The War Between the Tates: A Novel

by Alison Lurie

“Celia?”

  “Hi.” A wispily pretty little girl, with Danielle’s brown complexion and Leonard’s dark, sad, acute gaze, comes into the room. “Where’s Mommy?”

  “She and Rod had to take Pogo to the doctor. They’ll be back soon.”

  “Is Pogo sick?” Celia asks, curiously rather than anxiously.

  “No, she was in a fight with another dog.”

  “Oh. Can I have a chocolate milkshake?”

  “I guess so.” Erica gets up, follows Celia into the kitchen, and opens the refrigerator.

  “You don’t have to help me. I can do it myself,” Celia says coolly, moving the milk and ice cream away from Erica along the counter.

  “All right.”

  Erica had held Celia, then called Silly, on her lap when she had the mumps, feeding her orange sherbet by teaspoonfuls; she had taken her to her first county fair, her first puppet show. She had kissed and bandaged her cuts, scolded her for calling Roo a “fat hippotamiss,” read aloud to her, bathed her, and shampooed her stubborn, wiry hair, so unlike Muffy’s and Jeffo’s. But since Leonard left, Celia has declined to be held by anyone; she reads to herself and bathes herself.

  While Erica looks on, Celia measures milk, ice cream and cocoa mix carefully into the blender. She stands on tiptoe to do this, on thin legs like Leonard’s, and lifts the heavy milk carton with thin brown arms. Celia lacks the animal solidity and strength of her mother and sister; Erica has worried sometimes that they would wear her out without noticing. In previous years she had been glad that Leonard, whose energy was also mostly nervous, was around to prevent this.

  “Celia turns on the blender, counts aloud precisely to ten and turns it off as the contents foam up to the brim.

  “You can have some too, if you want,” she remarks.

  “Oh, no thank you.” Erica meets Celia’s gaze; it has a wide, strained quality. “Well all right—if you have enough.”

  “I made extra.” With some difficulty, Celia pours the milkshake into two glasses,” and then back and forth between them until the level is exactly even. She sets the glasses on the kitchen table and climbs onto a stool opposite Erica.

  “Is it good?” she asked presently.

  “Very good,” Erica replies. Across the table, they look at each other awkwardly, like polite estranged lovers meeting after a long separation.

  “Is Muffy coming over?”

  “Not today,” Erica apologizes. In the years when Muffy and Roo were best friends they had made rather a pet of Celia. She always had the baby’s part when they played house, the favorite serving-maid’s part when they played kings and queens. But Matilda no longer “plays” with anyone, and Roo has other pets. “She’s at home listening to her records,” Erica adds. “That’s about all she does lately.” She laughs to suggest that they both understand how ridiculous this is.

  Celia sucks out the last of her milkshake with a small noise and sets the glass down. “Lennie likes records,” she says in a high, childish version of Leonard’s voice. “When he comes home he always plays them.”

  “I know.” During the final and most disagreeable months of the Zimmerns’ marriage, Leonard had taken to putting on one of his records at top volume almost as soon as he entered the house, drowning out whatever Danielle and the children might want to say to him. It was among those of his actions which Erica privately most disliked. Another was his recent request that Celia and Roo should call him “Lennie” instead of “Dad.”

  Celia tilts her head and rests her cheek on her fist—one of Danielle’s gestures. “Lennie was here,” she remarks.

  “I heard that,” Erica says, consciously refraining from adding that it was nice.

  “He brought me a model of the Transparent Man, but I couldn’t put it together. It was too hard.”

  “That’s a shame.” This time Erica speaks with feeling, recalling accusations Danielle has made against her former husband: that his mind is cold, analytic and destructively critical; that he is only interested in finding out how people work, not in knowing or loving them—that he wants to see everyone, in fact, as a Transparent Man. Also, that he was disappointed Silly hadn’t been a boy, and is trying to turn her into one; that he wants her to become as cold; analytic and critical as himself. “What happened to it?”

  “Lennie came over, and he put it together.”

  “That’s nice,” Erica lies. She looks at Celia—at her wide full mouth, so like Danielle’s, but contradicted by Leonard’s suspicious, heavy-lashed eyes—and thinks how unfair it is that people who have grown to thoroughly dislike each other, and have separated by mutual consent, nevertheless remain united in their innocent children, in whom the warring elements are fused forever.

  “Do you want to see it?” Celia slides off the stool and moves nearer. “It’s up in my room.”

  “No thank you. I don’t like models of the insides of things much.” I don’t like Leonard much, Erica hears herself say. (Delia hears it too, very likely; she takes a step away. I used to like him, Erica thinks as they look at each other. You remember that, and you want me to like him now because nobody else in this house does; but I can’t. I can’t like what he has done to you, and to Roo and Danielle. I can’t forget that he has deserted you.

  Yes, Erica thinks; but that’s not all. Since Leonard left, Celia has also been deserted by Danielle, who now works full time. She has been deserted by Roo and Matilda, who no longer play with her or each other. And because they don’t play together, Danielle and I meet when they are in school. Therefore I, who once saw Silly nearly every day, have in effect also deserted her.

  It hadn’t been conscious, deliberate—but meeting Silly’s eyes now, Erica feels terrible and guilty. She wants to apologize for the past year; to hug her, to cry even. But she is afraid to touch Celia; afraid to embarrass them both. Besides, what apology can she reasonably make?

  “There’s Mommy and Roo.” Celia turns her head, then runs out of the room. Erica, more slowly, follows.

  “Hello! How’s Pogo?” she asks the sturdy girl in torn jeans and an old T-shirt who has just come into the house. She is carrying in her arms a large brown and white dog of indeterminate breed somewhere between spaniel and beagle, with drooping ears and one leg heavily bandaged.

  “She’s going to be all right.” Roo bends over the sofa and tenderly lowers Pogo onto it, adjusting pillows around her. “She was very, very brave.”

  “Whew.” Danielle lets the screen bang shut behind her. “What an afternoon! Hi, Erica. It was great of you to come over ...Hello, ducky. How was the cartoon show? ...That’s good ... Roo, I don’t want Pogo on the sofa ...Come on, now; you know the rule.”

  “But she’s wounded. This is an emergency.” Roo shifts from beside Pogo to a defensive position between the dog and her mother, spreading her arms protectively.

  “The emergency is over.” Danielle moves toward the sofa.

  “Pogo has a sprained leg and eight stitches, and you don’t even care,” Roo says, pushing her heavy red-brown braid back over her shoulder, and setting her jaw. “You hate Pogo. I bet even if she was dead you wouldn’t let her lie on your stupid sofa.”

  “I wouldn’t let any dead dog lie on my sofa,” Danielle replies. “Come on, Roo. Why don’t you take Pogo up to your room? She probably wants to sleep now, after all that. She looks kind of groggy to me, and we’ll just keep her awake ...That’s right ...God. What I need now is some sherry. Erica?”

  “We were lucky,” Danielle says presently, as she sits where Pogo has just lain, holding a glass of her favorite golden California sherry—which Leonard, a wine snob, had always refused to have in the house. “I was scared to drive Pogo out to the kennel, she was bleeding so much, so we rushed her up to the vet school. You can’t imagine what a mess she was. Not only the blood, but she was so dirty; and panting and whining, obviously in bad pain. As soon as they saw her they sent us into an examining room, and this really nice vet came in, a big bald red-faced man. Roo was howling too, she though
t Pogo was going to bleed to death and she didn’t want to leave, so he let us both stay and help ...He joked with us, kidding Roo, and telling me about how he’d just fixed up a prize Pekinese who’d got into bad company. Her owner was frantic that she’d have unpedigreed pups. Apparently abortions are already legal for dogs, did you know that?”

  “They get better medical care now than people do, Brian says.”

  “Could be. That vet reminded me of what doctors were like when I was a kid; he had that same great calm, slow, patient manner. Now of course they’re all computers, ticking out a diagnosis as fast as possible and on to the next case.”

  “Like Dr. Bunch.”

  “Exactly like Bunch. But this guy, the minute he took hold of Pogo she stopped whining; she knew it was going to be all right. ‘You poor bitch,’ he said to her. ‘You got the worst of it in that fight, eh?’ He went on talking to her all the time he was cleaning her cuts and stitching them up, explaining what he was doing and what a brave girl she was. I thought, it’s really funny—he’s treating Pogo like a person, and when I go to Bunch he treats me like an animal.”

  “Dr. Bunch never tells anyone anything. He doesn’t talk to you at all if he can help it.”

  “That’s right. But what’s worse is that he never listens to you. I don’t know why everybody goes to him. I only wish we had a GP in town like that vet, whatever his name was.”

  “Dr. Bernard M. Kotelchuk,” says Roo, who has just come downstairs.

  Erica laughs. “Really?”

  “That’s his name. I saw it on a sign in the office. He’s going to come next week and see my turtles.” Roo falls solidly into a chair.

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” her mother suggests.

  “Why not? I asked him, and he said he’d like to come. He’s very interested in turtles.” She sits forward belligerently. “Don’t you think Dr. Kotelchuk is a person of integrity?”

  “I’m sure he’s a person of integrity. But he might be too busy to come.” Danielle sets down her glass and looks at her daughter. “Rod, your shirt! You look as if you’d been in a fight yourself. You’d better go and take everything off. Put the jeans and shirt in cold water in the bathroom sink, to soak out those bloodstains. How is Pogo?”

  “She’s asleep on my bed.” Roo stands up.

  “And you might as well take a bath too.”

  “I don’t need one. I had a shower last night, and a bath the night before, and the night before that.”

  “Okay ... What a relief Lennie’s gone back to New York,” she adds after Roo has clumped upstairs. “I should be over it by now, but every time he comes I get uptight about having the house picked up and the kids clean. ‘Civilized people bathe themselves every day,’ he says.” Danielle imitates her husband’s precise, cool diction.

  “Mm,” Erica assents, not adding that she shares this view. Danielle too, in her opinion, could have used a bath and clean clothes. Her red Mexican cotton dress is badly wrinkled; her brown feet stained with dirt.

  Danielle’s slovenliness is a recent development. Like her house, she has altered since Leonard left, and in some of the same ways. There is less of her—nearly ten pounds less—and what remains is more untidy. The elaborate, almost European elegance she had gone in for during her marriage—the silk blouses and lace-patterned stockings, the smoothly shining constructions of hair, as carefully braided and rolled as French pastry—is gone. Danielle still looks European, but no longer in the style of the aristocracy. Now she wears bright, heavy, embroidered peasant dresses; her legs are bare and often unshaven; her hair is roughly held back by a leather thong. It is as if, lacking a man’s love, her sense of her own value has decreased. But this is an uncomfortable thought; Erica puts it aside and tries to attend to what her best friend is saying.

  “—in his new place on West Fourth Street he’s got a built-in kitchen and everything organized. His ideal environment.” Danielle laughs briefly and pours herself more sherry.

  “Brian says there’s only one room, not much larger than this,” Erica reminds her comfortingly. “And no view. Just a brick wall.”

  “Yeh, he complains about that. He always looks on the down side, especially around here of course; he doesn’t want me to get envious. I’m supposed to feel sorry for him and think how hard his life is.” She laughs again harshly. “But he’s pretty well suited. He never could take being responsible for a whole house. And you know the yard drove him nuts. As soon as he got it in order something would start growing and fuck it up again.”

  “I remember how cross he was about Matilda and Roo playing with the gravel, getting it into the grass.”

  “Yeh. He never liked living with children. I think that’s the real reason he left.”

  “Mm.” Over the past, fifteen months Danielle has put forward many possible real reasons for Leonard’s departure. When she does so her voice becomes rough, her language coarsens; but her eyes—wide, brown, damp—give her away; In spite of everything she is still, as Jeffrey or Matilda would put it, hung up on him. Erica imagines Leonard as a free-standing metal coatrack of the type placed by Corinth University in the corners of offices. She visualizes Danielle, hung up on one of its raised metal arms by the back of the neck of her red dress, the yoke of which is embroidered with yellow birds and flowers; Danielle has hung there, swearing and sweating, kicking and struggling to get down, for a year and a half. Erica feels thankful that she has never been in that position.

  “—and of course he loves living in Manhattan, but he complains all the time how expensive it is and how much better off we are here. He’d like to cut down on what he’s sending us. Or stop it entirely.”

  “He wouldn’t do that,” Erica says.

  “Don’t kid yourself.” Danielle leans forward, putting her empty glass down on Leonard’s teak coffee table, now marked with overlapping rings. “Men will do anything they can get away with. And in this society they can get away with a hell of a lot. Look at my husband.” Though their divorce is over a year old, Danielle still speaks of Leonard as her husband. “Nobody thinks the worse of him for taking his family to the middle of nowhere and then deserting them. If I’d left the girls and Lennie here in Corinth and gone back to New York by myself, everyone would say I was very irresponsible, immature and selfish—if not sick.” Danielle laughs. “Oh, well.” She leans back into the soft, dusty pillows of the sofa, resting her head on one raised brown arm and putting her dirty brown feet up on the coffee table. “So how’s everything at your house?”

  “All right, I guess,” Erica lies.

  “Did you go back and see about the job yet?”

  “No. I called and told them I couldn’t take it. Brian’s so set against the idea, it didn’t seem worth arguing about it any more. And it’s not as if I were absolutely dying to do library research.”

  “No.” Danielle frowns. “But you did want a job. After all, it’s the principle of the thing.”

  “Oh, don’t say that.” Erica giggles sadly. “That’s what Brian says. He thinks it was very underhanded and thoughtless of me to go looking for work without consulting him first. It makes him feel he can’t trust me.”

  “It makes him feel he can’t trust you,” Danielle mutters with emotion. “That’s really—” She swallows and is silent.

  Since she has never told Danielle of Brian’s untrustworthiness, Erica looks at her friend with surprise. Apparently, news of Brian’s behavior last spring has somehow reached her. She hesitates, doubting whether she should admit it now. After all, the affair with Wendee is in the past; she is trying to forget it, and has partly forgotten it. Danielle too says nothing; she folds her arms and looks out the window, visibly setting her jaw. Presumably she thinks Erica is ignorant of what Brian has done; that she remains a pitiable dupe. But Erica has no wish to support this character in addition to that of betrayed wife.

  “I didn’t know you knew about all that,” she therefore says finally.

  “I didn’t know you knew. Oh, shit I�
�m sorry.”

  “That’s all right.” Erica smiles weakly.

  “Here, have another drink.” Danielle slops sherry into Erica’s glass. “I only just heard this week,” she apologizes. “I thought about calling you, but then I thought, Well, hell, how do I know it’s true, I didn’t see it.” Her usually strong voice wavers.

  “Of course, I understand,” Erica says, touched—and rather proud to realize that her friend is more upset now than she.

  “How did you hear about it?” Danielle asks.

  “I found the letter the girl wrote to him.”

  “Then it is true.”

  “Yes.” Erica smiles again, conscious of doing so bravely. “He admitted it.”

  “You know I really didn’t believe it.” Danielle sighs. “I mean, it just didn’t sound like the sort of thing Brian would do. He’s always been so moral, so righteous.”

  “I know.” Erica sees that she has been wrong. Danielle is too loyal to blame her or think less of her for Brian’s unfaithfulness. She could have told her story sooner. “And I didn’t figure he would ever take up with a girl like that, either. Do you know her?”

  “No.” Erica shakes her head. “I never saw her.” She does not add that she had looked for Wendee all last spring whenever she was on campus—or rather, that she had looked for a beautiful young blonde. Several times she thought she had located the right person, and managed to ask her name; but she had always been wrong. (Actually Erica had seen Wendy often on campus, and once sat at the next table to hers in the coffee shop, without noticing her, for she was not anywhere near pretty enough to be the Wendee she imagined. And Wendy, who did not expect to see Erica on campus and was not looking for her, had not noticed Erica. ) Since June, when Brian told her that Wendy had left town, she had ceased to look.

  “She’s nothing special. One of those moon-faced girls with sad blue eyes and stringy bleached hair. Honestly, I was surprised.”

  “It is surprising,” Erica says, frowning so hard her head begins to hurt. Obviously something is wrong, either with Danielle’s information or with Brian’s description of Wendee. Love is supposed to be myopic, but not that myopic; and anyhow Brian has always denied being in, love, this means, what?