Philip Roth - Letting Go

Actually June didn’t like him to kiss girls at all. That was what they had been arguing over when her father had thrown his egg. He had said that June didn’t even want him to talk to them, to stand within ten feet of them; June said that wasn’t so, he said it was, she said it wasn’t — and then the two halves of his plate were rattling on the floor and Markie was pointing at the egg sliding into the sink. Looking steadily into her cereal bowl, Cynthia had been able to imagine how it all had happened: on the Griffin’s lawn, where the party had been the night before, her father must have gone up to a girl who was there and kissed her. Cynthia was even able to imagine the girl, in a billowy dress and patent leather sandals like her own new Papagallos … Now whenever her father kissed her, she believed that partly it was to spite June, and she knew that would make June angry at her , make her cross the way her old mother used to be.

So in the Reganhart household, matters of affectionate display became complicated for a while: first June would kiss Markie, then her father would come over to kiss Cynthia, and Cynthia would have to run out of the room, or up the beach, or to the far end of the garden to get away from him. Which made her father angry with her. For the time being she did not want to be kissed by anyone. She had not, however, pushed Markie from her bunk because June preferred to kiss him, or because she had thought her little brother had himself wanted to kiss her. She had pushed him out because he did not belong there in the first place. He was going to do something to her. She had not had to explain to anybody why she had pushed him, because nobody as yet had asked what had happened. Nobody had scolded her and nobody so far had said what the punishment was to be.

When she was being driven to the beach in June’s convertible, her stepmother asked her, “Did you see it, Cynthia?”

“See what?”

After a moment June said, “See Markie fall.”

And Cynthia replied, “I was sleeping.” And then she knew that what she had begun to suspect was not — as usually happened — simply what she was beginning to hope for. She knew that she was not to be punished at all. June had taken one hand from the steering wheel and put it on top of Cynthia’s head, gently.

No one knew what had happened. Only Markie, and he didn’t know either. He couldn’t, for the same reason that he couldn’t have been going to do something to her — he had been sleeping. But of course she didn’t know that anything really had to be done. If it was the right month and a man got into bed with a lady, that was that. Her father had a penis like Markie’s, and she, June, her mother, and Mrs. Griffin all had vaginas. All men had penises. They were what gave you the babies.

At Barnes Hole, where the beach was touched by an endless silver bay, she decided that she did not even want to get out of the car.

“Don’t you feel well, dear?” June was asking.

“I don’t want to go here.” She had a sense of some new power that was hers; but now that she was at the bay, at the brink of a regular day, the familiarity of the landscape and the routine was not the comfort she had been expecting it would be.

“Where would you prefer to go?” June removed her sunglasses. While she rubbed her eyes Cynthia had to turn away — their redness embarrassed her. “Would you like to visit somebody?”

“I just don’t want to go here, I’ll tell you that.”

“Well, how about the ocean beach?”

“I suppose so.”

“Honey, where would you like to go?”

“Oh, the ocean beach is okay.”

She did not look up to see what the effect had been of the little snarl in her voice. But looking down she saw that June’s slender suntanned hand, the one with the pretty blue ring, had curled over hers again. In a moment the car had turned and they were headed for the ocean. The wind blew her hair — a delightful cool feminine feeling — and she could not help herself: she was smiling. It was because she had had to look straight into Markie’s blood that she was receiving so much care and attention; she knew this, but she continued smiling anyway. The truth was that she deserved special attention; the sight of the red blood creeping down the floor boards had nearly turned her stomach. She had cried and become hysterical, and she had screamed and screamed. She remembered now what it was she had screamed: “Markie fell! Markie fell out!”

And hadn’t he? Well, hadn’t he? If not, then June would be punishing her now instead of rewarding her with kindnesses. If anyone at all had pushed Markie it was God, who had seen that it was a sin for her stupid little brother to get in bed with her when they weren’t married.

They were driving along the road that led between the trees to Amagansett. “Don’t you like Barnes any more?” June asked.

“The water’s dirty.”

“I thought it was so clean—”

“I don’t like it there! I’m not going there!”

“Nobody’s making you,” June said, and that, she thought happily, was the case. At the edge of Springs they approached the small grocery store with the gas pump out in front. June pulled the car over and parked by the steps that led up to the store. She went inside to make a phone call, while Cynthia waited in the car and spelled out the sign over the doorway.

H. Savage — Groceries and Gas

Barnes Hole Rd, Springs

It had turned out, of course, that there was no hole at Barnes at all. She had looked for it during the first week of her stay. By herself she had walked the long stretch of beach, and then she had even enlisted Markie, but he was no help because he kept seeing holes, virtual abysses, that weren’t even there. At low tide she went off alone, dragging her legs through the receding waters, but with no luck; at last she had to come back up to the blanket, her nose wet and the ends of her hair damp, and ask June where the hole was. June explained to her that it was only a name given to the place — officially it was called Barnes Landing. But all the ladies continued to smile and she realized that it was something a child wasn’t supposed to know. And she was right — that same afternoon a boy with large ears had let her hang onto his tube with him, and he seemed so helpful she had decided to ask him where the hole was. He had pointed between her legs and then ducked her under the water.

She looked up the steps. Nobody in the dark store was near enough to see her; all she could make out were June’s white sandals and one hand holding a Kleenex. She slid down into the crevice of the front seat of the convertible. Pushing her bathing suit aside, she put her finger a little way inside herself. So far, no baby.

Soon June emerged into the sunlight, but her expression was impossible to figure out. She had on dark glasses and was wearing her big straw coolie hat — the one Markie used to like to parade around in — and a blue jumper over the top of her bathing suit. Cynthia thought she looked like a man, but then she came down off the little porch swinging herself like a lady, and got into the car.

“May I turn the radio on?”

June nodded and they started away.

“Is it okay if I listen to music?”

“That’s fine,” June said.

Turning all the knobs, she asked, “Did you call the hospital?”

“I spoke to your father. Markie’s resting — Cynthia, could you tune it down just a little?”

“Is he unconscious?” She had heard earlier that he was.

“That just means he’s getting a good rest, Cynthia. It’s the body’s way of making sure we get a good rest.”

“Will he be all right then?”

“Of course—” June said. “Cynthia, please lower the radio—”