Philip Roth - Letting Go

Libby was by the window, it turned out, but she was using it as a mirror in which to comb her hair. Paul was twirling her earmuffs slowly around his fingers; he signaled for me to put the cup down on the desk.

“Libby says she’d like to have that drink at the club,” he said.

“Fine,” I answered.

Libby turned from the window, her face no longer tinged scarlet, but a chalky white. She sighed and blinked ruefully. I was surprised to see that she had a reserve of strength in her, and grateful that the incident was over.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “I’ve been so damn silly. I’d like to go to the club, if you still want me. I’ve never been there before.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “Anybody who’s after the p and keeps getting the half …” I smiled.

She pointed at the machine. “It’s a ridiculous business, but I felt like one of those old movies — tied to the railroad tracks with the train coming.”

“I understand.”

“It sticks,” Paul explained, picking up his briefcase. “It could frustrate anybody.”

“Sure,” I put in. “You ought to have them fix it.”

“I will,” Libby said. She blew her nose again into the kerchief and took a last look around the office.

“Now,” Paul asked, “what are you going to put on your head?”

She pointed to the earmuffs.

“Your head,” he said. “Not your ears. Didn’t you have a handkerchief — did you have to use your kerchief?”

“I’ll be all right.”

“It’s snowing out, Libby. It’s freezing out.”

“Wait a minute,” Libby said, ignoring him, and turned back to the typewriter to put the plastic cover over it.

“Libby,” Herz said, practically begging, “don’t you have anything to put on your head?”

Standing over the typewriter she began to cry. “You’d think,” she sobbed, “a snowflake would kill me.”

Paul moved toward her, offering the handkerchief from his own pocket. “Here,” he whispered, “just till we get there. Just put this on your head, please. Look, Libby, if you don’t like office work, if it’s agony, do me a favor. Quit. We don’t need this job—”

“Oh, I like office work. I love office work,” she said, weeping. “The Dean is a very sweet man.” She raised Paul’s handkerchief to her nose.

“Please” he said, “blow it in the kerchief, will you, honey? Libby, don’t we have enough doctor bills? Please leave some thing to cover your head—”

“Well, don’t be exasperated with me!”

“Libby, maybe if you stayed home this winter you could shake—”

“I don’t want to stay home.” She pulled the kerchief from her coat and ran it under her nose.

“Maybe if you take that paper-marking job,” Paul said. “If you want to work, you can mark papers at home.”

She bent over to buckle her galoshes. “I don’t want to stay at home. I’m too damn dumb to mark papers. I don’t even have a degree.”

“Then just read. Cook. Keep house.”

“I don’t want to stay at home! What’s at home? What’s at home but a lot of crappy furniture!”

There was no answer to that. And after a second, Libby was clearly humiliated with herself. She tilted her head, and put her hands on her hips, and tears slid from her eyes. She was saying, “Oh but I don’t want to stay home though. I really don’t. Oh sweetheart, there’s nothing at home—”

“Then,” said Paul in a flat voice, “do whatever you want, Libby. Whatever will make you happy.”

“Whatever will make me happy.”

She repeated his words with such utter hopelessness that Paul and I both moved toward her, as though she were on the very edge of collapse. He said, “Libby, what is it? What? ”

“Oh I want a baby or something,” she moaned. “I want a dog or a TV. Paulie, I can’t do anything.”

“Yes you can. You can do anything.” His back was to me, and he was rocking her. “Yes you can, Libby.” Her chin hung on his shoulder. Her eyes were closed and she shook and shook her head — saying to herself no no no, even as Paul crooned to her yes yes yes. Then her dark eyes were open and I almost believed she was going to smile. She said, looking my way, “Oh Gabe …”

“Yes,” I said, raising a hand as though to wave to her. “You’re all right, Lib.”

“Oh yes, yes I am I know—” For a moment she seemed between laughter and tears. “I think I want a baby or something. I don’t want to be at home, just me. I think maybe I should have a baby—” She began to weep again.

“Libby, Libby,” Paul was whispering into her ear.

She rocked in her husband’s arms. “A baby or a dog or a TV,” she said. “Oh Paulie, what a mess, what a weary mess—”

But he went on repeating her name, over and over, as though the sound of it would remove some of her woe. She babbled and he chanted and I watched — and then I was shaking. My hands were shaking. I could not control them, or myself.

“Then give her a child! Have a child! ”

It was only when both their heads jerked up to look at me that I knew for sure that I had spoken. The savage voice, the fierce demand, had been mine. And my hands were motionless.

Paul Herz turned and went to the window.

When I spoke again it was in hardly more than a whisper. “Perhaps if there was a baby …” I stopped. I had the illusion that the two figures only a few feet away were actually way off in the distance. In miniature I saw Libby’s dark face and Paul’s hair and their two bodies. I said no more.

But Libby did. “What are you talking about?” she demanded of me. “What are you even saying? Why don’t you just not say anything for a change? What are you even saying?” she shouted hysterically. “Do you even know?”

I leaned forward to apologize. “I forgot myself,” I said. “I’m terribly sorry.”

“Well, why don’t you not say anything! Why don’t you just shut up! ”

“Libby—” Paul said, but he was facing me, so that I could not even tell which one of us he was going to address.

“Why don’t you mind your own business?” Libby interrupted him, looking right into my eyes.

I did not reply.

“Why don’t you leave him alone for a change?” she cried in a broken voice. “He can make babies! He can make any amount of babies he wants!”

“I said I was sorry I had said anything.”

“My lousy kidneys!” she cried. “I hate those kidneys. It’s my kidneys, you stupid dope!”

I looked away; after a moment’s confusion I turned to her husband. “I didn’t know. I didn’t guess.”

Libby was hammering her fists on her thighs. “Then why don’t you go away! Shut up, why don’t you! Mind your own business! ”

“I will,” I said. “Okay,” and I turned and went out the door.

But weeping, she followed me into the corridor; I heard her voice moving after me as I headed down the stairs. “How much do you expect to be told, you dope! You dope, Gabe, you tease! Oh you terrible terrible tease—”

At daybreak it was always snowing, and very late in the night too. Inside, snow blows against her bedroom window; outside, snow falls on my bleary lids; as I make a stab at navigating my car through a black antarctica to Fifty-fifth Street, snow nearly sends me up trees and down sewers. At home it pings off my own window — time ticking, here comes dawn again —as in my underwear and socks I dive into the disheveled bed, gather about me my rumpled sheets, and go sailing off after sleep. How my body remembers that winter. It was always tired, poor soul, and outside — beyond what body can and cannot change, where body promises nothing, annihilates no one — it was always snowing.