Rafael Yglesias - The Work Is Innocent

“Am I being too hard on you?”

Richard nodded bashfully and got a loud smacking kiss from Betty on the forehead. Joan looked at him and was ready with a sarcastic remark when Naomi entered, walking briskly, dressed in boots and a heavy overcoat. “Brother,” she said. “Come, let’s take a walk.”

Betty protested that he hadn’t finished eating, but Richard, after another curt request from Naomi, hurried both his breakfast and his dressing for the cold outdoors. They went out and Naomi took his arm. “Shall we walk to the road?” she asked.

“Sure. Is there something in particular we’re going to discuss?”

“No,” she said, suddenly relaxed. “I just haven’t seen my snuggums brother for a long time.”

“My God,” Richard said, embarrassed. “You’re not gonna start using my childhood names.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Naomi was abject. “I forgot. That must be very annoying. I’m sorry.”

He laughed. “It didn’t upset me. In fact, I rather like the idea of going back to my baby names. It’s comforting.”

“I’m glad,” she said, turning girlishly to look at him before resuming their walk. “It’s sad that you’re all grown up.”

“Is it really?”

“Yeah,” Naomi said quietly.

Richard respected the silence Naomi wanted after that statement. He knew from past experience with her that this sadness was not serious. He watched the gray sky through the branches of the sleeping trees, hoping for snow.

“So are you going to become very famous?” she asked finally.

He tried to look clever, self-knowing. But Naomi’s expression was earnest. “Do you mean, is that what I’m trying to do?”

Her eyes watched him thoughtfully. “I guess so.”

“Yeah. Of course that’s what I’m trying to do.”

“Really?” she asked in a tone of surprise that seemed ready to become shock.

“Well, Naomi,” he said, irritated, “you’ve put it unfairly. I want to write beautiful, brilliant novels that encompass all of human experience. I don’t want to be famous for writing junk. I want to be famous for being great.”

“Oh, all right.”

He laughed. “That’s all right? Good.”

“No. I just thought maybe being published and everything had distorted your, you know, sense of what you want.”

Of course it had, he thought, but why is that her business? Triumph and defeat are private matters of the spirit. “No, I’m still a serious artist. I still have my ecstasies, you know?” He smiled and hoped to cheer her out of this romantic melancholy.

She laughed and tugged at his arm excitedly. “That’s good. That’s what I wanted to know.”

“So what’s with you? I hear you’re gonna get a job.”

“Well, I might, I’m not sure.”

They had reached the end of the driveway and they stopped as if waiting for someone to arrive. Richard, looking up and down the empty roadway, got the feeling that no car would come for months. “You mean, you don’t know if you’ll get it?” he asked.

“Oh, I’ll get it,” she said with surprise. “I’ve got it. I mean, they offered it to me. I don’t know—” She broke off and stared ahead with no indication of ever resuming.

“You have a reason for not wanting to work?”

Naomi was delighted. “Sure. Who wants to work? No, I do, but—I don’t know if I should.”

“The baby. Is that it?”

“Yeah,” she said abstractedly, and Richard didn’t encourage any further discussion. He was tired of feeling sympathetic to the needs of women.

“I’m told things are good between you and John,” he said.

“Is that what people do in this family!” Naomi said with stunning irritation. “Check on how my marriage is going?”

“Hey! I’m just—it’s part of your life. You don’t want me to ask about it?”

“No,” she said in a whine near to tears. “Who told you that?”

“What?”

“That we were doing well.”

“John. Who else for Christ’s sake!”

This hit her forcefully and she embraced him, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m crazy.” She broke away. “Let’s go back to the house. I’m in a terrible mood, I need some nice tea.”

They turned to walk back. “I asked him last night,” Richard said in a hurried tone. “And he said things had really been good, so I just wanted, I don’t know, to enjoy that with you.”

“Enjoy that with me?”

“Well, it sounded very nice the way he said it. I thought we could have a pleasant time discussing it.” He tried to smile ingratiatingly at her.

“I don’t know why I did that,” she said. “I just feel the whole family’s talking behind my back about us.”

He wanted to tell her how natural and good it was that people worried about them, but he’d learned how useless it was to try to make the world objective and sensible. “No,” he lied. “No one’s said a word.”

“Good,” she said, shaking off her ill feelings immediately and looking adventurously at him. “So you want to know why things are so good? I taught John to argue.”

Richard laughed.

“I shouldn’t say that. I encouraged him to get angry. To fight. He wasn’t brought up to fight. You know what I mean? I always felt in our family, for whatever else was wrong, we knew how to fight, how to get angry at each other. But his parents only argue when they’re drunk and then it’s just forgotten or dismissed in the morning.”

“Hey, that’s good. That sounds like you’re really dealing with stuff.” Richard listened to this new self of his talk with revulsion—but a revulsion that could diminish.

“Oh yeah,” Naomi said tenderly. “It was good for us to live apart. That’s what nobody, except for you, understood.”

Richard spent the long afternoon, made longer by frantic preparations for a huge meal and the wrapping of presents, having intimate talks. Leo collared him to help gather wood for the fireplace.

But, once in the barn, Leo asked him why Aaron was so upset with him. Richard asked what he meant and Leo complained that Aaron teased him about his lack of a career. “Well, you started that bullshit about being a bum,” Richard said. Leo looked afraid and Richard softened his tone. “Remember when you were busy with the Columbia uprising and you thought it was clever to answer the question of what you were doing by saying, Oh, I’m just a bum?”

“It was a great tactic,” Leo said happily. “Because it would put people back on the defensive. They’d have to start encouraging me and making me feel better about doing political work.”

“Yeah, it was cute. But Mom and Dad took it very seriously and thought you shouldn’t belittle yourself. Now Dad’s figured out that you were being perverse and so now he’s on your ass. It’s his tactic.”

Richard had disappointed Leo as an analyst. “No, man. It has to do with your book.” Richard told himself to go on alert and repel any pain. Leo whispered, “He’s afraid that I feel bad. That’s why he keeps encouraging me to do that jail stuff into a book.”

Richard wanted to remind Leo that he had mentioned it first to Aaron. But instead he listened patiently and said, “I guess so,” to each elaborate scenario Leo created to explain Aaron’s attitude. Richard found it difficult, but it pleased Leo to have him agree.

When they returned to the living room Richard was upset even more by Louise. She had never forgotten the fights Richard used to have with Aaron and, for the last few days, had spent a lot of time whispering asides to Richard when Aaron would slap him on the back and tell him to stand up straight, or suggest he brush his teeth. Richard hated her for it: he was enraged by her assumption that he was oppressed by the duties of a son. She imitated Aaron as they came in carrying the wood, calling Richard “dear boy” with the tone of an English patrician. “Dear boy, would you feed the dog. Oh, I’m so grateful. Your old man is so grateful having such a dutiful son.” He stared at her coldly but she continued, seemingly unruffled. She obviously remembered when Richard used to imitate Aaron and thought it relieved him to make fun of his father.