Philip Roth - Letting Go

Later. A small hand on my forehead.

“You better not get caught in here, Markie,” I say, opening my eyes. “I’ve got a communicable disease.”

“Who?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mark.”

“Okay.”

Later still.

“How do you feel?”

“What time is it?”

“It’s four-thirty. I’m going to work. Are you hungry?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Look, take these pills. Try to take them every four hours.”

“Martha, is everything all right? Is everything, you know, okay?”

“You’ve slept through one hell of a day.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been—”

“Shhhh. Be sorry when you get better.” She smoothed back my hair. “I just told my roomer to clear out. So I’m feeling a hundred percent better.”

“Martha …”

“It’s all right. It’s not just you. I’ve got claims on a private life. I’m twenty-six years old. I don’t like other people’s moldy old sausages stinking up my refrigerator. I don’t need anyone peeking over my shoulder, that’s all. Good night, sick baby.”

“Good night. Thank you.”

“Here’s a radio. Cynthia can make bouillon. I told her you might want some.”

“Good night.”

And then, when it was dark outside, Cynthia. One of the frilly shoulder straps on her yellow nightgown had slipped down, but she seemed unaware of it. She was staring at me, which led me to believe she had been in the doorway some time.

“Good evening,” I said. “It’s snowing again, isn’t it?”

“Do you need any bouillon? I’m going to sleep.”

“As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind some.”

She turned and left; in only a few seconds she was back. “I don’t know how I’m going to get it over there. I’m not supposed to come near you.”

“Tie a handkerchief around your mouth and hold your breath, and sort of slip it onto the night table, all right?”

Cynthia went off to the kitchen, and I sat up in bed. There was a murky cup of coffee on the night table; after testing it with a finger and finding it cold, I remembered how it had gotten there. I took one of my pills, and then stuck the thermometer in my mouth and settled back onto the pillows. From the bed I could look directly at the huge circus picture that Cynthia had drawn in school, and which Martha, only a week before, had had framed. It was a gay picture — although a little painstakingly crayoned — of clowns and cages and balloons and pink-faced children holding their fathers’ hands; every child was connected to every other child by a parent. It made me feel that I had just lived through a very happy day. All that had happened seemed to have followed inevitably from the night before. Our lovemaking and my illness, Martha’s passion and her calling the doctor — it all seemed like one event.

Cynthia appeared in the doorway; one of her mother’s fancy handkerchiefs was folded in a triangle and tied bandit-fashion around her face, an eighth of an inch below her eyes. To get the cup of bouillon from the doorway to the night table took a full minute of breathless balancing.

I removed the thermometer from my mouth. “Thanks,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” and she fled to the hallway.

“Cynthia?”

“Yes?” She turned just her head.

“Cynthia … Don’t you want to hear if I have a temperature or not?” It was not the child’s fault, of course, that she had had her juices set for her father just when I happened to come along. I had certainly been willing till now to let her take whatever attitude she chose toward me. But softened by my condition, feeling as kind as I felt weak, and suddenly lonely too, I wanted Cynthia’s suspiciousness to disappear. I wanted her to fit into the orderly world of my illness.

“Well,” I said, “it’s almost a hundred and two. It’s not good, but it’s better.”

Masked as she was, I couldn’t make out her expression. She put in an obedient thirty seconds, then cleared her throat and told me, “I once had a hundred five.”

“Yes?”

“Markie once had a hundred three.”

“Cynthia, let’s be friends, all right?”

“I’m friends,” she said, and, shrugging her shoulders, went off to bed.

I was still sipping bouillon when Sissy came home. She went past my door, and then came back and stuck her head in.

“Wha—?” she said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I thought you said something.” She leaned against the door, a trench coat covering her white hospital uniform. “I’m sorry, you know,” she said. “I wish you’d tell her I’m sorry.”

“What?” I said. The only opinions I had of the girl were those I had inherited from Martha.

“That I’m sorry.”

“Sissy, I don’t know what you’re sorry about. I really don’t.” Sissy’s appearance, my confrontation with Cynthia, and the effort of drinking the bouillon combined all at once to make me intensely fatigued. But Sissy seemed to have no idea that the reason I had been in bed all day was because I wasn’t feeling well. I suppose working in a hospital produces a certain amount of insensitivity to suffering.

“Look, I didn’t mean anything,” said Sissy, settling in, “It’s her place.”

“Sis, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m supposed to move ,” Sissy announced, looking hurt that I hadn’t known right off. I managed to recall now what Martha had told me way back in the morning.

“Well,” I said vaguely, “I’m sorry.”

“Some stupid thing I said I suppose. Like I don’t even remember and still I’ve got to move.”

“It must have been pretty awful.”

“It was an argument. I don’t see what I have to move about!”

“Sissy, you better not stay too long. Apparently I’ve got a communicable disease. I’m really not up to all these moral issues.”

“I mean she doesn’t have to jump down my throat!” And she left the room, seeing that I was no help.

And finally Martha, in her blue Hawaiian House uniform, sitting on the edge of my bed.

“Better?”

“I was … I don’t know how I am now.” I had been awakened by her presence in the room.

“You feel warm again.”

“You better watch out — you’ll catch it.”

“I’m a mother. I’m immune by law.”

“Yesterday,” I said, after a moment, “was my birthday.”

“Really?”

I had just thought of it. “I’ve just remembered,” I said, “that it was.”

“Happy birthday. Are you pulling my leg?”

“No.”

She lay down beside me, on top of the covers. “Only for a minute,” she said. “I’m sleeping with the Christmas tree. We bought a Christmas tree, Markie and I. It’s a birthday tree for you, how’s that? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been in a fog for about a week.”

“How old does it make you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Splendid.”

“Your daughter brought me bouillon. We had a little talk.”

“She’ll calm down,” Martha said. “She’ll get used to you.”

“Oh, she was fine.”

“Maybe you ought to go back to sleep.”

“Do you want to sleep with me?”

She smiled. “I’m sore, and you’ll die, and we’ll both have to be buried by Dr. Slimmer. But that was nice, Gabe, so … Gabe, was I selfish and aggressive and thoughtless?”

“No, you weren’t.”

“It’s a pleasure, you know, your being sick.”

“This is how people decide to become invalids. Everybody just appears in doorways with soup and kisses, and the rest of the time you daydream and sleep. Except very early in the mornings — what’s your maid doing here at dawn? She scared me nearly to death.”