Howard Norman - Next Life Might Be Kinder

“Mr. Istvakson implies that he identifies with the man in the engraving. He wants you to — what? — look at the engraving and see his own suffering. To see that you, Sam Lattimore, are the demon keeping him awake nights.”

“Have you ever had a client tell you that talking to you is like being on one of those exercise wheels in a hamster cage?”

“Spinning your wheels. Is that how you feel this conversation is going, Sam?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is that why you changed my tire?”

“What?”

“Ten minutes or so before your appointment, I was adjusting the window shades, and when I looked out, I saw that you’d opened the trunk of my car, taken out the jack, and were changing a flat tire. I noticed the flat tire this morning and was going to change it myself, but I had to review some things for our session.”

“No good deed goes unpunished, huh?”

“You consider the fact I mentioned that you changed my tire a punishment.”

“The fact that you brought it up.”

“Perhaps you feel I’m incompetent, in the sense of dealing with practical things. The practicalities of daily life, Sam. Like changing a tire. That I am unequal to the task of understanding the practical nature of things. Of solving practical problems. However, I don’t see your interactions with Elizabeth falling into the category of the practical.”

“I saw a flat tire. I fixed it.”

“What do you think we might be circling around today, Sam?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Silence for maybe five minutes. This time it felt excruciating. I closed my eyes and envisioned choking Alfonse Padgett with my own two hands — a hands-on practical measure.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Dr. Nissensen said.

“Try forty-five dollars an hour.”

“Fifty minutes, actually.”

“I forgot where I parked my truck.”

“This is happening more frequently.” Silence. “I’m afraid our time is almost up.”

“No, I have to end on a clear note. I have to end today with some conviction. As for the title of Lewis’s book, Elizabeth is not ‘a grief observed.’ On the beach at night I don’t observe an emotion. I see my wife.”

A silence of a full two minutes at least.

Dr. Nissensen said, “Just out of curiosity, did you — generally speaking, were you able to fall asleep after sexual intercourse with Elizabeth?”

“Seldom. But Elizabeth slept. She slept the sleep of angels, really. Always. She never had any trouble sleeping. No demons for her. Me, I’d stay up staring at the ceiling, mostly. Or I’d get up and make coffee and read something. I’d listen to the shortwave. Sometimes, not all that often, I’d go down and sit in the lobby.”

“We have to stop for today, Sam. And I’m sorry I introduced this just now, so late in our session. But I’m making a note, and if you want, I’d like to begin with it next time. I’ve noticed that you’ve often mentioned that, after conversing with Elizabeth on the beach, you cannot sleep. I am just acknowledging the fact that the conversations you are having with her — as you describe them — have the effect of a commensurate intimacy, of sexual intercourse with Elizabeth. It’s possibly true, possibly not true. But I’d like to explore this.”

I CARRIED THE INCIDENT with Alfonse Padgett, when he grabbed me in the lift, all day. The second lindy lesson was that very evening, of course. The incident had unnerved me. I should have mentioned it to Elizabeth immediately. Considering this in retrospect, during sleepless nights, I think it was wrong not to have told her. I suppose I hadn’t wanted to ruin her lindy lesson. She was working so hard, upward of ten hours a day some days, on her dissertation. Anyway, I kept the incident to myself. Had I told her, would it have affected things differently? That question again. It never goes away. There’s no end to it.

That evening, Elizabeth again was excited about the lesson. “You noticed I bought a Boswell Sisters album,” she said. “I’ve been practicing, too. With the broom. The broom leads. He’s not so good. I may have to switch to the mop.”

“In this case, switching partners sounds smart.”

Elizabeth had just slipped on her black dress; apparently she had decided this was her lindy outfit. Same pearl necklace, too. Same shoes. “You are the most beautiful woman imaginable,” I said.

“Why, thank you. I hope you’re not just overcompensating for that dinner you just made.”

“You’re the most beautiful woman. I overcooked the omelets because I was distracted. You were typing with just your silk robe on.”

“Know what? I was typing. But I was distracted, too. I was thinking about you — about us. I got all wet. I think Marghanita was displeased with me. I’m sure I’ll have to erase a lot of sentences when I read them tomorrow.”

“I wish you were in your robe now.”

“Well, I’m in my dress, for lesson number two in the intermediate lindy.” She spun around once. “And Samuel, listen, I ran into Arnie Moran at the record store. I spoke to him about the creep bellman. I asked to be paired up with someone — anyone — else.”

“I’m so happy you did. What’d he say?”

“He said he’d do his best. I doubt he’s a gentleman, but at least he acted gentlemanly about it.”

It didn’t take a lot of brains to determine that Alfonse Padgett thought he was living in a movie. Maybe a B movie, a noir starring Broderick Crawford or Robert Mitchum. It wasn’t just his preening self-regard or the way he presented himself (“Not a hair out of place on his head,” Elizabeth had said), but his way of talking. I often recoiled from Padgett’s show-off pushy lingo. I felt he was acting like an actor. For instance, one late afternoon, when Mr. Isherwood said, “Mr. Padgett, have you seen your colleague bellman Tumbridge?” Padgett answered, “Not lately, but I have ears all over this hotel. I can track him down.” “Not necessary,” Mr. Isherwood replied, shaking his head back and forth, incredulous at how Padgett talked.

On another occasion, when a beautiful, long-legged woman accompanied her husband and two children into the lobby, Padgett said to bellman Tumbridge, “I wouldn’t mind those gams putting my neck in a vise.” Tumbridge just stared at him. I’m not entirely sure he got Padgett’s meaning.

That evening, I tried again to stay away from the ballroom. I’d sat down to work on my new assignment for Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons. But I found myself heading for the lift less than fifteen minutes after the lesson was scheduled to start. I began to feel it was wrong of me not to take the lessons. And besides, since Elizabeth had addressed the situation of “the creep bellman” with Arnie Moran, I ran the risk of her thinking I felt she couldn’t handle it on her own. Still, already rehearsing apologies, there I was, hurrying to the ballroom.

When I got there, I heard Alfonse Padgett’s voice. He was shouting, “You’re just pissed off frustrated ’cause your husband can’t lead!” To the left of the grandstand, I saw Elizabeth and Padgett in a standoff, about three feet apart. The other lindy students were staring at them, dumbfounded. Arnie Moran, on the bandstand, said through his microphone, “Now, now, children.”

I took a few steps closer. Elizabeth turned to Moran and said, “I asked you to pair me up with someone else.”

“I had the fix in, Arnie!” Padgett said loudly. There was that language again.

“Fix?” Elizabeth said to Moran. “Did he pay you so he could be my dance partner or something?”

Moran effected a posture of complete innocence, holding his arms up and palms outward, as if under arrest. “Mr. Winston — Mr. Rick Winston,” Moran said, “would you kindly partner with Mrs. Lattimore?”