About Schmidt

by Louis Begley

  He wanted to answer Gil, but only in part; he wasn’t going to say that he didn’t have enough money. Therefore, he told Gil about the house not being really his and how he couldn’t live in it with Charlotte and Jon, once they were married, on those terms, that they were trying to extract from him a show of enthusiasm it wasn’t in his power to give, and about the Thanksgiving lunch with the Riker parents, which had turned into a test by fire.

  Have you told Charlotte that you will give her the house and move out?

  No. I couldn’t explain it very well on the telephone, and I was afraid if I didn’t make myself quite clear she would feel it was some sort of abrupt, hostile action. She will need some money from me. I have to talk to her about that as well. I don’t want her to refuse my money.

  I think she will see your leaving the house, not wanting to try to share it with them, as hostile, however much you explain. Can’t you let up and work out some rules for when they come? After all, it will only be some weekends, when the weather is good. I can’t imagine they will be spending every weekend here, with you.

  Mary and I spent every weekend in this place, even when Martha was still alive, and our summer vacations as well.

  That was you and Mary! You had Charlotte right away, and that was once upon a time, in the Hamptons of the sixties! What a lovely picture in Technicolor. Flaxen-haired children back from pony lessons or the beach, clean and dressed. In the club car, the paterfamilias asleep after the third gin and tonic, mouth open. Suntanned Mom, legs freshly shaved, at the station waiting in the Chevy with the top down—or did she take the Ford station wagon?—worried about the lasagna in the oven and whether it’s that time of the month. The au pair has just enough time to get into the bathtub in the master bathroom and do her toenails. Where is my camera? I’m ready to film! This script will be different. I see Charlotte and Jon on the Colorado River or waist deep in powder snow at Alta—pleasures you and Mary have never known! Meanwhile you’ll take care of the trees and the cracks in the swimming pool.

  Very nice, Gil. Do make that film. The trouble is that it will be even more difficult to clear out of there later, after I have fixed the one or two things that are left to fix. Right now, this is still a summerhouse, even for me, and I have a little snap left in my garters. But that isn’t really the nub. You know how I am: if a corner can be found, I’ll back myself into it, even if no one is coming at me. I just don’t seem to know how to change the way I feel.

  But as yet you haven’t said anything to Charlotte—or Jon. And you really don’t know the parents?

  Never seen them. We don’t bother about the background of our young lawyers or partners either, and we certainly don’t interview the parents to see whether we approve! I believe they’re psychiatrists, both of them—of the analyst kind.

  You approve of Jon. But haven’t you been curious about the father and mother? This is the guy your daughter has been living with for some time!

  Mary was beginning to be tired by the time they got really serious. As a matter of fact, though, I am not curious and I don’t approve! I don’t approve of Jon, and I don’t approve of Charlotte. That’s one more hurt.

  How can you not approve of Charlotte? She is one hundred percent all right. She has always done what you and Mary wanted, and she has done it faultlessly. And that boy is your partner! A partner in the prestigious New York firm of Wood & King. Isn’t that what the Times squib will say? I would think that was eminently respectable.

  On the surface. I hadn’t expected to see Charlotte turn into a smug, overworked yuppie. I’d rather she had a deadend magazine job, if that was what she really enjoyed doing. A job like Mary’s, like your girls’—perhaps that’s why I envy you!

  Schmidtie, you don’t know what you are talking about. The jobs Lisa and Nina have are the only employment they could get. Sure, they like magazines and people who write for magazines. But they can’t write, they can’t edit, and they refuse to learn about production. They are tourists in the magazine landscape, like someone on a safari admiring elephants from a Land Rover; the basic difference is that they are doing their looking from the lowest rung of the research department. What they earn isn’t enough to pay the rent—let alone for the whole-grain cereal for them or the smelly gravel they feed their Abyssinians! I support them and the Orthodox priest’s son. The only alternative would be a rich boyfriend or husband. There is no such animal in sight.

  You can afford it, and so could I, though less well. Never mind, this isn’t some adaptation of an Ibsen play you are about to film. If you want to know about Jon, he is all right but not what I hoped for either—not for my son-in-law or the father of my grandchildren or the guy I want to live with in a house that’s morally my daughter’s.

  Let’s get some more coffee, said Gil. Maybe we could use a brandy. I’m not working this afternoon and this interview isn’t nearly over. What’s the matter with Jon? Isn’t he exactly your kind, the sort of fellow you were at his age—a brilliant young lawyer on the way to fame and fortune?

  I haven’t found either. No, I wasn’t like Jon. Not inside—you, of all people, shouldn’t define me by my profession. I’ll tell you a guilty secret: I was a romantic when I was in college; when we met, more of a romantic than you, and I’ve never stopped being one. Jon never began. It’s a real difference. He has all he needs to be a W & K partner, but there are other things that W & K doesn’t care about and I do. Such as the value to be accorded to material success. Maybe it’s his background, the taboo subject in the office!

  Background? He is the son of two doctors, and you don’t even know them! I am beginning to think their Thanksgiving is something you should thank God for. Go to the lunch graciously, and try to behave yourself once you are there. The parents will fall for your faded charm. That and a home-cooked meal will get you out of your corner.

  I sort of doubt it.

  And then Schmidt no longer cared whether he broke one of Gil’s and his rules.

  Gil, he said, I am lonely and lost. Don’t badger me. I feel like a big enough fool already. Mary wouldn’t have let this happen. I make no sense without her.

  I think we will have that brandy.

  Gil drank his, ordered another one, and told Schmidt, You are right. You are lost—I mean in your feelings—without Mary. You are probably also right about that house. If you have a new place to live, one that you have put together yourself, you can make a less complicated new start. You can motor over to your baby-sitting job. But there is some stuff going on between you and Riker that’s like a subplot I don’t understand. What do you have against him? Am I hearing code words: Psychoanalyst parents? Background? Not romantic? Schmidtie, have you been hinting that the boy is a Jew?

  He is.

  And is that upsetting you, the last of the Grove Street Schmidts is marrying a Jew?

  That’s the least of it.

  Gil finished the second brandy.

  Schmidtie, you’re keeping me in suspense. This is where you are supposed to remember suddenly that you are speaking to a Jew. You should turn red and say, Oops, I don’t mean your kind, you are so different!

  As a matter of fact, you are.

  You mean famous, known to you for forty-three years, and, above all, a sort of artist!

  Isn’t that better?

  Not really. In any case, I don’t want you to be my father-in-law. Call me when you come back from Thanksgiving. If those Riker parents haven’t got you on their couch I may try mine.

  They were the last lunch guests still in the restaurant. Their waiter had disappeared. Gil paid at the bar, interrupting a low-voiced colloquy between the owner and a pensive fat woman in a jersey dress almost the same shade of green as her rubber shoes. Her hands were badly chapped. In one she held a watery whiskey and in the other a filter cigarette. The Black & White ashtray beside her was full of butts—hers by the look of the lipstick smudges. A few stools away, the video store man and a companion Schmidt feared might be a child pornographer were staring
at their draft ales. No conversation there. It occurred to Schmidt that the woman might be the owner’s sister, come to visit from Montauk where she managed a cabins-in-the-dunes sort of motel for low-ranking Mafia types, or his bookkeeper. The former hypothesis would account for their having the same pig-blue eyes with no lashes, the latter for the attention with which he had been listening.

  The light outside was still very strong. Schmidt stooped more than usual, because Gil had draped his arm over his shoulder. This was a notable gesture of solidarity, not to be interfered with.

  Hi, Mr. Schmidt.

  This was Carrie, on the sidewalk, out of uniform, in black wool tights and a red ski parka. The legs were good: long neck and long thin legs. Thin but differentiated—harmonious calves, knees that didn’t draw attention to themselves, and strong, bold thighs rising toward the zone of mystery under the aforesaid unseasonable garment. Surely, the poor child yearned for a warmer climate, but then, why not wear trousers? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Schmidt! Hasn’t your wish been granted? At last, you’ve seen her legs.

  She did not have the look of someone about to cross the street. Did that mean she was waiting for a ride?

  I saw you were paying so I waited to say hi.

  This is Gil Blackman, Carrie. Carrie kindly stops to chat with this old man as he eats his lonely hamburger and has one drink too many.

  Just make sure you come back soon!

  That hoarseness—then it wasn’t just her evening voice. Schmidt wished she would say something more; any words would do. Late night, barroom scales. A muddy Honda Civic with a dented rear fender and a scratch along the door on the driver’s side was parked at the curb. She unlocked it, eased herself into it with the grace of a swan on point, arms tremulously lifted in a gesture of farewell, and started the motor. The wheels turned. As the car was pulling away she lowered the window and called, Have a nice evening! For the second time in the space of five minutes, Schmidt had got his wish.

  Not half bad!

  A sweet child.

  Arm in arm they reached the parking lot.

  Well, here I am.

  Here was a long Jaguar. Gil sighed, raised his eyebrows, and hugged Schmidt. Onset of atavistic sentimentality? Effect of Schmidt’s impending admission to the tribe via Charlotte, though presumably only as a corresponding member? The priest of Midian was blessed with seven daughters. What became of him after the connection with Moses? Did his herds multiply? These were questions to be researched.

  Be of good cheer, Schmidtie. Think grandchildren, ocean and pool, and baby-sitting. And that doesn’t mean you should look right away for a second Corinne, you old goat!

  Schmidt ambled over to his car, wishing Gil hadn’t said that. The memory was distant; he thought it still had the power to move him because he had been so careful not to summon it too frequently, guarding it like a bottle of old brandy, not to be often uncorked. The summer in question had begun badly, with rainy weekends and mosquitoes. Far too early, a hurricane struck. They lost the landing on the pond that Foster had given Martha permission to build and maintain, the sailing dinghy, and a copper beech as old as the house itself. Falling, it blocked the garage, and if it hadn’t been for Schmidt’s car, which he left during the week at the station, they would have had to rent a car or make do with bicycles until Foster’s handyman sawed the huge tree into a supply of logs that lasted two winters or more. It was the first time Mary had obtained the right to work at home during July and August, so they could dispense with day camp and give Charlotte a real season at the beach. But Mary had just settled down with Charlotte and the new au pair, Corinne (Schmidt’s vacation was scheduled for August), when she began to suffer from migraines of a severity she had never experienced before, which left her staggering from nausea and fatigue. The first attack was enough to make her withdraw from the club tennis tournament and stay away from the beach. The glare, the beating of the waves, and the wind all seemed unbearable. The west porch was screened; that’s where she tried to read manuscripts a few hours each day. When she met Schmidt at the station she asked him whether he thought she had a tumor. He was able to reach David Kendall in Westchester that very evening; Kendall in turn called the neurologist. Mrs. Durban, the cleaning lady, agreed to sleep in the house and keep an eye on Charlotte and Corinne, and on Sunday night Schmidt took Mary with him to the city for tests. They saw the neurologist together the following Wednesday. As he had expected, the results were negative. He thought the headaches were the by-product of a mild depression linked to or aggravated by office tensions at Wiggins, the publishing house where Mary worked. Evidently, the depression should be treated, beginning in the fall—when the psychiatric profession returned from Well-fleet. For the time being he would equip her with tranquilizers to take during the day and sleeping pills guaranteed to give her a sound night’s sleep. He advised her to sleep as much as possible. That was a form of psychotherapy in itself, and not the worst one either.

  Although Schmidt was working on a ship mortgage financing that had to be signed up before the end of the month with only a first-year associate—the firm was unusually busy and, with half the lawyers on vacation, understaffed—he took Mary back to the country that afternoon. There was no point in suggesting that she stay in the city until Friday. She had already told him about Charlotte’s worried little voice on the telephone, the manuscript she had forgotten to put in her overnight bag and left on the hall table, and her suspicion that Mrs. Durban was raiding the liquor closet. And there was no possibility of her returning alone. He had seen the hurt look on her face when he ventured a question: Would she prefer to drive his car from the station, or have him order a taxi to meet her? He took it back at once. Of course, he would take the train with her to Bridgehampton and spend the night. He too wanted to see Charlotte. It was stupid not to have thought right away of the early train. He would catch it, and be in time for the meeting at the bank.

  She thanked him and then added: Isn’t this nice for you? You will be able to explain to all your partners and all your friends that you aren’t just overworked. You also have a wife who is sick in the head. They will feel sorry for you.

  That piece of nastiness surprised Schmidt. Nothing of the sort had been a part of their discourse; he didn’t know how he had deserved it. Was she off her rocker more seriously than the neurologist had hinted? He decided it was like one of those moments when a searingly bitter bile comes up, unexpected, from one’s stomach into one’s mouth. Depression could mean loss of self-control. What else was there she was hiding?

  As soon as it was time for Charlotte to say good night he got Mary to go upstairs as well and, while she was getting ready for bed, made her a cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup. When she had finished, he gave her one of the new sedatives. The effect was almost immediate. Mary was lying on her back. Mouth open, she began to snore, as Schmidt’s father used to do, whatever the position or circumstance in which he had happened to fall asleep, and, faithfully, every night while Schmidt had lived at home. Each creak in the floor, each clearing of the throat, could be heard throughout the Grove Street house. In his room, separated from his parents’ by a narrow corridor with a red runner, Schmidt would listen and imagine his mother’s resentful, forever obsequious figure cowering at the edge of the black bed. It was a noise Schmidt had studied. Negligible at first, and almost amusing, like the whirring of a hobbyist’s model airplane or the buzz of a mad fly, one doesn’t mind it because it will end very soon, as soon as the toy engine runs down. Instead, the noise gathers strength, turns fearsomely rowdy and urgent, vastly larger than the placid, self-satisfied body from which it issues, and only a stake driven through the sleeper’s heart will make it stop.

  And this was Mary, who forced herself to stay awake in trains and buses, maintaining that one mustn’t sleep in public! He sat down on the bed. Knowing how embarrassed she would be to know she had snored, he pinched her arm and shook her, then tried turning her on her side. Nothing. A drunken and imp
lacable satyr crouched inside her, playing the same scale over and over on a scandalous pipe.

  He put his hand under the light summer blanket, found the hem of her nightgown, pulled it up, and stroked her thighs. When he tugged and pushed, they parted. She had been shaving them since she was a girl but of late used wax. Her headaches must have made her neglect that chore. The stubble was rough, reminding Schmidt of the first time she had allowed his hand under her skirt. His eyes on Mary’s face, watching for a change of expression, he uncovered her legs. Like her buttocks, the thighs were heavy, as though formed for the saddle. Mary was ashamed of those thighs, but they and her rear were Schmidt’s joy. Still careful not to awaken her, he lifted her knees until she was ready to be mounted, continued stroking the insides of her thighs, moving up gradually, and then opened the lips. She was dry. He licked the middle finger and began a circling motion. There was no quickening in the tempo of the snoring, in fact no change at all, but she began to wet abundantly, and he moved his finger, and later two, easily up and down between the lips and inside her, and then lower. Without warning, pleasure overcame him with such force that he didn’t even have time to put his other hand inside his trousers. When the spasm was over, he placed one of her hands, which had remained crossed over her stomach, where his hand had been, drew the covers back across her body, and turned off the reading lamp. Although the blinds were lowered, the room remained light, the days were so long. Mary’s face was completely still. He wondered whether snoring so loud and so long—he supposed that, like the old man, she would keep it up until the morning—ever damaged the vocal cords. But perhaps they weren’t involved, and all that rasping and sawing took place somewhere behind the nose. He checked her hand. Its position hadn’t changed, but the fingers had a comfortable, lively look about them. Mary claimed that she never touched herself. He wanted her to learn to masturbate, in the hope that it might unlock her, make it easier for her to come instead of being so generous and telling him not to worry, she had really liked it anyway.