Philip Roth - Letting Go

“You’re much more direct than I am, Martha. And maybe smarter—”

“You just don’t have to be so direct, that’s all.”

“No?”

“You’re stronger than I am, Gabe — and it’s clear what you hold against me anyway.”

“It’s not all that clear to me. But whatever you think it is, why don’t you save it?”

We walked down the stairs, and while I held the car door open, she said to me, “Is it clear, however, the few little things I have against you?”

“I think so.”

“Am I being reasonable?”

After a moment I said, “I don’t think so. No.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Then is it reasonable for you to detest me for letting them go?”

“I don’t detest you for letting them go.”

“For involving you in letting them go.”

“That’s not true either—”

“Well, you don’t feel the same, Gabe. I think you liked me noble better. But then,” she said, giving me no time to reply, “I would have preferred you that way too. We have to be satisfied with what we get.”

“True.”

I closed the door and came around to the street side of the car. “I won’t say anything,” Martha told me, as I got in, “and you don’t say anything, and when we get to the restaurant we’ll start in fresh. Let’s not ruin the night. Just look up there, how lovely it is.”

“Martha’s looking marvelous,” Sid Jaffe was saying to me five days later as we drove together to pick up the Herzes.

“Yes, she is.”

“She likes her job?”

“I think so. Delsey is very nice, a very amiable fellow.”

“How are the kids doing, do you know?” he asked.

“She called only a few nights ago. They’re out at the seashore.”

“So they’re all right?”

“It sounds as though they’re fine.”

At a red light Sid settled back into his seat, taking his hands from the wheel a moment. “Another beautiful day,” he said.

“It’s been a nice summer.”

“I haven’t been out of the office enough to find out.” His smile indicated that that was generally the way things went with him.

“You ought to take a vacation,” I suggested.

He sighed then, comically, but he clearly liked the picture of himself as a hard-working, industrious man. Though our meetings had been few and inconsequential, I rather admired Jaffe, admired, in fact, what he seemed to admire about himself. Generally I saw him down by the lake on Sundays; it was there that we had been introduced by Martha. He had a long striped towel that he stretched out on when sunning, and a portable radio in a little leather case on which he listened to the ball game; every hour or so, he would tuck his papers under the radio, walk down to the water, dive in, and swim long, even laps by himself, going clear out of sight for a time. Coming up from the water, his bald head dripping and shining, he would take a trip past our blanket at least once during the day to stop and say hello. He never allowed himself the pleasure of a visit, however, never once sat down — though there were occasions during the afternoon when I would happen to look up and see him, fifty yards off on his striped towel, glancing our way; that is, Martha’s way. Late in the afternoon, he would do a round of sit-ups, take a last swim, and then unobtrusively leave for home.

I came to respect Jaffe on those Sundays because he seemed to be a lonely man who had come to grips with his condition. Watching him, I wondered what my own particular style would be were I to wind up forty and single. There was something orderly and methodical about him that he managed to make attractive, though Martha had already indicated to me that it was that same orderliness that rendered him less than exciting, that finally — at least she had believed this in the past — made of Sid an uninspirited, unoriginal man.

“It’s amazing,” Sid was saying, as the car was moving again, “how much she looks like Cynthia.”

“Who?”

“Martha. Or Cynthia like her, I suppose I should say. Now that she’s rested and suntanned …”

I said, “They both have the same eyes.”

Sid looked sternly ahead now. “That’s right.”

After a long silence I asked, “You’ve seen Theresa?”

“I stopped by the other day.”

“Did you see the baby too?”

“I did.”

“And it’s all right …?” I asked.

“Oh sure,” he said. “Has Libby been calling you too?”

I shook my head.

“I thought you meant she’d been calling. She’s called my office three times in the last day or two. Making sure the baby’s got the proper number of appendages. Actually, the thing turns out to look a little like her. As much as it can look like anything yet.”

“Did you tell Libby? I’m sure it would excite her. At least I think it would,” I said.

“It did. She’s a very charming girl, in her excited way.”

“I’m sure this is going to make her very happy.”

“It’s terrific,” Sid said.

“I haven’t spoken to Paul, have you?”

“I spoke to him once.”

“I suppose he’s excited too.”

“I suppose so.”

“Paul’s a much calmer person than Libby,” I said.

“Of course, Libby tells me that his father just died. I guess that’s muted his pleasure some.”

I nodded. “Though,” I said, a few moments later, “I don’t believe they were very attached, Paul and his father.”

“Apparently Paul goes to synagogue for him every day.”

“He does?”

“Every morning, Libby told me. To say Kaddish.”

“I didn’t know that … I never really thought of Paul as a religious person.”

“However, a death—” he began.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right.” There had been something in his voice that I did not like — the tone of a man who considers himself a little more upright than his neighbor.

Heading up Maryland, his mood changed, and the tone, if it had ever been present, changed too. “Well,” he said, “I know someone who’s going to be glad to see you.”

“Who’s that?”

“I take it you’re Theresa’s Mr. Wallace.”

“Oh. Yes. She never got it right and I gave up trying.”

“Well, she asked for Mr. Wallace. I think it’ll help, your being there. I’m glad you could stay in town.”

I did not quite understand — or rather, I thought I understood, but was a little blinded by surprise, and then by irritation. “I planned to be in town anyway,” I said.

When we were within a block of the Herz apartment, he said. “So we’re all straight on procedure then.”

“I think so. The Herzes will wait in your car, and you’ll get out with me and get a taxi.”

“I’ll have a taxi right by the hospital entrance.”

“And I’ll get Theresa, then I pay the bill—”

“You’d better pay the bill first,” Sid suggested. “I think it’ll be less complicated. Paul will give you the check — I called up and got the total on the bill—”

“Then I bring her downstairs,” I said, “and get into the cab with her.”

“I’ll park the car around the corner. That way the Herzes won’t have to see her. And she won’t have to see them.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Anything else?” he asked.

“That seems about everything. I take it she hasn’t seen the baby.”

“That’s all been taken care of.”

He was not really officious, and not actually self-laudatory, and his managerial qualities were certainly to be valued, especially at this time, and yet I found myself feeling a tinge of resentment for all the little things he had thought to do. Even on the previous night, when I had told him on the phone that he could use my car, he had countered by suggesting that it might actually be better to use his — it had four doors and would make it easier getting in and out with the baby. Probably that was so, and I had acceded; but after hanging up, I had a picture of him in his bachelor apartment thinking about the number of doors my car had as compared to the number of doors his car had, and I appreciated how, after all, a certain kind of woman might find him a little dull. “I suppose that’s the most sensible way,” I agreed.