Philip Roth - Letting Go

“Did she?” Martha said. “That’s very sweet.”

“Oh she talks about her daddy and her brothers, and her old old friends — little children all grown up by now — and about you, Martha Lee, and about Richard too — that’s Mr. Reganhart,” Mrs. Baker informed me. “In fact, she’s suggested — and it was all her suggestion, mind you — that I try to get hold of a genealogy from Oregon. She wants to work out your family for you, Martha Lee. Now isn’t that something? I’ve already written off to see what we can do. Wouldn’t you call that reason to be cheered up?”

“She sounds like she’s coming along,” Martha said.

“Well, the doctors are encouraged, and the children are managing beautifully, and I don’t mean to say that Billy hasn’t been a help. We have nothing against Billy,” she said, “per se. If a marriage doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, I suppose. Perhaps we’ll find out later that this was all for the best.”

Neither Martha nor I responded.

“Mr. Wallach,” Mrs. Baker said, “I was myself married to two of the finest men who ever drew breath. And I lost them both, that was God’s will.” She filled up instantly with tears. “But I went right ahead, and Beverly is going to go right on, and Martha Lee has gone right on, and that’s the nature of a woman. To go right on, and raise her children to be strong and good, and not to be ashamed, and to respect their elders and love their country. I had two fine husbands, both of them Masons, not strong lodge men, I’ll admit that, but men’s men, who had the respect of their neighbors and knew their duty to their wife. After all, the husband chooses the wife, he gets down on bended knee — at least he used to — and then he’s got the duty to stand by her. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I don’t know what’s happened to the world, Mr. Wallach. If you’ll pardon me, I don’t mean this personally, but I don’t know what’s happened to our American men. I don’t understand this discontentment business and I can’t say that I ever have. I don’t know what men want any more. If this embarrasses Martha Lee, I’m just sorry, but heaven knows they don’t make them any smarter or any prettier than you, honey. And my own Bev, they didn’t make them any sweeter, you can attest to that, Martha Lee. The sweetest, kindest girl, loved animals, loved the seasons and her schoolwork, Queen of the Prom, I remember that, and a pretty girl too — and it’s just not imaginable what this world has turned around and given them. Now I don’t know Mr. Richard Reganhart except by name, and Billy has been very courteous through this whole ordeal, but I don’t think they either of them would know a good thing if they tripped over it. If they fell over it and broke their neck, as Mr. Baker used to say.”

Cynthia’s voice came lancelike down the hall from the kitchen: Markie and Stevie were throwing Farina.

“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Baker, and she flustered and fidgeted until Martha rose and went off to the kitchen to put down the riot. Still standing by her genealogical journals, Mrs. Baker leaned in the direction of the disturbance; when the situation seemed under control, she came over and sat down next to me, where Martha had been.

“They’re two fine children,” she said. “That Cindy is smart as a whip.”

“She’s very good at looking after Markie,” I said.

“They could make a man a very nice little family,” Mrs. Baker said, “believe me.”

Again I nodded my head, agreeing.

“I don’t know if you’re a Mason or not, Mr. Wallach, and I don’t want to pry.”

“I’m not.”

“Well,” she said, “I would certainly give it some thought. I’m not going to say much more, because if a man wants to become a Mason that’s up to him. You know you won’t even be invited, you know that?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Well, you won’t, so don’t sit around waiting. They don’t believe in that. If a man decides he wants to be a Mason, then he’s got to step forward. Now I wouldn’t try to convince you of anything, Mr. Wallach. I’m only saying I think you might give it some thought. You know what they say: ‘Once a Mason, always a Mason.’ I was married to two men, both Masons, and both fine men, Mr. Wallach, respected in the community and in the home as well. They were stern men, and maybe they didn’t wipe the dishes like some husbands do, but they knew right from wrong. You just ask over at the University — you teach, isn’t that it, over at the University?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you just ask around there. You talk to the top professors and you see if they’re not Masons — the top professors, and deans, and so on.”

“I will,” I said.

At the door later, with Cynthia and Mark in their coats and the three Parrino children — hot cereal having cut through their gloom — running up and down the hallway, Mrs. Baker took my hand and whispered to me, “They’d make a man a nice fine little family, don’t think they wouldn’t.”

In the back seat Martha sat beside her daughter; Mark and the little suitcase full of pajamas and comic books that the children had taken with them to the Parrinos were in front with me. After a momentary crisis on the street — Mrs. Baker all the while waving at us from upstairs — we had all submitted to Markie’s seating arrangement.

“He’s traveled all the way from New York to see you,” Martha was saying now, “and he wants to have a good time with you, okay?”

Uncooperatively, Cynthia mumbled that she would cooperate.

Martha leaned forward, so that her hand was on my coat. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Markie answered.

On Fifty-seventh Street we had to stop for the light. Martha said, “To help him have a good time, babies, I don’t think he wants to hear about some things. I think he wants to hear about school, and the playground, and about your Christmas presents, and about Markie’s cold that he had, and Cynthia’s ballet lessons—”

“What doesn’t he want to hear about?” Cynthia asked.

“I don’t think, for instance, he wants to hear about Sid Jaffe, you know — or about Gabe,” she said. “I don’t think that’s important to Daddy on such a short visit.”

No one asked a question, not Mark, Cynthia, or me.

“Do you understand, Markie?”

“Okay,” he said, shrugging.

“I don’t think Daddy’s interested that Gabe stays with us overnight. You see? If Daddy asks about Gabe you say he visits with Mother. Okay, honey?”

Mark leaned over my way. “A secret from Daddy,” he whispered.

“Oh but just a small secret, that’s all,” Martha said. “You’ll have plenty to talk about without worrying about such a little secret. Agreed, Cyn?”

We waited, and then that small guardian of truth swung her great lantern over us all. “Gabe does sleep over. Gabe’s clothes are home.”

“But for the time being, Gabe’s clothes are put away. Cyn, Gabe sleeps over, but I think that’s our private life. Your father has his private life, and we have ours. Isn’t that so?”

“Okay.”

“Look, Cynthia — you have a perfect right to disapprove. You go ahead and think whatever you want. Even if you want to be angry, then you be angry. You have a private life too. I’m only asking you to please do what I tell you, because I think it’ll make us all happier. Baby-love, I’m sure you’re not against any of us being happy, are you?”

“I’m not angry,” the child said.

“That’s good, Cynthia — that’s a terrific girl. And this afternoon I’m going to have a talk with Daddy, and Gabe’s going to take you to the Museum.”