A Meaningful Life (7 page)

“I...” began Lowell as his hand was shaken faster and faster, as though caught in some sort of soft, painless mechanism.

“Don't think you have to pretend you enjoyed it,” said Leo. “I talk too much. Believe me, I know my limitations like a book. I'm talking too much right now. I bet you can't wait to get out of here. This is a good time for it. The sun is still up and there's a lot of light outside. If you stayed any longer I'd run out of things to say and we'd just have to sit there. It's been good seeing you.”

“Yes,” said Lowell. “Good-bye,” he called out to the kitchen, where his mother-in-law lurked out of sight, motionless and apparently not breathing. Nine years had passed, but she still hadn't told him what to call her, and neither had anybody else. It would have been awkward if Lowell had been trying to attract her attention in a crowd, but he didn't think he would ever want to do that. “So long,” he called. “We're going now.”

“I heard you,” she said.

“Er, heh,” said Leo, trying to shrug, smile, and look over his shoulder at the same time, giving such a look of toothy terror that there might have been an armed fugitive concealed behind the door.

“Good-bye, Poppa,” said Lowell's wife.

Moving against the grain of the day, they went down the hall and got into the elevator. Out on the street, people were getting out of cars with presents and small children, but Lowell's evening was already in the wrong place.

Lowell hadn't planned on his in-laws when he came to New York. In a dim, haphazard way he'd known that Flatbush was somewhere nearby, more or less the same way that he knew there were stockyards in Chicago, but it had never occurred to him that he would actually have to go there. Nor had it ever occurred that going there would, in a curious and disturbing way, constitute by far the largest part of a very, very small social life. A lot of things hadn't occurred to him. He was paying for them now. Sometimes he wondered if he was even paying for things he didn't know about.

“I thought we were going to Berkeley,” his wife had said nine years ago, her voice coming to him down the corridor of years as clearly as if she had spoken to him only a moment before. It was the instant when his life had suddenly poised itself on an idle remark, and the hinge of fate had opened—a small moment, an utterly insignificant fragment of time that could have passed as swiftly as turning a page in a book, but instead it had changed his life forever. “Didn't you say we were going to Berkeley?” she asked anxiously. “That's where I want to go. All those pretty hills. I guess you're kidding about New York, right? Berkeley is where we're really going, isn't it? We're really going there, aren't we? Lowell?”

He could still hear the voice, he could still see the room, he could still smell the old green overstuffed chair he'd been sitting in. “Maybe not,” he said. He was only teasing. Berkeley was definitely the place they were going, and the idea of going to New York instead had just sort of wandered into his mind a moment ago like a stray insect. No doubt it would have perished there at once if he hadn't spoken it aloud. Now it was out in the open, and God help them all. Even in those days his wife had an almost marvelous tendency to seize upon and circle a vagrant or distasteful idea, trying all the variations until some sort of conclusion could be drawn from it. Occasionally these conclusions took bizarre and astonishing form, such as going to New York when you really intended to go to Berkeley, but in those days Lowell hadn't had much practice with his wife's mind and he could never figure out what was afoot until affairs were well advanced, often in the direction of catastrophe. He was simply not prepared to give serious thought to the matter of pulling up his life like a bush and moving it a couple of thousand miles in a strange direction. “Us pioneers think nothing of moving around,” he said with a smile. “We fought the Indians and crossed the plains.”

“You wouldn't like it there,” said his wife. “It's a big dirty place, and going back there is not the reason I came out here. I suppose I could stand it for a while if I had to, provided we didn't have to live in a public-housing project or some slum. I'd rather go to Berkeley. I thought you always wanted to go to Nevada. Let me tell you, New York is no Nevada.”

“I never thought New York was like Nevada,” said Lowell. “I know better than that.”

“You don't know a thing about it. New York is like nothing you've ever seen, take it from me.”

“Oh, I don't know about that,” said Lowell righteously, flipping through his mind for a good example of something he'd seen that was like New York. All he came up with was mountains and dams. “Anyway,” he said crossly, “you're only trying to put me down because you burned your cake.”

“That's pretty typical of you,” said his wife. “The underhanded blow. You're only trying to strike back because you feel inferior. You always do that. Well, it won't work this time. I never wanted to make that silly cake in the first place. I was making it for you. I hate cake.”

“I never knew you hated cake,” said Lowell. “I'll bet that's not true. I'll bet you're just trying to get at me in a new way. What's the matter, is it your period of something?”

“That was uncalled for,” said his wife, making a thin line of her lips. “That was really uncalled for. Just because you feel like a hick.”

“That's got nothing to do with it,” said Lowell.

“Aha! See there, you do feel like a hick. I knew it all along, and you just admitted it.”

“Now, wait a minute,” said Lowell. He began to make a helpless gesture but stopped himself in time.

“Boy, would you ever hate it in New York. It's a good thing you don't have the nerve to go there. Take it from me, you would really hate it. You'd hate it more than I'm going to love Berkeley. You wouldn't even know how to ask people for directions.”

“Hey, come on,” said Lowell. He never knew how to react to aggression. He was always kind of stunned by it.

“I hate it when you sit in a chair like that,” said his wife.

“What's wrong with the way I'm sitting?”

“It's weak. You're sitting there in a weak way.”

Lowell looked down at himself, but he seemed to be sitting the same way he always did. Maybe that was what she meant. Through the kitchen door he could see the ant poison in its dish on the counter. It looked like mint jelly and it had never done a thing to stop the ants. He could see them at work now, a thin wavy line like a trail of pepper crossing the floor. A car went past in the street.

“I think maybe we really will go to New York,” he said quietly.

“I wish there were some doors in this stupid place so I could go and slam one behind me,” said his wife.

“There's the bathroom,” said Lowell, staring at the trail of ants.

“Right,” said his wife. “I hadn't thought of that. Boy, do I ever despise you.” She strode past him and locked herself in the bathroom.

She remained locked in the bathroom until it was time for Lowell to depart for his job at the library. After a while he stopped staring at the ants and tried to persuade her to come out, but she refused to answer his pleas and gentle inquiries. She made no sound at all. Lowell began to worry. He wondered if people made any noise when they slit their wrists. He knew they didn't make any noise afterward, and that was exactly what his wife was doing: not making any noise. Was there any lethal substance in the medicine chest? He didn't think so, unless it was possible to kill yourself with a couple of dozen aspirin, but on the other hand, he'd never really thought about it. He considered going around to the side of the house and looking in the bathroom window, but he was afraid someone would see him; he imagined himself trying to explain to somebody, such as a policeman, that he was only looking in the bathroom window because he wanted to see what his wife was doing. He'd never get it right, and he doubted if anyone would understand him anyway.

She was still in the bathroom when he left the house, but by then he'd worried so much that he'd gotten angry and self-righteous, and he didn't care. She was in bed when he got home. He didn't wake her up. The following morning he'd forgotten the whole thing. He hated quarrels and was very good at putting them out of his mind, especially after a good night's sleep.

“When do we start?” asked his wife tersely as she loaded the ancient toaster that had come with the house. She was wearing her bathrobe. It always made her look old, and Lowell hated it.

“Start what?” he asked. He was afraid she meant their quarrel. It already seemed as though it had happened in a different world.

“For New York,” she said. “We have to make plans.”

“Nonsense,” said Lowell. “We're going to Berkeley. Let's forget the whole thing.”

“I thought you said we were going to New York. You
did
say that, didn't you?”

“Well, yes, but...”

“Why did you say we were going to New York if we're not? Don't let me force you into going to Berkeley. God forbid we should go to Berkeley if your heart is set on New York. Pay no attention to anything I say. You'll never forgive me if you let me talk you out of it. Eat your breakfast.”

“I am eating my breakfast,” said Lowell. He remembered her crack about how he sat in a weak way, and he straightened up and carried a bite of food purposefully to his mouth.

“What do you mean, we're not going to New York?” his wife suddenly demanded after they had both chewed for a while. “It was nothing but one of your little jokes, is that what you're trying to tell me? Ho, ho. Well, you just try sitting on the edge of a bathtub for half an hour and see how you like it. If you'd been half a man, you would have kicked the goddamn door down, but not you, no sir, it was only a joke and we're not going to New York after all. What a laugh.”

“It wasn't a joke,” said Lowell, hoping that he'd chosen a good reply. It was a little early for him, and he was kind of bewildered, although he was definitely aware that something was expected of him. He wished he knew what it was.

“Let me know when you make up your mind,” said his wife. “They're only three thousand miles apart, and it should be easy to choose between them. I knew all along that you'd back down. They say that girls always marry their fathers, and I sure did.”

“Wait a minute,” said Lowell. “What do you mean, back down?”

“My lips are sealed.”

“I remember now. You think I'm a hick.”

“When you make up your mind, just holler.”

“You think the reason I don't want to go to New York is because I'm afraid to. I remember now. It all comes back to me.” He was terribly hungry, and there was a full meal right in front of him, toast and sausages and everything, but he had an idea that it would spoil his effectiveness if he were to snatch a bite between diatribes. It might make him look weak or vulgar. He tried to remember if she'd accused him of being vulgar yet.

“It was a joke,” she said, looking off into space. “You said so yourself.”

“It wasn't a joke, and I never said so. You're just trying to confuse me.”

“I only want to find out where we're going, Lowell. That's all.”

Lowell pictured himself dashing all the breakfast things to the floor with one forceful sweep of his arm. It only reminded him of how hungry he was. If he hadn't been so hungry, he would have stormed right out of the house, but he didn't have enough money to buy himself another breakfast somewhere, and he really wanted one. He slumped back in the chair and tried to think things out. Once upon a time he'd known what they were arguing about, but he seemed to have lost the thread. “What are we arguing about?” he asked.

“God damn,” said his wife. She pushed back her chair, swept into the bathroom, and locked the door. Lowell ate his breakfast. It tasted like cardboard, and he wondered if he was chewing it in a weak way. Nobody in his family ever argued, at least that he knew about. They always agreed about everything, but on the other hand, they didn't do much. Maybe that was why.

By midmorning Lowell had decided to take the bull by the horns and announce that they were definitely going to New York. It wasn't really a decision so much as a tactic, and it was also the only thing that he could think of to do; his previous failure to decide to go to New York seemed to lie at the root of their misunderstanding and the source of all their misery. Clearly (Lowell decided) his wife was waiting for him to decide to go to New York so that she could restore her subservient female role by begging him not to. Things had gotten out of hand simply because he was so damned amiable, and also because of her secret fear of becoming like her mother. It was only elementary psychology. Lowell was glad he'd been able to think it through. He could scarcely wait until he got home.

“Okay,” he announced cheerily but firmly as he stepped through the front door. A cheese-and-onion pie was baking in the oven, and the house was full of delicious odors. “Okay,” he announced, “we're going to New York.”

“You're going to hate it there,” said his wife. “When do we start?”

And that was how Lowell damned himself out of his own mouth. There was no going back. A seamless wall descended around his life and cut him off from all paths but one, and that was the one he took. His wife was right: he didn't like it there. Nine years later he could still hear the sound of her voice, clear as a bell and true as a plumb, echoing in his mind in small, solitary moments; a wet newspaper would plaster itself to his ankle on an empty street and he would suddenly feel chilled and mortal, and he would hear her words again: “You aren't going to like it there. When do we start?”

There was no getting out of it. Afloat on a tide of events and furiously propelled by his wife, he gave notice at the library, renounced his scholarship at Berkeley, and told everyone in sight that he'd decided to go to New York, desperately hoping that someone would give him a smart-sounding and compelling reason for doing no such a blame-fool thing, but no one did. On the contrary, the more people he told about it, the more it seemed like he was actually going to go.