Russell Banks - The Reserve

Throughout the remainder of the afternoon, and later, while she prepared supper for the four of them and Jordan in his studio studied his new assistant’s inventory, and all through the evening meal and afterward, as she washed the dishes and got the boys through their baths and into bed, Alicia anxiously watched her husband and waited for him to confront her.

But he said and did nothing out of the ordinary. If anything, he was more affable and relaxed than usual. He seemed downright affectionate toward her, and at one point, passing behind where she stood at the kitchen sink washing the supper dishes, he placed one big hand on her left shoulder and the other on her right buttock and slid it down along her thigh like a promise. It was a thing he had not done in months. Involuntarily, she stepped away from his hand, and he moved on.

Finally, when the boys were in their beds and slipping into sleep, Alicia went looking for her husband. She found him in the room they called the library, but which over time had become the artist’s office, for no one other than he ever used the room. It was where he wrote letters, paid bills, kept all his files and archives, and where late at night he read and listened to his beloved jazz records and smoked cigars and sometimes drank old whiskeys neat.

He was typing out a letter to the writer John Dos Passos, whom he had befriended during the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti way back in 1922. Dos had been writing about the trial, and Jordan had made a limited-edition wood engraving to help raise money for the defense fund. Later, after the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti, Dos and his wife, Katie, on several occasions had visited the artist and his family in Petersburg. They had worked together in ’31 and ’32 to help free the Scottsboro boys, and recently the two men had become collaborators in the effort to raise money for medical supplies for the republicans in Spain. Dos had been urging Jordan to join him in Spain and make a series of pictures based on Goya’s famous engravings of the Napoleonic War. Until now, Jordan had not turned him down. But tonight he wrote, Too much work to do here, too many commitments, too many family obligations keeping me here….

Alicia sat on the leather sofa and smoked a cigarette while her husband typed at the desk. When he finished, he folded the letter and put it into an envelope, addressed and stamped the envelope, and swiveled around in his chair to face her.

“I’ve just told Dos to forget about the Spanish thing,” he said and smiled. “I’m not going over.”

Alicia nodded somberly. “That’s good, if it’s what you want. To stay here instead, I mean.”

“It’s exactly what I want. From here on out, I’m a homebody,” he said and paused. “And I’m not going to Greenland, either.”

“Oh. Well, I guess that’s good, too. If it’s what you want.”

“Alicia, listen. There’s something I need to talk about with you. Something serious. About us.”

“Yes. I know.”

“You know?”

“Before you say anything more, Jordan, I have to tell you that it’s over.”

“What is?”

“I ended it,” she blurted.

“Ended what?” He leaned forward in his chair, as if he hadn’t heard her correctly.

“What happened…between Hubert and me.”

“Between you and Hubert? Hubert St. Germain?”

“It’s in the past now. I wrote him today and told him that it’s over. When you saw me out there this afternoon I was putting the letter in his mailbox. By now he’s read it, so he, too, knows that it’s finished.”

“Hubert? Hubert St. Germain? What the Christ are you talking about, Alicia?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Don’t make me say it. Please, Jordan. I’m so sorry it happened, and so ashamed. I don’t know what I was thinking, I must have been crazy. But I promise you, it’s in the past now. And I swear, I’m profoundly sorry.”

“You’re sorry.”

“Yes. Please, forgive me, Jordan.”

They remained silent for a moment, Jordan staring at his wife, who looked down and away, shamefaced. He took out his tobacco and papers and slowly rolled a cigarette and lighted it. Finally, he said, “Are you telling me that you’re having an affair with Hubert St. Germain?”

“Yes. No! I’m telling you that it’s over. I’ve ended the affair. I won’t see him again, ever. And I’m asking you to forgive me. I know it won’t be easy, and I don’t deserve it. Please, Jordan.”

Jordan’s face had clouded over and darkened. This had never happened to him before. In every married couple, he believed, one was a liar and the other a truth teller. Alicia had always been the truth teller. Now, suddenly, the poles were reversed, a circumstance that shocked and confused him even more than what Alicia was actually confessing. As long as he knew that he was the one who lied, the one who kept secrets and generated elaborate deceptions, then he knew who he was and how that man behaved. And as long as he believed that Alicia never lied or kept secrets or deceived him, he knew who she was and how she behaved.

But forgive her? He was the one who had always needed forgiveness. He had never been asked to forgive her for anything before. He wasn’t sure he knew how. What did it feel like, anyhow, to forgive someone? Jordan Groves bore grudges; he had enemies and knew who they were and enjoyed keeping them identified as such: Jordan Groves was a son of a bitch who didn’t mind the reputation, because it kept at bay people who were capable of hurting him. But he had never found it necessary to forgive anyone. Not even his parents. Forgive and forget might be how it went for most people, but not for Jordan Groves. Thanks to his optimistic egoism and self-confidence, Jordan had little trouble forgetting; it was easy for him; but once a lie or a deception was forgotten, what was the need for forgiveness? If you truly forgot the offense, how was forgiveness even possible ? Had he been raised Catholic like Alicia, he might have been able to conflate the two, but his parents had been strict Presbyterians, and Jordan Groves’s atheism was founded on that immovable Protestant rock. Thus, while he knew that deep down, like all human beings, he was an irredeemable sinner, he was hard-hearted.

“Well now. So you’ve been fucking my friend Hubert St. Germain.”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Since mid-March. But not—”

“No ‘buts,’” he said, cutting her off. “And no greasy details. Right now all I want is to know the facts.”

“All right.”

“Where?”

“At…at his cabin. Nowhere else.”

“How often?”

“Only sometimes. Not often. Oh, Jordan, don’t do this, please!”

“How often? Twice? Twenty times? Since mid-March, it must be hundreds of times.”

“We met a few times a week, sometimes once. Sometimes not at all.”

“Who else knows about this?”

“No one, Jordan. I swear it. Except for that woman…Vanessa Von…whatever. Vanessa Cole.”

“Vanessa? How the hell does she know?”

Suddenly Alicia understood her mistake. She felt herself blush with shame. She realized that she could have lied. She should have lied. But it was too late now. She had no choice but to go on telling the truth. “Oh, God. I…I’m so stupid. She came to Hubert’s cabin today, and she saw me there. I thought…I assumed that she knew, and that she told you. And when you flew over the cabin and saw me stopped at Hubert’s mailbox, I guess I assumed that you had seen her. Or she had telephoned you. Or something. Oh, God!” she cried.

Jordan shook his head sadly. “You certainly have been a fool. But not as much a fool as I’ve been. Are you in love with him?”