Letting Go

by Philip Roth

  “I wasn’t sure …”

  “No, I didn’t know.”

  “And I thought you would want to.”

  Only now was he stunned. “Certainly, why not …”

  “I saw her the other day, Gabe. Outside the co-op. I had Rachel in the carriage, and suddenly I turned and started pushing it the other way. I was actually running, and I knew it was noticeable, but I couldn’t help it. Remember that warm day we had? Well, that was it. I think she saw me, but I couldn’t stop myself. If she had looked into the carriage and seen Rachel, I knew it would break her heart. It would break mine. I go to bed and I lie awake, ever since that happened, and I think: Rachel’s going to smother under the blanket. I think I haven’t snapped those damn snaps, the ones that lower the bars on the side. I even thought of asking Paul to send this crib back for another model. Truly, I get up four and five times a night. I get up and I check—and then I wind up in bed, thinking about her. Every time I go down to the basement to hang up my wash, I somehow think of her little boy. I was probably rude and impolite again, and awful, but I just had to turn the carriage around and get away. Then when Sid told me he thought he was going to be married pretty soon … Well, I didn’t know if you knew or not—I don’t want to seem a gossip, but I thought you would want to hear.”

  “I’m glad you told me.”

  “I feel I’m talking about things that are none of my business—”

  “It was a horrible thing, Libby. I suppose that makes it everybody’s business.”

  She did not understand that he was trying to shut her up, but it was not entirely her obtuseness that was responsible—his tone had been vague. He realized that he wanted to hear even more. So did Libby.

  “What—what does she … say about it? How does she feel now?” she asked him.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I thought perhaps you run into her. At the University.”

  “We even manage not to run into one another.”

  “I’m sorry, Gabe. It’s a hard thing to forget. It’s a hard thing not to talk about. I keep wondering what it’s like for her. I nearly called her once—I feel now how rotten I was with her, when I was being rotten and crazy with everyone. I almost called her one evening to come over for coffee. But I don’t even know what to say. You become somehow afraid of a person when something like that happens to him.”

  “The best thing for all of us is to let the past be. There’s nothing anybody can do about it.”

  “I feel terrible that she saw me and I kept running.”

  She waited; he nodded. “I was going to say something to Sid,” she said. “He’s been so kind to us, he hasn’t charged a penny, and he’s been so concerned, so decent. I was going to ask him to explain for me to her … That’s it, you see, it would all have taken so much explanation.”

  Despite his inability to keep his mind precisely on what he was about, by ten o’clock he had managed to complete both applications. He typed the address on each envelope, then settled back in his chair. It was done. By March he would hear, and by June he would be gone. There was really nothing more for him to do in the way of planning.

  Except call Jaffe.

  At first he could not explain why the idea had occurred to him. Then he remembered Libby saying that Jaffe had called her, and the nervousness she had expressed over the lawyer not giving her his message directly—at the same time that she had expressed gratitude for his reticence. What a girl! She still had the power to present her anxieties in such a way that they came to seem your anxieties. It did not appear to be an unconscious talent either—it never had. Doubtless what she had been hoping was that Gabe would volunteer on the spot to call Jaffe for her and to work out whatever little problem had arisen. But, of course, no problem of which she didn’t know the details beforehand could be imagined by Libby to be “little.” If Sid had called, what else but catastrophe! Theresa wanting Rachel for her own—or worse.

  Was that even a legal possibility? He did not know the final ins and outs of the adoption. He had not even realized that Theresa would have to do any signing. Had Jaffe called to say Theresa wouldn’t sign? Was the natural father to sign too? Did he have to be dug up now? Would he meet the Herzes?

  No, it probably wasn’t even necessary for the father to appear in the court at all. Whatever the necessities, Jaffe would take care of them; he was a capable man, he would see to it that everything was tight and binding; the Herzes would be protected. It was not his business to brood over the last-minute details; he had his own applications to mail. The Herzes were Rachel’s parents and they would have to work out matters for themselves.

  With Jaffe’s help.

  Why not? Surely he was better equipped than a layman to deal with whatever problem might have arisen; that he did not charge them for his services was his own affair … Not that if some last-minute help were needed, he himself wouldn’t step forward. If there was some foul-up concerning Theresa Haug, he felt he could solve it as well as anybody. Better, in fact. What he would have liked was for Jaffe to call him and ask that he be of assistance. He had no reason to believe, however, that Jaffe would ever again seek his help … which was precisely why he should call him. Call him. Yes, he would really like to do that. Jaffe should know that he was quite willing, and quite able, to play his part in this adoption right down to the end.

  Martha should know that too. Surely she would if he were to sit down and call Jaffe right now. Where else had she been going with that Christmas tree?

  … Some things Gabe surmised about her now; some things he knew. He knew, for instance, that she had moved. One day on the co-op bulletin board he had seen an index card announcing a sale of furniture; he had recognized the handwriting even before recognizing the address. Then one day he had seen her, just her back, moving through the doorway of a little rooming house on Kenwood. That night, driving down Kenwood—it was not too far out of his way, one cross street was as good as another really—he had seen Jaffe’s car parked outside. That was how he had learned about the convertible too. He had seen it in front of the rooming house, and on another night, when he happened to be driving by Jaffe’s apartment on Dorchester, he had seen it again. The following week he saw it parked outside of Jaffe’s apartment on three different nights. The week after, only two. But probably it was parked there now; they would be up in Jaffe’s apartment decorating that tree.

  Leaning forward again in his chair, he set about checking what he had written. Reviewing the facts of his birth, education, and professional experience, a conviction began to grow in him that bad news awaited the Herzes. He had only Libby’s insane anxieties to go on, but surprisingly, the application before him, with its listing of accomplishments, of degrees attained and works completed, led him further and further into pessimism. He was reminded (not that he had to be) of all that was unrecorded there—what he had not been prepared for, the unaccomplished. Having failed to imagine in the past what calamities there might be, he began imagining present calamities for which he had no real evidence.

  Still, nothing was to be lost in giving Jaffe a ring. He would like to catch Martha in the lawyer’s apartment anyway. To be sure, she was under no further obligation to him; however, for him to find her with Jaffe now would perhaps make her aware of the suspicions he had about times past—that he had come to suspect that as soon as he had driven off to Long Island in August, she had gone to bed with her old suitor. Of course, concrete evidence was slight—only that when he had called Chicago to tell her that Markie was in a coma in the Southampton Hospital, Sid Jaffe had picked up the phone.

  At the funeral nothing had been said about the phone call, about anything, in fact. He had watched her suntanned, expressionless face looking down into the grave. Afterwards the only words spoken between them had been hers. “Please, let me start from scratch.” He had thought then that she had said little out of grief and fatigue—and out of her desire to end the affair. It was a desire he saw fit to obey. No, to honor. But in the months th
at followed he was more and more convinced that she had said so little out of shame as well as sorrow. Now when he needed it, he summoned up the image of Martha receiving the tragic news in bed.

  And he happened now to need it. He did not feel he was deceiving himself by continuing to believe that he was not an irresponsible man. Even his decision to call Jaffe about the adoption was evidence in his own behalf. Chances were it was only Libby’s morbid imagination to which he was bending; nevertheless, he did not want it said by others—or by himself to himself—that he had gone less than all the way once again. If that was what he had done in earlier days, surely it had to be chalked up partly to inexperience; youth, he told himself. But now he was older. He would simply pick up the phone and have a talk with Jaffe. He would like Martha to be reminded, should it happen that she was once again in Jaffe’s bed, that in the end it was she who had been unfaithful to him, and not the other way around.

  For the moment he believed this. For the moment he believed more. Standing over the phone, he reasoned that even if he had married her, there was no guarantee that one morning a child of hers might not have rolled from his bed (or tripped down the stairs, or slipped in the bathtub, or stepped in front of a car, or swallowed a bottle full of iodine) and died.

  2

  Dear Mr. Jaffe—

  I am not able to come to your office about that baby or ever. I have not told you all the truth. I am a married woman. My real name is Mrs. Harry Bigoness the other name I made up though my first name is Theresa really. Haug isn’t my Maiden name it is just something I made up because I suppose I liked the sound of it. I am only a housewife in Gary Ind. and I went astray and now I am back with my husband Mr. Bigoness and we both do not want me mixed-up in any of that business. That is all my “shameful” past and was a big big mistake. Harry knows what is best for our family especially with this “recession” on. I don’t think I should get mixed-up again. I had done all I can. I hope I am not cauzing trouble but it was a shock to me and Mr. Bigoness and now it is over and done, with. Harry says it is absolutely done, with. Excuse me.

  Yours Very Truly,

  Theresa Bigoness (Theresa “Haug”)

  12/16/57

  Gabe:

  Here is the letter I told you about—let me know what happens.

  Sid Jaffe

  P.S. Please save the letter for my files. Thanks for your interest.

  The mills were dark and nearly smokeless; for all the mass and solidity, without purpose. High up on concrete foundations, the wooden houses—two stories each, set fifteen feet apart—brought to mind prehistoric lake villages, dank shacks on stilts. The dwellings went on and on, as did the aerials hooked to the roofs, until blocks away the weather blurred the wires and rods, leaving what might have been ancient writing, hieroglyphics, illegible markings in the unpleasant winter sky. It was a day of dampness, of heaviness, a day without color; a haze like cold steam moved forward in puffs. Stuck to a few front doors were clumps of holly; those Christmas trees visible behind lace curtains were not aglow—there was no wasting of electricity, no sign anywhere of comfort or luxury. The big soiled cars lining both sides of the street indicated that, though it was a Tuesday and not yet four in the afternoon, men were at home. The day itself felt grainy to the skin.

  Twisting the key in the door of his car, Gabe had numerous shooting thoughts, but only one that was strong and recurrent. I am in it again.

  There was nothing of value in the car, yet he came around to check the far door too. His stray thoughts turned on theft, assault, violence … He informed himself that his life didn’t depend on this little trip. Yet the mills, the houses, the fact that Harry Bigoness was probably a steel worker, served to intimidate him. The man’s name could itself have been a word having to do with the atmospheric conditions, the haze, the chill, the shadows. The weather will be mostly bigoness through the late afternoon and evening. Big business. Big onus. By gones—let them be—

  Bigoness. Over one of the four bells he found the name. Each time he rang the bell he cleared his throat. He looked at his clothing. The smell he smelled was not himself; it was the house exuding its odor—wet surfaces and old carpeting, a dusty weightiness in his nostrils. The varnished baseboards looked sticky. In the pebbled glass that cupped the electric bulb over his head, last summer’s bugs showed through as dirty spots. He stopped clearing his throat when he became conscious that he had been doing it. His hand shot up to his pocket. Theresa’s letter was still there; he hadn’t dropped it anywhere.

  He rang again, and again nothing happened. He did not know what to do next. Though in it now, he had only to walk down the stairs and get in the car to be out of it. After all, if the snarl was legal—a matter of signatures, identities—then it was only sensible to leave it to a lawyer to untangle … Only he did not see that he could give up so easily. He would talk to Theresa; when her husband came home, he would talk to him—and that would be that. They were probably no more than nervous. He was probably no more than nervous.

  No one seemed to be at home. He tried not to pay any attention to the emotion he felt; however, he could not help but recognize it as relief. He marched three steps forward and twisted the knob of the glass-paned door leading to the inner stairway. When it opened, his heart did not know how to respond; it was no longer entirely clear as to what was in its own interest. It rose and sank simultaneously, like two hearts. He rushed up three landings to Apartment C; without hesitating very long, he knocked. He had only taken time to count the number of milk bottles lined up on the doormat. Six. He heard a creaking, but when no one answered, he decided it was only his weight on the floor boards. He knocked again, then took out his billfold, hunting for a blank scrap of paper, and he came upon a business card of his father’s. Crossing out the printed name and number, he began to phrase a message. He was reminded that he had only eight days in which to buy that present. A child’s cry came faintly through the door.

  “Hello?”

  The crying had already stopped.

  He knocked. “Is anyone home?”

  Feet moved. “Hello? Theresa? Mrs. Bigoness?”

  He knocked again. “Is any …? Theresa, it’s only Mr. Wallace.” Mispronouncing his own name had its effect—it made sharp the feeling that he had erred in taking this trip upon himself. He should simply have washed his hands of … “Hello?”

  Inside something dropped, someone spoke; footsteps crossed the floor. Then the door opened, a crack; a blue-eyed little girl, no more than four or five, stood before him in red pajamas.

  “Close it, Melinda—get back—”

  The child was looking at him. From behind her came a brief barrage of sobs. Then the man’s voice again.

  “Oh hell—Melinda!”

  The little girl turned away and the door eased slowly shut. Gabe reached for the knob, pushed it, and the door went flying backwards into the wall.

  “Hey!”

  A slender dark man, in need of a shave, was standing over an ironing board, a plastic basket full of wash beside him on a wildly yellow living-room rug. The first thing he noticed—even before he noticed that the man was wearing an apron—was that the fellow was not, as he had imagined he would be, older than himself. “Hey—what’s the matter with you—get out!” The small boy who was crawling on the floor began to wail.

  “Are you Mr. Harry Bigoness? My name is—” He could not say Wallace again, though he hadn’t the chance to say anything.

  “Just get out of here, that’s all!” Rubbing madly at his chin, plucking at the apron, the man came around from behind the iron. Big mahogany furniture lined all the walls; the panels of a chest before which Bigoness now stood were designed to give the illusion of depth. “Close the door, get out of here, will you!”

  The little girl was pulling at her father’s blue work trousers. “I want my sandwich.”

  “Mr. Bigoness, I’m representing Sid—”

  “Get your hand off my door—don’t you understand?”

  �
�I want my sandwich.”

  “—the lawyer who has been in correspondence with you people—”

  Not too gently, Bigoness uncurled the little girl’s hand from his leg and advanced upon him. The man’s chest curved in toward its center, but out to beefy shoulders; his arms were ridiculously long. It was his build more than his face that made him look stupid. “Now did I ask you, get your hand—”

  “You don’t even know who I am.”

  “You woke up that kid—”

  “If you’d have answered when I rang—”

  “Who do you think you are, invading people—” A crash, then a shattering, then a whimper, came from another part of the house. “Get, before I call the police!”

  “Daddy!” The little girl had disappeared and was calling from behind some door. “My Daddy!”

  “Mister, I’ll give you three—”

  He might then have turned, stepped back. Bigoness’s face was not very far from his own. “Is your wife home—may I speak—”

  “Oh—oh—everything fell! It fell on me! I didn’t—” As the little girl cried in the other room, the small boy on the floor continued to whimper. Bigoness tried to fill his lungs; he rose up on his toes; his head moved. His visitor held fast—and Bigoness broke for another part of the house.

  “Oh hell.” His moan was deep, pitiful.

  “It just fell,” the little girl was explaining.

  “Oh Melinda—”

  By the time Bigoness had returned to the living room, with a sponge in one hand, the front door was shut, and Gabe was standing inside, hat in hand. “Mr. Bigoness, I’m here representing Sid Jaffe, the lawyer. He’s been writing to you about this adoption case. He’s written four letters since he received a letter from your wife about a month ago. He’s tried to call you on the phone, but it’s been disconnected—”

  “Did I say come in here, you?”

  “Haven’t you received Mr. Jaffe’s letters?”