Henry Roth - Mercy of a Rude Stream - The Complete Novels

“How does she interfere?” Ira asked, though he had a vague notion he had asked the question before, in another form, and could derive the answer from Edith’s manner and tone of voice.

“She keeps trying to influence him. She’s so smart. And of course, he’s still enough in love with her, under her spell, he listens.”

“Against you?” Ira asked the safely obvious.

“Against me, without a doubt.”

“Why?”

“She still has his interest at heart.”

“That’s what she says?”

“Oh, yes. That’s her way of saying she’s not going to lose control over him. She’ll keep her grip on him. She’ll manage his life as long as it suits her, as long as she pleases.”

Man-ages, Ira watched the word break apart. “But why, if she’s got another man, this Robert, I mean, to keep her busy? She’s in love, isn’t she?” He stoked edification with candid simplicity. “She’s getting rid of him. I mean Lewlyn.”

“Oh, yes, she will in time — get rid of him, as you say: when it pleases her, or she finds other things more important — other ambitions to satisfy. But she’s always intent on power —that’s what she’s most interested in: power over people. It doesn’t matter who. I think the same thing will happen with Robert. I don’t envy him.” Edith was clearly unhappy — with back against the wall, primly sitting on the gunnysack-covered couch. “She’s going to get Lewlyn away from me if it’s the last thing she does.”

He broke the narrative in midstream, unable to repress the memory of his own behavior eleven years later, when he returned from Yaddo, and told Edith of his intention to leave her for M. He had used Edith basely at that, to gratify his sexual urge — and in front of a mirror to intensify his gratification — and she, poor woman, had more than acquiesced — had urged him on. Poor woman was right. Poor women! So many of them, they would do anything — first Mom, then Minnie, then Edith, even M — they would do anything to try and hold on to the guy, at all costs, the guy who wasn’t worth holding. Nothing so bizarre about it. Nothing to prate about, no need to prate about it. Edith had mothered him, was mistress and mother both; but she had abased herself, for the sake of holding on to him, as Mom, the voices ringing in her ears as echoes of unforgettable assaults, had done with Pop and also him.

Indeed, Ecclesias, the grave is a barrier to all redress, but I must continue with this fable.

“Why does Marcia have a problem with you?” Ira asked. “I mean, what’s so wrong with you?”

“Oh.” Edith’s knees drew elevated an instant — only. “What’s wrong with me is that Lewlyn and I are lovers, something she wasn’t prepared for — had none of her blessings. And was none of her business either, but she soon made it so. She never expected he would find someone else so soon, and I think she’s more than a little jealous. She thought he’d curl up and die when she left him, and he hasn’t. Her ego is — well, ruffled. It’s a huge one anyway, if I know anything about such things. Lewlyn didn’t pine to the extent she expected, that’s certain — I wish he would pine even less — I’d feel much more encouraged. Truth is he found somebody else compatible, and I suppose that’s hard for her to swallow. And she’s so religious about these things, to put it mildly. Straitlaced—”

“Huh? Marcia?”

“Marcia is a practicing Episcopalian. She believes in God, in the sacraments, and all the rest.”

“Yeah?” Ira became genuinely alert. “After her husband gave it up? You mean she’s religious? I guess that’s where he made a mistake.” He grinned deprecatingly: “The idea just came to me that as long as Lewlyn was a priest, he”—Ira gesticulated, sought facial areas to rub—“he was superhuman. Godlike, you know? He had a speaking tube like the captain to the engine room—” Ira giggled. “So she felt something like awe. No?”

Edith laughed with him. “You may be right. It’s simply that she abides strictly to religious doctrine in matters of sex. She’s guided by the dogma of the church. She absolutely won’t countenance sex without marriage — she won’t allow sex before marriage.”

“Yeah? Not even the trial marriages they talk about today?”

“Oh, no. Heavens, no.”

“And she’s an anthropologist?”

Edith radiated amusement.

“So you’re sinning.”

“It amounts to that. Only I’m the temptress, I suppose, and therefore the guiltier party.”

He knew it was anything but funny; but, cracking a smile, he skimmed excess of levity with a sober “Gee.”

And expectedly, she remarked, “It would be funny, if it weren’t so serious—”

“I know.”

“They never had sex before they were married — in fact, she was frigid, Lewlyn told me that. It was several days — or nights — before she relaxed. ‘Your body is more honest than you are, Marcia,’ Lewlyn told her.”

“More honest than she was,” Ira tried to fathom. What the hell did that mean? Get a breast drill and an auger bit. Boy, you had to give Lewlyn credit, though—

“Of course you won’t mention this. It’s very confidential. I trust you. I’d tell no one else but you.”

“Oh, no! I’ll tell you, Edith, I’m dumb in a lot of ways—”

“You’re not.”

“I am. But the little common sense I have tells me that once she found a man who loved her, and they became — what d’ye call it — compatible, Jesus, she should have stuck to him—”

“Unfortunately—”

“No, no,” Ira interrupted. “It wouldn’t have been good for you—”

“That’s hard to say. What I was going to say is that’s not Marcia’s way. She’s determined to become the foremost woman in America — in the field of anthropology. That comes first. That’s what she’s made up her mind to build toward. Not a husband, not a family, but a career. She’s ready to sacrifice anything to that. And that’s why Robert—” Edith raised her chin to stress: “He’ll be the perfect foil for her in building her career. If he isn’t, she’ll do the same with him as with Lewlyn.”

“So how the hell—” Ira caught himself. “How did he get along with her all this time? I mean Lewlyn?”

“By laughing at her.”

“By what?”

“Laughing at her when she said something extreme. Of course, she eventually came around to recognizing it herself: that she was wrong. But you can be sure it wasn’t often.”

“No. I guess not,” Ira admitted. “Not somebody as brilliant as she is.”

They were both pensive. Did he dare — no, he didn’t dare — tell Edith, though maybe she might like to hear it, if he could say it right, phrase it politely, summon up drawing-room politesse, which he couldn’t do anyway, like Richard Smithfield, or only rarely, by imitation, which was a wonder anyway, considering 119th Street when he was eight, and the barber’s son mocking the mick kid with “You gargle a weenie,” and though incredulous about the reality of what he said, knew what he meant: I wouldn’t fuck her with a wooden prick. All he could think about Marcia was dark asshole and bristling eyeglasses. Well, he was ruined; so what’re you gonna do? And a nice guy like Lewlyn working her around. Jesus Christ, he’d sooner have Larry’s homely Hungarian maid, and they didn’t come any homelier than that; what a pork-nose: oink! Throw a blanket over ’em, said impish Leo. Then they all look alike. . Yeah, maybe.

Over forty years later, Ira’s image of Marcia had not changed, but had crystallized as he observed her while waiting for her in her spacious Central Park West apartment, where he spent an hour or so, and where, after his fat omelet and two drinks previously imbibed, he dozed off in the vacant living room, while Marcia was occupied elsewhere. With age, the lady had become grander, being ministered to by her companion-lady-in-waiting-amanuenis-body-servant, who bound up Marcia’s injured ankle, a little self-consciously. Then, with Ira her escort-in-tow, the two attended the memorial services for Louise Bogan, the poet, svelte of yore and presently deceased, svelte of yore in a peach dress when Ira last shyly eyed her queenly sensuousness at Edith’s place. Svelte once, but dead now: she had said of Dalton, Edith’s later lover in a second, or even third, love triangle, that he screwed like a rabbit — what these women talked about. Quit caviling: what did you talk about? Oh, hell, there was scads of copy — for a prudent guy in his right mind to write about, at least as valuable socially, and as enlightening as that which Ira dwelled on — or rather was restricted to.