But Cal never responded to German, even when his father spoke tenderly to him, just a handful of words, like du and Kind – for Paul it was still the language of endearment and childish comfort.
‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ Liesel said, but they had both lost interest. ‘You can give it to him later, when he isn’t distracted.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Da nicht für,’ Liesel told her, using the German phrase, making a joke. Not for that. But Dana wasn’t really paying attention; she had reached into her handbag to check her phone. After flicking the screen on, she put it away again quickly. Liesel said, to shrug off her annoyance, ‘It must be stressful for Cal, with so many people around. Stressful for both of you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Dana repeated, but this time looking her in the eyes. ‘Inez’s mother went into surgery this morning, but I haven’t heard anything.’
‘What kind of surgery?’
‘She’s having a pacemaker replaced. I mean, the batteries. Apparently it’s all very routine, but I told Inez to text me afterwards that it was okay. But she’s in Arizona. They’re three hours behind.’
Liesel made sympathetic noises, but somehow this wasn’t the conversation she wanted to have. She wanted to talk about Paul; she wanted to watch Cal watching him. Probably he would never remember seeing his father play, but Liesel planned to remember for him. He was too young to know what was going on, but maybe he was old enough to get excited: look, there’s Daddy. This is the kind of thing she hoped to talk about with Dana. But it didn’t matter.
There was a noise, a few people clapping, and the players walked onto the court – one of them was her son. It upset her every time, how unprotected he seemed on the flat, brightly colored surface. Like a cell on a microscope slide. Just far enough away to look small, but not so far that she couldn’t see his receding hairline and the one-night stubble on his cheeks: a slightly intense young man. Not so young anymore. Sometimes he checked the stands for friendly faces but usually not long enough to find them, and the rest of his expression was the expression of a private person in a public situation. There were chairs by the side of the court, folding chairs, and both players sat down. Paul undressed. He took off his windbreaker and warm-up pants and bent low to retie the laces of his shoes. One of his rituals. He still tied them the way Nathan had taught him, almost thirty years before: two loops, like a child; and then a double knot. Borisov was waiting for him, practicing his serve, and then they started to warm up together, hitting forehand to forehand crosscourt, and then backhand to backhand. One of those surprisingly gentlemanly conventions, from another age.
Susie had been trying to find something in her handbag, dried apricots or a piece of chocolate. Something sweet; she liked to eat something sweet after every meal. When she looked up, they were already playing, knocking the ball back and forth, moving their feet. For a moment she had forgotten who they were, it was just a couple of guys playing tennis. Then she felt the shock of recognition: her little brother. She took Ben’s hand and squeezed it. She said, ‘Uncle Paul.’ Her eyes had suddenly filled with tears. Maybe she was conflating things, worrying about Ben, she was probably hormonal, too. When they go to school you can’t go with them. Every day it’s like sending them off to battle. How smart are you? How cool are you? Who likes you, who doesn’t? Does anybody think you’re funny? No wonder they come back … a little bit dirty. Maybe Paul is right. We should get out. When he was a kid, about Cal’s age, she used to throw a Nerf baseball for him to hit with Bill’s old squash racket. Sitting on the floor of the TV room. Already she could tell he was good at it – he kept wanting to do it again. Afterwards, he ran and picked up the ball and passed it to her (often she had to chase it down again), and they started over. Back and forth. Nothing else mattered, and here he was, and it did matter and there was nothing she could do about it.
Bill thought, If he comes to net, he can beat him. But he has to come to net.
Nathan said, ‘Has anyone talked to Paul about what he plans to do next?’
‘Please, can we not have this conversation now?’
But Jean ignored her father. ‘Apparently he told Liesel that he wants to build a house in Texas.’
‘That’s what he told me,’ Nathan said. ‘But if he doesn’t do some kind of job, he’ll go crazy. Maybe he already is a little crazy.’
‘Give him a break,’ Bill said. ‘It’s no joke, retiring at thirty-three.’
‘That’s what I’m saying.’
‘This is why he needs to think twice. There’s no hurry. When this is over, he should give himself some time.’
Susie offered: ‘He talked to me about writing stories for kids. He wants me to do the illustrations.’
Bill looked up. ‘That doesn’t sound like a serious plan.’
‘He told me some of the titles he’s come up with. A Gap in the Fence. Last Light.’
‘Do you want to move to Texas?’ Liesel asked Dana.
‘All of this is news to me.’ She said it lightly but it wasn’t easy to say. The way her life, the decisions they made together, had become Essinger family property as soon as she got together with Paul continued to upset her. But there was no point fighting it; she’d learned that much. ‘He doesn’t really tell me anything. He kind of shuts down about a week before a tournament.’
‘I thought you were taking photography classes at the New School,’ Bill said.
‘That’s just something I do because I like it.’
‘I thought the plan was moving into TV.’
‘Maybe that was his plan. I don’t know.’
‘My favorite,’ Susie said, ‘was, Hey, What Was That For?’
‘I don’t understand.’ Liesel for some reason looked indignant.
‘It’s one of those things kids say to each other.’
The chair umpire called time, and the ball boys picked up the balls. There was a flurry of choreographed activity, then calm. Everyone took prearranged places, crouching, standing, sitting. Waiting. Borisov was serving first, the atmosphere had subtly changed. He lifted his hand in the air, to show the ball in it, and fired a serve a few inches long. Out – the call of the linesman (a woman, actually, leaning forward, with her hands on her knees) rang out. By this point the afternoon had started to clear, sunshine broke through occasionally, there were patches of clouds being blown around the sky. It was still fairly windy, and not exactly warm, but not cold either. A nice day, good kite weather. Some of the spectators had sunglasses on. The stands were about two-thirds full, and filling up. Pluck, and Borisov’s second serve kicked off the blue hard court. Paul, raising his elbow, knocked it back and the match had started.
It wasn’t only the atmosphere that had changed. Everything seemed to happen a little faster; you could hear them breathing, too, and grunting as they followed through. Nathan couldn’t believe how hard they hit the ball. Every time he watched his brother he was stunned. Then he forgot, and a year passed and he watched him again. Not just how hard, but how quickly he moved into position, his air of efficiency. It wasn’t just a question of concentration, but of seriousness. This is what it means to be serious, to be able to do this, whack whack whack whack. To hit a ball at that speed, at that spin, so low over the net and keep it in. Again and again. You can’t do this and tolerate any bullshit in yourself, any laziness or delusion. It’s amazing, at this level, the human ability to eliminate error. Paul once explained to him that the difference between the Challenger Tour and the majors was that top ten players could hit a shot nine ten eleven times in a row without mistake; but lower down the ranks, after three or four ground strokes, errors crept in.
Nathan remembered when they were kids, and Paul beat him for the first time. They were knocking a ball around on a Saturday morning, on one of the Whitaker courts, while Bill finished some work in his office. Paul had started chasing down everything. Maybe he was ten years old, still red in the cheeks under a bowl haircut; who knows where this kind of relentlessness comes from. B
ut Nathan couldn’t hit it anywhere that Paul couldn’t hit it back. So he tried to force the action and made mistakes, he got pissed off. It’s hard to accept that your kid brother can do things you can’t. At the same time he also admired the kid brother. In every other area of their lives, Paul deferred to Nathan, he imitated him, but in this one area, he was perfectly willing to kick Nathan’s ass. Even though while he was doing it he wouldn’t look him in the eye. Out of guilt or sympathy or something else. And twenty years later this is where all that … relentlessness had ended up, on some side court where he’d probably finish his career. A first round match against an unranked player, the US Open equivalent of the suburbs.
Even making arrangements for this kind of thing means making predictions. Nathan was supposed to inject himself with Avonex once a week. Clémence usually did it on a Monday morning; it varied according to his teaching schedule. But she wasn’t there, and he often went through a twenty-four-hour period afterwards of feeling mildly crappy (achy and shaky, he called it), so he’d put it off until tomorrow – they were driving back to Boston after the match; she was flying in to Logan, taking a cab. Hoping to get home before the kids went to bed. The drug had been linked to depression; twice a year he needed a liver test, and all of this was for what, maybe for nothing, but the guy he talked to at the Mellen Center said to him, if I were you I’d play the percentages. And this is what the percentages say … According to Paddy Power, Paul’s chance of winning the US Open was less than a tenth of one percent. I shouldn’t have started that conversation at the restaurant. Sometimes it’s hard to know what you’re trying to prove.
The sky felt large overhead, busy with weather. Borisov left a forehand short, and Paul, coming forward, followed his momentum to the net. But this is where the Bulgarian wanted him: he lofted a lob crosscourt that landed a foot inside the baseline and skittered away. Fifteen love. At this level, every weakness, every bad decision, gets punished. Just another point. Under the shadow of Arthur Ashe Stadium – you could see it rising over the bleachers on the far side of the court. They were on the outside, away from the action, the center, as the family always was. Borisov served again.
When Bill was younger there were courses the black kids couldn’t play on. Not that he knew any black golfers. There were clubs Jews couldn’t play at either – or even if they let you in, for some high school tournament, they found a way to make you uncomfortable. Bill was lucky; his name sounded German. But when he showed up, there was no disguising certain facts, and he didn’t try to. At Stanford, he had to overcome the quota system. At Cornell Law School, too. You had to be the best Jew to get in. His mother was turned away from Columbia on this basis; she ended up at Syracuse, one of those things you just accept. When Arthur Ashe won Wimbledon in 1975, the same year Susie was born, part of what Bill thought was, That’s right, stick it to that jerk Connors. As a kid he knew a lot of Jimmy Connors types. Ashe played the way Bill had been taught to play. Get to net when you can. Don’t hit it any harder than you need to. And keep quiet out there.
But the game had changed. The way his son played was already old-fashioned. With those new racket heads, the topspin they could generate – everybody just pounded the ball. Even Federer. You watch your kid out there, made out of the stuff you’re made of, shaped by you, and you can’t help blaming yourself. For whatever it is that passed both of you by. Borisov won the first game to fifteen, and they took a short break before switching ends. Paul, sweating already, sat down and hid his face in his towel. A gesture meaning what, nerves? Relief? That the thing he was waiting for had finally started? Who knows. When the towel came off, when he stood up again, he looked expressionless. Some people play better when they’ve got something to lose. Hard to say what effect it might have on him, the fact that this could be his last match. Paul wouldn’t know either. One of those things you find out about yourself, in the event.
Jean, on her way in, had overheard a woman saying, ‘He understood where I was coming from, but he didn’t give me the response I wanted.’ Not a woman, a teenager. She had painted-on eyebrows and dyed black hair, but her voice sounded very reasonable. Paul had started serving and Jean thought, I wonder if Henrik will text me if he wins; or maybe only if he loses. What do I care if Henrik calls or doesn’t. All day long she’d been having an argument in her head, first with her mother, then Nathan. With all of the Essingers. My friends say it’s the best thing that’s happened to me. It’s like I’m finally leaving the nest. But then they point out, You moved to England eight years ago. And she says, Only because Nathan went there. What friends are these? He understood where I was coming from, but he didn’t give me the response I wanted.
She was almost too nervous to watch him. For most of her childhood, all he ever did was win – at tennis, ping-pong, mini golf, tree-climbing, running. At cards and chess, too, because he tried harder than anyone else. When he was a kid he told her, it doesn’t matter how good you are at anything. And she said, you only say that because you always win. It seemed like this was one of the facts about Paul, but later she realized it was only one of the facts about his childhood. As soon as he went out in the world, when he quit Stanford, it turned out that other people were also good at what they do. Borisov was known as a returner, he liked to stand in front of the baseline and take the ball early. Paul tried to jam him, serving at his body, but Borisov had quick feet. He could hit his forehand down the line while leaning away. Thirty fifteen. Thirty all. Forty thirty. Deuce. Paul, hoping to catch him by surprise, followed his serve into the net. So early in the match, it seemed a bad sign; he wasn’t normally a serve-and-volley player. His serve wasn’t strong enough, it hovered in the low hundreds. Borisov had plenty of time and opened up his forehand. Maybe too much time – the return went long. Advantage Essinger. Jean breathed.
The stupid thing is, she thought, Paul would like him. Henrik was good with his hands, he was intellectually practical. For someone who worked in TV, he seemed fairly immune to fads and trends. His emotional temperature was on the cool side. As a kid, in Denmark, he used to be serious about handball. Sometimes he still liked to sit with a beer and watch the Boxer Herreligaen, the Danish handball league. When they were stuck in her room, hanging out – he felt uncomfortable in the landlady’s lounge, even though the TV area was perfectly in-bounds. So he sat on her bed with his computer. The internet had made all of these homesick appetites easier to satisfy. He was also unusually self-aware. You need a high cash-reserve of egoism to speculate in self-examination. He didn’t mind if you pointed out his unattractive qualities; he was also willing to admit his guilt, which wasn’t her guilt, he said, but entirely his own. ‘I’m going to be very selfish about this,’ he said. ‘The guilt is mine, not yours. You haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘That’s not what it feels like,’ she told him. ‘Anyway, what I feel bad about is probably just selfish. What I want is my own life with you.’
Part of what upset her now, watching Paul play, was the thought that her brother might not be an easy man to be married to. When you’re loyal to family life, as the youngest kid, you have this idea that you know these people (your brothers and sister) better than anyone else, because you love them more. So that if someone has a problem living with them, they’re making a kind of mistake. After all, you lived with them for fifteen years, growing up. You know they can be lived with. But somehow, this weekend, she had started to feel sorry for Dana. Something was going on she didn’t like. Paul had with-drawn his participation, or was withdrawing it, which he used to do even when they were kids, retreating into practice or into his room, but then there was always solid ground underfoot, there were relationships he couldn’t withdraw from, that you can’t opt out of, but the relationship he was in now you can opt out of, and maybe that’s what he was doing.
When he lifted his arm to serve, his shirt rode up; you could see the hair on his belly, the muscles, too. Dana had met him for the first time at a black-tie fundraiser – he had one of those bodie
s whose shape and strength isn’t immediately visible under formal clothes. She liked him because he asked a lot of questions. Later she realized this is just something he did, out of boredom or to deflect attention. But it seemed very flattering at the time. When he told her he was a tennis player, she laughed, it seemed like such a made-up job. But she was also excited by the idea, because … because it seemed like the kind of job you do when you haven’t completely given up on your childhood, on the idea of yourself that you have when you’re a kid. At that stage of her life she was in the market for somebody with this kind of faith or self-belief.
Also, Dana was a swimmer in high school; she knew what it meant to compete. Every morning, she woke at five to spend an hour in the water before school. Then a couple of hours after, too, before coming home to do her homework and go to bed. She quit senior year – she wanted to have a good time and told her parents she needed to concentrate on college applications. At Amherst, because she was tall, the rowing club recruited her as a freshman; by her junior year, she was rowing stroke in a coxless four. Then Michael came along and she started spending time in New York. Even before she dropped out of college, she had quit the team – something she still regretted, because it left other people in the lurch. Also, because it confirmed something she had started to suspect about herself, that she was a serial quitter.
One of the things that attracted her to Paul was his athletic discipline. She had had enough of good-time guys. She was always happiest when she was working too hard, at least that’s what she told herself afterwards; she liked teams, too. In the early days, when they were dating, she used to go running with Paul. Maybe he slowed down for her a little, but not much; she could tell he responded sexually to her competitiveness. They used to sprint the last few hundred yards. She started rowing again, on the erg machine, when he went to the gym. She lost weight, she felt good, she loved him. She liked going out on the town with him, feeling the muscle in his arm, under his shirt; they were almost the same height. They attracted looks. All of these feelings turn out to be short-lived.
A Weekend in New York Page 28
