Norman Rush - Subtle Bodies

Ned said, “And he told Gruen. Everybody talked to Gruen.”

Nina said, “The affair was rather intermittent. Joris told Gruen it started when she just sought him out. Joris couldn’t have been more surprised. She showed up and collapsed on him in misery. First she went to his office and then came to his apartment, collapsing. She was trapped and unhappy with Douglas is what she said and a divorce was going to come and she had always felt something for Joris, i.e., was in love with him. She was saying that.

“So an affair began. Previous to the affair Joris said he had seen Douglas and Iva twice a year, tops, at dinners, events, in New York City. Joris was overwhelmed. The logistics of the affair that developed were built around a convenient historical fact — she had been going to a particular hairdresser in Manhattan for years.”

Ned said, “Take your time. Get your breath.”

Nina pulled off the beret. She continued, “She was definite about it. She wanted to marry him once she got divorced. It was all going to be soon.

“Now. Now. The immediate cause of the break with Douglas was that she had caught him cheating with someone in a long-distance scheme. There was a woman he would hook up with whenever they could arrange it. Both of them traveled a lot. And the worst is that Iva found out that it was a deal to get this woman — he never named her — pregnant. And it was just intolerable. He was passing it off as a favor he was doing so someone could be a single mother, or just a mother period. So he was halfway claiming it wasn’t sex, it was an altruistic endeavor.”

Ned thought, Don’t speculate . But he had a hideous idea of who it might have been, must have been. His heart hurt, speculating. He coughed elaborately to get himself a break, a minute to stay sane and reliable.

Nina said, “All this came pouring out of Gruen. David. I don’t see why I shouldn’t call him David. I do call him David. Because David knew about everything that had happened, he didn’t want to leave, because he felt he owed it to you, and to Joris, and especially to Hume, to stay and do his best. He had only nice little stories about Hume to relate, nothing bizarre. One was at a picnic someplace, and Hume said, when a bag with three beer bottles in it was brought out, Oh the little things are trying to keep each other cold. David and Helen have no kids and he went out of his way to do things with Hume when he could.

“Really, she overwhelmed Joris. When she got to the apartment the first time she was topless under her blouse and within minutes she had dropped her coat where she stood and jerked up her blouse and mashed Joris’s hands all over her magnificent breasts. And that was step one.”

Ned was listening to Nina but he was losing some of what she was saying. She had just made a reference to Lincoln Center. He could ask her later.

Of course the individual soliciting Douglas to get pregnant had been his own Claire, who was on record with him as not wanting children. If the plan had worked, he would have had a baby to raise with her and would have assumed it was his, and that would have made for a life of its own kind. Nina must know it was Claire. It was kind of her not to treat it like what it was. It was going to be nothing. He was going to make it be nothing. Because it was going to be just one of the many things from his past with Claire that were going to be nothing forever. Were nothing now.

Claire was devious, so the question of whether her game had been to get pregnant and then use that fact to get money or some unimaginable arrangement out of it from Douglas was real. Or had it been the sincere game of wanting to have Douglas’s offspring because in her heart of hearts Douglas was the one she loved and revered and whose essence she wanted to reproduce? He could think of other permutations but didn’t want to. He had to concentrate on his luck in escaping something profoundly wrong, and not on the insult and not on his self-esteem. Nina takes care of my self-esteem, he thought.

“You don’t look like you’re listening,” Nina said.

“I wasn’t, for a second. Now I am. It was Claire, wasn’t it? In your opinion.”

“Ned he didn’t use the name. I think it is pretty obvious and I hate her. I hate her. Ah, don’t look so hurt. Don’t. You escaped something that would have gotten worse and worse. I thought of not telling you, but it would’ve come out because that story was the fuse burning underneath Douglas’s marriage and that was what blew up and led Iva to go after Joris. Also, Ned, I wanted to be the one to tell you and not have you get it from some other source and say How could you not tell me? Say, How weak do you think I am? Say that to me instead, Ned.”

“I have to digest this.”

“ No you don’t, Ned . Or if you do, digest it. Do it. Do it now. You know I don’t like to talk against her but this is more than just something to add to the wrongs she did you, my man. But now I have you. You have me .”

“Claire was a feral person,” Ned said.

“Perfect word.”

Ned took his jacket off. He said, “Let’s take our shoes off and get under the covers.”

“You look cold,” Nina said.

“I’m not, or just sort of, but I want to get under the covers.”

Ned took her boots off for her. She reached to help him unlace his boots but he declined her help. He appreciated the offer.

“You do feel cold,” she said. They got into bed and held each other.

She said, “Anyway …” There was more.

In a way, Ned didn’t want to hear whatever more there was. But he had no choice.

Nina said, “So anyway Iva was insistent that she wanted to marry Joris. She apparently thought she could overcome his big problem, which was that he was never going to marry again for all the reasons we know. But of course she was kind of perfect. She was married, something he found attractive in women. And she was willing to work with that, including the prostitutes. She believes in herself, as you may have noticed.

“Now, what David says is that there were two parts to what was going on. Douglas was in financial ruin and Joris was rich. And she was infuriated with Douglas over his infidelity, which he refused to call it. Elliot had told her bankruptcy was coming. And Gruen — David — is sure that Iva figured she could rush Joris into marriage and then she’d be all set.

“This had been going on for eight or nine months before Joris talked about it to David, who was astounded and couldn’t think of anything helpful to say so told Joris to go to a relationship counselor! Joris thought he might be falling in love. And she was hitting all the keys on the piano, saying that Hume needed a better father and blaming Douglas’s numerous absences for Hume’s problems. And there was flattery involved. David said that Iva was praising Joris for his, what did he call it, his sexual strength.

“And this was the way it was going for almost a whole year and Joris was wavering, wavering.

“But then the signals changed in some way he didn’t understand. The only thing he could think of that he’d done wrong was not to promise to sign on the dotted line if she got her divorce.

“But she was turning it off. It ended with a phone call saying she had thought everything over and the affair would have to stop. She said she was very sorry, but she couldn’t go into it . Oh, she did express some sadness. But that was the end and he was left with a mystery.”

Ned got out of bed without explaining why. He needed to pace. He said, “That’s something like the way it ended with Claire. A sudden announcement. Maybe that’s getting to be standard now. Except Claire did say there was another person, which makes it not the same kind of mystery. I need to pee.”