by Philip Roth
“Absolutely,” he shot back.
“Well, okay then. I’m sorry. I just began to feel that this conversation …”
“Absolutely not. I was thinking about your own welfare. Now you didn’t get anybody out there in trouble, did you?”
Gabe shook his head. “Just a change, that’s all.”
“Because if we’re going to be open with one another—”
“Yes?”
But he owed it to everybody not to whine, not to beg. He was a sixty-year-old man earning $35,000 a year; he could not act like a child. Instead of talking about his own ambivalence, he found himself talking about his son’s.
“I understand, of course, that this isn’t your mother. So, believe me, I understand your feelings.”
“Which feelings?”
“That you’re a little skeptical where Fay is concerned.”
“If I’ve been skeptical, it’s not been my business to be. Above all I want you to be happy. If this is going to bring you contentment—”
He heard the real emotion in his son’s voice, and now did indeed feel tears in his eyes. “It will,” he said, interrupting. “I’m absolutely sure of that.” He felt at once proud and ashamed of the strength he had displayed. Then his eyes were dry.
“Fine,” Gabe said. He was even smiling. “I’m not skeptical.”
“Of course. It’s a psychological thing, and I understand how that is, how that comes about.”
“Fine.”
“Though I don’t mean you’re not entitled to express your opinion. We’re both grown men, and you’re an intelligent person, obviously, and of course I’m always interested in your opinion on that ground alone. If you want to express an opinion to me about Fay, there’s no reason for me not to hear it.”
“I don’t have an opinion. I only wanted to know that you wanted this.”
“Well, why should you have any doubts?”
Gabe’s answer was some time in coming. “I don’t want to interfere. It’s not my business to tell anybody how to run his life.”
“No, no, go right ahead. I’m not a fragile icicle. I’d like to hear your objection. Why shouldn’t I be open-minded to all points of view?”
“It’s no objection.”
“What is it?”
“It’s only her drinking. It seemed to me—I might be wrong—a little excessive.”
“Well, it isn’t any more.” The doctor stopped and waited. Would there be some further objection—one he had no answer to?
“You don’t believe me?” the doctor asked.
“I believe you.”
“Because it’s a fact. She has given it up. It was only a temporary thing to begin with, a way for her to forget her husband. That’s the way I analyze it.”
“And now she’s forgotten him?”
“You see, you’re just acting psychological again. That’s not a fair remark. You hardly know the woman.”
“I’m sorry then. I didn’t mean to sound so hard.”
“Giving up something like drinking, even when it’s only been a temporary relief, shows a certain strength of character.”
“I agree. Maybe we ought to stop with this conversation. I only wanted to be sure, that’s all.”
“Sure of what?”
“That this was what you wanted.”
And what more could he say? After all, Fay had given up drinking, and that was proof of some real fiber in her. What other objection could Gabe have that would carry any weight—that she was not as smart as his own mother? Well, at age sixty you come to realize that intelligence isn’t everything. There are other qualities one looks for in a person. To go around expecting that he would meet in one lifetime another woman as fine and intelligent as his first wife was to go around expecting the impossible. Besides, he did not even know if that was what he wanted. Being more intelligent than Fay had turned out to be a pleasure for him—it made him feel like somebody. On the beach, for instance, he could hold his own now with a fellow like Abe Cole, rather than feeling it necessary to sit back and listen while Anna, say, conversed with the psychoanalyst.
Of course, there were moments when he was nettled slightly by the things Fay did not know or care about. Particularly since she had given up drinking, he had found her not so quick and lively a woman as he had been thinking she was. When they discussed the news events of the day, for instance, there was a certain vagueness on her part, and he had discovered that she was weak on geography. But surely that was to be preferred to a zeal and vivaciousness that had been inspired by drunkenness—which itself had been inspired by sorrow and loss. So what objection did he have? That she was not Anna? One, she couldn’t be expected to be somebody else; and two, in certain ways she was a much more natural woman than Anna had ever been. When she was unhappy at least she let you know it—she got drunk. The trouble with his wife had been that she had never needed anyone. Even in dying she had been a perfect lady. But how he had wished that she would break down, how he had wished that she would ask him to close his office and stick by her bed day and night. Surely it was what he would have done had it been he who was dying of leukemia. And still, how he had revered her! How lucky to have been her husband. Her taste, her ideas, her gentility, the way she had of expressing herself … But then that grace and charm had been her power. He had gone through life thinking of himself as not having ideas and preferences of his own. And that was against nature; he knew now it had helped to make him, for all his wisecracking and fitfulness, a very melancholy man. With Fay he positively shone in conversation; he felt an honest-to-goodness surge within him as she sat there nodding her head and listening. If only Anna could hear him now … But it was Fay’s ears that listened, and Fay’s eyes which, though they may not have comprehended all the fine points, at any rate revered him for speaking in their direction.
It was all too confusing; how could a man of his years and station admit to his own child that he did not know what he wanted—especially when the child was a man with whom he could no longer express his love in ways that had been available to him twenty years earlier? You could not toss a man of one hundred and seventy-five pounds up in the air and catch him in your arms. Hardly. And that too served to confuse matters—for even if the son could be persuaded, it might not be as satisfying living with him as Dr. Wallach had once imagined. The young man was occupied with his own affairs; all that brooding about leaving Chicago must have to do with people and happenings of which his father was ignorant, in which his father had no place. There was really no choice about Fay then; she was all he could hope for.
When next he spoke he was in the grips of a vertigo worse than the one that had seized him earlier when he had dived into the ocean with his son. Dizzy, numb, trembling, he had complained of a chill, and come back to the shore, sending the boy off to swim by himself. He had managed then to walk back to his towel without giving a sign of his condition, but now he actually feared that he would stagger in the middle of what he was saying.
What was he saying? He heard his voice but the experience of utterance did not seem to be his. “Look, this reaction isn’t a reasoned one. I don’t want you to feel I hold you entirely responsible.” He found he was not even sure of his subject. Oh, yes—his son and Fay. “After all, it’s Hamlet. Oedipus.”
They were turning up through a ridge that the wind had cut in the dunes; they moved toward the street where the car was parked. “After all,” the doctor said, “this is an ancient thing, very deep and imbedded in the human race, this business between children and men.” His hand was on his son’s shoulder, as if it were the boy he was steadying. “If I were you, I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Now this is quite a case we’re dealing with. This is strictly a case of morality …” The dining room, situated in a turret that extended off the old house, was alive with sunlight. The house itself had belonged, years ago, to a Sag Harbor whaling captain; it still was filled with objects from all parts of the world, many of them worn and chipped and frazzle
d, but as the doctor had told his fiancée, full of warmth and feeling. The pictures on the walls, old fishing scenes and nautical maps of the Sound, could hardly be seen for the strong light that bounced off the glass that encased them. Fay was holding a match to a cigarette that she had placed in her ivory holder. She looked nothing less than aristocratic in the surroundings, especially with the holder, which the doctor had bought for her because he believed it gave her substance. Gabe, in white trousers and a blue polo shirt, was settled back in his chair sipping coffee.
Breakfast had been a success—except that Dr. Wallach still had to do most of the talking. Fay, of course, had been busy serving, and Gabe had been busy eating. But now, with second cups of coffee on the table, the doctor felt the time had come to draw them out. The sparkle of the brass coffee pot, the light on the rosewood dining chairs, Fay’s ivory holder between her lips, Gabe’s crisp summery good looks, even the simple fact that his son’s hair was still damp, made Dr. Wallach feel more optimistic about his family situation than he had in a long while. When he reached up to scratch his nose, he could smell the salt from the sea on the back of his hand; this too produced hope and excitement in him.
“Here,” Dr. Wallach said, “is a man of no little education—” He was laying out his silverware as though each piece were the term in a syllogism. Hopeful as he was, he couldn’t keep his hands still. “A physician, a man of the community, a respected person—no doubt a man of means. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, not rich, but comfortable. He has what he wants, and then a little bit more. All that, and yet he takes his life and jeopardizes it. Now what will this poor fellow’s fate be? What was he up to? Was he right or was he wrong?”
Fay nodded; he supposed she thought he would now proceed to answer his own question. She continued with her smoking.
“Fay?” he said.
“Yes?”
“What do you think about this?”
“Well … it’s a very interesting predicament.”
It did not please him to hear her use a phrase that was a favorite of his own. But agreeably he said, “It certainly is.” He smoothed the edge of the white tablecloth. Then to be dramatic, to shake them up a little, he slapped the table so hard that the silverware jumped. Of late he was getting rather a kick out of thinking of himself as someone who was an unpredictable conversationalist. “What do you think, Professor?” He looked over at his son, who, thank goodness, was smiling. He could not say that the boy was not trying to be amiable. “Place yourself in the fellow’s circumstances. The child is brought to you near death. I won’t go into the medical nomenclature—the child simply needs a transfusion, that’s the gist of it. The parents are Seventh Day Adventists. They tell you they cannot allow the child a transfusion. You tell them the child will die without it. They say they do not believe in eating blood.”
There was a flicker of his son’s eyes toward the window. Bored? Did he want to go already? Or was he just back to his own problems? Well, what kind of problems could they be? Young, in good health, a respected position—what kind of problem was it to be at the very brink of everything?
“But, Mordecai”—Fay was shaking her head—“excuse me, but the child would take the blood in the veins. That’s not the same thing at all.”
“Ah-ha,” said Dr. Wallach. Irritation with his son faded as he felt a fish at the end of his line. Real interest had at last come swimming up out of a sea of silence—as expected. The little news item in the second section of the Times had caught his imagination, and he knew it could not help but do the same with the others. Though he had read it while Gabe was showering and Fay was beating the eggs, he had saved it until breakfast was over, so that they could converse without the distraction of food. Now for a good old-fashioned family discussion … “Ah-ha,” he said, “but we are enlightened, we are students of the eighteenth century.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Silberman said.
“You’re talking about reason, Fay, intelligence. But to them,” the doctor pointed out, “a transfusion is eating blood. Now, once again, what’s the answer?”
He tapped his fork on his plate. “Gabe? Fay?”
Gabe only shrugged and smiled. Something distressing moved across the doctor’s consciousness: was he being patronized?
“Education,” Fay announced. “There’s an area where we could certainly learn something from the Russians.”
Disappointed, the doctor could nevertheless not help but be braced by her good will. She was going to flatter his son. All right. At least her interest had moved beyond the question of his posture.
“Well, perhaps,” Dr. Wallach said. “But I don’t know that you’re quite on the point. You’re not a teacher, you see, you’re a doctor. What do you do? Does he respect what the people want, or does he give them what they don’t want, what he thinks is best for them? Gabe, go ahead. You’re an intellectual person—this is an exercise of the intellect, I’d say. I’m interested in differing opinions on this subject.”
“Yes, I’d like to hear his thinking on this too,” Fay said. “The academic approach.”
“Well,” Gabe said.
“Your honest opinion,” said the doctor, excited.
“Well, I think it could probably be explained to them—”
“You see, Mordecai,” Fay said, “education—”
“Shhh …” he said.
Gabe started again. “I think it could probably be explained to the parents. That is, the doctor could make a distinction for them—”
“Go ahead, go ahead,” Dr. Wallach said, “very interesting this distinction business.”
“That there are rules on the one hand, but that there’s the essence of the religion too. That the rules can be suspended sometimes in the name of what’s most essential. The child’s life, living, is more crucial than the breaking of the commandment, or the law, not to eat blood.”
Dr. Wallach saw Mrs. Silberman clicking her tongue. He did not know whether to interrupt before she said something not quite worthy of herself, or to let the conversation he had worked so to initiate, go its own way. He tried relaxing as she said, “Well, I just can’t see it. I mean they are not eating blood. I can’t agree to that. A transfusion just isn’t eating blood, not to my way of thinking.”
Gabe mumbled something and turned his attention back to his coffee cup.
“Wait a minute, just a minute,” the doctor rushed in. “This isn’t a dispute. Actually I don’t think that’s quite the point Gabe was making, Fay. If I have it right, Gabe, what you’re saying—”
“We just disagree, I suppose,” she said with a tinkly laugh. “Because to me, you see, you can’t even begin to call a blood transfusion eating blood. Our veins are one thing, and our mouths another.”
Gabe simply sighed.
“Please,” said Fay, waving a hand and turning to face him, “I’m not asking you to give in. Everybody’s entitled to their own opinion.”
“True,” the young man said.
Oh no—was Fay going to carry a grudge? The boy no longer objected to her; he had made that clear on the beach. Couldn’t she let by-gones be by-gones? But then she didn’t know they were … He could not decide whether to give up on the conversation or to try to smooth things over.
“Well,” he said, “I think that threw some light. I think, however, Gabriel, I think I might agree you were side-stepping a little. These, after all, aren’t people who can be reasoned with.”
“Of course they aren’t. They’re ignorant,” Fay said.
She spoke so forcefully that the doctor nearly became frantic. “See, that’s his approach, Fay. That’s just one approach—this is an intellectual exercise, we’re simply working out the kinks in our minds.”
“Still—”
But he raised his palm at her, a policeman halting traffic; he could feel his eyes hardening. And it worked—she shut up. What they should do now, he thought, was get into their swim suits, take the umbrella and chairs, and go down to the beach for the rest of the
day. Surely, however, the three of them could conduct an adult conversation; he was not suggesting that they should all learn to live forever in the same house. To ask for a little respect and understanding was not, to his way of thinking, to ask for too much.
Gabe had set down his empty cup on the table; he seemed waiting for permission to leave. Well, he could just stay where he was! The father was still the father, and the son the son! “So what would you do?” Dr. Wallach asked.
“I—” Gabe rubbed his hands along his trousers. “I’d give the child the transfusion.”
“You realize the law now,” said the doctor, instantly impassioned again. “You realize the law says no minor can be operated on, given a transfusion or whatever, without permission of the parents. You understand that now?”
“I’d give the child the transfusion.” Gabe had spoken in a very soft voice.
“All right, all right.” Dr. Wallach took his spoon and crossed it over his knife. He leaned back in his chair and tilted his head so that all the loose skin of his throat was drawn upwards. He addressed the fancy chandelier. “I wouldn’t,” he said.
“Mordecai!” Fay said.
He spread two hands on the tablecloth—the hands of a murderer, he thought, feeling a strange excitement—and left them there, palms down. “That’s right. I wouldn’t give the child a drop of blood.”
“That’s not a bit like you,” Fay said.
How did she know? Perhaps Anna had known what he was like … but then having known, she had dealt with him. At least Fay didn’t simply deal with him; she admired him. Worse—she sentimentalized him, she misunderstood and overvalued him. All of which he had encouraged. He had chosen this house for her with a taste he pretended was his own; but he knew he really had no taste. The furnishings were of a kind that his dead wife would have liked for a summer place, and so he had said to Fay, “Take it.” And she had.
He kept two strong hands on the table anyway. “It’s a matter of respect,” he said, “that we’re dealing with. You see? The parent is the father to the child.’ Wordsworth?” he asked, turning to Gabe. Then he realized his mistake. But it was only one of several misquotations and malapropisms that had lately passed his lips. And though inaccuracy—pretension—was one thing when the audience was Fay, it was another when it was his son—or Abe Cole. It was not, he suddenly recalled, Recollections of Things Past, but Remembrance! And Oedipus was not by Socrates—it was by Sophocles! Christ! Under the umbrella yesterday, what an ass he must have seemed. What was he up to, passing himself off as something he wasn’t? Was this his fate at the age of sixty, to be a fool?
