About Schmidt

by Louis Begley

  To hell with it. The thermometer read twenty. It would be colder at the beach and windy. He put on his old Abercrombie & Fitch hooded arctic weather garment that could really keep one comfortable in any kind of gale and his fur gloves, got the Saab out of the garage, and crunched his way down the drive and onto the road. The first car bearing Poles passed him, and then the second. They waved cheerily at each other. Then at a respectable distance from the house, he pulled over to the side, lit a cigarillo, and turned on the radio. The Southampton College radio station jazz program he liked was still on. If it hadn’t been for the irritating uncertainty about when she was coming, if, indeed she had not decided to stand him up altogether, he would have been ready to say that he had nothing to complain about. Looked at another way, being stood up didn’t seem like an affair of state. He doubted Carrie took appointments of any sort as seriously as he. Something might have come up. She might not have heard the alarm clock. It couldn’t be because she felt offended or angry. There was no reason. Besides, there was a mysteriously self-contained quality about her visit—like the Raven’s, only after midnight. Perhaps it was better that it should not have an immediate sequel. The memory of Carrie’s visit was so vivid that, without giving it any thought, he began to masturbate discreetly under his coat.

  He was thus engaged, eyes concentrated on the dashboard radio dial, when he heard a tapping on the car window. There she was, making a funny face at him, dressed like the night before except for one unpleasant detail. She was wearing a red ski hat just like the man’s. It was a good idea to cover her head, but why with that horrid object?

  She kissed Schmidt on the cheek and then on the mouth. He wondered at how natural that seemed.

  You’re not mad because I’m late? There was a line at the laundromat. This is the only day I can do my washing. Can I drive your car? You go and put mine into your driveway.

  Sure.

  And then, because it had suddenly occurred to him that, when it came to things she was likely to do, it would be better not to let her know what annoyed him and what didn’t, he added, I’m not mad at all. I rather enjoy waiting. It’s like finding time you didn’t think you had.

  I hate it. Don’t ever try to be late for me.

  When they were finally together in the Saab heading for the beach, she asked, What were these two other cars in your driveway? They don’t look like cars you would own.

  They are the Polish cleaning ladies’. There are so many of them, and they are so fat, they can’t fit in one car. Not like you.

  What were the ground rules? He forced himself to take a grotesque liberty—feeling the inside of her thighs, as though to check whether they were really there. To his surprise, she didn’t tell him to stop being fresh—those were the words he had expected to hear—or take her hand off the wheel to slap his hand or brush it away. Instead, she pulled on his wrist until his hand was high between her legs, higher than he had dared to go, and then brought her thighs together very tight.

  She looked at him nicely. It belongs to me, she said, and they can belong to you. You want to keep them? Do you like them?

  They’re marvelous.

  She began to rock and wiggle a little in her seat, so that his hand rubbed against her.

  Hey, Schmidtie, that feels good. You’re making me wet. And me, do you like me?

  What kind of question is that?

  I don’t know. Are you in love with me? Come on, tell me.

  Her hand made a foray under his parka, between his legs.

  Your little guy sure is in love with me, he doesn’t get tired. How about you? You’re not in love with me at all, not even a little bit?

  I don’t know. Probably, I won’t be able to help it.

  A huge north wind that carried grains of sand as sharp on the face as needles was forcing the surf back on itself, transforming the ocean into a luminous, blue-green, wrinkled, and silent plain. During the winter storms the beach had shrunk some more. The only flat place to walk was at the very edge of the water. There the sand was very hard, almost frozen. Patches of wet, where the tide had pushed farther, were covered by frozen brown foam. They were following Schmidt’s routine, heading east. She put her left hand in his pocket. He took his glove off, and held her hand, his thumb inserted into her glove so he could feel her palm.

  Do you come here often? he asked.

  Yeah, last summer, if I had time before the dinner service. Or on my day off, when there was a party I don’t have a sticker for this beach, so I’d go over there. She gestured over her shoulder toward Peter’s Pond.

  He thought he knew the half trucks, the coolers of beer, the charcoal fire, the rough voices, and handymen in tank shirts with wispy beards and tattoos on their biceps. A truck stereo would be turned on full blast, or they would have set up black boxes containing an elaborate sound system. Furtive, disapproving stares cast by all the proper Schmidts finishing their evening walk, ready for the first white wine and soda of the evening, noses wrinkled at the thought of the townies’ debris. After the last of the hot dogs and corn had been eaten—maybe they no longer bothered, just brought pizza—did they screw by the side of the trucks or in the dune? Did they swap? Was that a part of the deal? Had he passed by during that summer of Mary’s agony, Charlotte’s arm resting on his, when Carrie was on a party?

  Now that I’m retired, I walk here every day, he told her. In the summer, I like the swimming.

  Are you kidding? In these waves? You wouldn’t get me near them. Anyway, I never learned to swim in college. I took dancing instead.

  Pity painted over the ugly pictures before Schmidt’s eyes.

  I’ll teach you, he said squeezing the hand in his pocket. It’s not hard at all.

  You think you’ll get me to go into these waves?

  You can’t teach people to swim in the ocean. We’ll do it in my pool, on your days off, or any day if you have a little time.

  I heard you say you were giving your house to your daughter and moving out.

  That plan had gone out of Schmidt’s head. It seemed possible that he was forgetting everything except the warmth of that hand, which responded to every pressure and invented games of its own.

  Let’s turn back, he said, you’ll start getting cold. You’re right about my giving up the house, but I think I’ll move to another house with a pool. It will just be a much smaller place. There should be lots of them on the market. I’ll have to start looking pretty soon. Perhaps you’ll help me.

  How will your daughter feel about that, I mean having me visit houses with you? You haven’t told me her name. What’s she like?

  Charlotte. It was the name of my wife’s mother. She died when my wife was a child, and my wife was brought up by the aunt who I told you left her this house. Charlotte: she is tall, a bit taller than you, very blond, and I think quite beautiful. She looks like—Joan of Arc! Have you seen Joan of Arc in a picture? She was the virgin warrior who saved France from the English in the fifteenth century. Then the English burned her on the stake, and she became a saint. Of course, Charlotte isn’t a virgin; she’s been living for years with the guy she is going to marry, and she’s not very warlike, although I believe she plays a mean game of squash.

  You love her a lot, Carrie said glumly. Is she older than me? Her fingers disentangled themselves from Schmidt’s.

  He reclaimed the territory gently, the way he used to take Charlotte’s hand when she was a child.

  Of course, I do. She’s my only daughter, my only child, my entire family. She must be older than you. She’ll be twenty-seven this August.

  I’m twenty. Then she laughed: I bet she has a good job. Did you get it for her?

  No, she did it on her own. Lots of people would say it’s a good job, but I’m not sure I think so. She is in public relations. Her kind of public relations means explaining to the public why tobacco companies are really a misunderstood group of good guys manufacturing a fine, useful product, or how Citibank never sleeps. It’s fun and games.


  You smoke.

  Sure. I’ve got nothing against fun and games, but they aren’t very useful—except to people who play them. You don’t like your job very much, and it’s hard, but you get something done. You bring real food and drink to people, you collect real money, and you take away real dirty dishes. The other stuff is expensive make-believe. Charlotte wouldn’t agree, but, in my opinion, her education is wasted on it.

  I’m not going to wait on tables all my life either, I can promise you that, and I’ll finish my education. I bet she went to a good school.

  Schmidt nodded his head.

  It’ll blow her mind. You with a Puerto Rican waitress seven years younger than her!

  Any woman would be hard for her to take. Her mother died last April. Charlotte has never known me to be with anyone else. But we can see each other just as much as you will like, without rubbing her nose in it, and if you are my friend I’ll want you to look at any house where I might want to live.

  Don’t worry, I’m your friend.

  In the car, after she had finished checking out the Saab’s dashboard and the full range of adjustments that could be made electronically to its seats and climate, she punched him in the arm and said, If you really want to buy a house, you’d better take me when the real estate agent isn’t there. You wouldn’t want them to turn you down!

  Then when he asked whether she wanted to go out to lunch—he had in mind the hotel in Sag Harbor that in the winter served lunch until late and where, because it was expensive, she was unlikely to be known and would, therefore, avoid any embarrassment—she told him he had to be crazy. She didn’t want to eat.

  Let’s go to your house, Schmidtie. Quick, while you still live in it.

  She began to undress as soon as they were in the door, throwing her clothes left and right, so that except for her tights she was naked when she ran ahead of him up the stairs. Frantic, catching her by the shoulders, trying to kiss her shoulder, he pushed her in the direction of the bedroom.

  The bed astonished her: Hey, that’s really something! Two queens put together? We can have a party! Then to test it, she jumped on it, up and down, as if on a trampoline.

  Just king-size.

  OK King, don’t you want to pull off my tights? I’m all clean for you. No, wait, I’ll undress you first. Look at that, your little man isn’t here. What’s the matter? He must be shy.

  She had scattered his clothes on the floor, on the chest of drawers, stopping him each time he attempted, yielding to habit and feeling foolish about it, to hang them over the back of a chair. When he had finally removed her tights and the pantyhose she wore under them, and she lay quietly on the bed, her arms folded under her head, he realized Carrie had existed only in his imagination. He knew, of course, her hair, face, and neck, her hands and gestures, and her voice. But for the first time he was seeing—and soon would be able to touch as long as he could bear it—the triumphant limbs of Diana the Huntress, between them the tight triangle of hair, a sliver really with red bumps on its sides that told him she shaved it to wear the skimpiest of string bikinis, the pristine valley of her stomach, her belly button, so small and perfect it moved you to tears, and her breasts that were like sacred hillocks. The tabernacle! He would pry open her legs. But she wanted him to be able to see. Before he had touched her, she raised her knees and her pelvis.

  She asked very softly, Are you ready, darling?

  There was an interval between unconsciousness and waking during which he was certain only of his disorientation. It was turning dark outside. He must have slept very hard. Then he saw the outline of her body under the covers. She was lying on her stomach, her head almost touching his shoulder, as though she had sought it, her feet in the far corner of the bed. Cautiously, he touched her hair and played with its tangles. Affection, and desire for her proximity—he was astonished by how happy he was to have her less than an arm’s length away and to find her so fantastically available. Here was an aspect of unemployment and nearly total loneliness he had not previously examined, let alone apprehended: they set one free! He need not worry about how long this girl would sleep, or what she might want to do after she awakened. There was Charlotte’s wedding reception to be held in June and the need, which was turning into a wish, to move to another house. Other than that, he had no engagements or appointments. His quotidian future—whatever its term—stretched before him uncharted.

  During their last embrace, she had moaned, Do you like it, darling, it’s only for you. He was buried under the black avalanche of her hair, to detach his mouth from the nape of her neck was inconceivable, so he kept thrusting into her, only harder. She moaned again: Yeah, now I really belong to you.

  When it was over, she had asked: Did you like it? Schmidtie, talk to me, you know it’s just you, say you liked it. Tell me why you liked it.

  He thought he was returning from a distance that could not be measured. Perhaps he had dozed off. The question would be repeated until he had answered. Therefore, he replied: It’s what you said, you said you belong to me.

  My darling.

  Nobody had ever called him that. Certainly not his father. Not his mother—until she died he had been Schmidtie or sometimes Bebop, the nickname of his Baltimore godfather, the man to be counted on at Christmas for a postcard of an Eastern Shore oysterman and a check for ten dollars; not Mary, whose terms of endearment, used distractedly on Charlotte, every other child she addressed, her editorial assistant, and himself, had been sweetie and its variants sweetness, sweetie pie, and sweets; not Corinne or any of the women of his one-night stands. But this girl, with her hoarse voice and rough diction, had; she had called him darling three times, and it didn’t seem an automatic pattern of her speech—such as her relentless, Do you like me? It was enough to make one believe in the remission of sin and life eternal.

  The telephone rang. He looked at Carrie: no reaction. That was another miracle: the sleep of a young girl. He took the receiver off the hook, and, not allowing himself to listen to his daughter, said, Just a moment, please, I’d like to talk to you from the kitchen.

  Lights on in the kitchen and a glass of cold tap water. He brought the telephone to the table and sat down. Must remember to hang up the bedroom telephone when I finish.

  Dad, where have you been? I have tried you twice, and you haven’t answered.

  In Brazil until yesterday, and today at home in the morning and, in the early afternoon, at the beach. If you want to know, just now I was taking one of my senior citizen naps!

  I’m sorry. You got back yesterday, but you didn’t call?

  It’s a long overnight trip, baby; I was tired. At first, while I was puttering around, I thought I might hear from you, then I went out to get a bite to eat, and then it was late.

  I lost your postcard with all the dates, so I wasn’t sure when you were coming home. Did you have a good time?

  Perfect. I think I wrote to you about it.

  You did. I got that postcard too. Dad, we were out at the house with people from the firm a couple of times while you were away—associates working with Jon—so I don’t think we’ll see you this weekend or, probably, the next.

  Right.

  By the way, Renata thinks we should start planning for the wedding. She was asking whether you have done anything, whether you feel up to it, you know, or want her to help, or just have her do it for us.

  Which way to the air-raid shelter? Schmidt asked himself. The next thing I know, the grandparents will also want to get into the act.

  He answered by a question of his own: Do you still want to be married in June, at the house, and have the reception here?

  I guess so, sure, if you’re up to it, that’s what Renata really meant.

  Let’s leave the beautiful Renata out of this for a moment. The question is what Miss Charlotte would like.

  I’m just worried it will be a lot of work for you. And our friends are mostly in New York. Have you thought where we could put them up?

  In fact, I have.
I presume that almost all of them are grown-ups. That makes it quite easy to put them in hotels and motels. I thought I’d reserve in advance, starting now, blocks of rooms at different prices—some for the weekend, and some just for Saturday night. We can have a few people here and maybe have one or two couples stay at the Blackmans’. Your mom would have asked the Bernsteins or the Howards, but I haven’t been seeing them. Maybe I’ll ask anyway.

  Here Schmidt’s voice broke.

  You see, Dad, that’s the problem! You get all worked up.

  No, it’s just when I think how Mom might have done things. I’m all right now, really. There is another idea I had that might work for some guests: a nice, comfortable bus leaving from Manhattan around three and returning after the party. That assumes you would get married at six.

  That is clever! And you could handle the food, and all that stuff?

  No parents can “handle” such a big party. I’ll find the name of the caterer who did the Parsons’ wedding. Weren’t you there? Mom and I thought it was lovely. He’ll do it all, except the orchestra. That’s something I’d rather leave up to you, unless you are willing to dance to Peter Duchin or Lester Lanin. What I really need is the number—more or less how many guests you’d like to have. I know that two hundred fifty is no problem. That’s how many Martha had when Mom and I got married.