Authors: Philip Roth
If only they’d say
no
. NO, LUCY, YOU CANNOT. NO, LUCY, WE FORBID IT. But it seemed that none of them had the conviction any longer, or the endurance, to go against a choice of hers. In order to survive, she had set her will against theirs long ago—it was the battle of her adolescence, but it was over now. And she had won. She could do whatever in the world she wanted—even marry someone she secretly despised.
When Roy returned to Fort Kean on Monday evening, and switched on the light in his room, he found Lucy sitting in a chair by the window.
“What are you doing here?” he cried, dropping his suitcase. “The shades are up!”
“Then pull them down, Roy.”
Instantly he did. “How did you get inside?”
“How do I always get inside, Roy? On all fours.”
“Is she home?”
“Who?”
“My landlady!” he whispered, and without another word, slipped out the door and into the hallway. She heard him whistling his way up the stairs and into the bathroom.
You sigh, the song begins, you speak and I hear
… Overhead she even heard him flush the toilet. Then he was sliding into the room again. “She’s out,” he said, shutting the door. “We better turn off the lights.”
“So you won’t have to look at me?”
“So she doesn’t
find
you here, if she comes home. Well, she just might come home. Well, what’s the matter with you?” She rose and clutched her stomach. “Take a guess!”
“
Shhhh
.”
“But she’s out.”
“But she’ll be back! We
always
have the lights out, Lucy.’”
“But I want to talk to you, and face to face, not on a phone, Roy, where you can—”
“Well, I’m sorry, but the lights are going off. So get ready.”
“But are we getting married or aren’t we? Tell me, so I know what to do next, or where to go, or God knows what.”
“Well, at least let me take my coat off, will you, please?”
“Roy, yes or no.”
“Well, how can I give you a yes or no answer when it’s not a yes or no question?”
“But that’s exactly what it
is
.”
“Will you calm down? I’ve been driving for two hours.”
While he was hanging his coat in the closet, she came up behind him and stood on her toes. “
Yes or no, Roy!
” up toward his ear, which was still a foot above her.
He ducked away from her. “Now, first, I’m turning the
lights off. Just to be safe. Well, look, Lucy, I agreed when I rented here not to have girls in my room.”
“But you had me, Roy, and plenty.”
“But
she
doesn’t know about it! Oh, darn it. Here go the lights,” and without pausing to hear an objection, he turned them off.
“Okay, now you don’t have to look at me, Roy. Tell me what happened over your long Thanksgiving holiday. While I was down here in an empty dormitory all by myself for two whole days.”
“First off, I didn’t tell you to go back to any empty dorm. Second, I’m going to sit down, if you don’t mind. And why don’t you sit, too?”
“I’ll stand, thank you.”
“In the dark?”
“Yes!”
“Shhhh!”
“Begin,” she said.
“Well, let me get settled … Okay.”
“What?”
“I’ve got them to come around part way.”
“Continue.”
“Oh, sit
down
, will you?”
“What’s the difference? You can’t see me.”
“I do too see you! Hanging over me. Sit down,
please
.”
She had been waiting for over an hour. It wasn’t sitting she wanted, it was sleep. She lowered herself onto the edge of the bed and closed her eyes.
Go to Mr. Valerio. Run away
. But neither idea made sense. If she should see anyone, it was Father Damrosch. But what would he do? That was precisely his trouble: he couldn’t
do
anything. He was about as much help as Saint Teresa, or Jesus Christ. He looked so strong, and listened to everything she said, and said such beautiful things himself … but it wasn’t beautiful things she needed to hear. Something had to be
done
.
“First off,” he was saying, “don’t think it was easy for me. It was hell, actually.”
“What was?”
“Pretending you weren’t pregnant, Lucy, when everybody kept asking me over and over again
why?
”
“And did you tell them?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!
Shhhhh!
”
“You’re the one who’s shouting.”
“Well, you make me.”
“You might be shouting because you’re lying, Roy.”
“I did not tell them, Lucy! Will you stop accusing? Actually, I keep wondering why I don’t. Why can’t I just speak the simple truth? If we’re going to be married anyway.”
“Are we?”
“Well, we would be … if I told them, I mean.”
“You mean if you don’t, we’re
not?
”
“Well, that’s the point. That’s what’s so confused. I mean, they had so many arguments for why we should at least wait until June.”
“And?”
“And, well, they’re all good arguments. I mean, it’s just hard to argue against a good argument, that’s all.”
“So you said you’d wait.”
“I said I’d
think
about it.”
“But how
can
we?”
“Look, I had to get out of the house, didn’t I? I’ve missed a whole day of school already.”
“You have a car, you can drive—”
“
But I couldn’t leave it the way it was!
Don’t you understand anything!”
“Why couldn’t you? Why didn’t you?”
“Why should they all be furious at me, Lucy, and so confused about everything? I’m not doing anything wrong. The opposite, in fact, the very opposite! Why don’t we just tell
the truth?
I don’t have to lie to my parents, you know.”
“I don’t have to lie to mine either, Roy, if that’s what you mean.”
“But you are.”
“Because I want to!”
“
Why?
”
“Oh, why won’t you be a man about this! Why are you acting this way!”
“But you’re the one who’s hiding the simple fact that would make them all understand the whole thing!”
“Roy, do you honestly believe they will all love and adore me when they hear that I’m going to have a baby?”
“They’d
understand
is all I’m saying.”
“But only two people have to understand—you and me.”
“Well, maybe that’s all you think … with your family.”
“And what’s wrong with my family that isn’t with yours, Roy? Look, you, if you don’t want to marry me,” she said, “because someone has begun to tell you that I’m not good enough for you, well, believe me, you don’t have to.”
A moment passed. And another.
“But I do want to,” he said at last.
“Roy, I think you really don’t.” She buried her head in her hands. “That’s the truth, isn’t it? ‘Trust me, trust me’—and that’s the real truth.”
“Well … no … Well, you certainly haven’t been acting these last few days like the kind of person someone would like living in the same house with particularly I’ll tell you that … Suddenly you’re so—”
“So what? Lower class?”
“No,” he said. “No. Cold.”
“Oh, am I?”
“Well, sort of, recently, yes, as a matter of fact.”
“And what else am I?”
“Well, all kidding aside, Lucy, you’re just acting so angry.”
“You might be a little angry too, if you had agreed beforehand with someone—”
“But I don’t mean normal angry!”
“What?”
“Well—practically crazy!”
“You honestly think because I’m angry I’m
insane?
”
“I didn’t say
I
did. I didn’t say insane.”
“Who did say it then?”
“No one.”
“Who?”
“
No one!
”
“Maybe,” she said after a moment, “you
make
me insane, Roy Bassart.”
“Then why do you want to marry me so much?”
“I
don’t
want to!”
“Oh, then don’t do me the favor, you know.”
“I don’t think I will,” she said. “Because that’s really what it would be.”
“Oh, sure. And what will you do instead? Marry somebody else?”
“Do you know something, you? I’ve been getting rid of you since July, Roy. Since the day you took this room because it had a long bed in it, you—you baby!”
“Well, you sure are a slow worker, I’ll say that for you.”
“I’m not slow! I have sympathy for you! I felt
sorry
for you.”
“Oh, sure.”
“I was afraid you’d give up photography if I hurt your little feelings. But I was going to do it, Roy—on Thanksgiving Day of all days, and I would have, too, if I didn’t have to marry you instead.”
“Oh, don’t feel you have to, you know.”
“I thought when you collapsed, at least you’d be in Liberty Center, where you could go eat your Hydrox cookies.”
“Well, don’t worry about my crying, if I can put in my two cents. I don’t cry that easy, for one thing. And as for Hydrox cookies, that’s irrelevant to anything. I don’t even know what it’s supposed to mean, in fact. Besides,” he said, “if you wanted to drop somebody, don’t worry, you’d drop him. You wouldn’t bother too much about their crying either.”
“No?”
“… Because you don’t have emotions like other people.”
“Don’t I? And who said that?”
“Lucy? Are you crying?”
“Oh, no. I don’t have emotions like other people. I’m a piece of pure stone.”
“You
are
crying.” He came over to the bed, where she was stretched out, her face still in her hands. “Don’t. Please, I didn’t mean it. Really.”
“Roy,” she said, “who said I was insane to you? Who said I didn’t have emotions?”
“Ordinary emotions. Nobody.”
“Who was it, Roy? Your Uncle Julian?”
“No. Nobody.”
“And you believed him.”
“I didn’t. He didn’t say it!”
“But I could tell you about him too! Tell you plenty. The way your Uncle Julian looks at me! How he kissed me at your party!”
“This summer, you mean? But that was a joke. You kissed him back. Lucy, what are you even saying?”
“I’m saying that you’re blind! You’re blind to how awful people are! How rotten and hateful they are! They tell you I’m lower class and don’t have ordinary emotions, and you believe them!”
“I don’t!”
“And all on the basis of what? Why, Roy? Say it!”
“Say
what?
”
“My father! But I didn’t put him in jail, Roy!”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“He put himself there! That was years ago, and it’s over, and I am not beneath you or them, or anyone!”
The door opened; the light went on over their heads.
In the doorway stood the widow from whom Roy rented his room: Mrs. Blodgett, a thin, nervous and alert woman with a little coin-slot mouth and a great capacity for expressing disapproval by merely reducing the thing in size. She did not speak right off; she did not have to.
“Well, just how did you get in here?” Roy asked, as though he were the one who was outraged. He had moved instantly between Lucy and the landlady. “Well, how, Mrs. Blodgett?”
“With a key, Mr. Bassart. How did
she
is a better question. Stand up, you hussy.”
“Roy,” whispered Lucy. But he continued to hide her behind him.
“I said get up from that bed,” said Mrs. Blodgett. “And get out.”
But Roy was intent upon making his point. “You’re not supposed to use a key in another person’s door, for one thing, you know.”
“Don’t tell me the things I’m not supposed to do, Mr. Bassart. I thought
you
were an Army veteran, or so you said.”
“But—”
“But what, sir? But you don’t know the rules of this house, is that what you’re going to have the gall to tell me?”
“You don’t under
stand
,” said Roy.
“Understand what?”
“Well, if you’d calm down, I’ll tell you.”
“You just tell me, whether I’m calmed down or not, which I happen to be anyway. I’ve had others like you, Mr. Bassart. One in 1937, and another right on his heels in 1938. They look all right, but the looks is about the whole of it. Underneath they’re all the same.” Her mouth became invisible. “Crooked,” she said.
“But this is different,” said Roy. “She’s my fiancée.”
“Who is? You just let her out, so I can see her.”
“Roy,” Lucy pleaded. “
Move
.”
At last he did, smiling all the while. “This is Mrs. Blodgett, my landlady, who I mentioned to you. Mrs. Blodgett”—he rubbed his hands together, as though he had been awaiting this pleasure for a long time—“this is my fiancée. Lucy.”
“Lucy what?”
Lucy stood, her skirt finally covering her knees.
“Why were the lights off and all that shouting?” asked Mrs. Blodgett.
“Shouting?” said Roy, looking around. “We were listening to music. You know I love music, Mrs. Blodgett.”
Mrs. Blodgett looked at him in such a way as to openly admit to skepticism.
“The radio,” he said. “We just turned it off. That was the noise, I guess. We just drove down from home. We were resting. Our eyes. That’s how come the lights were dim.”
“Off,” said the tiny mouth, disappearing.
“Anyway,” said Roy, “there’s my suitcase. We did just get back.”
“Who gave you permission, young man, to bring girls into my house against the rules? This is a dwelling place. I told you that when you first arrived, did I not?”
“Well, as I said, we just drove down. And I thought since she was my fiancée, you wouldn’t mind if we rested.” He smiled. “Against the rules.” No answer. “Since we’re getting married.”
“When?”
“Christmas,” he announced.
“Is that so?”
Lucy was the one being asked.
“It’s the truth, Mrs. Blodgett,” said Roy. “That’s why we came down late from home. Making plans,” he said with another big smile; then he turned somber and penitent. “I may have broken a rule about bringing Lucy in here, and if I did, I’m sorry.”
“There are no ifs about it,” said Mrs. Blodgett. “Not that I can see.”
“Well then, I’m sorry then.”
“Lucy what?” asked the landlady. “What’s your last name, you?”
“Nelson.”
“And where are you from?”