Philip Roth - Letting Go

“Because you do?”

“I don’t. I can’t. I don’t even want to. But you’re different. I don’t even know what you are — but I love you, Paul. And I don’t care that you don’t love me. I know you’re a good man.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t love you,” he began.

“I don’t care. Let’s pay the bill — let’s take a walk. I feel chaotic inside. I’m sorry if I’ve ruined our ten-dollar dinner.”

“Please,” she said, as they walked west toward the theater, “I can’t keep one foot in each camp any longer.”

She waited, but did not hear him ask that she explain. It was difficult to tell whether he was not listening, or was thinking, or had chosen simply to ignore her.

“I can’t keep provoking other men, Paul. I’m just spilling out everything — and I’m sorry. How much was dinner, eleven dollars? I know I’m responsible for wasting it. When I was a child I always wound up crying on my birthday — there would always be an argument, somehow or other. I had a way, I have a way, of ruining significant days. I suppose I shouldn’t have had that drink what with these kidneys inside me. I was just edgy enough, and now I’m just drunk enough — and I want you to talk to me. Please, we’ll walk all the way to the movie, and please, you just talk. Up at Cornell you could persuade me of anything. Persuade me now.”

“About what?”

“About you. I keep thinking that either you believe in God or you love me. It’s not something I’ve given a lot of thought to, but it comes into my head, and I might as well say it. Weak as I am, Paul, I’ve always said things. Blurted them out. It’s our sixth anniversary,” she said after a moment. “Persuade me, will you? You just can’t cut me out of your life!”

The air was cold; they were walking directly into a light wind. Neither looked at the other. “I can’t give you positive answers,” he said. “I’m not sure either way, about either.”

“Stop sparing me too, all right?”

“Libby, since my father’s death, since that trip, it’s been me who’s felt as though he’s been being born. Perhaps you have, but so have I. And I’ve not come out yet.”

“When—?”

“I don’t know.” He raised his hands impatiently. “I’m trying to speak indirectly …”

“Why do you go to the synagogue then? Why do we stay married? I keep thinking, Well he believes—”

“Faith is private; why do you have to feel so impassioned about mine?”

“When you came back from New York I thought everything was going to change. I thought religion—”

“I’m not so sure any more about the religion I came back with from New York. Things have gotten better. That’s precisely it.”

“Don’t think,” she said gloomily, “they’ve gotten that much better.”

“And that’s why I still go to synagogue. They haven’t gotten that much better.”

“I don’t think I’m understanding everything you’re saying. Are you saying that if we were both perfectly happy, then you wouldn’t go at all?”

“I suppose, in a way, that’s what I’m saying.”

“Well, what do you do there — do you pray? Why do you even go there? Are you praying for things to get better, so you can just forget all about it?”

“Things won’t get ‘better,’ Libby.”

“That’s not so! They have gotten better. If you would just give yourself up to us! ”

“First you told me not to spare you—”

“But you’re being unreasonable. You don’t try to make things better. You’re distracted from me!”

“I’m never not thinking of you, Libby; that’s not so.”

“I’m not talking about thinking about me.”

“Look, I don’t understand my actions any more than anybody else. I’m not going to try to defend myself for not having the feelings you want me to.”

“I don’t want you to have any feelings but the normal ones.”

“If I can’t feel what I have to, I do what I have to.”

“I don’t see how you can do them then.”

“I force myself.”

“Oh Paul, I hate you for saying that.”

“I go and sit in the synagogue, Libby—”

“Yes — now tell me why, damn it?”

“Because I don’t feel complete about myself. Everything seems … incomplete.”

“Yes?”

“And I don’t go because I expect to be completed either.”

“I don’t understand your God,” she said, heartbroken.

“I’ve been mystified lately by things looking as though they’re getting better. It’s shaken my faith.”

“Is that supposed to be a joke? Are you going to toy with me, tonight? Lately I feel indulged — I don’t even mean indulged; I mean too underestimated even for me.”

“I’m not making jokes.”

“Well, I don’t believe in doom! You believe in doom — that’s what you’re saying. Don’t you love Rachel at least? Don’t you feel anything toward her?”

“I love Rachel.”

“So? And? ”

“And what?”

“Well, can’t you believe in pleasure? Can’t we have a pleasant life together? Is that so hard? I don’t think you have any right to justify your — whatever it is, concerning me and our marriage—”

“I haven’t tried to justify—”

“Let me finish — it’s a very involved thought and I’m a lousy thinker. Please, Paul. What you’re saying — I don’t even know if I’ve got it — but you’re saying that you and I are supposed to be unhappy because that’s in the nature of things. Well, it may be in the nature of things, but it’s not in my nature! I’m just dying to be happy, I just can’t wait very much longer. I wish you’d stop dragging your heels about it, too. Please, Paul, if you’d just relax.”

“Oh, Libby …”

“Well what?”

“I can’t make myself be what I’m not.”

“Oh that’s an excuse! That’s — philosophy! I’ve made myself be what I’m not — don’t you know that? You can’t act this way, Paul, you’re stronger than I am. You’ll just have to be!”

Whatever his next thoughts were, he kept them to himself.

“What kind of God is that anyway!” she demanded.

“I can only believe as much as I can manage to believe for what must appear to somebody else — even my wife, Libby — to be very private reasons. I didn’t believe they were so eccentric, however.”

“I think you just go to the synagogue to get away from me.”

“Please … I go there to say the mourner’s prayer.”

“You said you don’t pray.”

“That’s right. I don’t pray.”

“Oh Paul—”

“I mourn, all right? You see, this is difficult to talk about.”

“Well — but don’t mourn: fix things up! ”

“Certain things I have to accept.”

“But then I have to accept the things you have to! That’s what’s unfair, don’t you see? You’re being,” she said hopelessly, “terribly unfair … and pompous,” she added faintly.

“You see, are we getting anywhere with this conversation?”

“I’m getting confused. You’re going at things upside down. You’ve given up,” she said, incredulously.

“I’ve perhaps given in.”

“Well, that’s the same damn thing. That’s worse. ”

“We’re not going to understand one another—” But when she stopped walking, when she closed her eyes, he took her hand and added, “Tonight.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t think you know what you believe.”

“I don’t know all I believe.”

“Well,” she said weakly, “I hope you see that’s not making me very happy.”