Jill Emerson - The Trouble With Eden

A man had died, and was dead. But two women had known him, each in her particular way. Neither knew him as he had known himself. Perhaps their knowledge of him had great gaps in it. Perhaps in certain ways it exceeded his knowledge of himself.

But all that matters is that they did know him. And as long as either of them is alive, the man will not be utterly dead. It is not merely that he will live metaphorically in memory. His life — and now the event of his death — is a fundamental component of each of these two women. The man he had been is a part of all that they are or will be. Their lives are his epilogue.

Of course the converse is just as true. Now that the man is dead, neither the wife nor the daughter will ever be wholly alive.

He took the final page from the typewriter and read it through. It did not seem quite right, but he knew that it would not have seemed quite right no matter how he had done it.

He looked at his watch. He decided that it was not too late to call Linda and was reaching for the telephone when he remembered that it was either far too late or far too early to call Linda Robshaw. She had seemed quite important to him for quite some time, but now that he had finished the book he was unsure if her importance had been more than temporary.

He fixed himself a drink. He had finished the book, and he ought to be able to tell someone as much. He wanted to talk to someone but there was no one he wanted to talk to. Mary Fradin would be glad to know that the book was done, but there was no earthly reason to call her in the middle of the night. Karen was at Melanie Jaeger’s house and he did not want to call her there. And who else was there? Anita? There had been times, shortly after the divorce, when he had had to fight the desire to call her. He had outgrown the urge long ago, and she came to mind only to complete the list.

The women in his life. And did they know him as the dead man had been known by his wife and daughter? No, he was not going to think about such things now. There were many personal truths in this book, truths he had not known until he wrote them into his consciousness, and he had carefully held them on the edge of thought while the book evolved. The Edge of Thought. Yes, he liked that title, liked it far more now than before.

He was working on a second drink when Karen came home. Her enthusiasm took the edge off his own depression. She insisted on reading the manuscript immediately, wouldn’t wait until morning.

“It’s not that late,” she said. “I’m not the least bit sleepy. I couldn’t sleep now, not knowing it’s done and just waiting to be read.”

She had a drink with him first. He told her she could read in the study where the light was good.

“I was never allowed in there,” she said. She kissed him suddenly, her arms tight around his neck. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Will you still be proud if the book’s lousy?”

“I know it’s not.”

“Well, I’m going to bed,” he said.

She closed herself in the study and he made one more drink and took it upstairs. He did not want to go to sleep. He wanted to sit downstairs and wait while she read the book. His mind was full of thoughts, rolling in and falling back like waves.

His mind was also exhausted, weary at the end of a half year’s labor. Its hyperactivity now was an illusion, like the growth of hair and fingernails after death.

He finished his drink and got into bed, and it was not long before the thoughts softened into dreams.

On Sunday morning the sun rose into a cloudless blue sky. Shortly thereafter, Mrs. Kleinschmidt left her small apartment and cooked herself a light breakfast in Hugh Markarian’s kitchen. She did not prepare breakfast for the mister or little Karen; neither had stirred by the time her son arrived to drive her to church.

While Mrs. Kleinschmidt ate her light breakfast, Peter and Gretchen were devouring a huge one. Gretchen had slept poorly. Peter had not slept at all, and he went to the bathroom during the meal and swallowed a spansule, first chewing a few of the bitter time-release grains of Dexedrine to put them more immediately to work. He had two spansules left, and they would last the day.

Warren slept longer than the others, waking to the sound of Robin amusing herself at Bert’s piano. For a brief moment he thought that it was Bert he was hearing and that something had gone horribly wrong with Bert’s musical ability. He reminded himself that Bert was gone and ultimately guessed the source of the cacophony. Robin had an uncanny ability to strike precisely those chords which made his head vibrate, and his head was vibrating badly enough as it was. He dropped two Alka-Seltzer tablets into a glass of water, waited interminably for them to dissolve, and used them to wash down two Excedrins.

A glance out the window told him that it was a beautiful day. He couldn’t imagine why it should be. When his headache began to recede he picked up the telephone and placed a long-distance call.

Linda Robshaw was looking at her own telephone while Warren was using his. She had just awakened for the third time. Twice before she had drawn the bedsheet up over her and burrowed back to sleep. Now she was more completely awake, and it seemed as though she ought to get up and do something. She glanced at the phone and remembered her conversation the day before with Hugh, frowning at the memory of her own part in it. She had been purposely unkind, and in a way that was difficult to understand after the fact. She ought to call him now. There ought to be something she could say.

Ah, but it was easier to remain in bed, easier to close her eyes against the light, easier to make a cocoon of the bedsheet and huddle in the womblike warmth of her own body heat. Soon it would be time to get up, to dress, to eat, to open the shop, time to give away paintings. In the meantime her bed was warm and secure.

Gretchen said, “I wish I understood more of the plan. Oh, you don’t have to tell me. We can’t talk about it now.”

“And it’s easier if you don’t know the details, Gretch.”

“It sounds as though you don’t trust me.”

“You know that’s not it.”

“I know.” She chewed a fingernail. “You and Warren will be with me. That will make it easier, won’t it? I don’t think any power on earth can stop the three of us together.”

“Not as long as we stick together, Gretch.”

“I wonder what’s keeping him.” She went to the window, eased the shade aside a few inches and squinted. “I don’t see his car.”

“He’ll honk the horn when he’s here. You remember the signal.”

“A long, three shorts, and a Jong.”

“That’s it.”

“Dah-dit-dit-dit-dah.” “Right.”

“I wouldn’t forget that, Petey.”

When the horn sounded she took his arm, and he led her out of the room and down the stairs. Warren was parked in front with the motor running. Peter held the door for her and sat beside her. They all rode in front with Gretchen in the middle, and in-obedience to the finger at Warren’s lips they did not speak until they had cleared the outskirts of town.

Then Warren let his features relax in a smile. “We can talk now,” he said. “We’re out of their range.”

“Warren, you look so different. Your hair! And when did you grow that beard?”

He did look very different, so much so that Peter would have had difficulty recognizing him. His wig and neatly trimmed brown beard completely altered the shape of his face. Heavy horn-rimmed glasses replaced his usual rimless ones.

“I am ze master of ze disguise,” he said. With one hand he removed the beard. “You see? A few bits of adhesive tape hold it in place. Here beneath it all is the Warren you know and love, and now” — he fixed the beard in place once again — “we are disguised once more. You’ll excuse me if I don’t remove the wig, I trust.”