Steven Millhauser - The King in the Tree

This mantelpiece came with the house. I can show it to you in the original plan. Solid marble. Nice, if you like that sort of thing.

Listen. I’ll tell you a story.

Once upon a time there was a woman — just like me. She grew up in a small New England town, just like me. She was well loved and cheerful and fond of reading, just like me. She was good at school but not brilliant and went to a small college in Vermont, and at the age of twenty-four she fell in love — just like me. She married the next year, and she and her husband moved into a comfortable old house. The years passed. She was happy. Then one day, do you know what happened? Listen: I’ll tell you what happened. Nothing happened. She was happy, life was worth living, she liked the summer, and the fall, and the winter, and the spring, and she liked all the days of the week. And this woman was not like me, not like me at all.

That’s my story. Did you like it?

But — good lord — can you believe it? All along I’ve been holding this envelope. You must have been wondering. Why didn’t you say something? It’s the appraisal. As I said on the phone, I’m selling the house myself. I have no use for realtors— or reelators, as everybody says these days. God, how Robert hated that. Put some water in the perculator for the reelator. Then we can discuss nucular war. Anyway, I had the place appraised, and here’s the report. I won’t ask a penny more, but I also won’t take a penny less. That keeps it nice and simple.

Now if we step around this way. . Door to the cellar. Back porch. I want to show you the back porch. But first the kitchen. That door?

The downstairs bath. Half bath — tub and no shower — newish WC — everything in fine working order. Please note the bookcase. I promised you a bookcase in every room and, by God, girl — as my grandpa used to say to my grandma — you’ll get a bookcase in every room! I mean, what with Robert’s books and mine. Will you just look at these things. A real mishmash. Wealth of Nations. Jane Eyre. Wizard of Oz. We knew where everything was, it just wasn’t in any particular order, except of course in Robert’s study. The Guermantes Way. Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Now there’s a title I’ve always liked. Screw’s coming out of that towel rack. The paint’s cracking over there; you’d want it redone. When I ordered the new toilet — I was the one who took care of things like that — the man said they came in two sizes: a short one, and a longer one. So I ask him what the difference is. He looks embarrassed, lowers his eyes. “Well, ma’am,” he says, “the longer one is. . sometimes it’s more comfortable for. . the gentleman.” Can you believe it? I practically bit my tongue off, not to laugh. “More comfortable for. . the gentleman.” Robert and I howled over it. Of course I ordered the larger one. We called it The Gentleman. Permit me to introduce you. Lady: Gentleman. Ahm right proud to make your acquaintance, ma’am. To the Lighthouse. Tristes Tropiques. Good God. I spent one night lying on the floor of this room, right here on this old linoleum. Can you imagine? It’s hard to see how anyone could fit.

Lots of sun through those windows. Kitchens should be bright, don’t you think? You ought to see the light coming through the window onto the table, on a good summer morning. Of course it’s terribly old-fashioned. Not nearly enough cabinet space. I know, I know. And I’m the only woman in America without a dishwasher. But really, where would you put it? I refuse to give up my sunny table. I could put one there — and cramp up the whole room. No, let it go. Besides, what would my friends do if they couldn’t say: Oh, you poor thing! You’ve just got to redecorate. Of course I understand a new kitchen’s a selling point. But I’ve told you about that. I’m sticking to the appraisal, no matter what.

You see up there? On top of the cabinets? Complete works of James Fenimore Cooper. Library sale. They were practically giving it away.

I could use a cup of tea. Would you care to join me? Oh, good. Good. I’ve been talking a blue streak, haven’t I? And that’s strange, because I’m known as a more or less quiet person. I calmed down after a few years of marriage. As I say, I was happy. It quiets you down. So: Robert’s quiet wife. And now, isn’t it odd, I have a desire to talk. Of course I don’t talk to just anyone. But there’s something about you. . a sympathy, I think. I could sense it when you first entered the house.

Milk? Sugar? I’m afraid I’ve only got whole. I can’t stand that two-percent stuff. Tastes like bad water, if you ask me. They say it isn’t much different from whole anyway, you have to have one percent to accomplish anything. Accomplish what, I’d like to know. Of course someone with your figure doesn’t have to worry. But I suppose it’s always the ones who don’t have to worry who do. No milk? I hadn’t thought of that. Solves the problem nicely, doesn’t it?

Mmm, that’s good. That’s very good. Tea calms me. Selling this house rattles me — it’s like stirring a pile of leaves with a stick — you never know what’s going to come slithering out— but tea, now. Tea calms me. Especially on an afternoon like this, the sun in and out — a little on the cool side. I do worry about my jonquils. Last year I lost half my forsythias. Just look at those clouds. Well. After that evening I told you about — the evening when a doubt crossed my mind — things continued as usual — except that they weren’t as usual. I knew something was wrong. Believe me, I knew. Robert was withholding something from me. You have to understand that Robert was a secretive man. I mean, he was a combination of secretiveness and. . openness. It’s one of the things you get to know about a man. But this withholding, this, this awkwardness — well. It was new. Something had changed. It upset me. He knew it did. I still thought it was the book that was harming him. He’d taken a semester off, he was putting tremendous pressure on himself, and it wasn’t going well. He told me very little about it. Typical Robert: bottle it up, fight it alone. Be a man! I knew it had to do with things, American things — I think he was even planning to call it American Things —familiar household objects that were supposed to reveal something about American life in the late nineteenth century. Robert taught history and American studies at the community college. Have I mentioned it? They paid him nothing. It was a crime. Anyway: things. Fountain pens, tin cans, bottle caps — he kept reading about these things, searching for something deep. He wanted everything to mean something. So of course I thought it was that. I wanted it to be that. I could hear him scraping back the chair in the study, pacing around. Sometimes he left the house on long walks, or rode to the supermarket late at night, where he’d spend hours studying boxes, cans — or so he said. I felt estranged from him. And, funny as it sounds, I began drinking a lot of tea. I liked the ritual, I suppose. One evening last summer I was sitting right here at this table, alone, drinking tea. Iced tea, it was, with a slice of lemon. I heard Robert’s footsteps coming down the stairs. He came through the dining room into the kitchen and sat down, right where you’re sitting now. He had his sad, doomed look but also something else, a tension, an energy. I had the impression of a dangerous electrical wire — touch it and you’re dead. In a clipped, haughty way, angry and cold but weary, broken — oh, who knew what it was — he told me. He confessed. It was a withheld kind of out-pouring, a strangled eruption. But he confessed. He’d been seeing someone. You won’t believe this, but I thought he meant a therapist. A shrink. Robert? But of course he meant a woman.