The Matter With Morris (11 page)

“Have you seen your daughter?”

“We went out for pizza last night. And then to a movie.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“She went against her will.”

“Says who? Did she tell you that?”

“Her mother.”

“And her mother knows her daughter’s will?”

Mervine chuckled. “You should be my lawyer.”

“I’ve been thinking about your request,” Morris said. “The letter thing. I’d be willing to do that.”

“Oh, I’ve given up on that idea.”

“Why?” Morris’s voice lifted like a cry in the wilderness. “It’s perfectly reasonable. It could be very persuasive and romantic. Women like letters. Love letters move them.”

“She might not read it, and even if she did, she wouldn’t respond.”

“That’s not the point. Do you have a pen and paper handy?”

“Now? You want me to write the letter now?”

“Yes, I’ll dictate it. We’ll woo her. You’ll see.”

There was a pause, and then Mervine said, “Hang on,” and Morris heard the receiver go down and then there was silence and finally Mervine was back and he said, “I have a pencil. It’s all I could find.”

“Pencil’s great. It’s softer, more intimate. You still in the tent?”

“No, in the kitchen.”

“You lying?”

“I’m in the fucking kitchen. I can see the sink, the dirty dishes.”

“All right. Ready?”

“I am.”

“Christa.”

“Not Dear Christa?”

“Absolutely not. Just Christa.”

“Okay. Christa. Got it.”

“Christa, I want to be good, I want to be the good man that you married so long ago, the man who took you in his arms and said, ‘I promise to be faithful and true.’“

“Hang on. What do you mean? I never took her in my arms and promised that. I mean, I might have said words like that, but not exactly.”

“Mervine, you’re too literal. Here’s the trick—you use metaphor to get at the truth. If you say in a romantic way that you took her in your arms and said those things, she’ll believe you. She wants to believe you. Anyway, who’s the writer here?”

“You are.”

“Exactly. Where were we?”

“‘Faithful and true.’“

“Okay, let’s continue. After that there’s a period. Then: I have not been faithful. Somewhere, in the last few years, I failed to pay attention.”

Silence, except for the rustle of the phone against Mervine’s shoulder. Finally, he asked, “Is that right? That I didn’t pay attention?”

“Probably. Most men, if they were honest or being tortured, would confess to that. Isn’t it a fact, Mervine, that you stopped noticing little things? You forgot to appreciate her, or you got possessive, or pouted when you couldn’t have sex, or you didn’t want sex, or you complained that she was getting fat. Isn’t that true?”

“Yeah, yeah, I guess it might all be true. Except I never cared if she gained weight. I liked that.”

“Fine, but the other things. You admit to that?”

“Yes, I agree.”

“So then write it down.”

“It’s down. But
she
failed to pay attention as well.”

“Of course she did. But this isn’t a cross-examination. This is a plea, an announcement of adoration, an apology. You’re trying to win her back, and accusing her of not paying attention is not going to woo her. You see?”

“Yes. Okay.”

“What’s your last sentence?”

“‘Failed to pay attention.’“

“All right. Period after that. Then: I know that love is susceptible to the vagaries of time and place.”

“What are you talking about? She wouldn’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about.”

“Okay, how about this: I know that love can change, that responsibilities and work and indifference have made our love ebb and flow, like the tides. But, Christa, I want you to know that my love for you is constant, just as the moon is constant. It will always be there. It might seem to disappear, to fade, but that just means it was hidden for a bit, like the moon is hidden behind the shadow of the earth.”

“Christ almighty. Are you sure about this?”

“Absolutely. Write it down.”

“I got lost there, right after ‘just as the moon is constant.’ That middle section. Go slower, Morris. I don’t want to miss any of this.”

“Okay. Something like, My love, like the moon, might seem to fade away and disappear …”

“That’s fine, I have the rest,” Mervine said, and he repeated the last line slowly, savouring it, finishing with “the shadow of the earth.”

“Then,” Morris said, “end it with a request to have a drink or coffee. She can choose the place, the time. No pressure. Just a friendly drink. Or you can offer to take her out for lunch.”

“She loves my Corvette. Perhaps I should take her for a weekend drive.”

“Yeah, great. Something like that.”

Mervine was scribbling. Morris thought he heard panting as well, as if Mervine had been running quickly. Mervine finally said, “You think this’ll work?”

“It might, or it might not. She could say no.”

“You think so?”

“I think if she’s got any brains about her, she’ll read it and say yes. But I don’t know her.” Morris paused and then said, “One last thing, Mervine. Read it through and call me back and tell me if it’s proper. Okay?”

Morris hung up and stood and walked to the window. It had stopped raining. He felt a fine sense of peace and well-being. Mervine had been so malleable, so keen and willing. The sentiments had been true. Morris could feel them as well. The letter had import and purpose and it was full of poetry. He had wanted to borrow from Solomon, to say, “Christa, I am panting like a hind for you,” but this would have been lost on both Mervine and his wife. Pearls before swine.

When Mervine called back five minutes later, he said, “It doesn’t sound like me.”

“What do you mean?”

“These aren’t my words.”

“But do you believe them? Are they true?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Well then, Christa will believe you. She’ll see past the fancy prose, which really isn’t that fancy, and she’ll be unaware of the metaphor, the language. The sentiments will convince her that it is you.”

“You’re sure you’re right.”

“Right as rain.”

The following week, rather than running to what Adorno called “chorus girls,
bohémiennes,
Viennese
süsse Mädel,
sweet wenches, and
cocottes,”
Morris had dinner with Leah. He met her on Saturday evening again. He had spent that afternoon with Jake, taking him back to his condominium and feeding him Kraft Dinner and ice cream, and then he had pulled the television and DVD player from the back of his closet and together they had watched
The Jungle Book.
Morris had watched the movie numerous times with his own children when they were young and so he knew all the songs and he sang them for Jake, who giggled and listened, transfixed, his tender mouth soft and open. “More, Grandpa,” he cried and Morris kept singing. They fell asleep together on Morris’s futon, and when Morris opened his eyes he was disoriented and then aware that he was late returning Jake to Meredith. He woke the boy, who remained grumpy during
the trip home, and when they walked in the door, Meredith saw right away that Jake had napped.

“That’s just great, Dad. Glen and I are going out tonight and the babysitter will have a hell of a time putting him down. Didn’t I tell you not to let him sleep?”

“It just happened,” Morris explained, refusing to be cowed by his own daughter. He wondered where Jake’s sweetness came from, with a pinched mother like Meredith and dim-witted Glen. “We were watching TV and singing and then fatigue tackled us. If you like, I can watch him tonight. I’ll have no problem putting him to bed, and if he doesn’t want to sleep, we can stay up together.”

“He has a regular babysitter.” She took Jake’s duffle bag from Morris. “Anyways, he goes to bed at eight. He can’t be staying up all night.”

They were standing in the doorway of the small house that Meredith rented. She seemed old to Morris. She was bossy and responsible and she had this house she’d found, and she was trying to make a life with Glen, who was a mechanic at one of the nearby car dealers. Good for her. Good for Jake. Good for everybody. Always, when he faced Meredith, Morris felt immature and irresponsible. In fact he understood in some perverse way why she would prefer that he not spend time with Jake. He was too careless these days.

He said, “I was thinking the zoo might be fun. Jake loves animals. Maybe next week?”

“Jake doesn’t want to see Bengalese tigers in tiny cages, or crowded monkeys. It’s abusive.”

“It doesn’t have to be the zoo. We can just go to the
botanical gardens and smell the humidity and the rot and listen to the tropical birds.”

She shrugged, softening slightly, and surprised him by saying, “Maybe the zoo. Not next week, but the week after that, okay?”

He hugged Jake and leaned towards Meredith to kiss her on her cheek and she allowed this, though she seemed wary. He stepped backwards out the door, into the late-afternoon light.

In the evening, he took Leah to a bistro that was crowded and loud and in order to hear each other they had to lean in across the table on which were set small plates of appetizers and bread. They shared a bottle of red wine. Morris felt expansive and happy. He lived in a world where only a movie star or a certain politician could acceptably fall in love with a woman half his age, and though he thought that he wasn’t falling in love with Leah, that his intentions were noble, he was aware of the other men in the restaurant, especially the older men, who eyed him with envy. At some point during the evening, Morris steered the conversation towards Leah’s work. She said she wasn’t interested in talking about that, this was her night off. He pressed on anyway and asked if she worked seven days a week, and she said, “No, three or four.” He asked when her next night was, and she said, “Tuesday.” When he asked her where, she hesitated and then said it was at the same hotel where she had met Morris. She asked if he was jealous. She said this matter-of-factly, as if it were a certainty, and he said that he didn’t think so. He was curious, he said, and he asked her to tell him about her latest escapade.
She shrugged and said that she had been with a politician from Switzerland. She did not talk about the sex, she just offered details of the man himself, his age, his looks, the way he threw money around, his accent. “He was such a child,” she said, and then she asked, “Why do you want to hear this?” He said that it offered him glimpses into her world. He was trying to understand her. She said that there was no intimacy involved, it was sex; in fact, she was more intimate with him than with any of those other men. “Talking like this,” she said. “Eating. I have several rules, and one of them is, Do not eat with the men.” This pleased him, made him feel special. He said that she was more than a flute girl, did she know that? She laughed and asked what he meant, and he said that long ago, when common men gathered to converse, they hired flute girls to play for them, to entertain them so that they didn’t actually have to talk. “But you are more than that,” he said. “You guide the conversation.” They talked about love. Morris said that there was tragic love, which was deep and abiding, and then there was the love of comedy, which was a lesser kind. She tilted her head coyly and said that the story of her love life was a comedy. But she could live with that. She said that he thought too much about his ideas and his emotions, and if he would just let himself go, he would see that there was nothing bad or evil about fucking. She leaned back in her chair as she finished. She said “fucking” almost tenderly. There were mussel shells in the bowl beside her plate. Her wineglass was empty.

They walked back to his place, side by side, slightly drunk, while she told him about her father, who was extremely
possessive and who believed that she was working as a bartender in the evenings, and if he were ever to discover what she actually did for work, he would probably murder her. “He’s old-fashioned,” she said. “He taught me how to play piano, made me practise three hours a day on an electric piano that he bought at a second-hand store.” She said that her parents worked in a furniture factory and she was an only child and this had made her own life difficult because expectations were very high, and at some point it was decided that she would be a doctor. “My parents have sacrificed everything. They don’t talk about it but I can see it. And for my father to know that I sleep with men older than him, this would kill him. Still, he wants me to be a doctor, and this is the only way. I’ve had three interviews for school here, and each time they said no. So, I’m going to Australia.” They were walking through a light rain, and though Morris offered Leah his jacket, she would not take it. She teetered along in her red heels and skirt and a light sweater. Her hair was wet. When they arrived at his condominium, he said, “Come, I have something to show you.” They took the stairs and passed by Tom and Beth Ann’s apartment, where the door was open and a party was taking place. Morris recalled being invited and for a second he considered asking Leah if she would like that, go to a party, maybe dance, do something very healthy, meet people her age, but as they passed by the open door, Morris glanced inside and saw the guests and he immediately felt old, and he imagined being laughed at, mocked, and so they went up to his condominium where he poured Leah a glass of red wine, a Scotch for himself.
They sat in the living room and Morris said that he was worried for her.

“Oh,” she said. “Morris.”

He had asked her to call him Morris, not Mr. Schutt, and this was the first time she had tried it out, and it surprised him. Her voice was soft, yet underneath there was an edge of something else, perhaps impatience. The music from the party reached their ears.

“I would like to be your benefactor,” he said. “Which means that I would pay for your education. At least part of it.”

“Really, Morris?” She paused and considered. “What do I have to do for this?”

“Nothing. Well, actually, there are two things, but they are quite simple. You would write me a letter once in a while, from Australia, telling me how you are doing in school. Approximately every three months, simply for information. You would not have to flatter me. And the second thing is that you would stop working.”