Philip Roth - Letting Go

Again I looked at Theresa Haug, who stood a few booths from where we sat. To customers, she was mute and obliging, and efficient to the point of hysteria (or perhaps it was hysteria to the point of efficiency, it looked the same to me). In any encounter with the hostess, Mrs. Crowther — an egregious woman who was always sliding people into their seats with a melodic, “ There you are”—Theresa’s deference stopped just this side of a salute. Not that Mrs. Crowther, or anybody else, paid Theresa very much attention; there wasn’t very much to attend to. All of her, form and features, seemed to have been designed and constructed by a committee of Baptist ministers’ wives. Her stockings hung from her underdeveloped calves in a particularly heartbreaking way, her skin held no mysteries, and her mouth was just a faint-hearted dash across the blankness of her expression. Yet someone had taken the trouble to undress her and lay her down and climb on top. A seed had been dropped, and it was about its fruition that I had come to see her.

For Martha (not myself) I had spoken to Paul Herz; for Paul I had spoken to Libby; for Libby I would speak to Theresa Haug. What other way could it have been?

“Cut your potatoes,” Cynthia told her brother. “Stop stuffing yourself. Stop jamming them in whole, Markie. Uh-oh for you. Here comes Mother.”

Martha, who was waitress to us as well as mother and mistress, set down two glasses of chocolate milk and a cup of coffee. “How is everyone?” she asked.

“Markie’s not using any manners,” Cynthia said. “I don’t think he should be allowed to sleep at Stephanie’s.”

“I want to!” Mark howled.

“Cynthia,” Martha said, “don’t tease him. Markie, stop whining.”

“You were the one who said if he wasn’t going to use manners—” began Cynthia.

Weary, quite weary of this little family group and their aggravations and struggles ( my family? mine? ), I asked Martha, “When does she get off?”

“Seven—”

“Mother—”

“I’m talking to Gabe.”

I turned on Cynthia. “She’s talking to me, Cynthia — how about it?”

“When’s Stephanie’s grandma coming?” asked Markie.

“Soon, honey.”

To show that my rebuke meant nothing to her Cynthia raised her eyebrows and clicked her tongue at the violence her brother was practicing with his fork. And a feeling came over me, a rootless kind of feeling, that control over my affairs was no longer in my own hands. Something like resignation — most likely disgust, and perhaps fear too — must have shown on my face.

“You don’t have to wait for Stephanie’s grandmother,” Martha said to me. “If it bothers you so … The kids can wait by themselves.”

“I’m not waiting for Stephanie’s grandmother. I’m waiting for your friend.”

“She’ll be through at seven.”

“It’s after seven.”

“Then she’ll be through soon. Look, Gabe—” A waitress came hurtling by our booth then, her tray tipping toward a disaster which might or might not overtake her before she reached the kitchen.

“There she is,” I said.

Martha reached out to touch Theresa’s arm. “It’s seven,” she said.

“Oh, look — this here — maybe some other — too rare he says,” and with a droopy-eyed look she showed Martha a steak on her tray.

“I’ll take your station,” Martha said.

“But Mrs. Crowther—”

“Theresa, get dressed. I’ll take your station. He’s waiting.”

“Yes—” She ran off down the aisle, leaving me exhausted. Martha kissed each child on the top of the head and went off toward the kitchen with Theresa’s steak. “Miss …” someone called after her, but she was her own woman, guardian of her rights and dignity, and she just kept going.

With a newsiness altogether uncharacteristic of her, Cynthia said, “We’re not sleeping at home tonight.”

“That should be fun,” I said. “Do you like to sleep at other people’s houses?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you?” Markie asked me.

I took a napkin from the dispenser on the table and reached across and wiped the ketchup off his mouth. “You try to concentrate on eating,” I said.

Cynthia pointed to where I had wiped her brother’s mouth. “I think my mother wants him to learn to do that himself.”

“I suppose she does.”

“He should be able to teach himself to grow up a little,” she said.

“He should,” I agreed, “but he doesn’t, and the rest of us have to look at it.”

“I think my mother would prefer if you let him do that himself,” she said beautifully.

“I didn’t steal his mouth from him, Cynthia — I only wiped it.”

Markie’s dark eyes now turned up to me, his chin grazing the remains on the plate. “Are you going to marry our Mommy?”

Now I smiled. “He certainly is full of questions.”

“He’s only a child,” Cynthia said, which in a variety of ways was a favorite line of hers.

“For a child those are pretty adult questions.”

Cynthia was nonplused; finally she admitted, “Well … he talks to me.”

My daughter. My stepdaughter. My stepson. Sitting there I continued to be visited with what ifs, and supposes.

Theresa Haug appeared in a big black-and-white checkerboard coat with saucer-sized buttons that shone. She stood beside the booth, speechless. Cynthia shrugged her shoulders, as though to indicate to me — and to the lady herself — that our visitor might be coo-coo.

“It’s okay,” I said, getting up from my seat, “she’s a friend of your mother’s.”

“I don’t care,” answered Cynthia in a tinkly voice.

Markie had picked up the ketchup bottle, turned it on its side, and was allowing its contents to run out onto his plate. He asked, “Is that his wife?” but I don’t think Theresa Haug heard.

“Ready, Miss Haug?” I asked, but got no reply. I took her arm and started to steer her toward the door.

“Bye, Gabe,” I heard Markie call.

I didn’t turn back; I was trying to focus all my attention on my charge and on her hardship. Nevertheless I could not really displace my own problem with hers. Martha’s teary ultimatum of two short nights before still burned in my mind. As for Martha herself, it was clear that she too had not forgotten those words she had addressed to me from her bed. Surely saving Theresa Haug was not, in anything other than a metaphoric way, saving herself.

Outside the Hawaiian House, Theresa stopped. Like a poor dumb beast. I said, “I’m parked a little way off. By Dorchester …” I tugged at her arm, then guided her along like one blind. She kept her gaze on her coat buttons.

“It’s a beautiful night for a change,” I said. There was indeed a sky overhead that was purple and practically glowing. “It’s getting a little warmer,” I added. “That should be a help …”

At last we made it to the car; I unlocked the door and helped her in. The overhead light spread like some watery dime-store paint over her plain, dull face. I closed the door for her and then walked around to the other side, in a kind of stupor too, for I was wondering if it made life more sensible, or less, to think that it was toward the alleviation of this girl’s suffering that all the rest of us had been struggling — Paul, Libby, Martha, myself — these many months and years.

I took Theresa Haug to a restaurant on the lake shore where, to offset the sugary Muzak piped into the dining room, the walls were hung with lurid paintings of the Chicago fire. The combination of music and art impressed me as ghoulish and antisocial, but the place was quiet and close by, and it had soft lighting and a view of the lake. Theresa could have dinner and we two could accomplish our business, all by candlelight.