Letting Go

by Philip Roth

  “Libby,” Paul said, “she’s a student, all right?”

  “It’s just a question,” she said. “How am I supposed to know?”

  “She’s a student,” Paul repeated.

  “Where? Here?” Again she was asking Gabe.

  “I don’t know,” he mumbled.

  “Well, you’re the one who’s supposed to know her—”

  “I didn’t say I knew her,” Gabe cut in.

  “At the Art Institute,” Paul said, hitting the table. “Does that answer the question, Libby?”

  She knew then that she was being lied to. Instead of making her even angrier, the discovery soothed and comforted; it seemed to give her an advantage.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Who’s the father? What is he? Who is he? Why doesn’t he marry her? Is it her boy friend?”

  “I don’t know anything about the father,” Gabe answered flatly. He looked over to Paul. “I gave you the girl’s name. You can get in touch with her and work it out from there, if you want to. Doesn’t that make sense?”

  Paul didn’t answer. “All right, Lib?” he asked. “What do you think? How does it seem to you?”

  “We don’t know anything about the father, for one thing.” She had made it sound as though Gabe was responsible. “We don’t even begin to know anything—”

  “And I said I don’t know anything about the father either,” Gabe told her.

  Libby looked up at his steely face. “You don’t have to be rude!”

  He focused on her a mean, bored expression, while Paul said, “Let’s just conduct this business—”

  “Well, I am,” said Libby. “You can’t expect me to jump in. We don’t even know anything about the father.”

  “He’s probably a student,” Paul said.

  “Oh sure, he’s probably a faculty member,” Gabe said, as though to himself.

  Oh the cruel bastard! He had no respect for what she had been through. “Well,” she said to him, “it’s just a matter of establishing something, if you don’t mind.”

  “Through an agency,” Gabe said, “you wouldn’t know any more.”

  “As a matter of fact we certainly would. They try to match you up, the parents and the infant—coloring, eyes, general—” But she drifted off, for he was not listening.

  “Look,” he was saying to Paul, “you do with this whatever you want. May I go now?”

  Paul didn’t even look at him; apparently he couldn’t. He shrugged, and it seemed as though he were straw, not flesh, under his coat. “You’ll have to do whatever you think best,” he said.

  “Fine,” Gabe said; he started out of the kitchen.

  “Well, we have a right to know,” Libby shouted after him. “It’s our lives. You don’t have to be so huffy about it.”

  He turned and leaned in the doorway, one hand on either wall. “Can I go?”

  “Well”—she was swallowed up by panic—“we don’t even know anything about her—”

  “Paul knows.”

  “Oh—yes?” And now she did not want to hear another word. The mother was a call girl, a dope addict—the mother was Martha Reganhart!

  “May I leave now?” Gabe asked.

  “Oh go!” Libby shot back. “If you’re so impatient, go, get out of here—we don’t want to keep you.” She found that her husband was openly staring at her. His eyes, his kind eyes … Oh yes, she had been found out.

  “Libby,” Gabe said, “why don’t you use your head—”

  “Don’t start insulting us,” she demanded, and now she quickly turned her head and met Paul’s eyes. Why didn’t he protect her? Oh cruel men—cruel heartless self-absorbed bastards!

  “Libby,” Gabe said, softening, “I got this information and I thought you might be interested in it. And—and that’s it, that’s all there is to it.”

  “Well, isn’t that nice. We’ve just been going through perfect hell trying to adopt a baby, so you needn’t think it terribly generous of you to imagine we might be interested.”

  “Oh screw it,” he said, and started down the hall.

  Libby rose out of her chair, crying after him, “But we don’t know anything!”

  “We know, we know,” Paul reached across with his hand.

  “But what do we do?” she cried. She looked at Paul. Would he know what to do? Poor Paul? Poor trampled-on Paul? “Gabe, what do we do?”

  She heard him call, “You get in touch with her. You better see her …”

  She ran to the hallway; at the end of the apartment she saw just the paleness of his face and his hand on the knob. “No—” she said, “I won’t—I can’t—”

  The hand on the knob turned; his feet, thank God, stayed put. “Then Paul sees her,” he said. “When you get everything settled you can get a lawyer, and he’ll take it from there. Maybe it would be best to get a lawyer in right at the beginning. Look, Libby, he knows all this—”

  She turned back to her husband. “A lawyer,” she moaned.

  Paul was moving toward her with his arms extended; she could no longer read the expression on his face. “It’s all right—we’ll talk about it—”

  “We don’t know any lawyers. Lawyers cost a fortune—”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Paul said. He took hold of her arms. “We’ll take care of it. We still have the agency. They’ll send somebody soon. Relax, honey, we can wait. If you prefer, if it will make you feel safer, then we’ll wait and work through the agency. I thought you didn’t want to wait, that’s all.”

  “Oh no,” she said, “oh no no no,” but she could not tell him anything, not now, not today. “Oh it’s ugly and sordid, and everything’s always the same.”

  “Don’t cry.”

  “I’m not crying! Do you see me crying? I’m just making a statement. Everything’s ugly and sordid! Can’t I say that?”

  “Sure.” His hands dropped from her arms.

  “Oh Paul—”

  “I’m going.” It was Gabe’s voice, faint, almost gone. “I’ll be going now.”

  “Go! Just go!” she cried. “That’s it—close the door and go!” But she came charging down upon him. “You just go, damn it. And thank you. Oh yes, don’t think we don’t appreciate everything either. We appreciate every tiny single thing you’ve ever done, Gabe. Oh we kiss your high and mighty ass, Gabe, don’t you forget that. Thank you, thank you for this helpful hint, we thank you a million times. Kind Gabe—” she said, shaking her fist, “so kind he probably went out and impregnated a little eighteen-year-old student, especially for us—”

  “Why don’t you watch what you’re saying, Libby.”

  “Why? Can’t you stand a little horror in your life? I can. Paul can.” And she thought: I can’t. Paul can’t. Too much already. Now more. Paul will meet the mother, take her to doctors, pay her bills, listen to her sad story, watch her weep. He will remember her face and carry it with him through life. She will be the mother—I’ll be the stepmother. He’ll see her face, her eyes, her hair, her tears—then who will I have!

  “—don’t want your appreciation,” Gabe was saying, “so don’t kid yourself about that—”

  “Oh but we appreciate so much,” she said. “Don’t you know everybody loves Gabe, all his charm and benevolence? How can any of us help ourselves? All the world loves Gabe, but who does Gabe love? We’re all waiting to hear—who? Oh you’re something, Gabriel, you really are—”

  His hands were fists; that big chin of his was leaning out at her. “What is it you want, Libby? What is it you’re after now?”

  “Oh, I don’t want anything from you!” She felt Paul’s hands come down on her shoulders.

  “Cut it out, Libby, control yourself—” Paul was saying.

  But she was flailing her arms, to be free. “Nothing. You do what you want. People don’t tell you what to do—”

  “People tell me plenty,” Gabe said. “Too God damn much!”

  “Oh do they?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then le
t me tell you—” and suddenly her voice had dropped, and it was harsh, deep, pleading. “Let me tell you—don’t make Paul do it! Don’t make Paul see her! Gabe, please, the last thing—”

  “I should never have come here, Libby—”

  “It’ll kill us. It’s our baby, not hers. Ours! Please!”

  “Libby” … “Libby—” Both men were calling her name, and in the dim hallway they swooped down around her and lifted her off the floor, where, on her hands and knees, she was begging.

  5

  Although Theresa Haug’s pale blue uniform—the same washed-out color as her eyes—swam around her hunched shoulders and permitted a good two inches of air to circulate about her frail upper arm, it had nevertheless already begun to hug her belly. She had been seduced in November; perhaps October—this was yet to be established.

  I watched her clear a table and then try to take an order from one booth while she dealt with a complaint about an underdone steak from another across the way. Her helpless confusion was not a pleasant sight, but given my mood and the turnings of my mind, it was almost preferable to having to watch Mark Reganhart inhale his French fried potatoes, the last of which lay on his plate, a squad of broken-backed, tortured soldiers oozing ketchup at every fork wound. All of Markie’s infantile habits, toward which I had felt kind or neutral at other times, had begun to exasperate me in the last few days. I was about to snap at him when I remembered, I am not his father, he is not my son, and turned away.

  Again I looked at Theresa Haug, who stood a few booths from where we sat. To customers, she was mute and obliging, and efficient to the point of hysteria (or perhaps it was hysteria to the point of efficiency, it looked the same to me). In any encounter with the hostess, Mrs. Crowther—an egregious woman who was always sliding people into their seats with a melodic, “There you are”—Theresa’s deference stopped just this side of a salute. Not that Mrs. Crowther, or anybody else, paid Theresa very much attention; there wasn’t very much to attend to. All of her, form and features, seemed to have been designed and constructed by a committee of Baptist ministers’ wives. Her stockings hung from her underdeveloped calves in a particularly heartbreaking way, her skin held no mysteries, and her mouth was just a faint-hearted dash across the blankness of her expression. Yet someone had taken the trouble to undress her and lay her down and climb on top. A seed had been dropped, and it was about its fruition that I had come to see her.

  For Martha (not myself) I had spoken to Paul Herz; for Paul I had spoken to Libby; for Libby I would speak to Theresa Haug. What other way could it have been?

  “Cut your potatoes,” Cynthia told her brother. “Stop stuffing yourself. Stop jamming them in whole, Markie. Uh-oh for you. Here comes Mother.”

  Martha, who was waitress to us as well as mother and mistress, set down two glasses of chocolate milk and a cup of coffee. “How is everyone?” she asked.

  “Markie’s not using any manners,” Cynthia said. “I don’t think he should be allowed to sleep at Stephanie’s.”

  “I want to!” Mark howled.

  “Cynthia,” Martha said, “don’t tease him. Markie, stop whining.”

  “You were the one who said if he wasn’t going to use manners—” began Cynthia.

  Weary, quite weary of this little family group and their aggravations and struggles (my family? mine?), I asked Martha, “When does she get off?”

  “Seven—”

  “Mother—”

  “I’m talking to Gabe.”

  I turned on Cynthia. “She’s talking to me, Cynthia—how about it?”

  “When’s Stephanie’s grandma coming?” asked Markie.

  “Soon, honey.”

  To show that my rebuke meant nothing to her Cynthia raised her eyebrows and clicked her tongue at the violence her brother was practicing with his fork. And a feeling came over me, a rootless kind of feeling, that control over my affairs was no longer in my own hands. Something like resignation—most likely disgust, and perhaps fear too—must have shown on my face.

  “You don’t have to wait for Stephanie’s grandmother,” Martha said to me. “If it bothers you so … The kids can wait by themselves.”

  “I’m not waiting for Stephanie’s grandmother. I’m waiting for your friend.”

  “She’ll be through at seven.”

  “It’s after seven.”

  “Then she’ll be through soon. Look, Gabe—” A waitress came hurtling by our booth then, her tray tipping toward a disaster which might or might not overtake her before she reached the kitchen.

  “There she is,” I said.

  Martha reached out to touch Theresa’s arm. “It’s seven,” she said.

  “Oh, look—this here—maybe some other—too rare he says,” and with a droopy-eyed look she showed Martha a steak on her tray.

  “I’ll take your station,” Martha said.

  “But Mrs. Crowther—”

  “Theresa, get dressed. I’ll take your station. He’s waiting.”

  “Yes—” She ran off down the aisle, leaving me exhausted. Martha kissed each child on the top of the head and went off toward the kitchen with Theresa’s steak. “Miss …” someone called after her, but she was her own woman, guardian of her rights and dignity, and she just kept going.

  With a newsiness altogether uncharacteristic of her, Cynthia said, “We’re not sleeping at home tonight.”

  “That should be fun,” I said. “Do you like to sleep at other people’s houses?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Do you?” Markie asked me.

  I took a napkin from the dispenser on the table and reached across and wiped the ketchup off his mouth. “You try to concentrate on eating,” I said.

  Cynthia pointed to where I had wiped her brother’s mouth. “I think my mother wants him to learn to do that himself.”

  “I suppose she does.”

  “He should be able to teach himself to grow up a little,” she said.

  “He should,” I agreed, “but he doesn’t, and the rest of us have to look at it.”

  “I think my mother would prefer if you let him do that himself,” she said beautifully.

  “I didn’t steal his mouth from him, Cynthia—I only wiped it.”

  Markie’s dark eyes now turned up to me, his chin grazing the remains on the plate. “Are you going to marry our Mommy?”

  Now I smiled. “He certainly is full of questions.”

  “He’s only a child,” Cynthia said, which in a variety of ways was a favorite line of hers.

  “For a child those are pretty adult questions.”

  Cynthia was nonplused; finally she admitted, “Well … he talks to me.”

  My daughter. My stepdaughter. My stepson. Sitting there I continued to be visited with what ifs, and supposes.

  Theresa Haug appeared in a big black-and-white checkerboard coat with saucer-sized buttons that shone. She stood beside the booth, speechless. Cynthia shrugged her shoulders, as though to indicate to me—and to the lady herself—that our visitor might be coo-coo.

  “It’s okay,” I said, getting up from my seat, “she’s a friend of your mother’s.”

  “I don’t care,” answered Cynthia in a tinkly voice.

  Markie had picked up the ketchup bottle, turned it on its side, and was allowing its contents to run out onto his plate. He asked, “Is that his wife?” but I don’t think Theresa Haug heard.

  “Ready, Miss Haug?” I asked, but got no reply. I took her arm and started to steer her toward the door.

  “Bye, Gabe,” I heard Markie call.

  I didn’t turn back; I was trying to focus all my attention on my charge and on her hardship. Nevertheless I could not really displace my own problem with hers. Martha’s teary ultimatum of two short nights before still burned in my mind. As for Martha herself, it was clear that she too had not forgotten those words she had addressed to me from her bed. Surely saving Theresa Haug was not, in anything other than a metaphoric way, saving herself.

  Ou
tside the Hawaiian House, Theresa stopped. Like a poor dumb beast. I said, “I’m parked a little way off. By Dorchester …” I tugged at her arm, then guided her along like one blind. She kept her gaze on her coat buttons.

  “It’s a beautiful night for a change,” I said. There was indeed a sky overhead that was purple and practically glowing. “It’s getting a little warmer,” I added. “That should be a help …”

  At last we made it to the car; I unlocked the door and helped her in. The overhead light spread like some watery dime-store paint over her plain, dull face. I closed the door for her and then walked around to the other side, in a kind of stupor too, for I was wondering if it made life more sensible, or less, to think that it was toward the alleviation of this girl’s suffering that all the rest of us had been struggling—Paul, Libby, Martha, myself—these many months and years.

  I took Theresa Haug to a restaurant on the lake shore where, to offset the sugary Muzak piped into the dining room, the walls were hung with lurid paintings of the Chicago fire. The combination of music and art impressed me as ghoulish and antisocial, but the place was quiet and close by, and it had soft lighting and a view of the lake. Theresa could have dinner and we two could accomplish our business, all by candlelight.

  I had been hoping that the shadowy atmosphere might loosen her up without unhinging her, but once there she still refused to look my way. At the check room I lived through a desperate moment trying to help her out of her coat. Evidently she thought I had lost my mind and was trying to wrestle her down onto the carpet, for she uttered a forlorn hopeless little cry (her first sound) and nearly fell backwards onto me, waving her arms. “Please, please … your coat,” I pleaded, and then she either caught on or gave herself up to still another assault, and I got what I was after, plus her limp body.

  Through this confusion, the hat-check girl stood at my side tapping her lacquered nails on the metal checking tokens. She was a crooked-mouthed bitch in a black crepe dress, sporting the packed-in, boxcar variety of voluptuousness; I gave her a dirty look, and then the gaudy coat, and taking Theresa by the arm once again, led her into the dining room. Within the gentle throbbing light, underexercised, overfed merchants were enjoying dinner with their families. The specialty of the house was spareribs, and around the dim room I could see men, women, and children eating daintily with their hands, manipulating their food like Muzak’s violinists their instruments. While Theresa occupied herself with a minute scrutiny of her shoes and mine, I began to believe I had made a small error of tact and taste, and out of a small and petty fearfulness. We should have gone to a drive-in hamburger joint, I thought, and sat in the car, and said what had to be said, and thereby recognized the real and unpretty dimensions of our meeting. There was an unrelentingly sedate good-natured carniverousness in the air here and it somehow led me to reflect upon the cautionary nature of all prosperous people everywhere, myself included. I had convinced myself I would be doing the girl a service by bringing her to a muted middle-class rendezvous, carpeted and melodic, when actually the only person I had set out to spare was the same old person one usually sets out to spare, no matter how complex the strategy.