A Weekend in New York

by Benjamin Markovits

‘Why don’t you talk to me about this stuff?’ she said, when he didn’t answer.

  ‘I’m talking to you now. Because you don’t want to think about it.’

  ‘Think about what? I still don’t understand.’

  ‘We can get out of the whole business. We don’t need careers, we’ve got enough money. Cal could have a big garden, he could run around. We don’t have to go to dinner parties or make contacts, or chase anything. We don’t have to surround ourselves with people we quite like. We don’t have to do anything we don’t want to do.’

  ‘I don’t want to move to Texas.’

  ‘Forget Texas, you’re not really listening to me. At Marcello’s thing, it basically came home to me that ever since I quit Stanford my life has involved hanging around people I don’t know very well and who don’t know me.’

  ‘Am I supposed to be one of those people?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘You always get this way when your family comes to town. But then when they come you do everything you can to avoid seeing them. I mean, you can’t pick them up from the airport, you sneak off to practice.’

  ‘I don’t sneak off.’

  ‘Even when they come to dinner you eat beforehand. You don’t see it – I do. You go into yourself, you basically stop talking.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Paul, I live with you. I know what you’re like when you’re shutting down.’

  ‘You don’t understand. This is what it’s like to have a big family. You don’t always have to participate.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound at all like shutting down.’

  ‘I’m not talking about my family here. My family are part of the problem. The way Julie is growing up. Nathan told me she gets two hours’ homework a night. She’s ten years old. They’ve got a tutor for her, too. They want her to get into Boston Latin. We all went to shitty public schools in Austin. I mean, we turned out okay. But beforehand we had this thing called childhood. I don’t want Cal growing up in New York.’

  ‘I grew up in New York. Let me tell you something, if you move to Texas, Cal is growing up in New York.’

  Afterwards they lay in silence for a while. Paul’s heart was beating audibly, he could hear it in his ears. He thought, neither one of us will be able to sleep now, and the stupid idea crossed his mind that maybe if they had sex they could get to sleep. Not that he wanted to much, but he really needed to sleep. He didn’t know how deep the argument went, you couldn’t always tell at first. But then after a few minutes Dana’s breathing got louder and he had to listen to her, hating her a little. Someone who could sleep like that didn’t care about anything.

  But it calmed him down, too, after a while, looking at her, the way it calmed him down to watch Cal in his cot. She was just who she was, she couldn’t help it. When you’re a teenager you can’t believe that when you grow up you’ll spend every night like this, lying next to a grown woman. There’s a familiarity there you don’t have as a kid, with anybody else, after you stop sleeping in your parents’ bed. Familiarity combined with latent strangeness, because you can both walk away from the deal at any time. Sometimes when he spent the day with Cal he tried to imagine that he was looking back at himself from some future date, watching with envy, while he cleared up a spilled drink or put away wooden blocks, crawling on the carpet on his hands and knees; or put fish fingers in the oven and ate Cal’s leftovers while Cal sat in front of the TV. Enviously because Cal was now grown and married, a little distant from him; because Paul’s hips hurt, and so on. The envy gave a kind of spice to the day. Some day, looking back, you’ll wish you were here and he wondered whether in the future he would feel the same about lying here now.

  SUNDAY

  Jean woke up early, with jet lag. It was gray outside, not black, and she could already hear regular traffic along Central Park West. The streetlamp outside her bedroom window glimmered vaguely. Birds made noises.

  Recently, she had started jogging in London, and she had brought her running shoes with her. Lying in bed, wide awake but at the same time completely tired, feeling hollowed out and hungry, she imagined putting on her sneakers and running in the park. Like some crazy person, she told herself, but got up anyway and pulled on her shorts. She peed and spat in the toilet and brushed her teeth. Sneaking out, she was startled to hear her father say, ‘Couldn’t sleep?’

  He lay on the sofa, with a blanket across his legs and a book open on his belly.

  ‘I figure I may as well go for a run.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He turned over the cover. ‘Your mother bought it for me for the plane.’

  It had rained overnight again, there were puddles on the sidewalk, and she shivered in the early morning air. I wonder how much of this is a kind of punishment. But as her blood warmed up, she began to feel better. The park was only a block away, and she ran past the playground and across the curving roads, towards the gritty track around the reservoir. She didn’t go far or fast; even in the cool air, she sweated. The salt blurred her eyes, but she could still make out the sunshine climbing the skyscrapers on Central Park South, astonishingly yellow. There were people out walking their dogs, old men, a few women, many of them in overcoats or college sweatshirts. The breeze was brisk enough to raise a few waves, and foam built up on one side of the rocky shore – soda bottles bobbed among them. But it wasn’t properly cold, either, and with the blood warming up inside her, she started to feel pretty good.

  Various thoughts went through her head, to the rhythm of her feet, but after a few minutes she realized she was composing something for Henrik, probably an email or a text, and at the same time carrying on the argument with Nathan from last night. I told my brother about you. I thought it would make me feel better but it didn’t, it just made me miss you more. Her shoelace came undone and she sat on one of the benches to tie it up – breathing heavily, feeling her heart rate in her ears. When she started running again, the conversation started again. I told my brother about you. He read me the riot act. I don’t know what you would have said. Probably agreed with him. He’s very persuasive. All of this got mixed in with something else, a kind of ongoing voiceover or description of her day, which she was preparing in advance, in case Henrik called later or she called him. I went for a run in Central Park at some ridiculous hour, but it made me feel kind of virtuous and glamorous at the same time. Maybe I’ve been in London so long that I’ve developed a Londoner’s sense of the glamor of New York. East of the reservoir, she ran alongside Fifth Avenue. There were thick green trees lining the park walls, but through them she could also see, in the rising summer morning, the Neue Gallerie, built like a bank, the vista of 86th Street, traffic going both ways, a bus turning, and then the Guggenheim, like a parking garage, more trees. By this point she wasn’t talking to Henrik, she was talking to Nathan. I know it’s wrong but it’s not even like it feels right, because it doesn’t. But it’s like I’m being presented with two different kinds of reasons for doing something, and one of them matters more than the other, it’s not even close. The track curved round, she was heading west again, into the park, there were tennis courts below her, an implausible number, stretching out green and empty and patched with last night’s rain. One of them is, you don’t have to tell me, he’s got a family, there are kids, people will get hurt and I don’t like to hurt people. That’s one kind of reason. And the other is just this overwhelming feeling of excitement, to be at the center of something, or just for something to be happening. When I got to New York I was also thinking to myself, like a kind of test, let’s see how much I miss him. And at first I didn’t, which made me feel guilty in a funny way, but then I did. I mean, let’s imagine, he leaves her and it works out and we have kids together and ten years from now they’re seven and four, or something like that, and it’s all pretty conventional, and they owe their life to what I’m doing now. Can that be a justification? There’s
nothing you could say to them that would make them really believe I shouldn’t have done what I did.

  Sometimes she had to watch out for dogs, they moved unpredictably, and there were puddles on the running track – she didn’t want to get her shoes wet. People dressed in extraordinary ways. There was an old gray-haired woman, wearing neon yellow leggings and a pink hair-band and a Lakers jersey over a long-sleeved T-shirt. She had earphones on, you could hear music coming out of them. She moved at a snail’s pace, but sort of lifted her legs as if she were running. Jean passed her, feeling, at least I’m fitter than she is, I’m younger than she is, I’m in okay shape. What? I am. By most human standards. She was thinking of Paul, talking to him. She knew that when she jogged she looked very red in the face. Poor Paul. It worried her how little she had thought about what he said. Even with Nathan, she didn’t discuss it. And yet when he gave his little speech, she was almost in tears. He always seemed so physically healthy and well, it was hard to imagine – but that’s stupid. Everybody has problems. I wonder if Dana told him. She probably did unless they aren’t talking very much at the moment. I guess they have other things on their mind.

  Emerging again, into the ordinary city, with its traffic and tall buildings, she crossed the 86th Street entrance to the park, busy with cabs, and ran along Central Park West for several blocks. The concrete hurt her feet a little; she had to dodge commuters making for the subway, but the sidewalk also felt vaguely downhill. She was winding down, she started walking. On the corner of Michael’s street, she noticed a Greek-looking guy setting up his concession stand – he sold bagels, muffins and croissants, hot coffee and tea. A stainless steel booth, not very clean-looking, unfolded and provided shelter from wet weather. But the sky had cleared up; there were just enough clouds to make the sunshine pink, spread out like paste. She had a twenty-dollar bill in her pocket, she wanted to bring back something for breakfast, but ended up walking onto Broadway and waiting for Zabar’s to open. There was already a line outside the door, people who knew each other, shift workers, old guys with newspapers. Later, she sat at the café counter, drinking grapefruit juice and listening in, and feeling (as she told herself a little self-consciously) the things you’re supposed to feel as a young woman in the middle of a big city with a lot going on in your life.

  She had more or less stopped sweating by the time she walked back to the apartment, carrying a paper bag. Bill was in the bathroom. Liesel was trying to make coffee in the kitchen. Jean said, ‘I brought some breakfast stuff,’ and left the bag by the sink then went to her room and wrote an email on her phone, tapping it out clumsily with cold fingers,

  Hey, I told my brother about you. He was worried about me. I miss you and want to talk to you, but I know you probably can’t oh well. Consider this just a hello. Hello x

  and sent it. Afterwards, she sat on her bed in her running shorts, with her hands on her knees.

  A minute later, she heard her name being called. The apartment had thick walls and heavy doors. Voices traveled unpredictably, everything sounded muffled or far away. But it was her mother calling her, and Jean shouted out, ‘What, I’m here. I’m here,’ then stood up, a little stiffly, and went to find her.

  ‘What,’ she said.

  They were standing by the door to the elevator, waiting to go out.

  ‘We’re going out,’ Liesel said.

  She had a date with some woman from the Village Voice. They were supposed to meet for coffee at an Italian place by Washington Square, and Bill had to get to Grand Central – he was taking the train up to Yonkers to see Rose.

  ‘Send her my love,’ Jean said.

  ‘I’m sure she would love to see you,’ Bill told her.

  ‘I’m kind of worn out.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’m a little disgusting right now.’

  ‘Okay. I just didn’t want you not to come if you wanted to come.’

  ‘I want to see her but not now.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  It broke her heart a little, the way she could disappoint him; but the truth is, he didn’t really mind that much, Jean knew that. She was just being sentimental. And when they left, Jean had the apartment to herself. Susie was coming in that afternoon, which left Jean three or four hours to kill. She showered and checked her phone, to see if Henrik had replied. When he hadn’t, she went back to bed, thinking she could read at least. In fact, she started falling asleep and put her book face down on the duvet cover and closed her eyes. Today was supposed to get warmer, you could hear it outside, in the traffic and birdsong, and she lay listening for the sound her phone made when an email arrived, then she was out cold.

  *

  The nearest subway stop was at 81st Street, by the Museum of Natural History, where they could take the B or C train downtown. It went to Washington Square and Bill could get out at Bryant Park and either take the 7 to Grand Central or walk. He would probably walk, it looked like a nice day. Bill worried that Liesel would get lost. Her sense of direction wasn’t terrific, but she had a map in her handbag, she had plenty of time. He teased her in the subway, for dressing up a little – she wore a silver necklace, which he had bought for her at a market in Berlin, and her less comfortable shoes. ‘Look at you, big shot,’ he said.

  ‘I’m worried about Jean,’ Liesel told him. She sat with her handbag on her lap. The plastic seats were too narrow. Bill had left a space between them; the car wasn’t busy on a Sunday morning.

  ‘What are you worried about? She went for a run this morning, she’s lost a little weight. She’s taking care of herself. She looks good.’

  ‘She’s keeping something in, she was snapping at people yesterday. It’s not like her.’

  Bill had his own canvas tote, which he rested on the empty seat. He planned to pick up something for him and his sister to eat at Polanka’s on Nepperhan Avenue, where she took him once a few years before. Rye bread and sausage, pickles, a little cheese. Rose wasn’t very mobile, and she also got embarrassed, eating in restaurants.

  ‘She’s not a kid anymore,’ he said. ‘You can’t expect her to open up at the first opportunity. Of course there are things going on she doesn’t want to tell us about.’

  ‘You say it like that, like it’s a normal thing, but it doesn’t make her happy.’

  ‘She looks happy enough to me.’

  They sat in silence for a couple of stops. At 59th Street, the carriage started to fill up and Bill put the bag between his knees and shifted over. Liesel said, ‘Do you think you would have had a different career if we didn’t have so many kids?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Do you regret it?’

  ‘No.’

  More silence, which Liesel broke. ‘Yesterday for some reason I was talking to Julie about your mother.’

  ‘Huh,’ he said.

  After he left her, at 42nd Street, she went over the conversation in her head, thinking of Julie but thinking of Essie, too. When Bill’s father died, Essie came to live with them in Texas. She was mostly blind by this point, because of a botched cataract operation; she had had several strokes and struggled to find the right words. It was like watching a woman look for something in her handbag, perfectly reasonable and exasperated. Liesel was friendly to her, in a distant way. The sad thing about all these fights with your in-laws is that in the long run you always win. Essie had refused to show up for their wedding, but for the last four years of her life, she lived with them. Bill fought with her, he couldn’t help it; she made demands on him, but sometimes he reacted to her as if they were still … You don’t always have to listen to your parents. Sometimes you have to ignore them. She said this to Jean, too.

  Because of the bright Texas sunshine, Essie wore heavy brown sunglasses that pinched the bridge of her nose and left permanent marks. She kept her arms toned by exercising with running weights, walking up and down the kitchen, lifting her knees. Even at her age, blind and incontinent, she had her vanity. Paul sometimes read to her; he was fift
een years old when she died, for some reason they had an affinity. The way he hit that ball against the wall, over and over … But Liesel liked to listen to him read, more than she liked to watch him play. He had a nice voice, naturally serious, and Essie was obviously proud of him. She said things like, let me see your beautiful face, and Paul always said, not minding, how do you know it’s beautiful, you can’t see it.

  Thinking of this put Liesel in a good mood. She was looking forward to her meeting. The book had done well, she knew that for a fact – her editor wanted her to write another collection. The first was called War Stories and had a subtitle: Growing up in the Third Reich. But really it was about a happy childhood. She had had a very happy childhood. Her mother was loving and fair and sometimes fun, she was very resourceful, even in the difficult years after the war, they had enough good things to eat, very simple food, some of which they grew themselves, and anything else was a real treat, packages from her aunt, for example, who lived in Canada. That was really the point of the book. These terrible things were happening, not just far away, but around her, in her own family – for over a year, her father lived at the eastern front, they never saw him, never spoke to him, sometimes they got letters, which Mutti read out to them, where suitable – but in spite of all this, Liesel had a very happy childhood, and nothing in her afterlife could live up to it until she had children of her own. Because family life protected you against these things, though maybe that wasn’t really the right way to think of it. Family life made none of the other things matter.

  The stories she told about the war were often funny. Her mother once found a sausage in a hedge. A soldier must have left it there, who knows how long it had been stuck among the twigs and leaves. Saucisson, Mutti called it; it was the first time Liesel had heard the word. Her mother’s family had been very well-to-do – Mutti spoke excellent French and as a young girl spent her holidays near Abbeville. She unwrapped the sausage from its skin and laid it on the kitchen table. Everyone gathered round. Nobody wanted to taste it, and eventually Mutti cut off a little slice and fried it in a pan and cut it in half again. She ate one half and her brother, Onkel Torsten, ate the other. For the rest of the day, the sausage just lay there on its board, on the kitchen counter – even though they were all hungry for meat. Mutti and Torsten kept asking each other, ‘Aber ist Euch auch wohl, Vater?’ like the son in the play. They weren’t really worried, it was a big joke, and the next day everyone tucked in. This is the kind of story she told in the book. Liesel talked about Abbeville, too. Years later, as a foreign-exchange student, she lived for six weeks with a family in Dieppe, and spent one Saturday negotiating the trains and buses to visit Abbeville, to see if she could find the hotel where her family used to stay. But it had all been bombed beyond recognition.