Philip Roth - Letting Go

We settled finally in a chair near the Christmas tree. Peggy was saying, “I’ve always been interested in Judaism, even in the seventh grade—”

As Peggy spoke, I saw my few adult years as a series of miscalculations, insincerities, and postures; either that, or I was unforgivably innocent.

“Oh where,” I sang, “are all the nice Gentile boys.”

“Gabe, shhhh — what are you talking about? Stop narrowing your eyes like that.”

“You’re after our men.”

“Oh Gabe, please cut it out. Please …” For Peggy’s purposes, I had to be either romantic or intelligent.

“I should have married Doris Horvitz,” I said.

“Now I’m not kidding—”

I slid into a grumpy silence — Peggy, damn sweet fool, took my hand and stroked it — and listened to snatches of conversation from back of the Christmas tree. Could you believe it? He was talking about structure.

“But,” answered Paul Herz, “the point is, John, that the student goes around thinking writing is like tapestry-weaving; a kind of construction work. As far as he can make out, it doesn’t have anything to do with life, with being human—”

“I don’t”—John was chuckling—“know if it’s our duty to be teaching them, as you like to put it, to be human. I know it’s nice to be engagé —” he said facetiously, and I lost the rest in the crash of a glass on the far side of the room.

Paul was saying, “—talk about form is an evasion— ”

“—as a critical method has a long history, I suppose, but for myself—”

“—not talking about impressionism at all , for God’s sake!”

“What else then?” John asked. “One has to do more than come into class and tell the student, Oh isn’t this wonderful, oh isn’t your heart all aquiver. I suppose to be a creative writer—”

“Could you do me a favor and stop calling him that?” It was Libby speaking now.

“I’m sorry. I thought he identified himself—”

“Do you call Melville ‘a creative writer’?” she demanded. “Is that what you call Dostoevsky?”

“I meant only to differentiate between those of us who are engaged in criticism—”

“Well, the difference is obvious!” Libby said. “You don’t have to bother.”

“Let’s go, Gabe,” Peggy was saying. “You need some food in your stomach. I’m going to get our coats.”

“You take care of me, old Peg, my coat’s a—”

“I know which is yours,” she said, smiling.

I remained in my chair a moment, then rose and stretched and tried to clear my head. Back of the Christmas tree, through the branches and the tinsel and the lights, I saw Paul and Libby in profile.

She was saying, “Paul, don’t fight with him.”

“Let’s go home. Let’s get out of this fucking place.”

“But I was having such a good time— ”

His hand went up and smoothed her cheek; then it passed down, still touching her. I saw his fingers move inside the neckline of her red dress. “Let’s go home, Libby.”

I turned away. Scanning the room for a friend, I waved at Mona Meyerling, who saluted. Behind me, I heard Libby speak. “Yes yes — oh Paul—” Then she was racing right by me, one hand up to her fiery cheek, a very excited girl.

And I was in the clutches of Pat Spigliano.

“—yes, I have to,” I was saying.

“And we didn’t even get a chance to talk.”

“We’ll all get together soon,” I said.

“We must. I keep telling John we have to get together with Gabe — we must have him over for a meal one night. Ahh, did you ever get together with that sweet Mrs.… you know, John’s older student. The waitress.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all get together again. She seemed like a very nice person. A very fine person. How is she doing?”

“She’s fine,” I said. “Thanks for the party, Pat. It was a regular Spigliano party.”

“We love giving them, Gabe,” she said, as John came over to us and Peggy appeared with our coats. Behind her was Libby, already in her familiar polo coat and kerchief. She was carrying Paul’s coat on her arm.

“Goodbye,” Libby said from the doorway, where Paul now joined her. “Thank you, Mrs. Spigliano.”

“Goodbye,” we all said, and the Herzes went out the door.

Peggy couldn’t be discouraged from helping me into my coat. I had the feeling that all the people around me were winking at one another. John said, “Feeling sharp enough to drive?”

“I’m going to leave that to the taxi driver,” I said. Everyone laughed heartily.

“We love having you, Gabe,” Pat said. “We have to see more of Gabe,” she said to her husband, “and more of Peggy too.”

“Absolutely,” I said. There was no need to go on, but I did. “I have to see more of Peggy myself.”

Everyone smiled, and for the first time, because I was being allowed all the prerogatives of a drunk, I felt like one.

“And we loved your friends,” Pat said. “The creative writer and his wife. They seem like a very nice bohemian couple. I think it’s beneficial for all of us to have a young couple like that around. Though she’s a very bohemian-looking girl, isn’t she? I said to John when he hired them, I’ll bet they’re beatniks, and well,” she said, raising a finger, “I wasn’t far from wrong. I wish they hadn’t felt so out of place.”

“I guess they didn’t know everybody,” said Peggy, confused.

“He’s a very off-beat fellow,” John said.

“I suppose so,” I said, when everyone turned to me.

“However,” Pat put in, “they seemed very nice.” We all agreed to that, and said our thank yous again. At the door the Spigliano little girls sped us on our way with a choral good night.

Between the two high holly bushes that flanked the downstairs door, I slipped on the snow. My hat fell over my eyes and Peggy began to laugh. While she helped me to my feet, I saw Paul and Libby again. They were standing in front of the house next door; Paul was stopped in his tracks, and Libby was in front of him, but turned around and facing him. His hands were down in his pockets and his head inclined toward the walk.

The night was cold and empty, and their voices carried. “What is it?” Libby was saying. “What is it? I thought—”

“I do,” he said. “I do.”

“What is it then?”

“I’m all right.” He started walking.

“Oh, your moods,” Libby said. Then, each with hands in pockets, they moved down the street and out of sight.

Peggy and I had dinner at a little restaurant on the Near North Side, where there were shaded lamps on every table and the young man at the piano drank Shweppes water and played very softly songs like “Imagination” and “Long Ago and Far Away.” I continued drinking and Peggy’s eyes glistened just from intimacy alone. When the wine came, I caused a disproportionate amount of trouble over its temperature, which launched Peggy into apologizing for me to the waiter, the cigarette girl, and the people at the next table. Later we took a taxi back to the South Side. She held her glasses in her gloves all the way down the Outer Drive, and on the front porch of her rooming house I pushed into her lips with painless, moribund abandon.

“Oh Gabe,” she moaned into my cold ear, “let’s not go too fast. Don’t make me fall for you too fast.”

“Okay,” I said, and stumbled home.

I waited as long as I could bear to, and then sometime after one o’clock I called.

“Martha, it’s me. Martha, I’ve missed the hell out of you. I made a damn weak, silly error. I let everyone down, myself included. I’m not flying in the face of my instincts any more, Martha. I’m not turning off my fires any more. I’ll follow what I have to follow — I’m stopping being anxious, Martha — we make the laws, we do. I can’t keep being what I’ve been. I want to be happy, Martha. I want to be with you.”