Philip Roth - Letting Go

Martha appeared, wearing her coat, and I pretended not to notice the shape her eyes were in.

“I have to go shopping,” she said. “Do you want anything?”

“You know, I feel much better. I think perhaps at noon I’ll drive home.”

“Slimmer said stay in bed. You can’t go out in this weather; it’s snowing. It’s awful.”

“I can’t stay here forever.”

“Who’s talking about forever? You just can’t go out now.”

“Sissy doesn’t have to move, Martha, because I’m staying here.”

“Sissy has to move because I’m staying here. Please, don’t mind that scene. You shouldn’t be feeling guilty about anything,” she said, kissing my forehead. “I mean even the things you should be, you shouldn’t be. It’s a privilege of the shut-in.”

“But it has to do with me. I know it does.”

“You only precipitated what had to be. I should be thankful to you.”

“What about the rent?”

“What about it?”

“You told me Sissy helped with it.”

She made a gesture with her hands that I can only characterize as hopeless. “I’ll be all right.”

“Martha, I feel responsible,” I said. “I know I’m making Cynthia unhappy too.”

“You’re not making me unhappy! You’re not making little Markie unhappy. He’s out in the hall right now, just dying to take your temperature. Majority rules around here. Cynthia is going to have to start to learn the facts of life. Don’t worry about her — she’s going through a whining stage, that’s all. It’s only a battle of wills, and I can’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t be the winner. I’m twenty years older than she is, I earn the money around here, and I do the major part of the worrying, and she’ll be fine, just fine.”

“I don’t want you to feel obliged to me. I’m perfectly up to being sick alone.”

“You’re a liar too. Gabe, don’t we have some rights? It’s not killing anybody, is it, you being here? Dear heart, I’ve been a terribly, crushingly good girl. I’ve been a pain in the ass to half a dozen healthy, willing, attractive men. I’ve been so careful it’s coming out of my ears. And I was right to be, I’m not sorry a bit. But bringing Sissy in was a mistake — making love to you wasn’t.”

“You’re sure?”

“I feel my life is right side up again.” She let out a sigh then, which, in its way, thrilled me. “I’m really quite taken with you, old man.”

“I’m taken with you, Martha. But I don’t want you to start chucking people out, and so forth and so on, and becoming miserable …”

“I’m not miserable.”

“I’ll admit I’m not unhappy myself.”

“I didn’t think so,” she said, smiling.

“And now would you do me a favor, since I’ve set your life so straight? Would you stop by my apartment and see if there’s any mail?”

“Sure.”

“Take my car. The key is in my trousers. Why don’t you use the car? Otherwise the battery will go dead.”

It had been several years in the doing, but I had managed at last to pawn off that machine on someone.

After Martha left, Markie came in, carrying my thermometer as though it were a wand. I thanked him and he went into the living room where he said he was making Christmas cards.

I called Spigliano’s office and got the departmental secretary.

“They were wondering where you were,” she said accusingly.

“I’m sick, Mrs. Bamberger. I probably won’t be in until the end of the week. Is Mr. Spigliano in?”

“No. I’ll leave him the message.”

“Would you ask somebody to pick up the papers today from my nine-thirty class?”

“Mr. Herz is in the office — shall I ask him?” Without waiting for an answer, she left the phone.

Then she was back. “Mr. Herz says he’ll pick them up for you.”

“Thank you.”

“He says do you want him to drop them off at your apartment.”

“He can just leave them in my office.”

When I hung up — from a conversation that had struck me at first as only irritating — I felt strangely dependent upon Martha Reganhart. The strong attachment I had for her, I’d had almost from the very start; what was unsettling was that my needs seemed really to have begun to outdistance my feelings. And it occurred to me — a thought equally as unsettling — that she might herself be in a similar predicament. I wondered if our intimacy would have been so immediate, had it not been for the other circumstances of our lives. It seemed to me that we should try at least to slow things up a bit. I found myself hoping that when she returned she would be holding in her hand a picture post card of Grossinger’s indoor swimming pool, with the words Happy Birthday written across the back. But she returned with an armful of bundles for herself and only a bill from the phone company for me, and I had a morbid vision of my mother’s bones in the earth. Martha dumped all her gayly wrapped packages on the floor, and then because Markie was calling her, she flew out of the room to attend to his needs. And there in the bed, with no post card to read, I knew that both my father and I had been cut loose from the past.

“We going to have tuna?” Markie was asking.

“You had tuna yesterday,” Martha answered. “Didn’t Annie give you tuna?”

“I think eggs.”

“No, Mark. You had tuna yesterday. How about a grilled cheese?”

“I’m making something. Does he have a temperature?”

She came back into the room, unbuttoning her coat; her face was rosy from the winter air. “Markie wants to know if you have a temperature.”

“Only a degree and a half. How’s the weather?”

“It’s incredible. It’s ghastly. Your car has some kind of respiratory ailment. Bronchitis—”

“Wouldn’t it start?”

“Not willingly.”

“There was no other mail for me?”

“Uh-uh.” She began to pile her packages at the foot of the bed. “Presents,” she whispered. “I have to go down to the Loop this afternoon and finish up.”

“Look, why don’t you wait a few days? I’ll go with you.”

“I thought shopping bored men.”

“I might get something for Cynthia for Christmas.”

“She works in subtle ways, my daughter. Are you going to neglect poor sweet Markie? And me?”

“You and Markie ought to be comforted by having your way all the time.”

“Oh ought we?” She went over to the door. “I better close this. Mark?” she called. “Are you all right?”

“I’m making something,” he called back.

“Mommy’s right here.” She closed the door and came over to sit down on the edge of the bed. “Here,” she said, picking up one of the packages. “A nurse’s kit for Cynthia; she thinks Sissy is a nurse. And this is for Mark — clay. He has simple pleasures. And then these soldiers, and this little chicken.” She opened the lid of one of the unwrapped boxes. “Here, see? You spin this and the chicken comes out. Actually, I think I got it for myself. And then I got this book. For Cynthia.” She handed it to me. “What do you think? I want your honest opinion. She’s very old for her age.”

“What is it?”

“It’s kind of a beginner’s sex book.”

“Oh yes?”

“It’s supposed to explain everything. Well, take a look. It has little colored drawings of people’s insides, and of mother’s nursing little babies … Well, come on, Gabe, open it. Don’t kid around about this, please.”

It did indeed have little colored drawings of insides, and out-sides too. I flipped through, reading passages along the way.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“Listen.” I read from page twenty-four a beginner’s description of the sex act.