by Louis Begley
He swam laps in the pool and changed. Then he went into the kitchen, feeling a great hunger. No one was there; presumably, Corinne was still putting Charlotte to bed or had gone straight to her room, which was at the other end of the pantry. The glass of bourbon he poured for himself warmed him. Standing at the stove, he ate the rest of Mary’s soup and the cheese and was about to put the plates and the casserole in the dishwasher when she stopped him. Monsieur shouldn’t wash dishes, she said to him, that’s my work.
He looked at her with curiosity. The girl was barefoot. That’s why he hadn’t heard her come in; quite possibly these were the first words she had ever addressed to him directly. He had been getting home late since the beginning of June, when she arrived, and on weekends she had seemed more timid than her predecessors. In any case, she had hardly any accent in English, and, according to Mary, her French was very pure. Perhaps being half Indochinese accounted for her shyness. He couldn’t remember what Mary had said about her father’s having been an official in the French administration in one of those places of which he, Schmidt, was good and sick: Vietnam, Cambodia, or most probably Laos. Whichever it was, he had married a local woman of good family and brought her and the child back to France quite late, some years after Dien Bien Phu. Then he died.
I don’t mind at all cleaning up after myself, he replied. In fact, I think one should.
Please. Monsieur should be in the salon.
He made himself another bourbon—on second thought, took the bottle and the ice bucket—and avoiding the living room, went into the library. It was his and Mary’s favorite room, especially pleasant in the summer, when all the windows were open. Seeing that she had turned on the lamps, he decided Corinne was a pearl: apparently good with Charlotte, beautiful, silent, and thoughtful about the house. Installed on the sofa, he closed his eyes. Should he in fact sleep here? Or perhaps he could take the big guest room and tell Mary that he had gone there so as not to disturb her. Sleeping through her snoring was out of the question, and so, it seemed to him, was telling her that she snored if he wanted her to follow the neurologist’s orders.
Excuse me, Monsieur.
She was there, with a small glass tray of egg canapés. He noted that she had changed: she was wearing sandals and a white cotton dress instead of blue jeans.
I thought perhaps Monsieur liked these. He hasn’t had dinner.
I do. Thank you.
She put the tray before him, and spoke again. I wonder if Monsieur would allow me to sit with him.
Of course.
Do you mind if I put on some music? I like Mozart very much.
She pronounced the name without the t.
Please play whatever you like most.
She had evidently been listening to their stereo because she picked out the record without hesitation. It was the horn concerto. He told her he was fond of it as well.
Thank you.
She sat down on the sofa beside him. There was a strong smell of almonds. She saw him sniff and said it was her hand cream. Some people think that Asian skin has an unpleasant odor.
What a dreadful thing to say and what nonsense!
I have made you angry. But it’s something we worry about.
I’m not angry at all. Anyway, it’s very nice smelling cream.
She smiled at him and sniffed her own arm.
Was this girl a flirt? If she was, there would never be a better opportunity. He mustn’t miss it. Then, wondering whether he should, he asked would she like some of his bourbon or wine. You can try what’s in my glass, he told her. If it tastes good, I will get you a glass of your own.
She took a sip, said it was strong but she liked the sweet taste, brought a tumbler from the kitchen, and held it out to him to fill.
Now let’s listen to the record, he told her.
She nodded, all at once looking worried.
It’s all right. You haven’t disturbed me. We can listen and also speak from time to time.
She gave him a grateful smile. He had guessed right. She was flirting with him. Reaching for a canapé, he moved slightly nearer to her.
Excellent! My favorite food to go with whiskey.
He put his hand, palm down, between them on the sofa. There were two canapés left on the tray. Why don’t we finish them? he asked. His voice had acquired an unnatural timbre. Perhaps she wouldn’t notice.
She nodded again.
He returned his hand to its place on the sofa. A moment later, when he glanced in its direction, he saw that hers was lying beside it, a tiny space away. What was the next step?
Would you like to look at a picture book while we listen to music? he asked her.
Oh yes. Which one?
You choose.
Here too she knew what she liked. She took from the shelf, without hesitation, an album of photographs of the Grand Canyon.
Schmidt laughed. It’s a fine book to look at together. I am ashamed that I’ve never been to that place. Perhaps we should take Charlotte.
The book was very large. She opened it so that it lay across both her knees and his, and she began to turn pages. The dress was sleeveless. Schmidt took a gulp of the bourbon; he was beginning to be unable to think of anything except the warmth and almond fragrance of that arm. The photograph she was looking at was of the edge of the gorge. She pointed with her fingers at the tiny figures of tourists on mules, and asked, Would Monsieur allow me to come along?
I would insist on it, Corinne. You should stop saying to me, Would Monsieur this, and Monsieur that. Please call me Schmidtie, just like everybody else does.
I don’t dare.
Don’t worry about it. It’s part of being in America.
He moved his arm so it was against hers, skin to skin. She gave him a look, and he thought she might be blushing, but he couldn’t be sure.
What was he doing? Was it possible that he was making a pass at the au pair and that the au pair would go along with it? Disaster was certain. It was like sleeping with your secretary, a brutish act first consummated in the office, on the floor if there is no couch, later God knows where. Her studio apartment in Jackson Heights. At night, you leave just before she does, and catch a cab a couple of blocks away from the office, so that other people who worked late and are waiting for cabs won’t see you. That hideous story about Coulter’s wife finding a used condom in the pocket of his pants when she was sending his suit to be cleaned: he was sinking to the level of Coulter.
May I speak to you from time to time? she asked. I feel so timid.
The girl was only teasing. He moved his arm away Of course, he told her, always. Charlotte is crazy about you, and Mary and I are very happy that we found you. Or that you found us.
His voice had returned to normal. In a moment it would be possible to close that book, get up from the sofa, and go to bed in the guest room. Perhaps he would take another bourbon upstairs with him.
You were so kind to Madame today. I watched you. You are kind to everybody. But I think now you are mad at me.
I’m not. How could I be? What’s there to be mad about?
Because I love you and you are worried that Madame will find out. But she won’t. Please don’t worry, you don’t have to.
He thought he was going to laugh at her, but she raised her face to his with such clear meaning that instead he kissed her. At once, those almond arms were around his neck. Somehow she had slithered into his lap and glued her body to his. He realized that she had taken over the kiss, pressing so hard that he thought all of her tongue was swallowed in his mouth. Some time passed, and, without speaking, for that kiss was not to be interrupted, she tugged at his wrist and led him to her room.
I am a fallen man, he whispered to her.
A couple of weeks later, Mary decided to accompany one of her authors on the West Coast leg of his publicity tour. His book was unexpectedly climbing to the top of the best-seller list. The migraines had stopped—excitement over a big commercial success, rest, the pills, or all three working
in combination. Who was to say? They didn’t spend much time on the question. It was the beginning of August. Mary told him he should take his vacation anyway and not change his plans in order to spend the holiday with her. The way it had worked out, she could leave without worrying whether Corinne and Charlotte, alone in Bridgehampton, would be able to cope.
Before Mary left for the Coast, he had continued to go up to bed with her, every evening, right after their early dinner. The effect of the pills remained quick, but Mary did not want to postpone taking the sedative until they made love. She was afraid of any pause between lying down and falling asleep.
Let’s do it while I am dozing off, she told him, I like it that way, it’s cozy. I think I sleep better. I don’t mind if you read afterward. You can turn the light on or go downstairs.
Schmidt liked it too. He would turn her on her side, press against the cold bottom, find his way, and lose himself in pleasure. Was this not the true magic flute? Thrill bordering on pain, modulated, rising and falling, uninterrupted until the climax. Mercifully, the snoring had abated. He would wipe himself on the top sheet, to leave his mark for Mary, and, without washing, tiptoe down the stairs.
I go to my fairy temptress as I am, he would say to himself. Time has stopped.
That Charlotte would not hear him moving about, he was quite sure. The stair carpet was thick, and he was very careful. Terror lay in the thought that she might come to Corinne’s room because a bad dream had awakened her.
Corinne told him not to worry. She always knocks. I will ask her to wait and take her upstairs. You must lie very still, under my spell.
Terror lay also in Corinne’s becoming pregnant. She used no precautions and cried the one time he withdrew before the end. He supposed that ejaculating first in Mary reduced the risk for Corinne, but over twelve months—that’s how long she was to stay with them—the odds had to be against them.
If that happens, I will go away, she told him. You will never hear from me again.
Toward the end of Mary’s absence, they took Charlotte to Montauk, to eat lobsters in a restaurant on the pier. On the way home, she fell asleep in the car and then was too excited to go to sleep right away There was a new moon. She asked if she could wish on shooting stars. The sky was crisscrossed by them. Schmidt felt tired from the drive; he had drunk most of the bottle of a German white wine. He shrugged his shoulders and said she and Corinne could do as they wished; he was going upstairs. That was an additional treat for Charlotte. The wind had died completely. Under the open windows, the girls were giggling. He listened for their whispers and, from across the pond, the thud of the surf. The screen door slammed. That would be Corinne, about to put the child to bed. She must have read to her. It had taken a long time. Finally, the bedroom door opened. He held out his arms for her and felt that she was already naked.
Wait, she whispered, I have to put a towel under me. And then, Right away, please, now!
We shouldn’t, he whispered back, this will make a mess in the bed, but she put her hand on him, and he found he couldn’t refuse.
It was the blood on the mattress cover, which Corinne thought she had scrubbed off, that Mrs. Durban found and brought to Mary’s attention the morning after her return, while Schmidt was at the club, playing singles with the knee surgeon who had won the previous year’s tournament.
Charlotte is in her room, having a tantrum, because I have just put Corinne and her suitcase on the train for New York, Mary told Schmidt when he came home. If you have to screw some bitch in my house, at least don’t leave stains on my bed.
You are quite right, he replied, and went to the pool to swim.
Later in the day, Mary fired Mrs. Durban.
The woman is a drunk, she told Schmidt. It’s practically Labor Day. I will make do with the Poles until I find someone with proper qualifications.
That evening, after he had given Charlotte dinner and gotten her to go to sleep—Mary had remained in the bedroom with the door closed—Schmidt went out on the back porch to smoke. Should he sleep in the guest room? What could he say to Mary? He wondered whether Corinne would leave a message at his office. It might be best if she didn’t. In that case there would be no way he could find her.
He heard footsteps. It was Mary.
It’s chilly out here, she told him. Don’t you think you should come to bed?
IV
THE CLUB where Schmidt might ordinarily have whiled away the interval between his arrival in the city and lunch was closed, its members unlikely to eat the Thanksgiving meal away from their homes or homes of relatives or friends. Unless, of course, they had no family or company or friends. In that case, Schmidt imagined they preferred to bury the shameful secret and shun public places, emerging from their dwellings only at the hour when the lunch or dinner that their self-esteem told them they should have attended would normally be over, having taken care they were appropriately dressed for the occasion. And if they lived in a building where the doorman and elevator men noted each coming and going, and therefore would know, with derisive precision, that Mr. or Mrs. So-and-So was in town and in normal health, and yet had had no visitors and had not gone out to a party? Did those poor souls save their dignity by repairing to Chinese restaurants located somewhere in the boroughs, places where their presence, so puzzling to themselves, aroused neither curiosity nor pity in their boisterous fellow diners? Or was it easier in such a case to find an early show in a midtown Broadway movie theater, thereby adding to anonymity the protection of darkness? What would Schmidt have done, if he were still living in his apartment and had chosen not to go to the country, where on the whole it’s easier to hide, and had not been the object of the solicitude of his daughter, of the parents of the man resolved to make an honest woman of her, and, by golly, even of his former presiding partner?
The problem’s beautiful complexity procured for Schmidt a moment of elation and hastened his progress toward the Harvard Club, a temple of gregariousness located but a few blocks from where the bus had deposited him. Memories of bulletins received in the past, touting the holiday menu, made him confident it was open, the membership apparently exempt from the scourge of false pride. He was no longer a member there, hadn’t been for years, but that was no reason why he shouldn’t, for old times’ sake, visit the men’s room, and perhaps even enjoy a short snooze in the library. The hall porter was new to Schmidt or had undergone a face-lift. He shook the man’s hand and walked on to the great hall. Where once the only sound had been that of dice rattled in leather cups or of a bell furiously summoning a waiter to bring another martini to a grim-faced player bent over the backgammon board, gamboling little girls in pastel tights and their doting relations were in full cry. Like a blind man without a cane, Schmidt made his way through the Howard Johnson merrymaking to the beery smell of the urinals, the soap, and the cheap black combs in jars of disinfectant, one of which he washed and dried and then passed through his hair. Ten thousand hungover men of Harvard had peered at themselves in this full-length mirror. It was not one that flattered: he looked worse than even the sour person wearing his own clothes he had glimpsed returning his own stare from a Fifth Avenue store window. The way his recent loss of weight had shrunk his cheeks, and the set of his lips, closed from habit over uneven, discolored, cigar smoker’s teeth, and promising nothing, seemed especially regrettable. He practiced lifting their corners. The two-hour bus ride had introduced a disorder in his dress. He opened his belt, unbuttoned the fly, shook his trousers and smoothed his shirttails, rebut-toned and rebelted himself, and centered his necktie. The tweed suit had been his father’s. It never wrinkled. His brogues gleamed.
There’s enough fancy stuff on me to lodge and feed a homeless family for a month, thought Schmidt. Let’s leave this place and get the show on the road to the Rikers’!
He had guessed wrong. The building on East 57th Street where they lived wasn’t some tawdry white-brick job bustling with tenants in sweat clothes. An old Irish fellow at the entrance pointed
to the end of the dimly lit lobby, from where his twin, after a series of false starts, conveyed Schmidt to the top floor. Walk straight in, he said. In fact, the elevator door opened directly on the apartment’s rectangular foyer, which had white walls. On them, lit by ceiling spots, hung prints of cavernous buildings. Although the Irish twin, shifting from foot to foot, seemed determined not to leave until he had made sure that this was a guest, who would move on toward the noise of the party after blowing his nose, and not a respectable-looking burglar, Schmidt paused to examine the Rikers’ art. It could serve as an instant and neutral subject of conversation. If only he had had a drink; why hadn’t he ordered one at the club and signed on the chit a name of convenience—for instance Jack DeForrest’s?
He was interrupted by the clatter of the elevator grill being dragged shut at last and the deep voice of a woman.
Do you like these? They are Piranesi’s views of prisons. Some people find them hard to take.
They are fascinating. I am Albert Schmidt.
You had to be. Everyone else is here. And I am Renata, Jon’s mother.
She saw that he was going to look at his watch and added, You are perfectly on time. I asked the others to come early, so that you would see us all at once, as in a photograph.
She was a large, erect woman dressed in a maroon skirt and a black-and-beige, rough-textured garment, which Schmidt supposed—because her jewelry was silver stuff with blue stones—must be an Indian poncho, worn over a long-sleeved white shirt. Her graying black hair was caught in a bun at the back of the head. Schmidt noted her large, severe brown eyes.
We are very glad you are here, she added, now come and meet your new family.
My husband, Myron.
