Jonathan Franzen - The Twenty-Seventh City - A Novel

Probst no longer felt the least bit sick. When she sobbed, he got erections. “I do, too,” he said.

“No you don’t!” She leaped to her feet and kicked backwards, shoving the chair into a cabinet. “How dare you compare that woman to me? How dare you compare Luisa? ”

Frightened, he pressed his back against the refrigerator. She was advancing on him with an index finger raised and her head turned to one side, as if he were flames or a bitter wind. “You better not try it again,” she said. “You better watch out. You better start appreciating that girl because if you don’t I’m getting out of here and I’m taking her with me. I love you, too, but—” She drew back. “Not as much.”

“I’m glad we’re clear on that.”

“You’re going to hold that one against me, aren’t you? I can see it in your face. You’re going to save that.”

“Well, what if I do?” The volume of his voice surprised him. “You know I have a cold. I didn’t come home to fight with you. I won’t fight with you. You play as dirty as you say I do. You tell me to go. What, the pain is too great? Something like that. You’re like your sister. It’s all an act. I won’t try to figure out what you pretend you mean. I won’t play that game. You’re just daring me to go upstairs. I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. This is your fault. You were just asking for it.”

“Well, for God’s sake, the oracle speaks! The sphinx has spoken!”

“You cunt.”

“Is this dignified?”

He stamped on the floor. “You cunt.”

Something hard, a penny or an acorn, struck the outside of the window above the sink, and Barbara shrieked. She grabbed his arm and half pushed, half pulled him towards the door. “Go, go, get upstairs, go.”

He resisted. “Oh, I’m interrupting something?”

Another object struck the window.

“Go upstairs, come down, and be civil, or—” She looked at her hands. “Or I’m going to stick a knife in you.”

“If I don’t kill you first.”

They looked at each other.

“Go!”

He went. He heard her opening the back door and guessed it was Luisa, coaxed home for his birthday, maybe Duane too, and he bolted up the steps two and three at a time.

Calmer after his shower, he took his time dressing. The registers poured heat into the bedroom and carried a faint smell of childhood, of early winter evenings when he was sent upstairs before the pinochle guests arrived. He felt chastened and young. He worked on his shoelaces. The floorboards were alive with the sound of news downstairs; he should have been watching it, to stay informed.

When he did go down he found Luisa sitting in the den watching The $10,000 Pyramid . From the hall, while the television filled her eyes and ears, he had a moment to observe her unobserved. She was leaning to the left on the sofa, in a shallow slouch, with her right leg partially crossed over the left, held in place by the friction of her black cotton pants, and her left arm folded up between her ribs and the cushion. She seemed to have been arrested in a fall towards the screen. If he startled her, she would assume a more comfortable position. She was wildlife, not a daughter; he was seeing in the flesh, in a natural habitat, some exotic antelope he’d hitherto known only from pictures in National Geographic . The studio crowd groaned. She shook her head, once, as if shaking water from her ear. Under the pressure of her unawareness, Probst cleared his throat and saw, as she turned to him, what falseness was expected of him now. He was supposed to act like Dad in a television movie, to let the seriousness show in his face when he said — the significant gesture —Mind if I watch, too? He stiffened. “Well!”

“Happy birthday,” she said, without inflection.

“Thank you.” He took the chair across the room from her. “Mind if I watch, too?”

“I was going to turn it off.”

“Yes. It’s a dumb show. Here.” He turned it off. Barbara was blending something in the kitchen.

“Well?” Luisa said. “Are you surprised?”

“Oh, very.” He smiled. “It’s a nice surprise. Is, uh, Duane coming, too?”

“He’s working.”

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“St. Louis Magazine wants him to print some pictures. It’s for their January issue and they’re due tomorrow. He’ll be in the darkroom all night.”

“Oh really. You want a beer or something?”

Her face and bearing underwent a mild death, a loss of vitality characteristic of Barbara. “Not right now, thank you.” Soon, at any moment, she would leave the room, and with an air of reproach that extended to herself, because she didn’t really want to go.

“So,” Dad said, “he’s working, is he? That’s good to hear.”

She nodded. “He still doesn’t make much money, though.” (Money? Barbara gave her money, and she had a credit card, too.) “I guess I eat too much.”

“Sure, you’re still growing.”

From the smile she gave him he could tell this was a good line, though he couldn’t have said why. He asked her some easy questions about her grades, and calculus, and transportation, enticing questions to lure an antelope closer, to accustom her to a more domestic habitat. She gave him another smile, and he was feeling more and more like Marlin Perkins when Barbara’s voice pealed in the kitchen: “Lu, you want to give me a hand here?”

She was gone like a shot.

Not as much . For eighteen years, in battles more vicious than tonight’s, Barbara had managed to avoid saying that, and now, needlessly, she’d gone and done it. A sportsmanlike sympathy made him reluctant to damn her for the blunder. But she would do the same to him.

Luisa reappeared. “Mommy says we should go in the living room.”

Probst followed her down the hall. When she turned east he headed north into the kitchen. Barbara was pouring frozen daiquiris. She set the pitcher down and without meeting his eyes kissed him hard, raking his neck with her nails. Into his ear she said, “I want to make love after dinner.”

So did he. He always did. But he hadn’t expected this, he’d expected instructions or an apology. This was a threat. This was the big gun, her attempt to save the evening. And certainly it was attractive bait.

“I wouldn’t want to infect you,” he said.

“Oh, I’m sure it’s the same thing I had.” She spun to the counter where the daiquiris stood. “Do you want to take the brie in?”

There were many presents in the living room by the fire she had made. The uppermost gift, wrapped neatly in newspaper, was obviously books. Probst claimed the last daiquiri on the tray and sat down. Luisa stood warming her back, her glass already half empty. Barbara sat on the sofa in the watchful pose she used to adopt when they played Charades at parties. The silence was made possible by Luisa, who had graduated into self-consciousness and joined them; not long ago, she would have been chattering. She sipped her tropical drink. Track-mounted lamps cast spots on the primitive still lifes. On Sherwood Drive the Probsts were in the jungle, and the flames and shadows vaulted up the walls and gave them a mystic depth. There had never been a moment like this before. The family had changed, and this could be either. Either the last of the old groupings, the last gathering, or the first of the new ones, the first of many. To Probst it seemed the room hung by a thread, and twisted slowly, the flames slanting and stretching. He was dizzy.

“SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY,” Luisa said, raising her glass.

“Yes, Martin, really,” Barbara loading her words with portent. He felt the concentration of her will on him, the reins of desire and threat. Her feet were on the floor. Her legs were somewhat spread.