The Group (39 page)

“But you can free-associate to
anything
,” said Polly. “The word ‘fire’ for instance. What does it make you think of?” “Water.” “And water?” “Fire.” She could not help laughing. “Oh, dear.” “You see?” he said darkly. “That’s what I mean. I’m blocked.” “Have you tried talking about not talking?” “Bijur suggested that. ‘Why do you suppose you refuse to talk?’ he asked me. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. End of conversation.” He grimaced. “I’ve never liked the idea of talking to somebody who doesn’t answer, who just sits there behind you, thinking.”

“How long has this been going on?” “About a month. Longer, off and on.” Polly’s face crinkled into smiles. “If you only knew what I’d been imagining!” “About my analysis?” She nodded. “I never thought I’d tell you. I was afraid you talked about me.” “Why should I talk about you?” “Well, I mean, sex …” said Polly. “You goop,” said Gus tenderly. “The patient doesn’t talk about real sex. He talks about sexual fantasies. If he has any. I haven’t since I was a kid.” He paced about the room. “You know, Polly, what’s wrong with me? I’m not interested in myself.” “But Gus,” she said gently, “I think that’s an admirable thing. Doesn’t everybody strive for self-forgetfulness?” She was about to say “Look at the saints” and corrected herself. “Look at Lenin,” she said instead. “Did he think about himself?” “He thought about the masses,” Gus answered. “But frankly I don’t think much about the masses either. Not in those terms.” “What
do
you think about?” she asked curiously. “Sales conference. Dust jackets. Bookstore reports. Agents. A talk I have to give to the League of American Writers.” He brooded.

“I don’t think your doctor ought to take the money,” she said virtuously. “It’s unethical.” Gus shook his head. “According to him, it’s all grist to the mill. He told me that when I wondered whether I shouldn’t quit—stop wasting his time. He said most patients expressed their resistance through talking. I express mine by silence. But my silence, he claims, is valuable. It shows the treatment is working and I’m fighting it.”

Polly lost patience. Seeing Gus so upset and so humble made her angry. She asked the question she had resolved never to ask. “Tell me,” she said, trying to sound casual, “what
are
you being treated for? What’s supposed to be the matter with you? What’s its name?” “Name?” He sounded surprised. “Yes,” prompted Polly. “‘Compulsion neurosis,’ ‘obsessional neurosis,’ ‘anxiety neurosis’—one of those.” Gus scratched his head. “He’s never said.” “Never
said
?” “No. I think maybe it’s against the rules to tell the patient the name of what’s the matter with him.” “But aren’t you curious?” “No. What’s in a name, anyway?” Polly controlled herself. “If you went to a doctor with a rash,” she said, “wouldn’t you feel entitled to know whether he thought it was measles or prickly heat?” “That’s different.” Polly tried another tack. “What are your symptoms, then? If I were writing your chart, what would I put down? The patient complains of …?” Gus seemed suddenly irritated. “Get the hospital out of your mind, Polly. I went, I told you, because Esther and I agreed. Because our marriage had broken up, over my jealousy. Esther wanted a free relationship; I couldn’t take it.”

A feeling of alarm came over Polly. “Oh,” she said. “But that’s natural, surely?” He knitted his brows. “Only in our culture, Polly. You understand, don’t you, that there’s a conflict in me between Fall River and Union Square?” “There is in almost everybody, isn’t there? I mean of our generation. Maybe not exactly Union Square.” She hesitated. “What if there were nothing the matter with you, Gus? What if you were just normal?” “If there were nothing the matter with me, I wouldn’t be blocked, would I?” He sat down wearily. Polly touched his shoulder. “What did Esther say?” He closed his eyes. “She said I was sabotaging the analysis. Because of you.” “So she knows about me.” “Jacoby told her.” That was the book designer. Gus opened his eyes. “Esther thinks I’d unblock if I stopped seeing you for the time being.”

Polly stiffened. Her first impulse was to laugh; instead, she waited, warily watching Gus. “The way Esther looks at it,” he went on, flushing, “I’m throwing a monkey wrench into the analysis to keep from getting well. Because the part of me that’s weak and evasive clings to you for support or refuge. The fact that you work in a hospital makes me see you as a nurse. If I got well, I’d have to leave my nurse.” He looked at her inquiringly.

“What do you think of that?” “I think,” Polly said with a tight throat, “that Esther ought not to practice medicine without a license. Isn’t it up to Dr. Bijur to tell you these things, if they’re true? He should be the one to recommend that you stop seeing me for the time being.”

“He can’t, Polly. He’s my analyst. We’ve been over that before. He can’t advise me about my life-decisions. He can only listen when I report them.” “At least,” remarked Polly, “this will give you something to talk about in your next session.” “That’s a nasty crack,” said Gus. “Have I deserved that, Polly?” He wrinkled his nose appealingly. “I love you.” “But you’ve already decided, haven’t you?” she said steadily. “You’re going to do what Esther says. That’s why you came to see me tonight.” “I wanted to talk to you about it before I saw Bijur. And I have a lunch with an author tomorrow. But I haven’t decided anything. We have to decide this together.” Polly folded her hands and stared at them. “Hell,” said Gus. “I don’t suggest I believe what Esther said. But I might be game to try it as an experiment. After all, she knows me pretty well. And she has a good head on her shoulders. If we agreed to stop seeing each other for a week or so and I unblocked, that might prove something. And if I didn’t unblock, that would prove she was wrong, wouldn’t it?” He smiled eagerly. “She knows you
very
well,” observed Polly.

“Hey!” he said. “That isn’t like you, Poll. You sound catty, like other women.” “I am like other women.” “No.” He shook his head. “You’re not. You’re like a girl in a story book.” He looked around the room. “That’s how I always think of you, as a girl in a story book or a fairy tale. A girl with long fair hair who lives in a special room surrounded by kindly dwarfs.” For some reason, this friendly allusion to the lodgers was the thing that undid her. Tears streamed from her eyes; she had never thought he liked the two “dwarfs.” “And that’s why you’re going to let me go,” she said. “Because I’m part of a fairy tale. I’m unreal.” She brushed away her tears and poured herself another glass of sherry.

“Whoa!” he said. “I’m not going to let you go. This is just a temporary tactic. In the interests of the over-all strategy. Please understand, Polly. I made an agreement with Esther, and she’s going to hold me to it. If I don’t finish the analysis, no divorce.” “We could wait,” she said. “You could quit the analysis and we could wait. Living in sin. You could move in here or we could find another place.” “I couldn’t do that to you,” he said emphatically. “You weren’t built to live in sin. I would never forgive myself for what it’d do to you.” “Is that Union Square speaking?” “No, that’s Fall River. Granite Block.” She smiled mistily. “So you do understand,” he said. “And you know I love you.”

Polly reflected, turning the gold-speckled glass in her hand. “I know. I must be crazy, but I know. And I know something else. You’re going to go back to Esther. You think you’re not, but you are.” He was struck. “Why do you say that?” Polly waved a hand. “Little Gus, the party, the psychoanalyst. You’ve never really left her. To leave her, you’d have to change your life. And you can’t. It’s all built in to you, like built-in furniture. Your job too. Your authors. Jacoby. I’ve always known we’d never get married,” she added sadly. “I don’t belong with the built-in furniture. I’m a knick-knack.”

“Are you condemning me, Polly?” said Gus. “No.” “Is there something you think I should have done different?” “No.” “Tell the truth.” “It’s just a silly thing.” She hesitated. “Nothing to do with us. I think you should have listened to Mr. Schneider about the Moscow trials.” “Oh for Christ’s sake!” said Gus. “I told you it was silly,” she said. “No, Gus, listen. I think you
should
go back to Esther. Or I
think
I think you should.” What she meant, she supposed, was that he would be doing the right thing, for him, but that she wished he were different. A better man or a worse one. A few minutes ago, she had suddenly realized a fact that explained everything: Gus was ordinary. That was what was the matter with him.

He was looking at her piteously, as if he felt naked before her eyes; at the same time, she observed, with surprise, that he still had his topcoat on, like someone who had come on business. “It’s been awfully tough, Polly,” he burst out. “These Sundays. You don’t know. With the kid always asking, when I bring him back, ‘Are you going to stay this time, Daddy?’” “I know.” “And Jacoby, with his drawing board and his dames. Not that he hasn’t been damn decent.” It was a minute before Polly recognized that he was taking her at her word: he was going home. As soon as he could with honor. And he was glad and grateful, as if she had “released” him. This was not what she had meant at all; she had meant that sometime in the future, eventually, he would go back. “I’ve loved you so much,” he said. “More than anyone, ever.” He sighed. “‘Each man kills the thing he loves,’ I guess.” “I’ll be all right,” she whispered. “Oh, I know
that
,” he said loudly. “You’re strong and wise—too good for me.” He turned his head and looked around the room, as if in farewell to it. “‘Like the base Indian threw a pearl away, richer than all his tribe,’” he muttered into her neck. Polly was embarrassed. They heard Mr. Schneider tune up his fiddle again. Gus kissed her and gently disengaged himself, holding her at arm’s length, with his hands on her shoulders. “I’ll call you,” he said. “Toward the end of the week. To see how you’re doing. If you need anything, call me.” It came to her that he was going to leave without making love to her.

This would mean they had made love
for the last time
this morning. But that did not count: this morning they did not know it was for the last time. When the door shut behind him, she still could not believe it. “It
can’t
end like this,” she said to herself over and over, drumming with her knuckles on her mouth to keep from screaming. The fact that he had not made love to her became a proof that he would be back; he would remember and come back, like someone who has forgotten some important ceremony, someone who has taken “French leave.” When the church clock struck one, she knew he would not come; he would not disturb the house by ringing the bell so late. Yet she waited, thinking that he might throw pebbles at her window. She undressed and sat at the window in her kimono, watching the street. Toward morning, she slept for an hour; then she went back to work as usual, and her sufferings, as if punching a time clock, did not begin until after five.

On the way home on the bus her mind automatically started to make a market list—bread, milk, lettuce—and then stopped with a jerk. She could not buy food just for herself. But if she did not buy food, this said that she knew Gus would not come tonight. And she did not know it; she refused to. To know it was to let fate see that she accepted it; if she accepted it; she could not live another minute. But if she bought food for two, this told fate that she was counting on his coming. And if she counted on it, he would never come. He would only come if she were unprepared. Or would he come only if she were prepared? With her lamp trimmed like the wise virgins? Christianity would tell her to buy food for two, but the pagans would say, “Don’t risk it.”

Getting off the bus, she stood in front of the A&P while other shoppers brushed past her; she was glued to the spot. It was as though this decision—to market or not to market—would settle her whole future. And she could not decide. She took a few steps down the street and turned back uncertainly. She read the weekly specials in the window; they had oxtails at a bargain, and Gus liked oxtail soup. If she made oxtail soup tonight, it would be ready for tomorrow. But what if he never came again? What would she do with the soup? Oxtail soup with sherry. She had sherry. Supposing she were to compromise and get eggs? If he did not come, they would do for breakfast. At the word “breakfast” she let out a little cry; she had forgotten about the night. She read the specials again.

It occurred to her that there was something familiar about this panic of indecision, as if she had experienced it before, quite recently, and then she remembered. It was those cases she had read about in the hospital library—the anxiety patients who could not make up their minds about what to buy for dinner or which subway line to take to work. This was what it meant, then, to be a neurotic. To be a neurotic was to live, day in, day out, in a state of terror lest you decide the wrong thing. “Oh, poor people!” she exclaimed aloud, and the pain of her own suffering turned into an agonized pity for those others who had to endure steadily something she had only experienced now for a few moments and which was already unendurable. A beggar came up to her, and again her will was paralyzed. She wanted to give him money, the money she would have spent in the A & P, but she remembered that Gus frowned on giving money to beggars, because charity, he said, helped perpetuate the capitalist system. If she disobeyed Gus’s will, he would never come tonight. While her mind veered this way and that, the man went on down the street, shuffling. He had decided for her. But this thought made her act. She ran after him, opening her pocketbook, and stuffed two dollar bills into his hand. Then slowly she walked home. She had given the money freely, on a quick impulse, not as a bargain, and she did not expect any result from it.

Under her door was a letter for her. She picked it up, not daring to look at it, for she knew it would be from Gus. She took off her coat and hung it up, washed her hands, watered her plants, lit a cigarette. Then, trembling, she tore open the letter. Inside was a single sheet of paper, a short letter, in handwriting. She did not look directly at it yet but put it on the table, glancing at it sidewise, as if it could tell her what it said without making her read it. The letter was from her father.