Philip Roth - Letting Go

Thirty minutes later she was in the kitchen. The Wonder of Life was spread open before her. Egg shells, peelings, onion skin and flour were all over the table and the book; there was flour on the bridge of her nose, and on her forehead where she had touched her perspiring brow. She had been grating for ten minutes, but unfortunately she had tiny wrists and was still on her first potato. Grating and grating, and oh it was so idiotic. It was insane really, the end of a disastrous day, and still she grated. And because she was Libby and she had suffered; because the more she suffered the further dignity and usefulness seemed to flee; because her right hand was pulsating, aching , with the effort to bring a little religion into her house; because finally she no longer believed in the restorative powers of anything or anyone, these latkes included, while she grated, she shed a few tears. Where the body found the reservoir to hold them, she could no longer imagine.

But life is full of surprises, or thought of another way, is one long one. She heard a creak in the hallway. It was not the first creak she had heard that afternoon — and she turned, not the first time for that either. There stood Gabe Wallach. He has come for me , she thought. And now I’d better go. Nothing else is left.

Then Paul was there, coming down the hallway behind Gabe, dark and shambling. Was she dreaming? Her two men. They have come for me, the two of them. All day they have followed me around and seen every stupid and selfish move. Gabe and Paul. Paul and Gabe. They are going to do something to me … But I am sweet and good. I deserve as much as anybody—

“I brought Gabe Wallach home,” Paul said, moving past his silent companion into the kitchen. She recognized his shoes, and the expression on his face. Too clearly. She was not dreaming. “What are you doing? What’s on your forehead?”

“Flour, nothing—”

“Libby, what are you up to?”

“Nothing! I’m just making dinner!” She tried to push everything together on the table. She shouldn’t have raised her voice. But what she was doing was nobody’s business but her own; at least not with Gabe so icy and hostile in the doorway. Curtly she acknowledged his presence. “How do you do?”

He gave no acknowledgment back; he waited. And for what? Paul’s fired! Why else would that son of a bitch be here? He can smell bad news! He hates us and we hate him and that’s it. Just last night … But the world had spun so in one day that she wondered if she might not be mixed up about the night before. Hadn’t they all separated forever?

“He has—” Paul was saying, his hands way down in his coat pockets, ruining his posture, “he has some news for us. I want you to hear it.”

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

Paul removed a hand from his pocket and started bouncing an invisible ball with it. “All right, all right, calm down, please.”

In front of Gabe, why must he treat her like a child! Who was on her side? Who was left?

To Gabe, Paul said, “You had better come in.”

He only moved forward one grudging step. Paul sat down and motioned for Libby to sit too.

Wallach took a deep breath. “Look, I spoke to Paul this afternoon about a baby.”

Libby listened for more, but no more was immediately forthcoming. She had a sudden sense of having been violated — shame, shock, fear attacked her. The deepest chamber of her heart had been forced open, and a secret stolen — a secret she had not even known she’d had. The two men whom she had turned against each other had come together and pooled their knowledge. They had made a decision for her about her life. She was going to have to bear a baby even if the two of them had to hold her down to do it. Oh no! Yes! She had ovaries and tubes, didn’t she, all the necessary equipment? So what if it was a little risk — everybody had risks to take for everybody else. Hadn’t Paul taken plenty for her? But that very patient doctor in Reading had carefully explained to them that childbirth might kill her. You see, Mr. Herz, she needs care, this frail girl of yours; she’s hardly more than a child herself. How can she carry a foetus, bear a baby — she needs care and love, this one. Well, stop laughing — I do! What’s wrong with that? I can’t have a baby! I have bad kidneys! You can’t make me have a baby, either of you! I might die!

When Gabe failed to go on, Paul said to her, “He knows of a baby. He thought we should be told about it.”

“What?” Libby said. “What baby?”

Gabe remained in the doorway. “A private adoption.”

“Why don’t you sit down?” Paul said to him. “Would you, please?” He suggested the chair next to his wife. “I want you to hear this,” he said then to Libby. “I want you to understand it all.”

Gabe came as far as the chair, but chose not to sit down. His coat had a velvet collar. The dandy! The fairy! He probably couldn’t even do it himself, the cold-hearted rich bastard!

“There’s nothing to hear,” Gabe said. “I told you everything there is to tell. It’s up to you. You can tell it to her easier than I.”

Paul said, “I’d like Libby to hear it from you. Please. I don’t want her to get confused.”

Why was he making her out to be such a handful? I protect him — why can’t he protect me! “I do not get confused,” she said.

“Please, Libby, only listen. I want you to listen and decide. I asked him to come here,” Paul said, “so all the terms of the thing would be straight in your mind.”

“What about you …?” she began, but her husband quieted her, this time with only a glance, with only the pain in his eyes.

“Somebody’s pregnant,” Gabe said, closing his eyes for a moment. “She doesn’t want the baby. You can adopt it—” He turned to Paul and threw up his arms. “Look, that’s what I told you. It’s still the same. You can do with this whatever you want.”

Slowly, his elbows moving through several of the ingredients on the table, Paul turned to face his wife. “You see,” he explained, “it wouldn’t be through an agency. I want you to understand this. It would be private. That’s a little more involved; however—”

“Are they married?” she asked.

“The girl doesn’t want the baby,” Paul said. “She’s not married.”

Libby looked up at Gabe. “Who is she?”

“A girl,” came the answer.

“Well, I mean, who is she? For you to say a girl—”

“Libby,” Paul said, “she’s a student, all right?”

“It’s just a question,” she said. “How am I supposed to know?”

“She’s a student,” Paul repeated.

“Where? Here?” Again she was asking Gabe.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled.

“Well, you’re the one who’s supposed to know her—”

“I didn’t say I knew her,” Gabe cut in.

“At the Art Institute,” Paul said, hitting the table. “Does that answer the question, Libby?”

She knew then that she was being lied to. Instead of making her even angrier, the discovery soothed and comforted; it seemed to give her an advantage.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Who’s the father? What is he? Who is he? Why doesn’t he marry her? Is it her boy friend?”

“I don’t know anything about the father,” Gabe answered flatly. He looked over to Paul. “I gave you the girl’s name. You can get in touch with her and work it out from there, if you want to. Doesn’t that make sense?”

Paul didn’t answer. “All right, Lib?” he asked. “What do you think? How does it seem to you?”

“We don’t know anything about the father, for one thing.” She had made it sound as though Gabe was responsible. “We don’t even begin to know anything—”