Alison Lurie - The War Between the Tates - A Novel

Erica found it all even harder to understand when, three days later, Wendy appeared in her campus office, on an afternoon when Erica was busy trying to get the files in order for her successor. She is moving next week to a better job at nearly twice the salary with the Department of Horticulture, working on their journal and—best of all—illustrating a book on ornamental grasses. Couldn’t they meet later? she suggested.

“But I got to talk to you now,” Wendy protested, clutching Erica’s desk and knocking over a stack of three-by-five cards. “I hafta ask you—to explain—I mean, you know about the baby and everything?”

“Yes, I think so,” Erica admitted, gathering the cards and starting to resort them.

“I guess you’re feeling sort of negative toward me,” Wendy remarked.

“Well, I—”

“Brian told me,” Wendy interrupted, pushing back the pale wisps of hair which covered her face. “He said you thought I was irresponsible. I know there’ve been some bad vibes, but I’ve got my head together now, and everything’s going to work out.” She smiled eagerly and sat down on the corner of Erica’s desk, knocking over the cards again with the fringe of her red wool poncho.

“Like I’m really happy I didn’t marry Brian,” she continued. “It would’ve been a big mistake: we don’t actualize each other’s potential at all. He’s got this set against social psychology, for instance. Well, in some ways he’s right, a lot of the professors in my department are off the wall, but I still hafta pass their courses.” She drew her legs up and sat on the desk with them folded under her, forming, in her poncho, a pyramidal shape.

“What got me most was I wasn’t any help to him in his Work, which was the whole idea you know? I really tried, but all I ever did was make him angry. Like when he read parts of his book to me he would get uptight because I never had any criticisms. It always sounded fine to me. Sometimes I tried to think up criticisms, but that just made him more angry on account of they were so stupid. He got so pissed once because I never heard of the Nazi-Soviet Pact that he started throwing his books onto the floor. I guess I should have heard of it; I realize now it was a big deal, but I wasn’t even born then.” A complaining tone had entered Wendy’s voice.

“Brian takes that sort of thing very seriously,” Erica said noncommittally, feeling obscurely unwilling to join her ex-husband’s ex-mistress in a discussion of his faults.

“Yeh.” Wendy sighed exaggeratedly. “He really does. Ralph, this guy I’m going to California with, he says there’s occupational diseases you get from being a professor, the way workers in asbestos plants get fibrous lungs. He says professors catch that kind of lecturing manner, you know, like Brian has, from talking in public too much. And they start organizing everything into outlines. Like one day he said to me, ‘Could you bring me the newspaper? It’s either a) on my desk, or b) in the bathroom.’ I told him, ‘Please don’t talk to me in outlines, okay? I’m not a class.’ Only he didn’t hear me.”

“No.” Erica could not prevent herself from smiling.

“It was that way the whole time, really, you know. That’s why I decided I’ve got to get out of this environment, before my kid catches the same disease.”

Now Erica frowned. It was this plan which had made her call Wendy “irresponsible”; for surely any child would be better off brought up legitimate in Corinth than fatherless in some squalid mountain cabin, miles from the nearest doctor or school. As moderately as possible, she expressed this view, concluding with the, suggestion that it was really not necessary to go to Northern California; that there must be some good commune nearby which would welcome a young married couple and their baby.

But Wendy shook her head, making wisps of pale hair fly. This place in California was special, and anyhow she wasn’t planning to get married.

“The way I feel now, I don’t ever want to be married to anyone,” she explained. “I figure it’s a bum trip. I mean if you’ve just got a relationship with a guy, that’s cool; you can be really straight with him. Like Ralph says, you know either of you can split any time, so if you stick it out it’s because you really dig each other. The world isn’t telling you you hafta stay with that dude whether you feel like it or not; in fact it’s probably making some hassles for you.”

“But that’s one reason why—” Erica interjected, while an unfavorable and suspicious opinion of Ralph began to form in her mind. “If you were to marry him, you’d have some security—”

Wendy shook her head even more vigorously. “That’d make me more insecure. Once you’re married you can’t ever tell if the guy comes home on account of he wants to, or on account of he has to. I mean, who wants to have somebody fuck you just because it’s his job?”

“I see your point,” Erica replied gently, but with some restraint, thinking that again—and probably not for the last time—Wendy was repeating as her own sincere opinion statements made to her by some man for selfish ulterior purposes. “But marriage isn’t only sex: it’s a social contract. If everyone thought like your friend, families would break up; parents would desert their children—”

“That’s different,” Wendy interrupted. “I couldn’t ever desert a kid. Like this baby.” She put a pink stubby hand, stained with ink, on the front of her poncho. “It’s really heavy; not like some guy you’re not even related to. I know already I’ll never leave him; I’ll always belong to him completely.” And, brushing aside some shreds of hair, she looked at Erica with an expression of fervent sincerity.

Feet are visible below the door, indicating that someone is waiting to use the toilet; so Erica stands up, letting the two strips of perforated paper on which she has been sitting fall into the bowl. She rinses her hands, glancing once into the mirror over the row of basins, where a thin, middle-aged woman is reflected between two smoothfaced girls.

Outside the washroom, Norton Hall is in noisy, churning motion; it is time for the march to begin. As quickly as possible, she makes her way through the crowd.

“Erica, here we are!” Danielle cries, waving from the grandstand. She is about halfway up, holding the stick of a large placard which rests on the bench below and bears, upside down, the astrological symbol for Venus and the motto WOMEN FIGHT FOR PEACE. Next to her stands Dr. Bernard Kotelchuk, in a loud red plaid shirt and a bow tie.

“Oh, hello,” Erica says to him with minimal enthusiasm, climbing up through a crowd of women. “Are you coming with us?”

“I’d like to. But Ellie’s friends won’t let me.”

“Joanne wants us to make a unified appearance.” Danielle shrugs. “She put it up to the meeting last night and they voted ‘no men.’ Silly, really.”

“It doesn’t matter; I can go with the vet-school contingent.” Dr. Kotelchuk smiles broadly. “See you later, Ellie.” He bends and kisses Danielle with a vulgar, smacking enthusiasm.

“He looks cheerful,” Erica Says, watching him descend into the crowd. “Resigned, even. Has he finally given up proposing to you?”

“Not exactly.” Danielle leans on her placard. “He asked me again just last night. I’d been reading an article in Sisterhood about marriage contracts, so I told him I’d marry him on certain terms.” She grins. “I said, first, I had to keep my job. I wanted separate bank accounts, and I’d pay half the housekeeping expenses and do the cooking, but I wouldn’t touch any of the cleaning or laundry—he’d have to do it himself, or hire somebody. And I said I had to have three weeks’ vacation by myself every year, with no questions asked afterward.”