Saul Bellow - Collected Stories

But of course she had to tell Dotey that she was flying to Buffalo, and Dotey, sitting upright with the telephone in her carved Chinese bed, said, “So if any hitch develops, what you’d like is that I should cover for you with Alfred.”

“I don’t expect it to come to that. Just to be on the safe side, give me a number where I can reach you during the afternoon.”

“I have to be all over the city. Competitors are trying to steal my chemist from me. Without him I’ll have to fold. I’m near the breaking point, and I can do without extra burdens. And listen now, Trina, do you really care so much? Suppose the court does give Alfred the kids.”

“I won’t accept that.”

You might not mind too much. Mother’s interest in you and me was minimal. She cared more about the pleats in her skirt. To this day, down on Bay Harbor Island, she’s like that. You’ll say you aren’t Mother, but things do rub off.”

“What has this got to do with Mother?”

“I’m only reckoning the way people actually do. You aren’t getting anywhere with those kids. The house is a burden. Alfred took away all the pretty things. It eats up too much money in maintenance. Suppose Alfred did get custody? You’d move east with all the painters and curators. It would be nothing but arts and letters. Victor’s set…”

“There isn’t any set.”

“There are crowds of people after him. You could insist on being together more openly, because Victor would owe you if you lost the kids. While he lasted…”

“In the midst of such conversations, Dotey, I think how often I’ve heard women say, ‘I wish I had a sister.’”

Dorothea laughed. “Women who have sisters don’t say it! Well, my way of being a good sister is to come in and turn on all the lights. You put off having children until you were almost too old. Alfred was upset about it. He’s a quick-acting decisive type. Jewelers have to be. In his milieu he’s somebody. Glance at a diamond, quote you a price. You didn’t want kids by him? You tried to keep your options open? You were waiting for the main chance? Naturally Alfred will do you in if he can.”

That’s right, Katrina commented silently, scare me good. I’ll never regret what I’ve done. She said, “I’d better go and set the alarm clock.”

“I’ll give you a couple of numbers where you might find me late in the afternoon,” said Dorothea.

At five-thirty the alarm went off. Katrina never had liked this black winter hour. Her heart was low as she slid back the closet door and began to dress. To go with the green suit she chose a black cashmere sweater and matching hose. She rolled backward clumsily on the chaise longue, legs in the air, to pull the hose on. Her boots were of ostrich skin and came from the urban cowboy specialty shop on South State Street which catered to Negro dudes and dudesses. The pockmarked leather, roughly smooth and beautiful, was meant for slimmer legs than her own. What did that matter? They—she herself—gave Victor the greatest possible satisfaction.

She had set aside fifteen minutes for the dog. In the winter Ysole wouldn’t walk her. At her age a fall on the ice was all she needed. (“Will you take care of me if I break my hip?” asked the old woman.) But Katrina liked taking Sukie out. It was partly as Dorothea had said: “Her feet abide not in her house.” But the house, from which Alfred had removed the best carpets and chairs, the porcelain elephants from India and the curly gilt Chinese lions, did give Katrina vacancy heartaches. However, she had never really liked housekeeping. She needed action, and there was some action even in dog walking. You could talk to other dog owners. Astonishing, the things they sometimes said—the kinky proposals that were made. Since she need not take them seriously, she was in a position simply to enjoy them. As for Sukie, she had had it. The vet kept hinting that a sick, blind dog should be put down. Maybe Krieggstein would do her a favor—take the animal to the Forest Preserve and shoot her. Would the little girls grieve? They might or might not. You couldn’t get much out of those silent kids. They studied their mother without comment. Krieggstein said they were great little girls, but Katrina doubted that they were the sort of children a friend of the family could dote on. One who belonged to the Golden Age of Platitudes, maybe. One of Krieggstein’s odder suggestions was that the girls be enrolled in a martial arts course; Katrina should encourage them to be more aggressive. Also he tried to persuade Katrina to let him take them to the police pistol-practice range. She said they’d be scared out of their wits by the noise. He insisted on the contrary that it would do them a world of good. Dorothea referred to her nieces as “those mystery kids.”

You couldn’t hurry the dog. Black-haired, swaybacked, gentle, she sniffed every dog stain in the snow. She circled, then changed her mind. Where to do it? Done in the wrong place, it would unsettle the balance of things. All have their parts to play in the great symphony of the instincts (Victor). And even on a shattering cold day, gritting ice underfoot, the dog took her time. A hoarse sun rolled up. For a few minutes the circling snow particles sparkled, and then a wall of cloud came down. It would be a gray day.

Katrina woke the girls and told them to dress and come downstairs for their granola. Mother had to go to a meeting. Kitty from next door would come at eight to walk them to school. The girls seemed hardly to hear her. In what ways are they like me? Katrina sometimes wondered. Their mouths had the same half-open (or half-closed) charm. Victor didn’t like to speak of kids. He especially avoided discussing her children. But he did make theoretical observations about the younger generation. He said they had been given a warrant to ravage their seniors with guilt. Kids were considered pitiable because their parents were powerless nobodies. As soon as they were able, they distanced themselves from their elders, whom they considered to be failed children. You would have thought that such opinions would depress Victor. No, he was spirited and cheerful. Not sporadically, either; he had a level temper.

When Katrina, ready to go, came into the kitchen in her fleece-lined coat, the girls were still sitting over their granola. The milk had turned brown while they dawdled. “I’m leaving a list on the bulletin board, tell Ysole. I’ll see you after school.” No reply. Katrina left the house half unwilling to admit how good it was to go away, how glad she would be to reach O’Hare, how wonderful it would be to make a flight even though Victor, waiting in Buffalo, might be sick.

The jet engines sucked and snarled up the frozen air; the huge plane lifted; the gray ground skidded away and you rose past hangars, over factories, ponds, bungalows, football fields, the stitched incisions of railroad tracks curving through the snow. And then the skyscraper community to the south. On an invisible sidewalk beneath, your little daughters walking to school might hear the engines, unaware that their mummy overflew them. Now the gray water of the great lake appeared below with all its stresses, wind patterns, whitecaps. Goodbye. Being above the clouds always made Katrina tranquil. Then—bing!—the lucid sunlight coming through infinite space (refrigerated blackness, they said) filled the cabin with warmth and color. In a book by Kandinsky she had once picked up in Victor’s room, she had learned that the painter, in a remote part of Russia where the interiors of houses were decorated in an icon style, had concluded that a painting, too, ought to be an interior, and that the artist should induce the viewer to enter in. Who wouldn’t rather? she thought. Drinking coffee above the state of Michigan, Katrina had her single hour of calm and luxury. The plane was almost empty.