”

  “Listen, young man”—the voice was gentle and chastising—“you can find somebody for a hundred and fifty if you want to look down dark alleys. But this is your wife we’re dealing with. I should think you would want the best.”

  “Yes, yes, absolutely.”

  “Tomorrow night at eight?”

  “Lib?” Paul asked.

  But Libby said nothing. While he waited for her to speak, his mind traveled all the way back—to Lichtman, to Uncle Asher, to his own parents. In a fit of defiance he shook the doctor’s hand.

  “Have a light lunch,” said Doctor Tom, coming over and putting just a finger on Libby’s clenched hand. “No dinner, an enema at five, and I’ll see you at eight.”

  The anesthetist, Mrs. Kuzmyak, was gone from the waiting room when they left. Either it was Paul’s strong imagination or the odor of Kuzmyak’s feet, but something of her managed to cling to the place even in her absence. He found himself cursing her. The smelly pig! The fat frustrated bitch!

  Oh God!

  From the street, through the leafless hedge, they could see that a light was on behind the stained shade in their room.

  “I turned them all off,” Paul said. “Did you turn them on?”

  “No.”

  “You must have, Lib—”

  “I didn’t,” she said. “Oh Paul …”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. Everything.”

  “I probably left it on. It’s all ri
ght.” But he was suddenly so full of his own thoughts that he did not even take her hand. He opened the outside door with his key, and they walked down the narrow stairway to the basement. Outside their door he could not find his other key on his chain; as in the phone booth, his eyes blurred over. He remembered having seen a squad car on the corner when they had alighted from the bus. Earlier there had been a man in a hat outside Dr. Smith’s apartment building—and he had looked too long at Libby, hadn’t he? Had they been followed? Caught? He saw the life which he had so earnestly and diligently constructed falling away to nothing. He should have known … all the crumbling that had been going on over the months. He should have been stronger, wiser! Now the scandal, jail, poor poor pale Libby—

  When he pushed open the door, Korngold made an effort to rise from the edge of the bed, but gave in to his arteries and only sat there, half raising his cane. “You was open …” the old man said, pointing at the door. “The hallways gets chilly. I was getting a pain in the lungs.”

  “Jesus, Korngold!” Paul said. “You frightened us.”

  Korngold made a joke, which did not for a moment transform the skeletal look of his face. “Consider it an honor. First one in thirty years. How do you do?” he said, feebly, to Libby. “Oh, you’re pretty as Levy says. A yiddishe maydele.” For a moment the old man sat there loving her with his eyes.

  Libby sat down at the table and looked kindly across at Korngold. “Thank you.”

  “What is it, Mr. Korngold?” Paul asked. “We’re both very tired.”

  “I only need a minute.”

  “What is it?”

  “I want to ask a little advice. You’re a young man. You know about modern times. I ain’t got all my perspectives. Please sit down too, would you? I get dizzy looking up.”

  Paul took off his coat but held it in a bundle on his lap when he sat. He could not hate this feeble old man, but still there was a momentum in his life that Korngold’s presence was interrupting. He knew, of course, that this police business was only in his imagination. If he could just drive forward without stopping, without thinking, and get this done, then everything—he thought vaguely—would be all right.

  “Does this seem like cheating to you?” Korngold was asking. “If my son gives me twenty a week, why do I need a Levy? This is a scheme—what do you think? Do you get the feeling Levy is a real friend? Or do you get another feeling? What does he care, a man was once a topnotch criminal lawyer, with little fish like me. First off I think he is strictly interested in my underwear. I got twenty-six cases, tops and bottoms, a nice close-knit cotton like you can’t get no more. Levy comes in my room, sees all this goods, and he’s my friend. So I tell him about that son of a bitch, my son, and all of a sudden Levy is a first-class chum, an old school-tie buddy. I’m asking you, Mr. Herz, as a young fellow, is this a genuine interest in my life, or is this a crook I got myself involved in?”

  “Mr. Korngold, I can’t give you any advice. I’m going to type the letter tonight.”

  “Yes?” Korngold paled, if such were possible. “So soon?”

  “Look, why don’t I type it, and you and Levy can decide what to do with it. Does that sound reasonable?”

  Korngold was forced to admit that it was not; he shook his head, making his mouth a round black hole. “You type, then next thing it’s in the U.S. mail, and I’m married to Levy. Somebody does you a favor, you can’t suddenly take a walk across the street.”

  “What do you want me to do, then? I’ve had a very rough day. My wife and I are very tired.”

  “Oh, excuse me,” the old man said; he bowed his head to the tired girl, then with his eyes drank her in again, unLevylike, fatherly.

  “What is it you want, Mr. Korngold?” Libby asked. Her voice surprised Paul. She sounded confident that she could give whatever Korngold might want. She was probably so much stronger than her husband ever allowed her to be … Here again, hadn’t he bossed her into something? Hadn’t her silence in the doctor’s office been a negative vote, one he had not even bothered to count?

  “A direct appeal,” Korngold said. “I’m not proud, believe me. A plea. Tell the boy for Christ sake to send money. I don’t need no Levy. I need a simple letter somebody should write for me. I can’t even tie my shoes with these shakes.”

  “Then,” Libby said, “maybe Mr. Levy would be a help.”

  “This is a crook, lebele, something tells me. He’ll tie the laces and steal the shoes. He’s got an eye already on an easy dollar via my underwear.”

  “Why don’t you sell it?” Libby asked, coming over to him on the bed. “Is it all in your room?”

  “You don’t sell to robbers. I drag a box of briefs all over Detroit, they wouldn’t give me enough to pay my bus fare. I don’t sell nothing when the market stinks. If you don’t speculate, you don’t accumulate—always my motto. Now is a buyer’s market. Let them come begging, that’s when Max Korngold does business!” he shouted.

  “How did you come by all this underwear?” Paul asked.

  “A three-way split with two partners, they should both go live in hell.”

  “When was that?”

  “Seven years already. That kind of underwear they don’t knit no more. Don’t think Levy don’t know that either …” But his mind suddenly was elsewhere. “Here,” he said. He took a wallet from his inside coat pocket; the photograph he finally coaxed out of one of the folds was of himself, from a Take Your Own Photo booth. There was Korngold, and there was his right hand, raised up beside his ear—and in it he was gripping his cane. He might have been shaking the cane at the camera; he might merely have been showing that he had one. At the bottom of the picture were written some words that Paul could just about decipher: Your Old Father, Feb. 3, 1951.

  “You could enclose this with the letter?” he wanted to know.

  Paul looked to Libby to speak for them both, but she seemed near tears. Korngold waited, then spoke again. “You see, just a few facts of my health I’m sure could make an impression. Here, take a look, please.” He pulled up his trouser legs to show a pair of knees that were not wholly unexpected but were nevertheless shocking. “Undernourishment. Bad ventilation. Improper rest. Worry. Aloneliness. Let me tell you about a wife, gets a spurt of energy one day, aged sixty-one years old, hides my cane, steals my checkbook, runs off to Florida with an eighty-year-old shmekele, can’t even pee straight cause he can’t see what’s doing under his belly. Excuse me. The facts are dirty and disgusting so I can’t talk clean if I want”—this last to Libby, with a tender plea in his lips and eyes. “I got myself a lawyer, a young fellow with short hair, and he takes me for a ride—three times he’s got to fly to Miami—and I got cleaned out. Now Levy keeps one eye on my underwear, another on my son, and what do you think I feel? Contented? Foolproof? Please, you write a simple note—here, I got the postage even.” He removed some crumpled three-cent stamps from his watch pocket and counted them into Libby’s hand. “One, two, three—go all-out. Don’t worry about weight. I’m a desperate man.” He patted Libby’s arm. She helped him off the bed. “And how are you?” he asked Paul. “The wrist’s improved?”

  “Much better.”

  “You two kiddies look tired.” He turned back once again, unable to keep his eyes from Libby’s face. “My son, my own son, why couldn’t he find a nice yiddishe maydele, a little dark darling. That girl—she poisoned his opinions of me!” He dragged his bad legs to the door.

  “Help him,” Libby whispered tearfully to Paul.

  “Here,” Paul said, and he was up from his chair at last and reaching after the old man’s elbow. So immune had he been feeling to anyone’s suffering but his own, so lacking in tenderness and interest, that he wondered if he had left his heart for good in that doctor’s office. “Here.” He took hold of Korngold and led him out the door and up the stairs to the front entryway. As they emerged into the hall, the bathroom door slammed shut.

  In bed, neither one touching the other, Libby said, “You decided. You
said yes. You never so much as asked me.”

  “We can change our minds.”

  “We made an appointment already. We discussed money.”

  “That doesn’t bind me to a thing.”

  “Where are we going to get all that money?”

  “It’s in the bank.”

  “Paul, that’s all we’ve got. Everything!”

  “Money,” he said firmly, as though it were a truth he had known for more than a few hours, “is to get you out of trouble with.”

  “You’ve decided.”

  “I’ve decided.” Quickly he added. “So did you.”

  “I didn’t decide anything!”

  “All afternoon you were on a seesaw, Libby. If you said no, it would have been no. I wouldn’t have gone against you.”

  Limply, she held out for herself. “I did say no.”

  “No, then yes, then no. When you went to the doctor’s office—”

  “You tricked me!”

  “Lower your voice!”

  “It’s my body! It’s my body he’s going to operate on!”

  At last they touched: he clamped a hand over her mouth. “Libby, Libby,” he said through his teeth, “it’s been a difficult day. These old men, my hand, everything.” When he removed his hand, allowing her to breathe again, she rolled away from him. “You want to think the decision is mine,” he said, “then it’s mine.”