“What you just read sounds good,” I said. “The thinking is solid, Lizzy. But do you want to take a break? I can massage your temples, work on that headache, or don’t you have it anymore?”
“In some strange way it might be helping me to concentrate, concentrate away from the headache, I mean. But can you go next door and get me two espressos?”
“Be right back.”
I took the electric lift. When it had descended to the lobby, the door opened and I slid the old-style metal grille sideways and there was Alfonse Padgett. He was holding a suitcase, but its owner was not in tow. First thing, Padgett glanced around the lobby as if to see whether he was under surveillance from Mr. Isherwood or anyone else. The coast was clear, so he blocked my path. He set down the suitcase, roughly grasped me around my waist and clutched my right hand in his left hand, then spun me around inside the lift and shouted, “Yowza! Yowza! Yowza!” When he had me pressed against the back of the lift, he kissed my forehead with a loud smack and said, “I can’t wait for tonight’s lesson, baby.” He stepped back. “I put the fix in with Arnie Moran,” he said. “Alfonse Padgett and Mrs. Lattimore are partnered up tonight. Oh, goody.” He turned around, picked up the suitcase, and decided to take the stairs.
Still Life with Portrait of Marghanita Laski
ELIZABETH’S DESK WAS a Canadian school desk that she had purchased at Webster’s, a used-furniture warehouse at the foot of Agricola Street; we had borrowed the hotel’s flatbed truck to haul it to our apartment. To the left of her desk was a bookcase with two shelves containing scholarly monographs about Marghanita Laski, a few in French, which Elizabeth read fluently. On the wall to the left was a framed photograph of Lizzy and me standing in front of Cyrano’s Last Night on our wedding day. Marie Ligget had taken the picture with Elizabeth’s camera. On the wall directly in front of her desk was a framed author’s photograph from the back of one of Marghanita Laski’s books. In this black-and-white portrait she appears to be perhaps fifty. She is wearing a round pendant at the neck of a dark blouse and is looking straight at the camera—serious expression, kind eyes, sensual mouth, dark hair pulled back and combed close to her head, very precise about her person, composed. Anyway, when Elizabeth looked up from her work, there Marghanita Laski was. On the wall to the right of the desk was a third framed photograph, this one of her mother and father in front of their small house in Hay-on-Wye. On the day Elizabeth died, on the left-hand side of her desk was her well-thumbed copy of The Victorian Chaise-Longue, held open by a glass paperweight to pages 66–67. I have that very copy right here, with a paragraph on page 66 underlined, with an exclamation point in the left margin:
“O Father of mercies and God of all comfort,” prayed Mr. Endworthy, “our only help—” and Melanie closed her eyes and laid her hands together, fingers to fingers, devoting her whole being to submission and repentance, hearing not the Vicar’s words but the sound of his words, trying to drown utterly in submission to divine omnipotence, knowing the waiting and wondering, the waiting and wondering for it to happen, hearing Mr. Endworthy conclude, “—through the merits and meditation of Jesus Christ, thine only Son, our Lord and Saviour. Amen,” hearing him shuffle up from his knees, and knowing that to keep her eyes shut or to open them again was equally useless.
When Elizabeth died, she had left a piece of paper in the typewriter with only one phrase composed on it, “for a time quite possibly a mild opium smoker,” but I have no idea to whom that referred. Was it Marghanita Laski herself, one of her fictional characters, or someone in Laski’s circle of friends or acquaintances?
Some evening I’ll have to ask Elizabeth about “for a time quite possibly a mild opium smoker.”
I Forgot Where I Parked My Truck
With Dr. Nissensen, December 12, 1972:
Today’s session moved in fits and starts. Well into it, Dr. Nissensen said, “Sam, I’ve been reading—that is, I’ve returned to reading—A Grief Observed, written, as you well know, by C. S. Lewis.”
“I’m guessing that today there’s one passage in particular—”
Dr. Nissensen read: “‘All reality is iconoclastic. The earthly beloved, even in this life, incessantly triumphs over your mere idea of her. And you want her to; you want her with all her resistances, all her faults, all her unexpectedness. That is, in her foursquare and independent reality. And this, not any image or memory, is what we are to love still; after she is dead.’”
I asked him to read the passage again, which he did. “If I remember right,” I said, “Lewis goes on to compare his beloved—his dead wife—compares her to God. Well, he would, wouldn’t he, being so self-dramatizing and sanctimonious. But he goes on to say that loving his wife is like loving God, in the sense that you can’t see Him.”
“That’s a harsh judgment, Sam.”
“Too bad Lewis’s wife didn’t line books up on a beach at night; he would’ve written a different book. Elizabeth is not invisible to me. And I don’t need metaphor to try and elevate her to a deity. She is just Elizabeth. She made good soups and stews. She was writing a book. She used pencils.”
“The paragraph was meant to begin a conversation, not end one,” Nissensen said.
“You chose the wrong paragraph, then. I’ll grant C. S. Lewis one thing, however. Near the end of his book, he says, ‘The best is perhaps what we understand least.’”
“Do you find our trying to understand your seeing Elizabeth unproductive, then?”
“I’m strongly suggesting you stop using goddamn literature to try and find a way to talk about things. It’s failing us.”
He wrote something in his notebook.
“Last night I saw Elizabeth at about nine o’clock. It was freezing out. There was a nasty wind. She had a heavy sweater on. And a new thing happened. Well, new for me at least. I heard her reading a book. She was mouthing the words, mumbling them, more or less, and running her finger along the page in a way I never knew her to read. I couldn’t make out any words.”
“Had you been able to,” Nissensen said, “it might’ve led to your recognizing which book she was reading.”
“Later, I thought of that.”
“How much later?”
“Are you asking if I slept last night?”
“Did you sleep last night?”
“No.”
“I’m sure there’s not a typical night of insomnia, Sam, but would you mind describing last night?”
“How I kill time?”
“How you use the hours. Do you work, for instance? Do you listen to the radio?”
“Have you ever heard of The Sleepless Night of the Litigant?”
“Interesting phrase, or title. But no, I haven’t.”
“The movie director—”
“Mr. Istvakson. The, if I remember correctly, ‘hideous Norwegian shit.’”
“Actually, I’d like to go to Norway. I’d like to see the fjords. Birds flying around the fjords. Anyway, he sent me a gift. It’s a print of an old Dutch engraving called The Sleepless Night of the Litigant. It shows a man tormented by spirits and demons. They won’t let him sleep. Istvakson, through his assistant—”
“Miss Svetgartot, I believe.”
“—through Miss Svetgartot, tried to convince me he couldn’t sleep because I was keeping some indispensable knowledge of Elizabeth’s and my life together from him. Which he claims he needs to make his movie. Anyway, I don’t know what lawsuit the insomniac in the Dutch engraving is a party to. He may be the litigant who is bringing the lawsuit or the one being litigated against. I don’t know which. All I know is he can’t sleep.”
“Demons won’t let him.”
“Right,” I said.
“Mr. Istvakson implies that he identifies with the man in the engraving. He wants you to—what?—look at the engraving and see his own suffering. To see that you, Sam Lattimore, are the demon keeping him awake nights.”
“Have you ever had a client tell you that talking to you is like being on one of those
exercise wheels in a hamster cage?”
“Spinning your wheels. Is that how you feel this conversation is going, Sam?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is that why you changed my tire?”
“What?”
“Ten minutes or so before your appointment, I was adjusting the window shades, and when I looked out, I saw that you’d opened the trunk of my car, taken out the jack, and were changing a flat tire. I noticed the flat tire this morning and was going to change it myself, but I had to review some things for our session.”
“No good deed goes unpunished, huh?”
“You consider the fact I mentioned that you changed my tire a punishment.”
“The fact that you brought it up.”
“Perhaps you feel I’m incompetent, in the sense of dealing with practical things. The practicalities of daily life, Sam. Like changing a tire. That I am unequal to the task of understanding the practical nature of things. Of solving practical problems. However, I don’t see your interactions with Elizabeth falling into the category of the practical.”
“I saw a flat tire. I fixed it.”
“What do you think we might be circling around today, Sam?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Silence for maybe five minutes. This time it felt excruciating. I closed my eyes and envisioned choking Alfonse Padgett with my own two hands—a hands-on practical measure.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Dr. Nissensen said.
“Try forty-five dollars an hour.”
“Fifty minutes, actually.”
“I forgot where I parked my truck.”
“This is happening more frequently.” Silence. “I’m afraid our time is almost up.”
“No, I have to end on a clear note. I have to end today with some conviction. As for the title of Lewis’s book, Elizabeth is not ‘a grief observed.’ On the beach at night I don’t observe an emotion. I see my wife.”
A silence of a full two minutes at least.
Dr. Nissensen said, “Just out of curiosity, did you—generally speaking, were you able to fall asleep after sexual intercourse with Elizabeth?”
“Seldom. But Elizabeth slept. She slept the sleep of angels, really. Always. She never had any trouble sleeping. No demons for her. Me, I’d stay up staring at the ceiling, mostly. Or I’d get up and make coffee and read something. I’d listen to the shortwave. Sometimes, not all that often, I’d go down and sit in the lobby.”
“We have to stop for today, Sam. And I’m sorry I introduced this just now, so late in our session. But I’m making a note, and if you want, I’d like to begin with it next time. I’ve noticed that you’ve often mentioned that, after conversing with Elizabeth on the beach, you cannot sleep. I am just acknowledging the fact that the conversations you are having with her—as you describe them—have the effect of a commensurate intimacy, of sexual intercourse with Elizabeth. It’s possibly true, possibly not true. But I’d like to explore this.”
The Violation (Second Lindy Lesson)
I CARRIED THE INCIDENT with Alfonse Padgett, when he grabbed me in the lift, all day. The second lindy lesson was that very evening, of course. The incident had unnerved me. I should have mentioned it to Elizabeth immediately. Considering this in retrospect, during sleepless nights, I think it was wrong not to have told her. I suppose I hadn’t wanted to ruin her lindy lesson. She was working so hard, upward of ten hours a day some days, on her dissertation. Anyway, I kept the incident to myself. Had I told her, would it have affected things differently? That question again. It never goes away. There’s no end to it.
That evening, Elizabeth again was excited about the lesson. “You noticed I bought a Boswell Sisters album,” she said. “I’ve been practicing, too. With the broom. The broom leads. He’s not so good. I may have to switch to the mop.”
“In this case, switching partners sounds smart.”
Elizabeth had just slipped on her black dress; apparently she had decided this was her lindy outfit. Same pearl necklace, too. Same shoes. “You are the most beautiful woman imaginable,” I said.
“Why, thank you. I hope you’re not just overcompensating for that dinner you just made.”
“You’re the most beautiful woman. I overcooked the omelets because I was distracted. You were typing with just your silk robe on.”
“Know what? I was typing. But I was distracted, too. I was thinking about you—about us. I got all wet. I think Marghanita was displeased with me. I’m sure I’ll have to erase a lot of sentences when I read them tomorrow.”
“I wish you were in your robe now.”
“Well, I’m in my dress, for lesson number two in the intermediate lindy.” She spun around once. “And Samuel, listen, I ran into Arnie Moran at the record store. I spoke to him about the creep bellman. I asked to be paired up with someone—anyone—else.”
“I’m so happy you did. What’d he say?”
“He said he’d do his best. I doubt he’s a gentleman, but at least he acted gentlemanly about it.”
It didn’t take a lot of brains to determine that Alfonse Padgett thought he was living in a movie. Maybe a B movie, a noir starring Broderick Crawford or Robert Mitchum. It wasn’t just his preening self-regard or the way he presented himself (“Not a hair out of place on his head,” Elizabeth had said), but his way of talking. I often recoiled from Padgett’s show-off pushy lingo. I felt he was acting like an actor. For instance, one late afternoon, when Mr. Isherwood said, “Mr. Padgett, have you seen your colleague bellman Tumbridge?” Padgett answered, “Not lately, but I have ears all over this hotel. I can track him down.” “Not necessary,” Mr. Isherwood replied, shaking his head back and forth, incredulous at how Padgett talked.
On another occasion, when a beautiful, long-legged woman accompanied her husband and two children into the lobby, Padgett said to bellman Tumbridge, “I wouldn’t mind those gams putting my neck in a vise.” Tumbridge just stared at him. I’m not entirely sure he got Padgett’s meaning.
That evening, I tried again to stay away from the ballroom. I’d sat down to work on my new assignment for Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons. But I found myself heading for the lift less than fifteen minutes after the lesson was scheduled to start. I began to feel it was wrong of me not to take the lessons. And besides, since Elizabeth had addressed the situation of “the creep bellman” with Arnie Moran, I ran the risk of her thinking I felt she couldn’t handle it on her own. Still, already rehearsing apologies, there I was, hurrying to the ballroom.
When I got there, I heard Alfonse Padgett’s voice. He was shouting, “You’re just pissed off frustrated ’cause your husband can’t lead!” To the left of the grandstand, I saw Elizabeth and Padgett in a standoff, about three feet apart. The other lindy students were staring at them, dumbfounded. Arnie Moran, on the bandstand, said through his microphone, “Now, now, children.”
I took a few steps closer. Elizabeth turned to Moran and said, “I asked you to pair me up with someone else.”
“I had the fix in, Arnie!” Padgett said loudly. There was that language again.
“Fix?” Elizabeth said to Moran. “Did he pay you so he could be my dance partner or something?”
Moran effected a posture of complete innocence, holding his arms up and palms outward, as if under arrest. “Mr. Winston—Mr. Rick Winston,” Moran said, “would you kindly partner with Mrs. Lattimore?”
Mr. Winston, a trim fellow about age sixty, wearing light brown trousers and a tweed sports jacket, beige shirt buttoned to the neck and brown bespoke shoes, said, “Delighted.”
Elizabeth opened her arms to Mr. Winston, a wonderful gesture of dismissal to Padgett. At which point Padgett tapped his right-front trouser pocket, a preposterous gesture, and seemed to recite his lines: “Winston, the derringer is the miniature poodle of guns, with rabies.”
“I served in the infantry in France,” Mr. Winston said. “You’re a flea.”
Even Arnie Moran laughed at this. Most of t
he others began to leave the ballroom. They wanted nothing to do with this nonsense. Moran said, “No, please, let’s just get back to business, please!” The students hesitated, then all but two returned for the lesson. Alfonse Padgett, humiliated, saw me in the entranceway. He could have left by the back exit, but instead walked over and shoved me out of the way. Arnie Moran put the Boswell Sisters on the jukebox.
Elizabeth hurried over, kissed me deeply, and said, “Right after the lesson, let’s go to Cyrano’s.” I waited in the lobby. At about eight forty-five, our coats and scarves on, we walked the five blocks to the café, found a window-side table, and ordered espressos. Elizabeth took my hands in hers and said, “Darling, I am really, really enjoying learning this dance step, and I’m not going to let those two bastards ruin it for me. I paid my fee and now the creep bellman knows what’s what.”
“He accosted me this morning in the lift,” I said. “He spun me like the lindy.”
“We have got to get him sacked. There are grounds for it. Really, there are. We’ll make a list of grievances.”
We had our coffees and sat and talked awhile. When we got back to our apartment, we saw that the chaise longue had been torn, two long shredded furrows, the white stuffing billowing out. We had house detective Derek Budnick up in our room in five minutes. This wasn’t a movie.
Think Gently on Libraries
AT THE COTTAGE, I thought about having my telephone service stopped. I really only wanted to speak with Philip and Cynthia, and they were practically within shouting distance. And with Elizabeth, of course. Instead, I simply kept the phone off the hook, sometimes for whole days.
“I think your phone is not working,” Lily Svetgartot said when I opened the door at ten o’clock on a cold, clear morning. I’d been reading Elizabeth’s notebooks for The Preoccupations of Marghanita Laski. I wanted to review things in case her dissertation came up in conversation on the beach. “Do you have coffee?”
Next Life Might Be Kinder Page 7
