Alison Lurie - The War Between the Tates - A Novel

On the morning of December 12, there was a knock at Brian’s door.

“Yes?”

“Hi.” Wendy Gahaghan, in her fringed leather costume, entered the office.

“Well hello, stranger!” Brian forgot that Wendy had been avoiding him for her own good—his voice expressed only pleasure, and slightly injured surprise.

“I had the Asian flu,” Wendy panted, out of breath from running up two flights of stairs. “I was in the infirmary, I couldn’t even call you.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Under her long, untidy, damp-streaked hair (there was a cold rain outside) Wendy was paler than usual. “You look tired.”

“Yeah, I just got out this morning.” She smiled weakly.

“Well, sit down then, rest yourself—No, not there!” he cried, as Wendy sank into the Sayle Chair. Too late: there was a sharp crack; the seat split, the left front leg collapsed, and Wendy collapsed with it. Her legs sprawled out, her books skidded across the gray vinyl floor.

“Ow, ooh!” she shrieked as she landed hard on her back and the chair fell forward on top of her.

“God damn.” In what seemed to him slow motion, Brian got around his desk and crossed the room. He lifted the chair. “Are you all right?”

“I guess so.” Wendy flexed her arms and legs. Her fringed cowhide miniskirt had been pushed up to the waist, below which she was now covered only in a transparent pale nylon membrane, faintly shiny, like the sections of an orange or pink grapefruit. “Yeh, I’m okay. Hey.” She smiled weakly; but made no move to adjust her skirt or get up. “I broke your chair.”

“It was cracked already,” Brian said. “I told you before not to sit there.” He set the chair down; it sagged lamely against the bookcase.

“Oh, wow.” Wendy began to laugh. From where he stood above her, the effect was strange. Her transparent eyes rolled back; her mouth opened, showing wet pink depths; her full hips shook inside the nylon membrane. Brian felt a strong mixed emotion which he chose to interpret as impatience.

“Here, get up,” he said firmly, almost angrily, holding out his hand.

Responsive to his mood, Wendy stopped laughing at once. She scrambled up off the floor, looking frightened; her hand in his felt cold and small. Brian removed the Times and some books from another chair and pushed it forward. Wendy sat down.

“Hey, listen, why I was laughing. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—See, I didn’t know your chair was broken. I thought you just didn’t want me to sit in it all this time because I wasn’t worthy of it” She grinned timidly. “I thought you were saving it for, like, important people.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I know it. Oh, I’m always so stupid, stupid, stupid.” She hit her freckled face with her small freckled fists, half humorously, half melodramatically. “You probably must hate me now,” she added.

“Of course not.”

“But I ruined your famous chair.”

Both Brian and Wendy looked at the Sayle Chair, which was down on one knee in the corner; its right arm hung broken at its side. It could be thrown out now, he realized. It would be thrown out.

“Looks like it,” he agreed, smiling.

“I guess you’ll never forgive me.”

“I’ll forgive you,” Brian said generously. “As long as you don’t break anything else.”

No reference was made that day to Wendy’s infatuation; nevertheless the situation had changed, in some way Brian did not understand. In the days that followed, instead of being aware of her desire only for brief moments while she was in the office, he felt it continually. The waves of her passion reached him like the vibrations of a distant bombardment, out of sight and almost inaudible, but still shaking the stale academic air. Also he could not forget the sight of her lying on his floor. The image kept returning, photographically sharp: the lank yellow silk hair loose on the marbled vinyl, the matching curlier hair visible through the glossy nylon membrane. There was a hole in the hose just inside the left knee; a slightly convex circle of pink flesh appeared in the hole, and a long run, or ladder, pointed up to heaven—Trite, ridiculous, vulgar.

Alternating with this image in Brian’s mind was a sense of his own self-denial. A pretty young student was passionately in love with him, but he refused to take advantage of her infatuation, which few men in his position would have. He had tried to do the right thing, to cure her of her attachment. He had rationed her visits to twice a week, and limited them to a half-hour; he had encouraged her to see and screw other people; he had refused to discuss her feelings at any length. That these methods did not work, that she was still in love with him, was not his fault.

Christmas vacation arrived. Brian had resolved that during this period he would cease to think about Wendy. It proved difficult. Continually, and often at inconvenient times, he saw her face; he heard, inside his head, her small almost childish voice. “I guess you’ll never forgive me,” the voice said. “I want to give myself to you completely,” it said. And Brian would look across the table—or across the bed—at his wife, who had never given herself completely to anyone; who merely lent herself. Graciously and sometimes even enthusiastically, yes. But like an expensive library book, Erica had to be used with care and returned on time in perfect condition.

Perhaps illogically, Brian had felt that he deserved an unusually merry Christmas; that Erica and the children ought somehow to reward him for his self-denial, his loyalty, by giving him at least a little of the sort of unquestioning love he was refusing for their sakes. Instead, Jeffrey and Matilda were uncooperative, dissatisfied with their presents, and sulky because there wasn’t enough snow on the ground for their new skis. And Erica, as if perversely, seemed to become less understanding and affectionate every day. She complained a great deal of how difficult the children were, blaming herself compulsively, without trying to do anything about it. She seemed not to realize that he had the same problem, only geometrically multiplied. She had to cope with two adolescents; he had to deal with several dozen—equally ill-mannered, uncooperative and dissatisfied.

For Brian’s students are by no means all as appreciative as Wendy; many are indifferent to what he has to teach them, or even hostile. Wendy understood this, and sympathized. Erica did not: when he complained she thought he was exaggerating, remembering her own more tranquil and earnest college days. The reassurance she offers seems thin and shallow. When she tells Brian not to worry, that he is a brilliant professor, this statement is not based on knowledge, but merely on the wish to reassure, even to shut him up. She is not really interested in his problems, or concerned with his welfare or pleasure. Often she argues with him, and is unwilling to make love when or as he likes.

The truth is that sexual novelty has never been Erica’s forte. Though passionate, she is a traditionalist. The suggestion that she wear her new lace bra or her patent-leather boots to bed, or assume some unusual position, is apt to provoke suspicion and unease. If he even mentions it Erica will suspect that Brian is tired of her as she really is; she will feel hurt. She will suspect that he is trying to make fun of her, to exploit her, even to humiliate her.

Sometimes, if he waits until Erica is warmed up, he can introduce desirable novelties without her objecting, or even noticing. But on New Year’s Eve, after a boring party at which Brian had drunk more than he wanted without feeling any better, he went too fast.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Erica exclaimed as he lifted her off the bed onto the floor. “Ow, too cold!”