His Wife Leaves Him

by Stephen Dixon

  She thought of and arranged so many of the things for them. The one big exception that he can think of now might be the apartment in Baltimore they moved into five weeks before Rosalind was born. He was at a dinner party about six months before and a woman there, an art history professor at his school, mentioned she had a year’s sabbatical in New York the next academic year and was looking for a sublet there. “That’s a coincidence,” he said. “My wife and I will have to find a nice apartment here. Maybe we could swap for a year.” He looked at hers, liked it, she said she liked theirs sight unseen—“Doorman? Columbia area? Overlooking the river? And at that rent? Let’s shake on it”—and when the year was up they stayed on because the woman got a teaching position somewhere else. He was also the one who suggested they add a porch to their house, but she got the builders for it and designed it herself. They were sitting on the porch of the farmhouse they rented in Maine. Maybe ten years ago. Having a drink and watching the sky light up in different colors from the sunset, and out of nowhere he said “I just had a brilliant idea. The sky inspired it. You might not go for it, but it’s so pleasant out here, why don’t we have a porch like this one built onto our house?” “Not go for it?” she said. “I love the idea and have thought of it myself several times but never brought it up because I was sure you’d say it would be too expensive.” “Hang money for once,” he said. “I’ve been thrifty for too long. Save, save, save, and for what? For something like this. And what could it cost? Oh, maybe a lot. But the house is paid up and the expenses and taxes for it aren’t too bad. A porch would raise the value of it a little, so also the assessment of the house the next time around. But we both have good jobs—mine I can’t be fired from—and where we get a small raise every year. And we’ll keep it simple. Interchangeable glass and screens. Raw wood. No fancy furniture or embellishments. When we want something to sit on, we’ll bring out the chairs from inside. Okay, that’s going too far. Buy two chairs. Buy a little table. I figure the best spot for it would be off the living room, since we have that door to the outside there we never use and all that space it opens to. Though we won’t be able to see the sky like this from it and the occasional rainbow, we’ll still have a nice view of our woods and the road. We’ll watch joggers jogging past. Cyclists. The mail deliverers in their electric trucks. But you tell me.” “I can’t believe you’re saying this,” and he said “I know. Because I’ve also been so cheap.” She took his free hand and squeezed it. “That clinches the deal,” he said. Maureen came out and said “Why’s Mommy crying?” “Is she? Over something as silly as a porch.” The VCR. Rosalind was a few months old. Gwen said “That poor French poet I’m translating wrote that he bought a VCR in Paris and watched Fanny and Alexander on it. If he can afford one, we can too. I want to be able, when I don’t feel like reading while I’m breastfeeding or just listening to the radio, to have something to watch other than mindless morning and afternoon TV. And it’s Bergman, and that one we missed and some people say it’s his best.” “I don’t mean to sound stupid, but what exactly is a VCR and what do the initials stand for?” and then asked what she thought one would cost. She said “The Sun’s running ads with VCRs being much cheaper than they were last year, which means they’re probably half of what they go for in France. And the video cassettes—I’ve looked into it at the record store in the Rotunda Mall, which has a whole wall of them—are only three dollars to rent for the new releases and two dollars for the oldies, and the new ones you can keep for two days and the old ones for a week.” “Sounds good to me. It should be fun.” They bought a VCR player that week and rented Fanny and Alexander at the Rotunda record store. She read the instruction manual how to hook up the VCR player to the television set and how to play the cassette, and they watched the movie. “That was terrific,” he said. “Not the film as much as I thought it’d be but to be able to see it in your own home, and you put everything together so easily. Next time teach me how to use it.” “It’s all in the manual. Read it,” and he said “Me? Learn from an instruction manual? Just imagine what would have happened if I were the one who had to set up the VCR player. It would have ended with me kicking it across the room. Better, you show me how to put the cassette in and play it next time we rent one, because I don’t want to have to keep relying on you so much.” Getting things done in the house like new drapes and their bedroom carpet cleaned. She said “I want to explain why we need new drapes in all the rooms we have them in so you don’t think I’m putting us through an unnecessary large expense. They’re old, soiled beyond cleaning, torn in places, and came with the house when it had different colored walls.” He said “Our bedroom drapes, maybe, since we use them almost every night. But we’ve never drawn the drapes closed in the dining and living rooms, so can’t we just take them down and not replace them?” “No. If we did that, the sides of those windows would look bare.” “I don’t want to get into an argument about it,” he said, “but it never would have crossed my mind to change any of them, bedroom drapes included. They all look fine to me. I also don’t like the idea of more workmen in the house, measuring, fitting, choosing the right colors, and then installing them.” “Don’t worry; you won’t have to deal with any of it. I don’t mind taking care of it. I like doing it. I like making the house look nice.” And he said “So do I, but okay. You want? Do. I can see you’re determined and that you don’t think I know much of what I’m talking about.” After the drapes were hung, he said “I have to hand it to you. The rooms look much nicer with the new drapes,” and she said “I thought you’d appreciate the difference once they were up. And these are washable, while the old ones would have run.” She said their bedroom carpet was stained in a dozen places because the cat had vomited on it so many times and from the coffee he’s spilled carrying it to his desk. He went in to look and she followed him. “I don’t think it’s so bad,” and she said “Of course not. And look at the carpet in the hallway outside here,” and he looked and said “That too. I’ll get some carpet cleaner and do it myself.” “Like for how many years you promised to scrape and paint the register grill in our bathroom because it was so rusty, till I finally had to do it for you. No, the carpet is in such sad shape, it has to be done professionally. If it’s all right with you—well, really; even if it isn’t; give me this, please?—I’ve made an appointment for a carpet-cleaning company to come. They’re offering a special price for an introductory one-room cleaning, and they’ll throw in the hallway. Unfortunately, the carpet will be wet for an entire day, so you’ll have to bring your typewriter to the dining-room table and work there.” “How much is this introductory offer?” and she told him and he said “For one fifteen-by-twenty-foot room, or even twenty-by-twenty-four? Okay, I won’t object. If I do, you’ll say I always object to these things,” and she said “I probably would, because you do.” After the carpet was cleaned and he’d removed the little square pieces of paper from underneath all the furniture legs in the bedroom, he said “Want to know what?” and she said “You’re about to say the carpet looks pretty good.” “They really did a job. It looks as new as when it was first put down. But one question. Why’d we ever get such a light color that shows all the stains?” and she said “We both agreed to it, don’t you remember?” “I think you gave me three to four swatches of almost the same gray color, each one slightly lighter than the next, but let’s not go into it. Your decision to get the carpet cleaned turned out to be a great success.” Taxes. Before he knew her, he always did the short form. “Why?” he told her. “Because it’s quick, easy, I’m used to it, and I never made much money.” She urged him to do the 1040. “The section C form was made for you. You’re a writer so you have a little profit from your writing but lots of losses. Once you know how to do it—and what would it take you? A few hours? And your earnings are bound to increase over the years—it’ll begin to pay off.” “You know me by now. I hate change. All that time learning something new interferes with what I really like doing. If, by some accident, I make a bundle
from one of my writings, I’ll be able to pay for a tax accountant.” She offered to do his taxes that year. “Then, the next tax year, just copy out what I’ve done.” “No, you’ve got your own things to do—taxes, teaching, writing, reading,” and she said “But I love you. So I like doing things for you. And this is something, because of my father, I’ve learned how to do well. If you happen to get back much more from the IRS than you usually do, or you have to pay it much less, you can treat me to an expensive dinner at a place of my choosing, or at least a relatively modest dinner with an expensive wine.” This was for the ’78 returns, so around March ’79, a few months after they’d met. She did his taxes the next two or three years—let’s see: ’79’s, ’80’s and ’81’s, so three. Then they got married and they filed a joint return. She’d call her father for advice every night she was doing the taxes. “You don’t have more gifts to charity than that in Schedule A?” “Martin’s taking too large a loss for his writing, when you compare it to what he earned from it, and five years straight? You’ll be flagged.” “By now,” she said he told her, “you do it so well I could hire you as my assistant and pay you good wages, but stick to your teaching. Less stress and longer vacations and more time with your husband and darling little angels.” Then she’d fax him the completed 1040 form, he’d go over it for errors and what she might have missed and mail it back with his new corrections, and she’d fill out the entire form again but in ink this time. She never once finished the returns before the last day. “Done yet?” he’d say around eight that night. “We don’t want to be penalized for filing late or draw suspicion from the IRS,” and she’d say “I need another half an hour” or “hour.” Two hours later or so—one time it was 11:30—she’d say “Hurray. I’m done. All I need now is your signature,” and he’d sign the second page of the federal and state forms above her signature, stick them into their envelopes, which he’d already put stamps on, and drive to the main post office in downtown Baltimore—trip took about twenty minutes at that hour—and drop them in their respective baskets postal workers held up to his car window or the one on the passenger side. He said one time after he got back “I wish we didn’t always have to wait till the last minute to get our income taxes in,” and she said “I’m sorry, but that seems to be what it takes.” “Couldn’t you start doing them a week or two earlier?” and she said “Because you think I’d get them done sooner? It doesn’t work like that. Listen, though. Have we ever been audited? Ever wonder why? But if it’s too much for you, we can get a tax specialist to do them from now on. That’d also mean less work for my father. He works too hard as it is during tax season, and I’d love for him to cut back,” and he said “Nah, it’s okay. We’ve never been late, and I can handle the pressure. And it’s kind of fun down there the last night, with all the tax protesters and their banners and chants. You should come with me next time. A kind of excitement you never see in Baltimore except, I guess, at Ravens games.” Bookcases in their house. She said “I can’t stand our books all over the place and in different bookcases, but not enough of them and each in worse condition than the others and half of them about to collapse from the weight. Let’s get floor-to-ceiling bookcases built into three of the living room walls.” “Hold off a second,” he said. “You’re talking about a job only a master carpenter can do, which’ll cost us your arm and my leg,” and she said “Probably, because I’d want them to look good. But I’d think they’d increase the value of the house by as much as we spent to build them, so in the long run it’d be as if we got them for practically nothing.” He said “Where are we going? I like our house and want to live in it for many more years. And most people don’t give a damn about bookcases or even want them for the ten or so books they own. Especially built-in ones that’d cost plenty to have removed and then to repair the damage to the walls they made.” “Would you object to my getting an estimate?” and he said “Go ahead. Doesn’t cost anything. Get two.” After they were built—“I know you’ll eventually come around to think ‘How did we ever do without them?’”—he said “There was a lot of noise around here for a while and the house was a mess longer than I thought I could take, but the bookcases are beautiful. Matthew was expensive but he did a great job.” “Now we just have one small additional expense,” she said. “I want to hire a graduate student from my department to help me shelve all our books by category and in alphabetical order.” “I can do it with you,” and she said “You have your own work to do, and I don’t know of any grad student who couldn’t use the money.” “How much you thinking of paying them?” and she said “fifteen an hour.” “That’s a lot. Why not get an undergrad?” and she said “Graduate students seem to appreciate books more and don’t handle them as roughly. So, my dear, no more looking all day for a book. You want a particular Bernhard novel, and you haven’t left it in the car, you go to ‘B-E’ on the fiction shelves. You want his memoir, then ‘B-E’ in the bio section. Poetry, its own section. Philosophy, art and travel books, literary criticism, etcetera—maybe even the classics—each separate. My French books, literature and criticism, in both languages, will take up one entire wall and probably continue into my study. For your published books, a row of their own on the top shelf there, with room for more.” He said “I’d rather not show them off like that in such a prominent place. Better, I keep my work in the old bookcase in our bedroom.” A video camera. She wanted them to buy one about twenty years ago and he didn’t want to and now regrets not having any videos of her other than a short part of one a friend gave them that’s around someplace, and of the kids when they were growing up. “You’re being unreasonable again,” she said, and he said “When was the last time? All right. But I just don’t see the point to them. We’ll never watch them after the first couple of times, and to me they’re so self…self…self-something. ‘Look at the mundane things I’m doing.’ ‘Watch me leaving the house holding Maureen by the hand.’ ‘See Martin and Gwen smile for the birdie and kiss for the camera?’ That kind of stuff.” “Even if my parents want to buy us one?” and he said “Like the microwave oven they also offered to buy us. It was generous of them, but I don’t want either gift or think we need them. We have enough things as it is.” “I won’t fight it,” she said. “It isn’t important enough to. Besides, I don’t like to be on camera myself.” “Same here, so what are we arguing about?” “The kids, perhaps. Years from now they might want to know why we don’t have any videos of them and us.” “We have photographs,” he said. “Envelopes and envelopes of them, we also don’t look at. But they take the place of videos, I’d think.” “I still feel you’re making a mistake. We’d use the camera sparingly. Birthdays. Once a summer the two kids in front of The Bubbles at Jordon Pond House. Like that. You don’t ever have to pose for it. Maybe you’ll change your mind on getting one.” Their first minivan. She thought they needed a bigger car for the family and all the things they take to Maine that they don’t send UPS. He said “Doesn’t seem like a bad idea. But I don’t want to own two cars. After we buy the van, we’ll sell the Citation.” “But this way each of us would have a car,” and he said “Insurance for both? Repairs? Getting them tested for emissions every other year? We’ll manage with one.” She looked into buying the van. Visited auto showrooms. Spoke to people they knew who had vans. Consumer Reports and other magazines. Even stopped people at shopping centers who were getting in or out of their vans and asked them what they thought of this particular model. “How is it on gas? Is the middle row as easy as they say to take out?” “This is what I’ve come up with,” she said to him. “The Plymouth Voyager seems to be the one we should buy. It’s been making them the longest, handles like a smaller vehicle, and is the most fuel-efficient and trouble-free. And I know the dealership in the area that offers the lowest price and best warranty. If you’d like, we can buy one this weekend. Any particular color? Though I’ve been warned, for reasons not entirely clear to me—something to do with day and night and other drivers’ visibility—to stay away from
the very dark and very light.” “You choose,” he said. “I’ll go along with anything you say.” “God, you’re being so agreeable about it, and have been from the start,” and he said “Well, while I sat on my fat ass, you did all the research and legwork, so it’s the least I can be. Maybe it’s the new me, though don’t bet on it.” The first house they bought. She said “I think the ideal place for us to live is Mount Washington. It has lots of trees and hills and open spaces and is just a fifteen-minute drive to work. It’s considered liberal politically, has almost an even mix of Jew and Gentile, and many educators and arts and crafts people have homes there. But what’s most important, and no doubt this is so because of some of the things I mentioned, it has the best elementary school in the city. The two disadvantages are that the middle and high school that serve that community aren’t very good. If they stay as bad as the test scores and graduation rates and some people I’ve spoken to say they are, then when Rosalind’s about six months away from entering middle school, we’ll put the house on the market and look for one in this very attractive area I’ve got my eye on in Baltimore County, a few miles north of Mount Washington. It’s less populated and more rustic, is close to 83 so takes only five minutes more to get to work, doesn’t have the same comfortable mix of Jew and Gentile and is almost uniformly white, which I don’t like, so it’s not as liberal politically. But the middle and high schools for it are supposed to be as good as any in the state, and it has a more than adequate elementary school for Maureen’s last three years in one and I hear it’s improving every year, so by the time we move there it could be as good as Mount Washington’s.” His teaching. She encouraged him to apply for a college teaching job that had opened up in Baltimore. He was interviewed, was offered the job but reluctant to give up his apartment and move down there without her. She said he had to have a full-time job if he eventually wanted to get married and have children, not that she was proposing to him, and there were very few well-paying creative writing teaching jobs in New York for writers with little recognition and no advanced degrees, no matter how many books and stories they’ve published. “Take the job. You don’t know how lucky you are they made you the offer. It’s a three-year contract, you can always leave in a year or two, but I wouldn’t advise you to unless it’s for a much better position. You don’t want to get a reputation in academia of breaking a contract for nothing else or something less. And I’ve checked the train schedules between Baltimore and New York. They run almost every hour and the fares aren’t that expensive because they’re subsidized by the government, so we can still be together every weekend. If you can arrange to hold only afternoon classes and none on Friday, we’ll have even longer weekends together, and from time to time I’ll drive or train down to you.” “All right, you convinced me, but what am I going to do not seeing you those four other days?” and she said “You’ll get your teaching work done, to free up your weekends with me, and write more.” St. John. She said at dinner—it was soon after his fall semester began—“When’s your spring break?” He said he didn’t know and she looked at the school calendar on the refrigerator and said “Good; March. Let’s spend a week of it on St. John.” “Where’s that?” and she said “The Caribbean; the Virgin Islands. I read a travel article in the Times about it. Rosalind will be a year and a half then, old enough to fly. For not too much money we can stay in a cabin at a campground on Cinnamon Bay. I’ll show you; the photos of it are gorgeous. But you have to promise you’ll try snorkeling. It’s one of my main reasons to go there; for me to get back to it and for you to start doing it, and I know you’ll love it.” “Sounds okay to me. Late winter in paradise? Seeing a place I’ve never been and learning something new? What could be better?” She arranged everything: flights, ferries, living arrangements. Morning after they got there she rented snorkeling equipment for herself, wanted to rent for him, but he said “Don’t; it’ll be a waste of money. I know I’ll never be able to breathe underwater through that tube.” “Practice in shallow water,” and he said “No. I’ll swallow water even there and choke.” Last day they were there she said “I’m going to make a threat I know I can’t carry out. We’re not leaving this island till you try to snorkel at least once.” He used her mask and tube, caught on to it quickly, snorkeled for about two hours and didn’t want to come out of the water. “All those little fishies; they really do swim in front and alongside of you. What a dope I was not to do it the first day.” “Oh, I’m so pleased you like it. To be honest with you, your sitting on the beach with Rosalind for five days and taking her back to the cabin for naps, gave me more time to snorkel and that made the vacation for me. But you should listen to me more. Sometimes I know better than you what will make you happy.” “From now on,” he said. “Just watch me.” The QE2. “Are you kidding? Who’s got that kind of money?” and she said “You’re not listening. I said we’d only go if we get standby. That’s half the regular fair and practically nothing for Rosalind but the crib rental and all-day nursery. All day, Martin. Think of the time we’d have to loll and laze around and even get some work in. We’ll know a few weeks before the Queen sails if we got it. They told me that at that time of the sailing season, east to west standby is almost a sure thing. By chance we don’t get it, we’ll fly British Airways, which I’ll also make reservations for. They’re run by the same company, so the deal is we won’t lose our deposit for whichever one we don’t use.” Or maybe she said there was some agreement between the two companies and they only had to pay for their plane tickets once they learned they didn’t get on the QE2. He knows she arranged it some way where it wouldn’t cost them any extra money. Anyway, they got it and loved the trip home. Great weather, smooth crossing, they both got work done—she, the galleys of a book she translated; he, the first and second drafts of a short story he wrote by hand in one of the ship’s quieter lounges and which turned into an enormous novel that took four years to write—lots of reading of books from the ship’s library, movies, wine was cheap, good food, and once they worked things out after a furious argument they came on board with—“You made me cry,” she said, “and hate you”; “Funny,” he said, “but I could never say that about you, but I know why you could to me”—more daytime lovemaking than usual. And every morning she was delighted and amused that they got an hour added to the day. Converting the cellar of their second house to a playroom. “You’re planning to break through the walls to make windows? Cover the dirt floor with cement and linoleum? You’re talking big money for something that isn’t necessary. Leave it as it is, just for storage. Each kid already has her own bedroom. What more do they need?” “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it all,” she said. “Contractor; builders. You won’t have to do anything but make sure we’ve enough money in the checking account to cover it. I’m also having the room heated and soundproofed. That way, if the kids want to have sleepovers for ten friends or play loud music downstairs, they can.” “Wouldn’t it be cheaper and simpler for us to limit their sleepovers to three to four girls in their bedrooms, and tell them that as a common courtesy, and also for them a lesson in civility, to keep the music volume relatively low?” and she said “No.” Rosalind’s baby photos. Gwen wanted a professional photographer to take them when Rosalind was around six months old. Six months seems right. She has little hair in the photos and by the time of her first birthday party, which Gwen and he took pictures of, she had hair halfway down her neck. A photography studio must have got their name and address from the hospital Rosalind was born in and mailed them the ad. “We get two large prints of the photo we like best, and six wallet-sized ones, all for forty dollars, and get to keep the contact sheet for ten dollars more. My folks would love to have one of the large prints and we’ll frame the other.” “I hate those professionally done photographs,” he said. “They always look fake, too perfect, with their phony backdrops and lighting, and the babies never look real. And you know they’ll give you the big sales pitch to buy more, and that you won’t be able to fight them off,”
and she said “I promise I’ll hold the line to the least expensive package we sign up for. I’m not a patsy, you know. And it’ll be fun watching her interact with the camera.” It was fun. Rosalind loved the attention and became something of a ham. The photographer got expressions out of her—wily, funny, charming, coquettish, serious, pensive, playful, and others—they never saw before, or not all at one sitting. They hung the framed photo on the walls of their three bedrooms—Baltimore apartment and both houses—and her folks loved the one they gave them. “We should have ordered three large prints,” he said, “for how much more would it have cost us? The third one for my mother, which I also would have got framed, as we did for your parents.” He doesn’t know why they didn’t get a professional photographer for Maureen when she was that age. Money again, probably, but he never suggested it to Gwen and she must just never have thought of it. The osteopath. He had painful back spasms that went on for two weeks. “I don’t want to see our doctor about it. He’ll recommend a specialist, who’ll send me through all sorts of tests. It’ll go away by itself.” She told him about the osteopath who cured a friend’s Bell’s palsy in two visits, while her regular doctor said there wasn’t much he could do and her paralysis wouldn’t start to go away for three months and a complete cure could take a year, and he said “I’m glad for her, but it’s not for me. Acupuncturists, chiropractors, osteopaths, vitamin therapists, Chinese herbalists, macrobiotic dieticians. You name it and I or one of the women I’ve known has done it, and they’re all quacks.” “You’re being stubborn and ridiculous again and saying what you know you don’t believe. But all right; suffer.” After another week of it, but now where he couldn’t even stand or sit up straight, she said “You either go to the osteopath or I drag you to the doctor. I’ve gone online about it. Most people with your problem claim much better and faster success with it than any kind of traditional medicine. And no surgery or medication’s involved, so what do you have to lose? Try it just once?” The osteopath wanted to put him on a couple of machines in his office. “I don’t want anything like that. They’ll take too long and they look like remedial artifacts from a century ago that in no way can help me. I’ll be frank with you. I didn’t want to see you but my wife insisted I come. She did some research on it and what she came up with is that just your working your hands on me like a massage therapist does is the treatment that gets the best results.” The osteopath had him sit on an exam table, got behind him and grabbed his head firmly with both hands—“Don’t be alarmed if you hear a couple of loud cracks”—and gave it two quick twists. “Miracle,” he said to Gwen when he got back to the waiting room. “I can stand up straight and walk normally again and pain’s all gone. And look; I can wrap my arms around you without any part of me hurting,” and he wrapped his arms around her. “How come you know how to fix everything up?” First time they went to France together. It was his idea—he’d wanted to go there with her the June after they first met, but didn’t have the money to. As with the week’s vacation on St. John they had with Rosalind more than two years later, she took care of everything: travel, lodging, itinerary. Big cities like Nice and Marseilles but also small towns and chapels and museums in the south he’d never heard of. Day after they got to France, she took him to an outdoor food stand in Paris that was famous for its onion soup, she said. “The workers and farmers used to warm themselves up at night when the old wholesale food market was here. Now it’s strictly for tourists like us in the day, but it’s still supposed to be the best in the city.” She translated the sign for him. The soup had two prices: one for sitting at a table under a tent and the other for standing at a counter. “Let’s get it standing up,” he said. “It’s the same-sized bowl, you say, for half the price.” “It gets too sloppy, eating it that way,” she said. “And we’re in no rush, and I want to sit after all our walking this morning.” “We can sit on a park bench, after. —All right. But maybe we should get one bowl between us, sitting down, because it seems awfully high for a small bowl of onion soup in not the fanciest surroundings, no matter how good it might be. Then, if we don’t particularly like it, or I don’t, we wouldn’t have ordered two.” “What am I going to do with you?” she said. “If you’re to enjoy our month in France, and I’m to enjoy it with you, you’ll have to be much freer with your cash. Face it; things are more expensive here and the dollar’s down.” “Okay, two soups standing,” and she said “No. You stand and I’ll sit.” “Okay,” he said, “we both sit, but I hope they give us a roll or slice of bread or two with it, because this is our lunch.” “You have to be kidding if you think this is our lunch. What we’ll do, to compromise, though I wish you hadn’t forced me to, is get two bowls at the counter. Then, in about an hour, we’ll go to a sit-down bistro or bar for lunch.” She ordered two soups. “No bread?” and she said “If you’d look you’d see it’s in the soup, so please don’t ask for it.” After two spoonfuls and a chunk of grated cheese on top, he said “I’m being honest here; I really don’t think it’s very good. The cheese, yes. But I’ve tasted much better French onion soup in New York and at places that weren’t even famous for it.” “You’re lying,” she said. “To win the argument or prove me wrong or spoil any pleasure I might have in eating the soup. Or I don’t know why, but there it is. You and I have the same soup from the same tureen and oven. And I’ve had onion soup gratinée about a half-dozen times here—once, when it was still in the old market—and its quality has always been the same: great. You’re just ticked off about the price. Admit this one little thing to me and you’ll make me think I haven’t made a mistake coming to France with you.” “All right,” he said. “Maybe it is good. Maybe it is the price. I’m not completely sure, but it sounds right. You didn’t make a mistake coming to France with me and I’ll try from now on not to be so cheap or penny-pinching or money conscious, or whatever I’m being: tight! But you know, I’ve only had my teaching job a year. Before that—I’m giving you my excuse—it was more than ten years of not having much dough. You can say I haven’t quite adjusted yet to a full-time decent-paying job, and with a two-thousand-plus raise for the next academic year, no less.” “I guess there’s something to what you say,” she said. “Let me think about it. Meanwhile, please, no more chintziness. Trust me, my sweetheart, I’m doing my best, as I did with our airfares and hotels, to keep our expenses down. But I’m not, for both of us, going to do it to the point of ruining our trip.” “Got ya,” he said, “completely. And as you saw, I had some more soup. It’s actually quite good. And the top layer—must be some kind of Swiss—is the best I’ve ever had.” “I’m not going to say anything to that. Let’s just enjoy ourselves.” The farmhouse. The cottage she started renting in Maine ten years ago was up for sale. They wanted to buy it, but that would mean not buying a house in Baltimore. “So what are we going to do next summer?” he said. “I’ll come up with something,” she said. She tried all the rental agents in the area. There were very few houses available for an entire summer and what was available they couldn’t afford. “We’re really screwed,” he said. “I’ve come to love it here and would hate not coming back.” “Don’t worry,” she said. “We still have two weeks left and I haven’t tried everything.” She placed an ad in the local weekly—checked the wording with him first—that said “Writer and translator, husband a university professor and wife trained to be one, with a small child, another baby on the way, four well-behaved scratchless cats of the same Siamese family (mother and brood), would like to rent house in quiet, appealing surroundings in Blue Hill Bay area next summer for two to three months, and, if it’s a good fit for both parties, for as many summers after that.” “Perfect,” he said. “Every word and comma. And honest, intelligent, personable and informative. Add that we’re long-time summer residents here, and the responses should pour in. I know I’d be interested.” They got one call. She was out. “You should probably speak to my wife,” he said. “She handles everything like this,” and the woman said “Why? I’ve got you, and you ca
n tell her what I’ve said. My husband and I thought we were done with all the problems of renting the farmhouse and would use it only when we needed to get away from each other. But your notice intrigued us. For one thing, we feel that intellectuals make the most responsible and congenial tenants. For another, we do a smattering of writing ourselves. Topical articles for the Weekly Packet and the Sedgwick Historical Society, nothing academic or of literary value that could gain us a Pulitzer Prize. Tell me what you two do.” He told her. “Talking to you and hearing your adoring description of your wife, I like you both already and my husband will too. The farmhouse sits atop a hill, is nice and isolated, old, somewhat rundown, has sloping floors you’ll at first have trouble maneuvering, and there’s a bit of a mouse problem, which your cats will take care of in days. But so we don’t get too many complaints about the condition of the house and the noise the wild turkeys make as they strut through the property at dawn, we keep the rent cheap. Come and take a peek, and while you’re here, we’ll all have tea.” Second summer they rented it, Gwen bought a new double bed for them, had all the rooms painted and new screens put in, and a heating stove installed in the living room for the chillier days. “We might as well have rented a luxury house for what all this is costing us,” and she said “Everything we’re adding will make the place cozier for us, even the paint job, which will cover all the smutched mosquitoes on the ceilings and walls.” A few summers later, while Emma and Tom, their landlords, were over for dinner, she asked them if it’d be possible to have a screened-in porch built for next year. “I didn’t talk this over with Martin—you’re about to see his surprise—but we’d go in for half of it. If we stop renting here, and I don’t know when that could ever be. We love the place and the house is now in such great shape, other than for the floors—the porch, like the heating stove and washer and dryer, will be yours.” Emma looked at Tom, he nodded, and she said “It’s all right with us, dear. We’d do anything to keep you on as tenants, and of course you’re talking of a very simple porch.” “What were you thinking of?” he said to Gwen later. “Wasn’t putting in new appliances and stuff enough? Suppose we can’t come back here anymore, for some reason?” and she said “And what could that be? One of us dying? The other, I’d hope, would continue to rent the house with the children till they were grown up. I realize it was unfair of me to spring it on you like that. It just came, and I’m usually not that impulsive. But just picture those magnificent sunsets and far-off storms and rainbows we’d see from the porch without being bothered by bugs. ‘Pre-dinner drinks and hummus and cheese on the porch, anybody?’ Come on; it’d be a terrific addition. And we’ve gotten away all these years with rent that’s half what a comparable place would be, not that we’d ever find another spot so beautiful and private.” Their fifteenth or sixteenth summer there, five years after Tom died, Emma told them that after they leave at the end of August she was going to renovate and winterize the house. New kitchen and bathroom and windows and floors. A furnace to replace the one that conked out thirty years ago. The foundation jacked up to make the house level. “Been thinking of doing it a long time so I can turn it into a year-rental and maybe even get a tax break out of it. I may even live there myself awhile and rent my house for the summer. Would you be interested?” and he said “Afraid not; too close to the road. Do you agree, Gwen?” and she said “Unfortunately, yes.” Later he said to her “What are we going to do now?” and she said “Same thing we did last time. Speak to friends and rental agents. Tack up notices in libraries and bookstores and wherever there’s a bulletin board. And place an ad in the two local weeklies, the Packet and the one that’s for Deer Isle.” I wish we still had the old ad,” he said. “We only have a few weeks, and look how fast it worked,” and she said “One call. But a good one. And what would we use of it: ‘small child and a second on the way’?” She checked the wording with him again. “As usual, it’s perfect,” he said. “though this time maybe add we’ve been dependable renters up here for nearly thirty years and will provide references.” They got a few leads and phone calls. All the houses rented for three to four times what they were paying Emma. “Who knew it’s become the in-place to summer?” he said. “I understand people even see celebrities dining in Blue Hill and sailing in at the yacht club there. Nobody we’d recognize, but celebrities nevertheless. Maybe we should think of a coastal area farther north in Maine or even renting in another state. Vermont,” and she said “Never. This will always be our summer destination. You feel that too, don’t you?” They got a house on Cape Rosier they could afford to rent for five weeks. “What do you want,” he said, “July or August?” and she said “Which month is hotter? But then I’d hate to return home a month before school begins, if we choose July.” During their two summers there—the second for six weeks: last half of July and almost all of August—she spent a lot of time looking for a house to buy or a small piece of land to build a house on. “You know, I hate to be so cold-blooded about it,” she said. “But with the real-estate market crashing, this could be our best chance.” She even got architectural plans for a guesthouse a friend of hers had built on Mount Desert Island and which she said wouldn’t be that expensive. “Like our first cottage, it’s just wood; no insulation or fireplace or cathedral ceiling or cellar or even a crawlspace. It’d be ideal for us, now that the kids are out and who’ll probably only visit us for a week or two, though of course more if they want to. One bedroom and a sleeping loft; bathroom, combined kitchen and dining and living room. And a deck with a shower on it to spray your tootsies before you come in, though we could save on that because I guess it’s for sand and we’ll never be able to afford a place near the shore.” She also got the plans for a shed in the back for one of them to write in. The other can use the bedroom, she said. “It’d be what we like: simple and compact and attractive, and it’d be fun bumping into each other ten times a day. We could even get the same kind of heating stove for it we had in the farmhouse. It worked beautifully. Or I should email Emma, and if she’s not using it in the renovated house and didn’t throw it out, get it and store it in the barn here.” She looked at the houses and land by herself. Maybe twice he went with her. “I know how you hate looking at property,” she said; “it can be a bore. But if something looks promising—and I’m serious about finding a house or land this or next summer—you’ll have to see it,” and he said “When that time comes and the price seems fair to you and you think we should buy it—well, you’ve been right on just about everything else in our lives and I’ve been too cautious, so I’ll go along with anything you say. I’ll even put that in writing.” “Don’t talk silly. And I won’t make any decision like that unless you agree to it.” “In the meantime,” he said, “we have a nice place here for five weeks, and if we like, six weeks next summer, and possibly the summer after that, another week more. And if it ever comes up for sale—they’ve given hints—it won’t come cheap. But by then we might have enough money to buy it, or we’d put up most and maybe your dad could loan us the rest.” Doctors. She got her Baltimore obstetrician through her New York obstetrician. Their Baltimore general practitioner through her Baltimore obstetrician. Their Baltimore dentist and ophthalmologist and optician and the kids’ pediatrician through their Baltimore general practitioner. So what’s he saying? That though he’d been living in Baltimore for two years before she moved down there, she got them all. “I asked Dr. Vogel who does he go to for his teeth? We’ll need a dentist here unless we want to go to my regular one in New York for a checkup and cleaning twice a year and every time a tooth hurts.” “You’re right. I haven’t had my teeth looked at and cleaned for almost two years. And it’s stupid of me, because I now have insurance for it through the school.” “How’d I get Dr. Vogel?” she said. “I asked Dr. Nancy for the G.P. she goes to. I figured, one doctor taking care of another and her husband, who’s also a doctor; he’d have to be good. We need one if we’ll be living mainly in Baltimore for at least the next few years. And you should get a co
mplete physical. When was your last?” and he said “Probably not since I was a kid and my mother took me to Dr. Baselitch in Brooklyn once a year. But I don’t need one. I’m healthy; I’m fine. If I ever do get that sick where I need to see a doctor, I’ll go to yours.” “It’s not as easy as that. He’d never take you if you weren’t his patient. Listen, I don’t want you to argue with me on this. Vogel says he has room for you if you come in for a checkup now. So I’ve made an appointment for you on a day I know you don’t have office hours or teach. Wouldn’t you feel stupid if something terrible happened to your health that could have been averted with an annual checkup?” “Sure, but nothing bad’s going to happen to me for the next thirty years, although I promise to see a doctor before that time’s up.” “I know you’re healthy,” she said, “and you take good care of yourself. But I want to keep you that way, just as you should feel the same about me,” and he said “I do; what do you think? Okay, you’re looking out for me. I appreciate it. Maybe, for the physical after this one, we can have ours on the same day and take Rosalind with us and have lunch out after. Or you and Rosalind can come with me for this one and we’ll have lunch after. What time did you make it for?” Twenty Stories. When she was pregnant with Maureen in Maine, she said “I’ve got the time and I’m not working on anything right now, so I’d like to assemble your next collection from stories that have never been in book form. You can give me as many as you want, but I get to select them and what order they fall in. It has to be my collection. Not the dedication—that should go to Rosalind and whatever we name the new one—but in things like signing off on the cover and even the print. Do you agree to the terms?” and he said “For another book that previously wasn’t there? Sure.” She chose twenty stories from about sixty he gave her to read, most of which had been in magazines or were coming out in them, and also the title: Twenty Stories by Martin Samuels. “There were five others I liked as much as the ones I picked and I would have included them. But twenty’s a better number and more memorable title for a collection; not too many, not too few, and no hyphen.” He couldn’t get a literary agent or publisher interested in the collection for more than three years. “I don’t know why,” he said. “It’s my best and also my favorite, and not just because you put it together, though that helped.” “I don’t feel I chose wrong,” and he said “You didn’t. You also made it my most diverse collection.” Then a small university press accepted it but wanted to cut it down to fifteen stories. She said “Hold out for twenty. They’ll agree to it. Tell them your wife, a professor of literature whose principle concentration is the contemporary short story—you don’t have to say it’s French and that I’m an adjunct assistant professor—worked hard at compiling the collection—use that word. I know I’m being maddeningly dictatorial about all this—not only giving you orders and no say but telling you what to tell them—but this collection’s special to me, so say your marriage is in jeopardy if you remove any of the stories or change the order they’re in. They’ll know you’re being facetious, but it might help persuade them. Also, that you want to see the book cover they have in mind and the design of the book and have the first right of approval of them. I think that’s the legal term.” “That isn’t done ever unless you’re a bigshot literary agent with tremendous clout or a writer making millions for them.” In Maine again, at the farmhouse a few weeks before the book’s publication date, she said a woman she knew in the French department at grad school gave up trying to find a tenure-track teaching position in New York and became a cultural affairs writer for Newsweek and also does occasional book reviews for it. “Evelyne’s specialty, of course, is all things French, as a writer and reviewer. But I saw some time back that she reviewed a new British novel. I want to send her a copy of Twenty Stories. I won’t tell her my part in it. I’m sure she’ll like it—our tastes were remarkably similar—and it might inspire her to review it, but without my suggesting she do it. I think it’s best when they come up with the idea themselves.” “Newsweek magazine? A review of a story collection by an almost complete literary unknown from a small university press in Baton Rouge? No chance,” and she said “What do we have to lose?” “One of my ten author copies, and I’m already down to three,” and she said “So we’ll buy more. Or you’ll ask the press to send it. No, she might not connect the name and will disregard the book. Chances are better if it comes directly from me with a personal note. That I’m teaching, living in Baltimore but still have my old apartment in New York, married to the writer, two children, and okay, this is our newest offspring…something, but I’ll work it out. I’ll send it off today.” The woman called a week later, thanking her for the book, saying it was a fast read and several of the stories were funny, the rape story and what seemed like an AIDS story very disturbing, and that she liked the collection enough to see what she could do to review it for the magazine. “No promises, but keep your fingers crossed. When you’re in New York next and hubby will look after your daughters, let’s you and I get together for a long overdue lunch. I have a lot to tell you and you were always an interested and broad-minded listener.” It was a week later. He’d just come back from the Blue Hill library with his mother. Gwen was on the second floor of the farmhouse. She must have heard the car and went to the room he worked in and raised the window screen and stuck her head outside and shouted “Martin, Martin, I have the most wonderful news. It’s in. We did it. Newsweek—not Evelyne, so even better, for less possible taint of cronyism, but a regular book reviewer—is doing the review. They’re sending up a photographer from Portland this week to photograph you. Oh my darling, I’m so happy for you. I’ll be right down to hug you.” His mother said “Newsweek magazine. You’re really getting up in the world. Your father would have liked that.” The photographer wanted some ideas where to photograph him. “Somehow, backdrops of stunted trees and blueberry fields with rocks sticking out of them don’t do it for me, and to be honest, the house is kind of shabby.” Gwen suggested the shore. “People always look good with the ocean and a beautiful sky behind them.” They drove to it. The photo that ran with the review showed him sitting on a big boulder about ten feet out in the water. “Is there some way you can get out there without soaking your sneakers and socks?” the photographer asked him. “I’ll carry them,” he said, “or just photograph me barefoot. That’d look more normal, surrounded by water,” and Gwen said “No bare feet, sweetheart. You’ll hate me for saying this, but it isn’t dignified for an author’s photo in a major newsweekly.” The photograph made him look good. Thinner, no stomach bulge showing, his hair thicker and darker. He remembers sucking in his stomach when the photographer was snapping pictures, and stiffening his upper arms so they’d look muscular in the short-sleeved polo shirt. “What a fake I am,” he later told Gwen. “Why can’t I let myself look like I look?” “You did fine. And who knows if the photo they use won’t be one where he caught you off-guard, so you’ll get your wish.” That was a while ago. Fifteen years. He does the math in his head. Eighteen. He supposes it could be called a good review. At least positive. Nothing bad said but nothing laudatory. “Fast pace and dialog,” he remembers. And the word “quirky.” Either for several of the stories or some of the writing or maybe even some of the main characters. An appealing and clearly written mix, the reviewer said, of eros, thanatos, deep feeling and snippets of humor. And that this book of interrelated stories could have been called an unchronological novel of self-contained chapters, a form, the reviewer said, that had become prevalent the last ten years. The first printing of fifteen hundred copies sold out in a week because of the review, the editor said. The book went into a second printing, the only book of his that had, of a thousand copies, and is still in print. New Year’s Eves. He thinks it was four years ago near the end of December that she asked him “What do we have planned for New Year’s Eve?” and he said “Nothing; you?” “For a change, let’s go to a really good restaurant. Will you let me take care of it? The kids are probably going to their own parties, bu
t we can eat early if they want to come too.” She made reservations for the two of them at an expensive restaurant. “I don’t know,” he said, looking at the menu. “Why don’t you choose both entrées? Whatever you pick, I know I’ll like. And you know more about wine than I, so you choose that too.” The next year she asked him again and he said “Nothing. You know me, I’d be very content to stay home and uncork a terrific bottle of champagne. And maybe get fancy takeout from Graul’s or Eddie’s or that Persian restaurant you like so much and a movie we both want to see.” She said “Those we can do anytime. How about this year we go to a concert or play? But good seats—I’m sure the kids, like last year, will have their own things to do—and dinner in a restaurant after. We’ll have a glass of champagne there and of course a good red wine. I won’t drink that much, though. I want you to have a really good time, so I’ll drive us home.” “Suits me,” he said. “Then when we get home we can have some more champagne.” Year after that she said “Got any ideas for New Year’s Eve? There are no parties we’ve been invited to, and I doubt I’d want to go to one anyway. They’re always such drags,” and he said “You’ve done such a great job making plans for us the last few years, why don’t you decide? Although, think you’ll be feeling up to going out?” “Right now I do. We’ll see at the time. It’s not always necessary to make reservations. Even at the last minute I’ll find us a place if we don’t stay home,” and he said “No, let’s go out. Let’s have fun.” She chose the restaurant. He sat beside her at the table so he could help feed her. “You don’t have to,” she said. “I can manage,” and he said “I know you can, but I want to.” She studied the menu and said “Food’s a bit pricey. You don’t mind?” and he said “Why would I mind? It’s New Year’s Eve.” “Since you’re the one who’s going to drink,” she said, “you choose the wine. I’ll just have water and maybe tea, and what you don’t drink, we’ll take home. But don’t drink too much, okay? Because you no longer have a fill-in driver.” “If I order the least expensive bottle of red, will you think I’m being cheap?” and she said “I’m sure all the wine is good here, and I never would anyway.” The kids were out of town, though had been with them a few days before and after Christmas. Babies. A month before they married, she said “It’s my optimal fertile period, so let’s try conceiving a baby now.” “So you’re actually going through with the marriage?” and she said “If we’re successful, late September or early October are ideal times for having a child—not too hot—and then for lots of years later, birthday parties.” But he already went into that. She on her shins with her rear end to him and telling him to stay in as long as he can after. Same thing with Maureen? Same. Last two weeks of December. This time Bach. The procreative Partita Number 2 for Unaccompanied Violin. Nursery. She did some research and visited several nurseries in New York and chose one Rosalind would go to for three hours every weekday morning while Gwen was on fellowship and he was on leave for a year. “That’ll give us enough time to get something done,” and he said “Plenty, and then later, to enjoy ourselves and maybe work some more.” Rosalind’s first movie. Gwen said “There’s a movie at the Charles I want to see,” and he said “So go. I’ll stay home with Baby.” She said “Let’s all go together,” and told him how they’d do it. The theater was the only foreign film house in Baltimore. It was still a single-screen then. Rosalind was in a padded baby carrier that was like a small duffel bag with two cloth handles. She was only a few months old and slept through the entire movie. If she woke up, or even stirred but wasn’t going back to sleep immediately, he’d already designated himself as the one to take her to the lobby till she was asleep again, and Gwen would later tell him what he’d missed. The seat next to hers was too narrow to put the carrier lengthwise against the back, so she set it on the floor. “Not too dirty and cold down there?” and she said “I checked. She’ll be all right. And she’s covered.” They bought a medium-sized bag of popcorn, with no butter on it because it made their fingers greasy, and she held it while they watched the movie. “I’ll take that off your hands if you’re tired of holding it,” and she said “It’s okay. You’re always doing things for me. Have some more.” The movie was Brazilian or Argentinean or Chilean—anyway, South American—had the word “case” in its title—A Special Case? An Official Case?—and was a contemporary historical political drama of people—opponents of the government—being picked off the streets by party thugs, shoved into cars and never seen again. He thinks he has that right. The police state finally ends and some of those who disappeared are released, or something good at the end happens. He knows they both thought the movie powerful. Why’d he bring all that up and in such detail? To show them some more together and how she handled so many things for them—well, he already said that, and he for her sometimes too, and the two of them also just having a good time. So what else? All those languages she knew. French she became fluent in as an undergraduate, Italian and German and a little Spanish she studied while going for her Ph.D. Russian and Polish she learned from her parents. He loved hearing her speak one foreign language or another, but usually French, when she was on the phone. When they went to Germany with Rosalind in ’85, he didn’t know that she knew German and he was the one who ordered the food for them in the restaurants and asked directions on the street. He had two years of German in college and brushed up on it before they left for Europe and he also knew some Yiddish from hearing his folks speak a little of it at home. But she corrected his German once when they were in a café in Munich, or maybe it was when he was buying tickets at the modern art museum there, and he said “Wait a minute. You speak German too?” and she said “I had to pass a test in it to get my doctorate—that or Italian, and for some unaccountable reason I was better in German—but my proficiency in it is mostly in reading.” “How come I never knew?” he said. “Now, if it’s possible, I’m even more impressed by you.” Anything else? Someone knocked on his classroom door. He was standing at one end of the long seminar table, about to write some proofreader’s marks on the blackboard and explain what they mean. He said to his students “Now who could that be?” or “Now what can that be?” and he indicated to the student nearest the door to open it, and then said “No, sit; I can do it,” and said loudly in the direction of the door “Come in.”