The War Between the Tates: A Novel

by Alison Lurie

  “How is she?” Erica asks.

  “Still pretty exhausted. She went to bed early, but I heard her moving around much later.” Danielle, who is dressed to go out, picks up her briefcase from the table, then sets it down. “Listen, I spoke to Bernie last night, after you called.”

  “Oh, good. What did he say?”

  Danielle shakes her head. “Not much. He doesn’t know of anybody he could recommend. He doesn’t like the whole idea, anyhow; he thinks Wendy ought to go into a home he knows of and have the baby, give it up for adoption. He gave me the address.” Danielle shrugs. “Anyhow he won’t do it himself. When I asked about that he got quite angry, angrier than I’ve ever seen him. He said, ‘I wouldn’t even consider it. I’m a veterinarian, and this is a woman, not a pet chow.’”

  “He could do it, if he wanted to.”

  “I guess so. But he won’t. I don’t think he’d ever break the law; one of his brothers is a cop, you know.” Danielle makes a face. “Maybe he’s right about the home. It’d be safe at least.”

  “But Wendy wouldn’t want to leave school, not for such a long time.”

  “I don’t know. I think probably she’ll do anything you tell her. Especially if she thought it was good for Brian and his Great Book.” Danielle grins shortly. She pulls a red flowered scarf from the pocket of her raincoat, shakes it out, and ties it over her hair. “I have to get up to school—I should’ve been there an hour ago. But listen, if you still think Wendy ought to have the operation, I could ask my sophisticated friend in the philosophy department—”

  “No, don’t do that yet,” Erica says. “I heard from Brian this morning; he gave me the name of a doctor in New York he says is supposed to be reliable.”

  “Oh yeh? Well, okay. I’ll be back in my office after twelve if you need me for anything. Tell Wendy to help herself to whatever she wants to eat. Roo fed the bacon I was saving for her to Pogo; typical, huh? But there’s plenty of eggs, and some coffee on the stove.”

  Alone, Erica takes off her raincoat, thinking hard thoughts about children: their ingratitude, their greed. This morning there had been another hateful scene about steak sandwiches, the third in a series of such scenes. Matilda had become shrill; Jeffrey loud and coarse:

  “Can we go out tonight for dinner, at least?”

  “Aw shit, why not?”

  “That’s no reason. You said you were too tired yesterday.”

  “You said the next time Daddy was away you would take us to the Faculty Club and we could have a Super-steak Sandwich, didn’t she?”

  “I don’t want you to make me one at home. The kind you make are always foul.”

  “You always promise you’ll do things for us but you never do, you’re just lying.”

  “I won’t be quiet. Liar, liar, liar.”

  What is so deeply unfair is that this scene, and the others—her anger and guilt, the children’s anger and disappointment—are all Brian’s fault. She would be perfectly willing to take Jeffrey and Matilda to the Faculty Club, were it not for the possibility, indeed the probability, that Brian will also be there and not, as she had told them, in Detroit, Michigan. Liar, liar, liar.

  Erica hangs up her coat and goes into Danielle’s kitchen, where she switches on the light and begins to make breakfast for Wendy. She is frowning, thinking hard thoughts about men.

  Danielle’s house is built close against a steep wooded hill. The front rooms are large and sunny, with a winter view across the valley and the lake. But the kitchen at the rear is dark, cramped, overhung—almost a basement. It is impossible to work there without artificial light; but as Danielle often points out, this house like most houses was designed and built by men.

  It is true, Erica thinks: men run the world, and they run it for their own convenience. It is a man who is responsible for Wendy’s present condition—for her exhaustion, her desperation, her danger. And the two women who are trying to rescue her from this condition cannot do it on their own; they must beg and plead for help from other men.

  Erica turns Danielle’s stove to medium high. The iron snail of the electric coil slowly flushes a sullen red-black. Hateful, she thinks, hateful that women should have to appeal to their natural enemy in such a matter (and in vain)—that they should have to expose themselves to the pompous assumptions and disapproval of a country doctor like Bunch; to the self-righteous anger of such a person as Bernie Kotelchuk.

  It is Danielle who has had to bear Dr. Kotelchuk’s anger, since he is not aware of the connection between Erica and Wendy, whom he believes to be one of Danielle’s students. But Erica feels his words striking at her through Danielle, like invisible machine-gun bullets, wounding them both, weakening their resolve. Women are emotionally soft still; so long dependent on male approval that they are influenced even by the opinions of men they despise.

  The stove brightens to a grainy vermilion. Erica melts butter in a frying pan and breaks two eggs into it. The golden, nourishing, domed yolks quiver against each other and come to rest, surrounded by the thin, gluey viscous whites; like semen. Meanwhile upstairs at the top of the house in the spare room, floating in a bowl inside Wendy there is something similar.

  It would be better, much better, if Erica or Danielle could find someone to help Wendy; if it were possible to refuse to tell Brian where she is or what she is going to do; to renounce his assistance entirely, to break off all connection with him, to hang up when his voice sounds inside the black plastic cannon-mouth of the telephone and leave him altogether alone and in the wrong, where he belongs. But time is passing. The eggs are swelling and congealing in the frying pan; Wendy is pregnant, and every moment, even now while she lies unconscious overhead, she is becoming more pregnant. And the more pregnant she becomes, the more dangerous an operation will be.

  The truth is, even the best possible operation is dangerous, Erica thinks, lowering two slices of raisin bread into Danielle’s toaster. The most skillful, legal, routine operation, for example an appendectomy, in the most modern hospital, can go wrong. Too much anesthetic may be given, or too little; there may be shock, infection, complications. And this is where there are many skilled persons and complex equipment, where there is no greed or fear of the law, no need for haste and secrecy ...Perhaps after all it is better that the responsibility of finding an abortionist, and the blame afterward if anything does go wrong, should rest upon Brian.

  Erica sets a tin tray on the counter and lays on it a plate, a white paper napkin and three sharp metal implements: a knife, a fork, a spoon. The result is unpleasant. It is not improved when she slides Wendy’s two fried eggs onto the plate, and one breaks in the process, bleeding gluey yellow. The raisins in the toast look like black scabs, and the coffee, smoking darkly, is—

  But she must not give way to morbid imagination; she must be calm, cheerful, rational when she goes upstairs. Erica adds sugar and milk liberally to the bloody coffee, takes two deep deliberate breaths, and picks up the tray.

  “Wendy?” There is no answer to her knock; Erica enters the spare room, which is dark and rather cold. She sets the tray down and raises the blind, which has been lowered so far that its end lies limp on the radiator. Even then the room is grayed, obscure; white mist presses up against the glass.

  “Wendy?” No response. In a cage by the window some; shredded newspapers and shavings begin to squeak and rustle about; one of Roo’s gerbils raises its muzzle and front paws. “Would you like some breakfast?”

  “Wha?” The voice comes not from the pillow, which has been abandoned at the bed head, but out of a snarl of sheets and blankets halfway to the foot.

  “It’s quite late, you know.”

  The mound of bedclothes moves; and Wendy puts her head out from it. “Erica? Wha time is it?”

  “About eleven.”

  “Oh, wow.” Wendy squints, rubs her eyes, and sits up on her haunches, in a short crumpled cotton nightgown. She looks plump, worn and not quite clean, with unshaven prickly legs and stained feet. Her hair,
snarled with sleep, hangs like limp shredded wheat.

  “How do you feel?” Erica asks.

  “All right, I guess.” Wendy grins feebly! “Hungry.”

  “I brought you some breakfast.”

  “Breakfast? Great.” She smiles as the tray is lowered onto a chair by the bed, not seeing there what Erica sees. “Hey, raisin toast, fantastic.”

  Squatting on the rim of the bed, she pushes her hair out of the way and begins to eat, while Erica stands watching, planning what she is about to say. Wendy—or no, better she herself—must call the number Brian gave her and make an appointment for as soon as possible. Brian will provide the necessary cash from his famous separate account, but will not be told where or when the operation is taking place.

  Someone will have to go to New York with Wendy; her roommate, or the friend in New Jersey. Erica wants to help; but to accompany Wendy on the long bus ride to the city, to walk the Manhattan streets looking for the address, to sit in the waiting room while behind a closed door the bleeding fried eggs—No, she can’t do that, that would be going too far, in every sense. And besides, she has to stay with The Children.

  But if she is afraid just to go to New York, to wait in the next room, what must Wendy feel? At the moment, apparently nothing. She is eating with small eager bites, shoving egg onto her fork with a piece of toast, lifting it, chewing.

  Erica opens her mouth, but something keeps her from speaking: reluctance to interrupt Wendy’s innocent enjoyment, or perhaps the social rule—learned so early it is almost instinctive—that nice people don’t discuss medical problems during meals.

  Wendy drinks from the mug, sets it down, and wipes her mouth with the back of her paw.

  “How come you’re so good to me?” she asks. “I mean,” she adds, since Erica does not at once reply, “considering what I did to you, it really kind of zaps me out, all this.”

  “But you didn’t do anything to me,” explains Erica, sitting down across the room in Leonard’s former desk chair and rotating it toward the bed.

  “Sure I did.”

  “Not to me personally. You didn’t owe me anything—you didn’t even know me then.”

  “You think that matters?”

  “Of course.” Erica does not add the moral—that now Wendy knows her and thus owes her—she barely even thinks it.

  “But still.” Wendy grins uneasily. “Why should you want to help me?”

  “Well. Partly because I think women have to stick together. Like Danielle said yesterday: we’re all members of an underprivileged majority, and if we can help each other we ought to.” Wendy’s plate appears to be empty. “Are you finished with breakfast? Would you like more of anything?”

  “No thanks. That was great.” Wendy sags back against the wallpaper, hitching up one shoulder of her nightgown.

  “You’re welcome.” Erica transfers the breakfast tray to the desk and sits down in the bedside chair. “I’ve been doing some research,” she begins in a reassuring voice, “and I think I’ve finally got some results.”

  “Results?” Wendy looks perplexed, not reassured.

  “Yes, I’ve heard of a doctor now, in New York, and I thought I might call him—”

  “You don’t have to do that, I—” Wendy interrupts.

  “I know I don’t have to do it,” Erica interrupts back. “But I want to do it.” She smiles kindly. “And I think I should call now, this morning, because it’s really better not to lose any more time, and make an appointment for you.”

  “I don’t know if I wanna see him.” Wendy huddles her knees up to her chest and pulls the nightgown down over them to her feet, so that her body is enclosed in crumpled cotton like a small bundle of unhappy washing.

  “But this is a very good man; he’s supposed to be extremely careful, reliable—” She speaks gently, not allowing any vexation to show.

  “I don’t mean that. What I mean is, I’m not sure I wanna see any doctor now. I think maybe I hafta, like, go through with it.”

  “Go through with it? But what on earth for?” Erica forgets to modulate her voice.

  “Because maybe I should. See, the thing is.” Wendy fixes her eyes on Erica. “Last night, well I guess early this morning really, about five, I woke up. And I couldn’t get back to sleep again, I was so psyched up about everything. I thought how I was making all this grief for you and Danielle, and what I ought to do is just go down to the Greyhound station and take the next bus to New York whenever it was. So I got up and dressed and went out. It was pretty freaky really, because it was still completely dark, and more or less raining. I was walking along not paying much attention where, and then the street stopped and there I was right by the edge of the gorge.

  “And I thought, Why not? I thought how I wanted to make Brian so happy and give him everything, but all he’d got from me actually was a lot of heavy trouble so that he like never wants to see me again. And if I went and had the abortion, I would be like ripping off all this bread from him, hundreds of dollars.” Wendy’s voice weakens; she lowers her face to her knees. “Well, anyhow, it seemed like the fastest way to solve everybody’s problem,” she says hoarsely. “And I thought, God will forgive me; he’ll understand. I mean if he exists.

  “So I sorta got up on the wall,” she continues behind her knees, in the thin confiding voice of a schoolchild describing her trip to the park. “I can’t stand heights usually, you know. I don’t even like crossing the bridge to campus. That open grid really freaks me out, and if I look down, everything starts to spin. But it was so dark last night I couldn’t see anything; I could hear the water running, but I liked that. I mean it seemed right, you know? The end of the year, rain falling, leaves falling, water falling. I thought how I’d kind of loused up in this incarnation, and maybe next time I’d be reborn as something easier like a cow or a tomato plant.” Wendy grins.

  “Well, so I was sitting there on the stone wall, getting really soaked, shivering. But I thought how it didn’t matter because I wouldn’t have time to come down with flu or anything. I hung my legs over and squinted down between them into the gorge, to make sure there wasn’t anything in the way like a tree or a rock, because I didn’t want to miss and just get smashed up. And then I happened to look across to the other side and there was a light on in one of the dorms. Somebody was still awake studying; or maybe they had got up real early. I remembered reading how John Stuart Mill used to rise before dawn to work on his philosophy by lamplight. And Brian—at Harvard he used to stay up studying almost all night sometimes, you know? And then it hit me that maybe I wasn’t important, but here, inside me”—Wendy lowers her knees and lays one fist on her nightgown—“there was somebody that had half Brian’s genes, and maybe it was destined to be as brilliant as him; maybe a great genius. And years from now some night when everybody else was asleep they could be sitting up at some university working and studying. Only if I got off that wall on the wrong side, they would never get the chance.” Wendy’s last words catch in her throat and come out damp; she begins crying.

  “I’m sorry—I had no idea,” Erica says, moving from her chair to the bed. She reaches across it and touches Wendy’s shoulder, smoothing it lightly but firmly as if she were making pie crust. “Danielle said you were restless, moving around last night, but I didn’t know—”

  “It’s okay,” Wendy gasps. ‘It’s just that, Brian, I remembered when. He was telling me that.” She swallows with apparent difficulty. “I mean, like I knew all along he didn’t love me the way I love him, I could accept that, but I never thought he’d—Hey, this is sort of freaky,” she says in a different tone, looking up and focusing on Erica. “I mean, talking to you this way.”

  “That’s all right.” Erica is still sitting on the edge of the bed, but she has stopped patting Wendy’s shoulder since it occurred to her that Brian also had patted this shoulder at one time; or rather many times.

  “But listen.” Wendy makes an effort to. steady her voice; she swallows hard. “What I
hafta ask you is, do you think I could be right? About the baby. I mean, did you ever feel the same about your kids, that their lives are very valuable, more than most, because of their heredity? Not only Brian, you know, but all those judges and people in New England history that he’s descended from. I mean, his kids might grow up to be important people, maybe very brilliant, great human beings.”

  “Yes,” Erica admits. “I thought something like that once, when Jeffrey and Matilda were babies.” She does not add that she is almost sure now neither of them will grow up to be great human beings, or possibly even human beings. It would probably seem only one more reason why someone else (Wendy, for instance) should try to reproduce Brian’s valuable genes.

  “So you think I should go through with it?”

  “I’m not sure,” replies Erica, who is sure but wants to give the impression of reflection, and to marshal her arguments. “It’s a very serious responsibility,” she says. “I mean you can’t just have a baby. That’s only the beginning; it’s a lifetime job. A child needs more than good heredity, it needs a stable family, parents who—”

  “But I don’t want to raise it myself,” Wendy interrupts. “I just think maybe I ought to have it, you know?” She sits forward. “There are homes you can go away to; Danielle said last night she might know of one. There was this place out on Long Island a friend of mine in high school went to. They took care of everything and found people to adopt the kid. Do you think it could still be running?”

  “I suppose it might be,” Erica admits.

  “It would be sort of a drag, because I’d have to stay there for like four or five months. My girl friend said they were always lecturing them and showing them these gross-out films on drugs and VD, and they made her go to church every day and take sewing lessons. But maybe I could work on my thesis some, at least do the reading. The place Sharon went was free, too. That’d be cool if I could find a place like that, so I wouldn’t be ripping off Ma or Brian.”

  “You mustn’t worry about that,” Erica says firmly, standing up. “You mustn’t even consider it, Brian can certainly afford to pay for the operation.”