Saul Bellow - Collected Stories

“And you want us to meet. And she’ll come under my influence. She’ll fall in love with me. So you and I will increase our number. She’ll enlist with us. And she and I will cherish each other, and you will have the comfort of seeing me in safe hands, and this will be your blessing poured over the two of us.”

“Teddy, you’re making fun of me,” she said, but she knew perfectly well that he wasn’t making fun, that wasn’t where the accent fell, and his interpretation was more or less correct, as far as it went.

“We’ll never get each other out of trouble,” said Ithiel. “Not the amount of trouble we’re in. And even that is not so exceptional. And we all know what to expect. Only a few mavericks fight on. That’s you I’m speaking of. I like to think that I’m at home with what is real. Your idea of the real is different. Maybe it’s deeper than mine. Now, if your young lady has her own reasons for moving down here to Washington, I’ll be happy to meet her for your sake and talk to her. But the sort of arrangements that are ideal for your little children—play school, parties, and concerned teachers—can’t be extended to the rest of us.”

‘Oh, Teddy, I’m not such a fool as you take me for,” Clara said.

After this conversation, she drew up a memo pad to try to summarize Ithiel’s underlying view: The assumptions we make as to one another’s motives are so circumscribed, our understanding of the universe and its forces is so false, that the more we analyze, the more injury we do. She knew perfectly well that this memo, like all the others, would disappear. She’d ask herself, “What was I thinking after my talk with Teddy?” and she’d never see this paper anymore.

Now she had to arrange a meeting with Gina Wegman, and that turned out to be a difficult thing to do. She would never have anticipated that it would be so hard. She repeatedly called Gottschalk, who said he was in touch with Gina. He hadn’t actually seen her yet. He now had a midtown number for her and occasionally was able to reach her. “Have you said that I’d like a meeting?” said Clara. She thought, It’s shame. The poor kid is ashamed.

“She said she was extremely busy, and I believe there’s a plan for her to go home.”

“To Austria?”

“She speaks English okay, only I’m not getting a clear signal.”

Unkindly, Clara muttered that if he’d keep his glasses clean he’d see more. Also, to increase his importance and his fees, he was keeping information from her—or pretending that he had more information than he actually did have. “If you’d give me the number, I could try a direct call,” she said. “Now, is the young man with her, there in midtown?”

“That wouldn’t be my guess. I think she’s with friends, relatives, and I think she’s going back to Vienna real soon. I’ll give you her number, but before you call her, let me have a few hours more to get supplementary information for you.”

“Fine,” said Clara, and as soon as Gottschalk was off the line she dialed Gina. She reached her at once. As simple as that.

“Oh, Mrs. Velde. I meant to call you,” said Gina. “I was a little put off by that Mr. Gottschalk. He’s a detective, and I worried about your attitude, that you thought it was a police matter.”

“He’s not police at all, he’s strictly private. I needed to find out. I would never have threatened. I wanted to know where you were. The man’s a moron. Never mind about him. Is it true, Gina, that you’re going to Vienna?”

The young woman said, “Tonight, Lufthansa. Via Munich.”

“Without seeing me? Why, that’s not possible. I must have made you angry. But it’s not anger that I feel toward you; just the opposite. And we have to meet before you leave. You must be rushed with last-minute things.” Horrified to be losing her, and dilated with heat and breath, her heart swelling suddenly she was hardly able to speak because of the emotional stoppage of her throat. “Won’t you make some time for me, Gina? There’s so much to work out, so much between us. Why the rush home?”

“And I would very much like to see you, Mrs. Velde. The hurry is my engagement and marriage.”

Clara wildly guessed, She’s pregnant. “Are you marrying Frederic?” she said. It was a charged question, nearly a prayer: Don’t let her be as crazy as that. Gina was not prepared to answer. She seemed to be considering. But presently she said, “I wouldn’t have to go to Vienna, in that case. My fiance is a man from my father’s bank.”

Whether or not to explain herself must have been the issue. Explanations, in Clara’s opinion, should be made. Gina had been wavering, but now she agreed, she decided to see Clara after all. Yes, she was going to do it. “Some friends are giving me a cocktail send-off. That’s on Madison in the low Seventies. Maybe half an hour beforehand?… In your way, you were very kind,” Clara heard the girl saying.

“Let’s make it at the Westbury, then. When? At four o’clock.” Kind, in my way… Signifying what? She feels I was crude. But these side issues could be dealt with later. Right now Clara’s appointment with Dr. Gladstone must be canceled. Since the fee would have to be paid notwithstanding, he’d have an hour to think deep analytic thoughts, ponder identity problems, Clara told herself with more than a drop of hatred. Was there anybody who was somebody? How was a man like Gladstone to know! Plumbers was what Ithiel called these Gladstone types. He was fond of reminding her that he had quit analysis because nobody was able to tell him what it took to be Ithiel Regler. This sounded haughty, but actually it was the only reasonable thing. It was no more than true. It applied to her as well.

That she should be so firm and assertive was strange, seeing that she was in a fever, trying to regulate an outflow of mingled soiled emotions. In the cab—one of ten thousand cars creeping uptown—she leaned her long neck backward to relieve it of the weight of her head and to control the wildness of her mind, threatened with panic. These gridlocks on Madison Avenue, these absolutely unnecessary mobs, the vehicles that didn’t have to be here, carrying idle shoppers or old people with no urgent purpose except to break out of confinement or go and scold someone. Clara was suffocated by this stalling and delay. She exploded engines in her mind, got out at corners and pulled down stoplights with terrible strength. Five of the thirty minutes Gina could give her were already down the drain. Two blocks from the Westbury, she could no longer bear the traffic, and she got out and trotted the rest of the way, the insides of her knees rubbing together as they always did when she was in a rush.

She passed through the four-quartered door into the lobby and there was Gina Wegman just getting up from the tall chair, and how beautiful the girl looked in her round black glossy straw hat with a half veil dropped onto the bridge of her nose. She certainly wasn’t gotten up to look contrite, in a dress that showed off her bust and the full lines of her bottom. On the other hand, she wasn’t defiant, either. Lively, yes, and brilliant too. She approached Clara with an affectionate gesture so that when they kissed on the cheek Clara captured part of what a passionate man might feel toward a girl like this.

Clara, as she blamed her lateness on the rush hour, was at the same instant dissatisfied with the dress she had put on that day—those big flowers were a mistake, a bad call, and belonged in her poor-judgment closet.

They sat down in the cocktail lounge. At once one of those smothering New York waiters was upon them. Clara wasted no time on him. She ordered a Campari, and as he wrote down the drinks, she said, “Bring them and then don’t bother us; we have to cover lots of ground.” Then she leaned toward Gina—two heads of fine hair, each with its distinct design. The girl put up her veil. “Now, Gina… tell me,” said Clara.