Jonathan Franzen - The Twenty-Seventh City - A Novel

The telephone rang.

It was Jack DuChamp. Just checkin’ in, Jack said. Now that Laurie was confirmed she didn’t go to Sunday school, so he and Elaine and Laurie had started going to late church instead of early church because the kids were turning into late sleepers on the weekend. Elaine liked to sleep in too sometimes. Mark was taking a semester off from college, trying to get his act together, practice-teaching deaf children, enjoying it. But it was funny to have the extra hour or two on Sunday morning, funny to see new faces at late church, and Jack and Elaine had both made New Year’s resolutions to try to do something worthwhile in the extra time, which wasn’t really extra since late church meant coming home later too, but anyways, to try to improve life in little ways, as best they could, on Sunday mornings. Which explained why Jack was calling.

“Yes,” Probst said.

Laurie worked thirty hours a week now at the Crestwood Cinema on top of high school and rehearsals for Brigadoon , the spring musical, and — Did Luisa work?

“She—”

All the more time for her schoolwork. And it showed on the report cards, Jack was sorry to say, although he thought colleges these days were interested in more than just grades, that maturity and independence must count for a lot, and if they didn’t, then that said something about the college, didn’t it? Anyways, with Laurie working and Elaine with a light course load this semester, the two of them had been rediscovering their evenings and they wondered if Probst and Barbara — just the four of them — some night this week — maybe a restaurant so no one had to cook?

Helping deaf children, Probst thought. Helping deaf children. Helping deaf children.

Or next week, if this wasn’t enough notice.

“Jack,” Probst said. “Barbara and I are separated.”

Oh.

It was the first time Probst had used the word “separated,” even in his thoughts, and the word rang in his head as if he were practicing it after the fact. Jack said some more things to which, unlistening, he replied that it was OK, it was OK. And as soon as they’d recovered, Jack said maybe a Blues game, the two of them, Saturday night. The Canucks.

Then Luisa called. Duane was showing pictures at a gallery and the opening was Friday night. Could Daddy come? Daddy would love to come, he said. He sensed that she hadn’t called to chat, but he made her chat anyway. He cast out snare after snare, heard about her college choices, her grades, her eyes, her latest cold, her conversations with Barbara, Duane’s dealings with the gallery, Duane’s car’s new exhaust system. By the time they said good-bye it was 10:30.

The phone rang again immediately. It was a woman, Carol Hill, calling from the West County Journal to confirm the quotes he’d given her the day before.

“…The last one is, Ultimately we have to look at this in terms of democracy taxation without representation is a very old issue in this country and it’s a valuable perspective to keep in mind will the merger create a more or a less representative government for the residents of the county and I think the answer is pretty clearly no.”

“Yes. That’s fine. I appreciate your checking this with me, Carol.”

“No problem. Thank you .” Her voice became a dial tone.

Probst looked into the hickory tree outside the window and cried, “Wait! It’s less! The answer is clearly less !” He shook his head.

MARY ELIZABETH O’KEEFE. Born 6/16/59.

The phone rang.

He tossed the receiver onto his shoulder, pinned it with his ear, and heard Barbara’s voice. He spoke. She spoke. He spoke. She spoke. “…Maybe make this more formal,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, this is sort of an uncomfortable situation for both of us. I’ve been asked at parties and I don’t even know how to refer to it.” Parties . She was really ruthless. “Not to bring up a sore point, but if we could agree to call it—”

“A separation,” he said. “I’ve been referring to it as a separation when people ask.”

“That’s probably adequate.”

Adequate: the term “separation” adequate on its own strength to induce them to hate each other where they otherwise might not have.

“Look,” he said. “Do you want to divorce me?”

There was a silence on her end of the line. But the silence was not complete, for Probst heard the vowelly edges of at least one murmured sentence. Nissing was in the same damn room with her! While they talked! She and Nissing discussing it! She spoke again. “It’s kind of—”

“Because I don’t care if I ever see you again this side of hell.”

“Martin. Please.”

“Are you alone?” he said.

Her silence hummed with pictures, the frantic glances at her lover, the hand waving him from the room, Nissing taking his time. “I — no, and you’re right. You’re right. This isn’t the time to be discussing this. Can I call back?”

“Take your time.”

“Don’t say that.”

He swiveled in his chair. “I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to talk to you, I just, don’t, want, any of this. I’m sitting in my chair. I’m just trying to sit here. I’m.”

Out of the receiver came the words “Martin, I love you,” and she hung up.

I love you? What was that supposed to mean?

All at once Probst had doubts. Her haste, the consultations. It was possible, he realized, that Nissing was somehow keeping her in New York against her will. That Nissing was a criminal or conspirator, that there really had been a transmitter in the back yard. That Probst as Municipal Growth chairman had been singled out for psychological torture in order to influence his decisions, that Jammu was behind it, that Norris was right about something damned peculiar happening to the local leadership and that Probst, since Luisa left — since Dozer was hit by a van! — had been a target, that the ongoing crisis in his family was not the inevitable product of its history, but a condition imposed from without: that Barbara did love him.

Hastily he dug through the papers on his desk and found the number she’d given him. He’d never used it. He dialed the 212 and the other seven alien digits, and after a pause that seemed unusually long to him, the connection went through. “Hello!” said a plangent male voice.

“This is Martin Probst. I’d like to speak to my wife.”

“It’s your husband,” Nissing said. Probst heard Barbara laugh. “Yes?” she said.

“It’s me. Are you alone?”

He heard her say, “Get out of here, please,” and the rest muffled except for a laugh from Nissing. He heard her lips return to the phone. She was breathless. “I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.”

“I don’t. Believe me. But I’d like to see you for a little while and get some things straightened out. Do you think you could manage to fly here for a day this week?” He thought to add, on the chance of its hurting: “I’d pay.”

She sighed. “As I was about to explain when I called, John and I are flying to Paris for a week and a half, we’re leaving tomorrow. We’ll be back on the fifteenth. So maybe then, if you think it would help.”

“I don’t know. You see what I mean about not wanting to get into it. It’s not as if I don’t have plenty to do myself.”

“After your election, how about. I told Lu I’d like to see her on my birthday. Maybe then. Early April. Time’s been going very fast, at least for me.”

Probst cleared his throat. “All right.” A headache was developing behind his eyes. “Why did you hang up on me?”

After a pause she said: “Use your imagination, Martin. Picture a small apartment, all right?”