Джозеф Хеллер - Something Happened

"Not now."

"Why?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"No."

"You never want to talk to me."

"Please get out now."

(I know by now that I don't have too much in common with children, not even with my own, and that I dislike getting involved in long conversations with them. I really don't enjoy children for more than a couple of minutes at a time. It is difficult for me to keep interested in what they say and difficult for me to think of things to say that might interest them. So I no longer try.) Sometimes, when my daughter is in buoyant spirits (for some reason) and feeling exceptionally strong and sure of herself, she will sweep into my study audaciously without any pretext or apology and, as though she and I were commonly on the most familiar terms, settle herself imperiously on my couch as though for a lengthy, top-level consultation, and begin complaining to me about my wife, grossly miscalculating my response, assuming mistakenly, I guess, that because my wife and I fight so much, I will welcome her allegiance. (I don't allow her to speak disrespectfully about my wife; she ought to know that by now.) It used to be that when my daughter was small, and it sounded so beguiling and precocious, I would encourage her to find fault with my wife (my wife would delight in this also, because my daughter really was so bright and entertaining), which may be one reason she reverts to it so frequently now. But I don't like it now; and I will defend my wife (even when my daughter's complaints and unflattering comments are accurate and justified). Or I will cut her off curtly almost as soon as she begins, and kick her out with a stern admonition. My daughter's impression about me is correct: there are times when I simply don't want to talk to her. (She is generally so contentious and depressing. My boy is always easier to take — everybody says that. He is more straightforward and generous and much more likable; unlike my daughter, and me, he never rejoices in the misfortunes of other people; instead, he grows grave and worried in the presence of anything woeful, watching always to ascertain if any in the ungovernable whirl of events around him pose any danger to his own existence.) There are times now when I'm plain fed up with her, when I have had all I am able to take, when I just don't want to hear my daughter tell me one more time that I'm no good as a father and my wife is no good as a mother, that the home is no good as a home and the family no good as a family, and that Derek (our idiot child, of course) and all the rest of us are spoiling her life, even though it all might be true.

So what? What if it all is true? (My mother wasn't much better; and my father was much worse, ha, ha. He was hardly around at all after he died. Ha, ha.) Maybe it is my fault that she does so poorly at school and lacks confidence in herself and bites her fingernails and doesn't sleep well, and even my fault that she eats too much and is heavy and is having a boring and excruciating time of it. But, so what? (I've got my excuses ready too.) What good does it do anyone to know that? Even if I agree (and I often do agree, just to frustrate and befuddle her), it doesn't change anything, it doesn't make anything easier for her. So why must she dwell on it? It has grown so boring by now — it never leads anywhere — just plain boring to the point of maddening irritation (which is obviously all she hopes to achieve with me now, all she feels now that she can obtain from life, to goad me ruthlessly into these states of furious and intolerable resentment in which I stammer, spit, bellow, and launch myself into blustering denunciations that cannot be concluded with dignified grammatical coherence, and which are enough to bring that detestable, unmistakable glint of baleful satisfaction into her cunning eyes).

(What does she want from me?)

"You know," she might begin with deceptive tranquillity, "I really don't think I have anything in common with Mommy anymore. And I don't think you have, either. I don't know why you still stay married to her. I know you're incompatible."

(She doesn't even know what incompatible means.)

If I do (to her enormous surprise and chagrin) cut her off right then and kick her out of my study, it is not improbable that she will go straight to my wife (pals with her, all at once) and begin complaining to her about me! (And she, of course, is the one who never wants to be a sneak!) And then my wife, who is manipulated all too easily by my daughter, will come barging back into my study unsuspectingly to take up the cudgels for her, emboldened in her adventure by her sense of mercy. My daughter, smiling surreptitiously, will lurk in the background, anticipating with gleaming relish the fight that she hopes will now break out between my wife and me. (My boy, on the other hand, is appalled when any two of us quarrel and always looks unnerved and nauseated.) It is my daughter's brazen look of gloating expectation, I think, more than anything else, that inevitably fills me with rage, and with a vicious need to retaliate.

"She says," my wife says, "that you kicked her out of your study just now. She says she came in here to talk to you and you wouldn't listen to her. She says you never want to listen to her. You made her get out before she could even say anything."

I hold my breath for a second or two and pretend to meditate.

"Did she?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Uh-huh."

"Didn't you?"

"He did."

"Uh-huh."

"Did he?"

"Why would I say so?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well?"

"Well?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"You just heard her, didn't you? You kicked her out."

"Is that right?" I ask my daughter tonelessly, staring at her with a look of frigid scorn.

"Didn't you?"

"And did she chance to tell you," I say to my wife, "what it was she wanted to talk to me about?"

"That isn't fair!" my daughter blurts out in alarm. Her startled gaze shoots to the doorway as though she wishes she could run out.

"No."

"Oh."

"What?"

"I kind of thought she might have been careless enough to leave that out. That she wouldn't mind very much, for example, if you got sick and died. She didn't tell you that?"

"That's not true!" my daughter cries.

"Or that she really doesn't think she would care very much if you or I got killed in an automobile or plane crash, like Alice whatever-the-hell-her-last-name-is Harmon's mother, or passed away from a stroke or a brain tumor."

"I didn't say that!"

"You could."

"I didn't."

"You have."

"That isn't what I wanted to talk about!"

"I know. What she does want to talk to me about is that she doesn't think you and I have anything in common and wonders why I continue to stick it out with you instead of getting a divorce. Is that it?"

"I only began that way."

"No? Then let's continue. What was it, then, that you did want to talk to me about?"

"Oh, never mind," my daughter mumbles in moping embarrassment and lowers her eyes.

"No, please," I persist. "I want to. I want to give you that chance to talk to me you always say I never do."

"Why can't you leave her alone now?" my wife demands.

"She's trying to tear us apart, my dear. Don't you see?"

"Why can't we all be nice to each other?" my wife wonders aloud imploringly out of the innate goodness of her heart.

"Must I listen to a sentence like that?"

"What's wrong with it?" my wife retorts sharply. "What's wrong with wishing we would all try to get along once in a while instead of picking on each other all the time?"

"We don't 'pick' on each other all the time," my daughter interjects condescendingly in a tone of sulky contempt (trying to insinuate herself back onto my side in opposition to my wife). I am familiar with this tactic of hers. She flicks her gaze to my face tentatively to see if I am going to let her succeed.