IN THE DAYS that followed she repeatedly asked me about the movie and I assured her I had only been bluffing, there was no movie, but it had her troubled. I was sorry to have brought it up and justified it on my indignation, the urge to get even. I reminded myself, when the fire of my moods subsided, that all the real getting even had been done, and besides, the vengeance I pursued had no face, no shape, no name.
But my moods were terrible and I hated life. I tried music and it failed. Even Beethoven turned German on me. I tried reading and found this from David’s son: “I Koheles was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I applied my mind to seek and probe by wisdom all that happens beneath the sky--It is a sorry task that God has given the sons of man with which to be concerned. I have seen all the deeds done beneath the sun, and behold all is futile and a vexation of the spirit. A twisted thing cannot be made straight and what is not there cannot be counted.
“I said to myself: Here I have acquired great wisdom, more than any of my predecessors over Jerusalem, and my mind has had much experience with wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this, too, is a vexation of the spirit. For with much wisdom comes much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases pain.”
Joan accused me of self-pity and I agreed, saying it was good. It was realization of the ultimate truth--you against the world. But, I said, I pitied everyone.
“Does that include me?” she said.
“Of course.”
“Does that mean you forgive me?”
“In time.”
“Well I forgive you, Josh. I have no hard feelings.”
That was the difference between us. I pitied everyone. She forgave everyone.
A whisper told me if I played the tough guy much longer she’d turn tough herself--and when they turn tough it’s over.
She wanted to go back to work. Instead she stayed home. She redecorated the house and cooked meals that took her three hours to prepare. We spoke but not much. She kept eyeing me.
On Sunday with Frank he sang about this thing that died, a little thing called love, and she rushed to turn off the radio. Then she started cleaning the house again and I remembered that TV station I once had worked for, always last in the ratings, and how they kept changing the newsroom set.
I was surprised. I mean she had never been Mrs. Homemaker and now all this, cooking, baking, cleaning, shopping. She--the lady so willing to try anything once--now said there were boundaries in life, a circle beyond which it was unsafe to venture. Her circle kept getting tighter.
She turned down the annual Girls Wild Night in New York. Each year at this time they spent a day and a night at the Pierre, meaning her Main Line chums Duffy and Buffy and Bootsie and Cutsie, and there, to escape husbands and children, they let loose, got drunk and high and always tried One New Thing.
I’d had broodings about the annual New Thing. This year’s promised to be the best ever, according to Buffy. Joan gave her a flat negatory. I tried to persuade her to go and it was no use. She showed a strange side, wanting to know why I wanted her out of the house. Was I expecting someone?
She talked about building a hedge around our marriage.
“Enough with hedges, circles and boundaries,” I said. “Go. Air out.”
To ignite her, I said, “What happened to this woman of the eighties I married?”
“She got older. Just like the eighties.”
I began to spend my days in the library across from the shopping mall. I sat at a table overlooking an artificial lake and read the same books I had read as a child, about Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams. Sometimes after a good fill of these books, I promenaded around the mall--the shops were always empty--accompanied by a roar of the crowd as I stepped up to the plate, seventh game World Series, bottom of the ninth, down three, bases loaded. Drive deep to left...
The roar of the crowd, as always, turned into the thunder of tanks racing across Sinai. Once or twice in the past, I had tried to explain to her what it had all meant, and it came out so flat that the experience became diminished even for me. I realized that some things could not be told.
This day when I got back the house was dim and I heard Nat King Cole on the stereo. She had lit candles and incense and was curled up on the couch in a pink negligee, strawberry nipples peeking through the scrim. Her right hand was dangling between her thighs, a remembrance of kinkiness past.
“What’s this?” I said.
“A seduction, you big lug.”
“Aha.”
“Interested?”
“Any special reason?”
“Women do have sexuality,” she said.
“That’s good news,” I said.
“There has to be a reason? I’m horny. All right?”
“You know I don’t like horny.”
“I need you. All right?”
“That’s a new one.”
“Let’s pretend we’re not married. Remember how it was? The things we used to do?”
“I forgot.”
“No you didn’t.”
“You think sex will bring it back?”
She dropped the baby talk. “Well, sex is what did this.”
I turned on the lights and blew out the candles. “Sex and everything else.”
“Josh, we have to get it back.”
“I know.”
“Otherwise--otherwise it’s a terrible defeat.”
“I agree.”
“I mean, it means there’s nothing.”
“I’ve been feeling that way.”
She said, “You’ve been feeling there’s nothing.”
“Right. Nothing.”
“That’s nice. Not that I haven’t noticed. It’s obvious you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you. I feel nothing.”
“Oh that’s very nice.”
I said, “How can you feel anything?”
“Maybe I don’t. But I’m trying. I’m trying.”
“Believe it or not, I’m also trying,” I said.
Her voice exploded in a gust of fury. “Start loving me again god damn it!”
“I never stopped.”
“That’s why you won’t come near me? You haven’t touched me since...”
“Yeah, since.”
“Well I’m not contaminated.”
“No, you’re not contaminated.”
“I’m the same.”
I didn’t answer.
“I’m the same, Joshua, I’m the same. Honest, I’m the same!”