Philip Roth - Letting Go

“You think too much about being happy.”

“But that’s all there is, Paul.”

When they emerged later from the movie, she took her husband’s arm. The push and hurry of the crowd behind them reminded her that it was Christmas Eve. How very far she had come …

“Did you think it was funny?” she asked.

“I thought the first half was. I thought the second half was lousy.”

“That’s exactly what I thought.”

To her surprise, his fingers were touching her face. Did she have a smudge on her cheek? For a moment she could not believe that he was only touching her. And when she could, she was afraid to speak. She hung on to his arm, treating her treat as though it were an everyday occurrence; praying.

“We’d better take a cab,” he said, leading her to the curb.

“Oh darling, this night is costing a fortune.”

“Gabe isn’t going to charge us, is he?”

“Well, no.”

“Then we’ve saved all that.”

The movie seemed to have cheered him up; she hesitated to believe that it was she who might have helped initiate some change — though, God knows, she had not spoken so openly to him in years. Could it possibly be so easy? Probably he had only made up his mind to please her. But what she was asking of him was not much more, really, than that, She had only to make it clear to him now what exactly she knew to be necessary for her pleasure …

To be kissed. In the back of the taxi, driving to the station, she wanted to be kissed. Recognizing the desire as sentimental did not decrease its poignancy a bit. Everything she wanted tonight she wanted poignantly. After some minutes had passed, she felt that she might have to settle for just being in the cab beside him, driving through the rush of the holiday streets to the station.

And so she settled for it. A taxi, after all, was a treat in itself. She had not ridden in one since the night five years before when they had left that doctor’s office in Detroit. And that was all so distant that she might never have stepped foot in a cab before tonight. She had difficulty, anyway, associating herself with any of those other Libbies, the young, stupid, helpless Libbies … though Libby Herz was always and forever sloughing off old Libby Herzes — bidding a fond farewell sometimes to what she had been as little as twenty-four hours earlier. Still she couldn’t help feeling that this night was truly different. This week had been truly different. New strength had flowed into her simply from a decision to have new strength flow into her. At least it seemed as simple as that, driving in the cab, her coat pushed up against her husband’s, her hand finding his. The news from Gabe’s own mouth that he was going abroad must have something to do with it too, if Paul had in the past been distracted from her, she could not deny that she had had certain distractions of her own. But she knew that no matter what was dealt out to them in the future — and she did happen to see only good things coming their way now — she would never write to him, as she had in Pennsylvania, or dream about him, as she had in Iowa, or see him as being any more than he was, which was what she had always done, of course. She was even pained with herself for that damn charming little note she had slipped into his hands as she and Paul had been about to go off for dinner. However, it was not easy for one as passionate as she was, she thought, to be cured overnight of an old and crucial attachment. Nor for someone as needy as she had been.

But she did not need Gabe any longer. She could not afford to, especially when he was not at all as powerful as he had led her, or she had led him to lead her, to imagine. She herself had a family that needed her. She was going to help Paul to love her. Now that they were already entering what she had begun to see as the first settled period of their life, she would dedicate herself to destroying her husband’s isolation. He did not have to be separate any longer. She would convince him of happiness.

But when they left the cab her mood altered. She supposed she was a little disappointed at having traveled three miles in the back of a dark cab unkissed. But aside from that, Paul had actually said or done nothing to weaken her hope in him. When he paid for the cab, in fact, she felt as she had when he had addressed the headwaiter — very wifely. The sight of her husband taking his change from the driver convinced her that they would never be divorced. No, it was not Paul … It only seemed that she had ridden as far as she could on the crest of that single martini. Buoyancy left her, she knew she was that girl who had driven in the other cab five years back, and that she would be the same girl five years hence. And she knew that Paul knew it.

When they settled on a bench in the busy waiting room of the train station, it was ten thirty-five.

“I’d better call Gabe,” she said.

Paul had picked up a newspaper off the bench; he sat there rattling it, not reading it. “About what?” he asked.

“To see if everything is all right.” Uncontrollably she had begun to worry.

“I’ll call.”

She must, suddenly, be looking so frightened that he felt duty bound to be nice to her; she imagined that he himself was so upset now that he couldn’t sit still … until he leaned over and kissed her.

“Paul …” It was no longer necessary to call. She was absolutely bouncing from mood to mood.

But he was already moving away, toward an arrow which pointed to the phone booths. Having soared upward a moment earlier, she now plunged down, as she had two moments before. She understood his touching her face outside the movie theater, and his kissing her just now, as being linked up with some defense he was building against the appearance of his mother. The big clock overhead showed that Mrs. Herz was only seven or eight minutes away … But if he felt stronger by way of kissing her, wasn’t that something? No? The trouble with his moments of affection was that that’s all they were, moments. One hug didn’t have any connection with the next kiss. She closed her eyes. She did not understand everything that was happening. Was anything even happening? On the street she had asked a few questions, and he had agreed to give a few answers. Though in the restaurant he had practically knocked her over by asking, “What do you want to know, Libby?” Then a moment later, as she struggled to think of what it was she wanted to be told, she had seen him becoming Paul again. To think that she had pried him open for good — or even for more than ten seconds — was to overestimate her own meager powers.

Only one of her powers was not so meager. It was no small ability to be able to forget the past. I will forget the past. I will make Paul forget the past. I will convince him of happiness.

When he returned he sat down and checked his watch against the clock on the wall.

“Well, how is he doing?” She smiled.

“Oh — he’s doing all right.”

“You sound as though he’s not doing all right at all. Don’t you think he can really change a diaper?”

“Well, he’s doing all right,” he said.

“Is the baby sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“Has she gotten up for a bottle?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Well, darling, didn’t you ask? Maybe Gabe forgot where—”

“He didn’t forget.”

“Paul, don’t be nervous about your mother.”

“I suppose I am.”

“Don’t be. That’s all past.”

“I know …”

“We’ll indulge her every whim. We won’t allow her to wash a dish. I’m nervous, but I don’t feel uncertain.”

He was standing. “I’m going to the men’s room, Lib.”