Philip Roth - Letting Go

For a moment I stood silently before the nun, knowing that if there was one thing I didn’t want to do, it was to go out to the car and bring in Paul to verify his check.

“You see,” I said to the sister, as graciously as I could, “it’s not my check.”

“I understand. I wanted to know your relationship to Miss Haug.”

“I’m her brother,” I said.

After a second she said, “Thank you, sir.” She handed me the receipt. Theresa’s stay at the hospital had cost Paul $327.60. That did not include the money he had already given her to cover the prenatal checkups and her expenses during the last two months when she had been unable to work; nor did it include the money she was to get for the next two weeks while she recuperated. As I left the cashier’s counter, the only person I could think to hate was John Spigliano, who, though he had finally agreed in the Executive Committee to hire Paul for another year, had vetoed a raise for him on the grounds that Paul still had not finished his Ph.D. Walking to the elevator, I felt a disgust for him such as one feels for a scapegoat, or surrogate. One knows better but keeps hating anyway.

I took the Up elevator in the company of two young priests and a doctor who was wearing a blue surgery uniform. In soft voices they exchanged some words about a patient who was either dying or dead. When I stepped off into the corridor that led to the maternity ward, one of the priests looked up at me and smiled.

The sister behind the desk at the entrance to the ward took my pass card and led me down the aisle, between rows of beds, all white and fresh-looking. We stopped a few beds short of a large window through which the sunlight flowed. Theresa was sitting on her bed, wearing a bright-colored print dress which was decorated with pictures of burros and musical instruments and palm trees and the maps of certain South American countries. A little brown suitcase with a circular sticker that said “Carlsbad Caverns” was on the floor. When she saw me, she opened her mouth very wide, and then jumped off the bed. There was a comb in her hand, and even as she threw her arms around me, I caught the glint of a curler in her orange hair.

“You’re early —” I felt Theresa’s palms against my back, not her fingers themselves; then I smelled her nail polish. I proceeded to place my arms around her, for I realized we were being watched — which was what Theresa realized too.

“Hi. Hello,” I said. In the bed just beyond Theresa’s, a little woman with a big jaw and heavy bags under her eyes was giving me a friendly grin. I smiled back.

“Well …” I said, and finally Theresa stepped away. Now I smiled at her too. “You look fine,” I said, and even while I spoke I felt the presence of the nun who had accompanied me down the corridor; Theresa’s glance kept darting over my shoulder, and finally I turned to the sister. Since I had gotten by with smiles so far, I smiled at her too. She did not take to it, however. She was a woman with striking blue eyes, who was made less than handsome by a skin eruption that ran around the edge of her cowl and fringed her face. It was clear that she disapproved, but it was not clear as yet of what. I could not tell how old or young she was.

“I’ll bring the baby,” the sister said to me. “I’ll wait by the elevator.”

“Thank you,” I said. “We’d appreciate it.”

“Thank you,” said Theresa, with both fear and devotion.

I picked up Theresa’s suitcase. The woman with the baggy eyes turned on her elbow and said to me, “How was your trip?”

“Oh,” I said, “fine.”

“I’ll bet you were surprised,” she said.

“This is Mrs. Butterworth,” Theresa said. “This is her seventh. ”

“Eighth,” said Mrs. Butterworth.

“Imagine,” Theresa said.

I offered my congratulations.

“Oh I’m used to it,” Mrs. Butterworth told me. “It’s you two needs congratulating.”

Theresa took my hand, and I felt some of her nail polish rubbing off on me. The hand was just about as cold as Libby’s had been in the car. “Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”

“We live out here on the west side, right off Archer,” Mrs. Butterworth said. “You know where that is?”

“I think so,” I said.

“Well, you want to take a ride out on Sunday, why you just drive right out. I gave her the address. You got it, don’t you, honey?”

“Uh-huh,” Theresa said; she picked up her purse from the bed and waved it at her friend, indicating, I suppose, that the Butterworth address was safely locked away. It was the same plastic bag she’d been carrying that night I had met her, back in the winter.

“I think we’d better be going,” I said.

“You kids take it easy now,” Mrs. Butterworth called.

We started down the aisle of the ward, Theresa still with one metal curler in her hair which she must have forgotten about in the tension and excitement of leaving. Some of the women who were awake sat up in their beds and said goodbye. Theresa took hold of my arm and moved between the beds, saying goodbye and so long and see ya. At the end of the corridor I saw the nun holding a bundle in her arms. She pushed the elevator buzzer and we all stepped in. The sister did not offer to show me the baby’s face within the blankets, and I did not ask to see it.

On the way down Theresa looked up at me. I tried to smile again, but she didn’t have it in her to smile back.

At the main floor the nun accompanied us to the front door. A taxi immediately swung up the crescent drive; I saw first the face of the driver, a Negro, and then Sid in the back seat.

We stood out in front of the new building, where the four nuns had been standing when Sid had driven by earlier. As yet Theresa had looked neither at the sister nor at the child; either she looked at me or at no one.

I turned to the nun. “Fine,” I said. “Thank you.”

She only stared with her very severe eyes.

“May I have it, please?” I asked. Theresa looked straight ahead, as though she were not with us. Down below, the back door of the taxi opened.

I could see that the nun was holding her teeth together; finally she gave me the baby, then turned and went back into the hospital. I did not know how much, or what, Theresa had told her.

“Right down there,” I said to Theresa. “Mr. Jaffe’s in the taxi.”

She preceded me down the stairs, and I realized how strange it must look for me to be carrying the baby and Theresa to be carrying her little suitcase. But she was well ahead of me — I was making my way down like an old man, one step at a time — and there was nothing to be done about it. I looked into the blankets now, to be sure there really was a baby there, and of course there really was. All of a sudden I found myself grinning euphorically; everything was going as it should. It even seemed more sensible that it was me who was carrying the baby, not Theresa.

Down below, Sid stepped out of the cab and Theresa got in. Then he ran around the back of the cab and went in the other door. On my side the door remained ajar, and I stepped into the cab at last, easing myself and the baby through, and then I was seated beside Theresa. When I looked back to where I had begun my journey, I saw a nun standing on the top step. Suddenly she threw us a kiss — she must have thought we were another party. I smiled at her through the window. Within the blanket I felt the baby stir.

“All right,” Sid said to the driver. As we started down the entryway, Theresa sighed. It was over.

“Well, how are you feeling?” Sid said to her. I saw that he had taken her hand and was patting it. Nail polish was sticking to everyone’s hand now; that alone seemed to be preventing things from being absolutely perfect. I knew the thought to be an irrational one even as it passed through my mind, and yet it rather set me on edge again. After all, the girl had put the polish on for me.