Charlotte Rogan - Now and Again

At each store he went to, a sales associate laid a velvet tray on the countertop and set out a selection of rings for Penn to admire. He had always been sure of himself, but now he couldn’t seem to make up his mind on anything. “Perhaps you should bring your fiancée in with you,” suggested an unsmiling salesman. “The ladies tend to have definite ideas about these things.”

“She’s not my fiancée yet,” said Penn.

“I see,” said the salesman, arching an eyebrow as if what he saw was not entirely pleasing. “I assume you’ve discussed marriage with her, though. These days couples usually discuss the ring.”

They talked about marriage endlessly, but it was always in the context of another bridegroom and another bride, and now Penn couldn’t remember anything Louise had told him. He wondered if he was supposed to feel happy as he shopped, or at least as if he was trading his money for a chance at happiness. He supposed he wasn’t unhappy, even if he was a little irritated when the saleswoman at Tiffany’s ignored him to wait on a woman who clutched an expensive purse and disapproved of invisible flaws in an array of pearl necklaces.

“Pearls are a natural product,” said the saleswoman. “Natural products have flaws, which is one of the reasons we value them.”

“But why so pink?” asked the customer. “These aren’t for my daughter, after all. They are for me.”

“What about this double strand?” asked the saleswoman. “They’re really lustrous. Or, have you considered yellow — or even black?”

“Heavens, no,” said the woman. “Those are far too modern for my taste.”

When it was his turn, Penn found out that there was color to diamonds as well.

“Color is just one of the four Cs,” said the saleswoman. “Cut, clarity, color, and carat. Your job is to balance these attributes without straining your budget. Even an imperfect diamond can appear quite brilliant to the naked eye.”

“Only quite brilliant?” asked Penn.

“Quite, quite brilliant,” said the saleswoman.

Perhaps he should come back with Louise even if it ruined the surprise. Or he could buy a cheap glass ring for the proposal with the idea that they could replace it with the real thing down the road. He tried to imagine the scene: the little blue box, Louise’s trembling fingers, the inevitable awkward seconds between the moment Louise first saw the substitute ring and the moment she realized it was only temporary. Much as she might be a costume jewelry convert, he didn’t think she would settle when it came to an engagement ring, and he didn’t want his first words after “Darling, will you marry me?” to be a long-winded explanation for why the ring he was putting on her finger was only standing in for the one they would choose together. And when would they choose it? He couldn’t expect Louise to wear the temporary ring for the long months he was overseas.

Penn walked down Madison Avenue, pausing now and then to gape into the shop windows and trying not to feel defeated. It was a warm summer Friday and clutches of excited shoppers gave the city a festive air, but he couldn’t help feeling critical of their high spirits. By the time he reached Forty-second Street, the crowds had thickened and changed. Now it was men and women in suits who crowded the sidewalks talking into their cell phones or rushing to catch an early train to the suburbs or the beach. Instead of turning west toward Louise’s apartment, where he planned to shower and change his clothes, something made him jump into a gap in the revolving door of the library just as a woman with children was coming out. “Hi, kids,” he said, but the girl ignored him and the boy peered at him suspiciously from behind his mother’s leg.

He made his way up the escalator to the room where his eyes had been opened, fully expecting to encounter the homeless man sprawled on the floor where he had first seen him, but of course he wasn’t there. “I’m looking for a man who used to come in here to read books on war,” he said to a librarian sitting at the information desk. “Have you seen him lately?”

“I’m new here, but I can ask my colleague.”

Penn waited while the man went off and came back again with an older woman. “You must mean the professor,” she said. “He hasn’t been here in several months, but there’s a soup kitchen two blocks away. I know he used to eat there.”

Penn hurried along the sidewalk to where a group of haphazardly dressed people were clustered near a recessed entryway. It was 4:40, and a sign taped to the inside of a window said the door wouldn’t open until five o’clock. He was supposed to meet Louise for an early dinner before heading to the airport to catch a flight to DC, where he would board a military transport plane. He hadn’t yet told her he was going back to Iraq, and he had counted on the ring to soften the blow. But now he concluded it might be better to put off the proposal to a day when he had more time and less on his mind. That morning he had gotten up early with the pleasant sense that the day stretched endlessly before him, but now he felt rushed and indecisive. It would be folly to propose in such a harried state of mind — that and the news of his departure would ruin the atmosphere for a romantic celebration. In any case, he didn’t have a ring. He leaned against the side of the building and ran his fingers against the grimy stone cladding. He still had to shower and change his clothes and head uptown to the restaurant, so if he waited until five for the soup kitchen to open, he risked being late for Louise.

He paced the length of the block and back again. Just when he had decided he was compounding his folly by waiting when he didn’t even know what he was hoping to discover, an old man came around the corner tapping a gnarled stick in front of him. It took Penn almost a minute to recognize the professor. Something fundamental about him had changed, and when he banged his stick on the ground, it was without his previous air of conviction. Penn introduced himself and explained what he had been doing in the months since they had met, but the man showed no sign of recognition.

“We talked about war,” said Penn. “You told me that man is warlike, but that he doesn’t like to think of himself that way.”

“I say that to everybody,” said the professor, stopping to cough into a grimy handkerchief. “Everybody who will listen, that is.”

“I gave you half a bagel.”

“Ah,” said the professor. “Half a bagel.”

“We talked about philosophy,” said Penn.

“Philosophy!” wheezed the professor. He squinted at Penn and leaned forward, balancing on unsteady feet with the help of the flimsy stick. “It seems to me that there is only one worthwhile philosophical question, and it isn’t whether or not…” He started wheezing again. His eyes were red and runny, and his skin seemed to erupt in new boils while Penn watched.

“It isn’t whether or not man is warlike. Of course he is. It isn’t whether or not the system works to sustain itself. Of course it does. So the question is not whether it is even possible to be outside the system or whether man is doomed to be a cog in a killing machine, it…” He coughed and scrutinized his handkerchief and seemed befuddled by what he saw.

“What is the question, then? What were you going to say?”

“It is whether it is possible to be both moral and…” Here, he was taken by a paroxysm of painful coughing, accompanied by what seemed to be a memory lapse. “Where was I? Where was I?” he asked. The professor poked his stick in Penn’s direction, hitting him on the kneecap, but his grip was so feeble that it bobbled and dropped from his hand.

Penn stooped to pick it up, trying to conceal his agitation. “You were saying there is only one worthwhile philosophical question.”