Exit Ghost

by Philip Roth

  "I would say, on the subject of his profundity, that he's not half as profound as your husband. And that your husband is not a tenth as careerist as Kliman, and doesn't feel like a failure because of it."

  "He doesn't feel like a success either. But basically that's true."

  "Lucky girl."

  "Very lucky. I love my husband very much." All the faultless display of self-assurance had done in under ten minutes was to deepen my desire and make her far and away the biggest problem of my life. The velocity of the attraction allows for no resignation and contains no resignation—there is only room for the greed of desire.

  "Surely you would agree that Kliman, at the least, is a very disagreeable person."

  "I wouldn't agree," she replied.

  "And the secret? The pursuit of the secret? Lonoff's great secret?"

  Without altering her rhythmic stroking of the cat, she replied, "Incest."

  "And how does Kliman know this?"

  "He has documentation. He's been in touch with some people. Beyond that, I don't know."

  "But I was with Lonoff. I met Lonoff. I've read all of Lonoff more than once. This is impossible to believe."

  With just a whisper of superiority, she said, "It's always impossible to believe."

  "It's nonsense," I insisted. "Incest with whom?"

  "A half-sister," Jamie said.

  "Like Lord Byron and Augusta."

  "Not at all like them," she answered—and sharply this time—and proceeded to exhibit her (or Kliman's) erudition on the subject. "Byron and his half-sister barely knew each other as children. They were only lovers when they were adults and she was the mother of three children. The sole similarity is that Lonoff's half-sister was also older. She was from the father's first marriage. The girl's mother died when she was small, the father quickly remarried, and Lonoff was born. She was then three years old. They grew up together. They were raised as brother and sister."

  "Three years old. That means she was born in 1898. She must be gone a long time now."

  "She had children. The youngest son is still alive. He must be eighty or more. In Israel. She left America to live in Palestine after they were discovered. The parents took her there to escape the disgrace. Lonoff stayed behind and set off on his own. He was seventeen by then."

  The story I knew of Lonoff's origins was similar only up to a point. The parents had emigrated from Russia's Jewish Pale to Boston but in time found American society repellently materialistic, and when Lonoff was seventeen, they moved on to pre-Mandate Palestine. It was true that Lonoff had remained behind, but not because he was abandoned as a deviant wrongdoer of a son; he was a fully grown American boy and preferred to become an American-speaking American man rather than a Hebrew-speaking Palestinian Jew. I'd never heard anything about a sister or any other sibling, but then, since he was devoted to preventing his fiction from being speciously misinterpreted as a gloss on his life, Lonoff had never revealed more than the most rudimentary facts of his biography to anyone, except perhaps to his wife, Hope, or to Amy.

  "When did this affair begin?" I asked.

  "He was fourteen."

  "Who told Kliman about it—the son in Israel?"

  "Richard would have told you who told him, if you'd let him," she said. "He'd have told you all of this himself. He would have known the answers to every one of your questions."

  "And told how many besides me? How many besides you?"

  "I don't see what crime he's committing by telling whoever he wants to tell. You wanted me to tell you. That's why you called and came here. Have I now committed a crime? I'm sorry that the thought of an incestuous Lonoff tortures you. It's hard for me to believe that the man who wrote your books would rather he be sanctified."

  "It's a long way from reckless accusation to sanctification. Kliman can't possibly prove anything about intimate events that he claims happened close to one hundred years ago."

  "Richard's not reckless. I told you: he is adventurous. He's drawn to daring ventures. What's wrong with that?"

  Daring ventures. I had gorged on them.

  I said, "Has Kliman spoken to the son in Israel, to Lonoff's nephew?"

  "Several times."

  "And he corroborates the story. He's given him a record of the copulations. Is there a log that young Lonoff kept?"

  "The son denies everything, of course. The last time he and Richard spoke, he threatened to come to the U.S. and initiate a lawsuit should Richard make public any such characterization of his mother."

  "And Kliman maintains that he's lying for the obvious reasons, or that he just doesn't know—what mother would confide such a secret to her son? Look, too little can be known for him to conclude anything about incest. There's the not-so that reveals the so—that's fiction; and then there's the not-so that just isn't so—that's Kliman."

  Jamie promptly stood, sliding the one cat off her lap and dislodging the other from her feet. "I don't see that this conversation is going in a helpful direction. I shouldn't have intervened. I shouldn't have invited you here to try to do Richard's bidding for him. I have sat obediently and answered your questions. I didn't raise a single objection while you took your deposition. I answered you honestly and have been nothing but respectful, if not downright slavish. I'm sorry if anything I've said or how I've said it has rubbed you the wrong way. But without intending to, that's what I've done."

  I stood too—only inches away from her—and said, "It's I who's rubbed you the wrong way. Beginning with the deposition." It was the moment to tell her that the deal was off. But I could only keep her realistically in my thoughts if the deal was on and we went ahead to exchange my house for their apartment. Then she would be living amid my things and I amid hers. Could there have been a more ridiculous motive for maintaining the impetuous arrangement I wanted so badly to break? I was hardly unaware of the flimsiness of the reasons I kept turning up to materially alter my life, and yet all that was happening seemed to be happening despite my awareness and without regard for my condition.

  The phone rang. It was Billy. She listened for a long time before telling him that I happened to be right there. He must then have asked her why I was, because she replied, "He wanted to look at the apartment again. I'm showing him around."

  Yes, Kliman was the lover. She was so used to lying to Billy—to cover her tracks with Kliman—that she'd lied to him now about me. As earlier she'd lied to me on the phone about Kliman. Either that or I was so blinded by her appeal that my mind was riveted to the one thing as it hadn't been for years. Hadn't she lied to her young husband simply because it was easier than going into the truth while I was present and they were miles apart?

  There was nothing Jamie could do or say to which I did not register a disproportionate response, including her casual chitchat with Billy on the phone. I was continuously unstable. There was no repose. I might have been gazing upon young womanhood for the very first time. Or the last. All-enveloping either way.

  I left without daring to touch her. Without daring to touch her face, though it was well within my reach throughout what she had characterized as my deposing her. Without daring to touch the long hair that was within my reach. Without daring to place my hand on her waist. Without daring to say that we'd met once before. Without daring to say whatever words a man mutilated as I was says to a desirable woman forty years his junior that will not leave him covered in shame because he is overcome by temptation for a delight he cannot enjoy and a pleasure that is dead. I was in deep enough with nothing having happened between us but our abrasive little talk about Kliman, Lonoff, and the allegation of incest.

  I was learning at seventy-one what it is to be deranged. Proving that self-discovery wasn't over after all. Proving that the drama that is associated usually with the young as they fully begin to enter life—with adolescents, with young men like the steadfast new captain in The Shadow-Line—can also startle and lay siege to the aged (including the aged resolutely armed against all drama), even as circumstance re
adies them for departure.

  Maybe the most potent discoveries are reserved for last.

  SITUATION: The young husband is away, the sweet, obliging husband who adores her. It's November 2004. She's scared and distraught over the election, over Al Qaeda, over an affair with a college boyfriend who's around and still in love with her, and over "daring ventures" of a kind she married to renounce. She is wearing the soft cashmere sweater, wheat or camel in color, something paler and softer than tan. Wide cuffs hang off her wrists, and loose sleeves connect to the body of the sweater quite low. The cut is reminiscent of a kimono, or better yet, a late-nineteenth-century mens smoking jacket. A thick edge of wide ribbing runs around the neck and all the way to the sweater's bottom edge, creating a collar effect, although there is no actual collar: the sweater lies flat against her. Low on the waist, a tie made of the same broad ribbing is cinched in a careless half-bow. The sweater hangs open from the neck almost to the waist, giving a long, narrow glimpse of her mostly concealed body. Because the sweater is so loosely draped, her body is mostly hidden. But he can tell she is slim—only a thin woman can carry off such roomy clothing successfully. The sweater reminds him of an extremely short bathrobe, and so, although he can see little of her, he has the impression he is in her bedroom and will soon see more. The woman wearing this sweater must be well-off (to afford such an expensive item) and also she must place high value on her physical pleasure (since she has chosen to spend her money on clothing used almost exclusively for lolling about the house).

  To be performed with appropriate pauses, as each will sometimes stop to think before answering the other's question.

  MUSIC: Strauss's Four Last Songs. For the profundity that is achieved not by complexity but by clarity and simplicity. For the purity of the sentiment about death and parting and loss. For the long melodic line spinning out and the female voice soaring and soaring. For the repose and composure and gracefulness and the intense beauty of the soaring. For the ways one is drawn into the tremendous arc of heartbreak. The composer drops all masks and, at the age of eighty-two, stands before you naked. And you dissolve.

  SHE

  I understand why you're coming back to New York, but why did you go away in the first place?

  HE

  Because I began to get a series of death threats in the mail. Postcards with death threats on one side and a picture of the pope on the other. I went to the FBI, and the FBI told me what to do.

  SHE

  Did they ever find the person?

  HE

  No, they never did. But I stayed where I was.

  SHE

  So—screwballs send death threats to writers. We weren't alerted in the MFA program.

  HE

  Well, I'm not the first, even in recent years, who's received death threats. The case of Salman Rushdie is most famous.

  SHE

  That's true. Of course.

  HE

  I don't compare my situation to his. But leaving Salman Rushdie aside, I can't imagine that what happened to me has happened to me alone. You have to ask yourself if the threat is prompted by what the writer writes or if there are people who just become inflamed by certain names and who obey urges that are alien to the rest of us. They may only have to see a photograph in a newspaper to become inflamed. Imagine what can happen should they go ahead and open one of your books. They experience your words as malevolent, as a spell cast over them that they cannot bear. Even civilized people have been known to throw a book they hate across the room. For those less restrained, it's only a small step to loading the pistol. Or they may genuinely loathe what you are, as they perceive what you are—as we know from the motives of the Twin Towers terrorists. Rage is plentiful out there.

  SHE

  Yes, the rage is out there, and it's unrivaled and insane.

  HE

  And it's frightened you silly.

  SHE

  It has. I'm in a state. Just being nervous and afraid all the time—and the shame associated with being like that. At home I've become silent and narcissistic and obsessed with my own safety, and my writing is awful.

  HE

  Were you always frightened of the rage?

  SHE

  No, it's a recent thing. All the trust has gone out of me. You don't merely have your enemies now. The people who are meant to protect you, they've become your enemy. The people who are meant to take care of you, they've become your enemy. It's not Al Qaeda that scares me—it's my own government.

  HE

  Al Qaeda doesn't scare you? You're not afraid of the terrorists?

  SHE

  Yes. But the deeper fear is roused by the people who are supposed to be on my side. There will always be enemies out in the world, but ... in your turning to the FBI, if at a certain point you had started to feel not that it was the FBI who was protecting you from the person who was sending the death threats but that it was the FBI who was endangering you, that would have given a whole new depth to the terror, and that's why I feel as I do now.

  HE

  And you think you won't have these fears up where I live?

  SHE

  I think living there will quell my more reasonable anxieties by taking away the aspect of physical danger, and I think that will calm me down somewhat. I don't think it will get rid of my own rage—my rage at my government—but I can't do anything right now, I feel so on edge. Since I can't even begin to know what to do, I have to go away. May I ask you something? (Politely laughing beforehand at her presumptuousness)

  HE

  Of course.

  SHE

  Do you think you would have gone away anyway if you hadn't gotten the death threats? Do you think at a certain point you would have left anyway?

  HE

  I don't honestly know. I was alone. I was free. My work is portable. I had reached an age where I was no longer looking for certain kinds of involvement.

  SHE

  How old were you when you left?

  HE

  Sixty. Seems quite old to you.

  SHE

  Yes. Yes, it does.

  HE

  How old are your parents?

  SHE

  My mother is sixty-five and my father is sixty-eight.

  HE

  I was just a bit younger than your mother when I left.

  SHE

  That's a different thing from what we're doing now. Billy is not too pleased about the whole thing. Or about what it's revealed about me.

  HE

  Well, he can write there too.

  SHE

  I think it will be good for both of us, and I think he'll see that in time. He's more adaptable to begin with.

  HE

  Is there anything that you wish you weren't leaving behind? What will you miss?

  SHE

  I'll miss some friends. But it's good to be without them for a while.

  HE

  Do you have a lover?

  SHE

  Why do you say that?

  HE

  Because of the way you say you'll miss some friends.

  SHE

  No. Yes.

  HE

  You do. How long have you been married?

  SHE

  Five years. We were young.

  HE

  Does Billy know you have a lover?

  SHE

  No, no he doesn't.

  HE

  Does he know your lover?

  SHE

  He does.

  HE

  What does your lover think about your going away? Does he even know you're going away? Is he angry about it?

  SHE

  He doesn't know yet.

  HE

  You haven't told him?

  SHE

  No.

  HE

  Are you telling the truth?

  SHE

  Yes.

  HE

  Why are you telling the truth?

  SHE

  Something about you seems
trustworthy. I've read you. You're not easily scandalized. I imagine from what I've read of your work that you're a curious person rather than one who makes superficial judgments. I guess there's a pleasure in having a curious person's curiosity fixed on you.

  HE

  Are you trying to make me jealous?

  SHE

  (Laughing) No. Are you jealous?

  HE

  I am.

  SHE

  {A bit startled) Really. Of my lover?

  HE

  Yes.

  SHE

  How could that be?

  HE

  Does it seem so impossible to you?

  SHE

  It seems very strange to me.

  HE

  Truly?

  SHE

  Truly.

  HE

  You don't know how attractive you are.

  SHE

  Why did you come here today?

  HE

  To be alone with you.

  SHE

  I see.

  HE

  Yes, to be alone with you.

  SHE

  Why do you want to be alone with me?

  HE

  Shall I be truthful?

  SHE

  I've been truthful with you.

  HE

  Because it excites me to be alone with you.

  SHE

  Good. I suppose it excites me to be alone with you too. Perhaps for different reasons. We could probably both use a little excitement.

  HE

  Doesn't your lover supply the excitement?

  SHE

  He's been around my life a long time. Being my lover is a relatively recent development. There's nothing new.

  HE

  He was your lover in college.

  SHE

  But then he wasn't for many years. It's going backwards with him. The absorption is long over. It's retrograde now.

  HE

  So your lover is not exciting. And your marriage is not exciting. Did you expect marriage to be exciting?