Family Happiness (23 page)

Once in bed, she was too anxious to sleep. Her limbs were burning. Her mind was burning, too. Maybe, she thought, Henry is the right person for me, the person I love, but even so I'll never be happy with him again. If I can't it is either my fault or his fault. I'm not good at fixing things. Besides, I don't know what to fix. Did I ever really love Henry, or was he simply so right for me to marry that I didn't have to really think about it? Perhaps he felt the same way about me. Maybe I am not his real type, but just the sensible person to have as a wife. Supposing, she said to herself, the real truth is that I have been trying to get loose from my family and Lincoln is only my secret way of doing it. Maybe I don't want either of them for any pure reason. Maybe the truth is that I am so spoiled and so smug and so lucky that I have never had to batter my way toward what I want. Maybe I never wanted any of this. Maybe everything I think is what has been drilled into me.

Adrift in her upset, Polly fell into a light, unrefreshing sleep which was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. It was Henry, who was not fond of the telephone and hated chatting on it. This was just as well. Polly was too fuzzy to talk. She asked Henry how he was and he said he was tired. The case was going fairly well. He would be home sometime on Sunday, and it was not necessary for Polly to fuss. They would go out for dinner.

Instead of falling back to sleep, she replayed Henry's telephone call. What was the use of calling someone if only to tell that someone how tired you were? What was the point of being married to someone if you never asked how
they
were? The kind of marriage Polly knew was based on family, on the creation of family, on keeping family together, on family events, circumstances, occasions, celebrations. It had to do with loyalty, unity, and strength. It had to do with family goods and services. She felt like a mechanical toy, performing like mad. Did anyone love her just for herself? If she never cooked another meal, ran another errand, remembered another strange craving or favorite food, listened patiently for another second, would anyone have any use for her? Would Henry love her?

The weekend stretched before her ominously. The idea of lunch with Mary Rensberg was now threatening. How could she see a virtual stranger when she felt so shaky? What if she lost control and broke down in front of Mary? How would she explain herself? All she looked forward to was her dinner with Martha Nathan. That was the way life worked. If you were frightened or lonely you planned a dinner party. Then you had to figure out a menu, go shopping, set the table, wait for the guests, talk to the guests, feed the guests, and clear up. Or you went to someone's house for dinner and thought of what elaborate thing you could bring. Time passed without a serious thought. Did people create families in order to keep themselves from wondering what the purpose of life was? With children it was a snap. Children
were
a purpose, and generally there was so much to do in their behalf that you might never stop to think at all.

The first thing she did on Saturday morning was to call Martha, waking her out of what Martha described as her first sound sleep in several years.

“Are we still on?” Polly said.

“Are you kidding?” said Martha. “I called my sister in California last night for menu advice.”

“And what did she tell you?”

“She said: Martha, go and get everything already cooked from one of those expensive places. Or give her baby lamb chops. I'm doing the combination—baby lamb chops and something from one of those places.”

“I'm bringing dessert,” Polly said.

“I hoped you'd say that,” said Martha. “Come at six. Now I'm going back to sleep.”

Polly looked at the clock. It was not quite ten. She would have to call Mary Rensberg. If she thought fast enough she could think up an excuse not to have lunch. Sickness, last-minute emergency. The telephone rang. It was Mary.

“Just calling to confirm,” she said. “Come at one. The sign says
CLOSED
but just ring the bell. No one ever pays any attention to the sign, anyway.”

Now that there was no way around lunch, Polly sat down to figure out what to bake. She decided on an apple tart and made a shopping list. This made her feel rather like a normal person, rather like the old Polly, who was, after all, a marvelous cook.

The day was full of clouds and intense, muted sunlight. Polly ambled around the neighborhood. She bought the paper and read it in a coffee shop. She prowled around the fruit and vegetable stand. It was just eleven o'clock. Her shopping was done, and there was nothing left to do.

The idea of going home was frightful—to be all alone with all those rooms. Polly did not have the temperament for meandering. She was made to achieve goals. Now she was forced to meander and it upset her. She wandered down a side street and stopped in front of a church. It was the Little Church of Saint Jude and the door was open. The darkness inside was velvety and inviting, lit by dozens of flickering devotional candles. Polly went in. The church was empty except for a young man who was praying in a back pew. The darkness, the coolness, the smell of wax and incense calmed her spirit. There were three small shrines: one to Saint Jude, one to the Blessed Virgin, and one to Saint Joseph, who, Polly knew from her Bible-as-literature class, was the father of Jesus.

What sweet security to believe you had a father and mother in heaven, as well as a sort of brother or cousin who, having done his stint as a human being before becoming God, understood how complicated life was. In that atmosphere, Polly thought how unremittingly unsentimental Judaism is. The Solo-Millers' synagogue—the Manhattan Synagogue—was one of the oldest in the country and decorated with non-representational Moorish designs. There were no pictures, no statues, no shrines, not one thing that made you think that God was other than a stupendous force, a huge idea too grand for the minds of men and women, no matter how observant.

In a synagogue there was no one to confess to, and if you could not forgive yourself you were lost. There was nothing to light a candle to, nothing that made you feel that a small wish might be granted or even asked for, only the stern, harsh law of the patriarchs, the hard, unrelenting law that did not give an inch.

The God of the Jews was not human or humane. He did not console and was as imperious as Polly's mother and father. Her mother and father on earth were not a source of consolation either.

Henry Demarest's sense of Jewishness was like the Solo-Millers'. It had to do with a sense of aristocracy. Anyone could be a Christian. Not anyone could be a Jew, and very few Jews were the sort of Jews the Demarests and the Solo-Millers were. It had been said of Grandfather Solo-Miller that he behaved as if he had chosen God, and not the other way around. The Demarests and the Solo-Millers went to synagogue on High Holy Days. This set a precedent for lesser mortals and reminded God that they had not forgotten Him.

In the darkness of the church, Polly wished that she had been a little Catholic girl; that she might go into the confessional, tell everything to a person she could not see, and be forgiven.

Jews do not kneel in prayer; they stand. But kneeling felt much more private, so Polly knelt. She had not prayed since she was a little girl. How thoughtful of the church to provide a padded knee rest, Polly thought. She said very softly, into her hands: “Oh, God, protect me so that I will not be so self-protective. Help me to be strong and to not be so upset or to know why I am so upset. I really try to do good. Is it so terrible of me to love Lincoln? Please help me understand what is happening in my life, and please help me make it all right again. Give me some courage. Make me not so frightened.” She prayed this over and over again.

Her knees were stiff when she got up. At the shrine of Saint Jude she lit a candle and hoped God would understand what she was doing in a Catholic church. Over lunch, when she told Mary Rensberg that she had stopped at Saint Jude's, Mary said, “He's my favorite saint. I'm mad for him. He's the patron of people in desperate circumstances.”

Outside, the light made her squint—hard early-spring light that showed up the flaws of everything. Traffic and pedestrians looked fierce and unavailing. A woman alone on a Saturday ought to be thinking about her children or her husband, Polly knew, but Polly was thinking about Lincoln. With him away her life did not feel normal to her. She looked down the straight road she thought was her future and saw only a divided heart, a person waking out of a bad dream against a wall hung with swords. She did not imagine she would ever feel her life to be all of a piece again. Polly missed the sound of his voice, his strong cold hands, the smell of his sweaters. He was always available, and always where he said he would be. The one time she had rung his bell and he was out, she had almost collapsed in tears. She had been fifteen minutes early, and Lincoln had gone to get a loaf of fresh bread for lunch. All her years of being trained by Henry's absences, his last-minute delays, his changes of plans had fallen away from her. What a luxury to be able to cry over some miscalculated time! That memory caused Polly's eyes to sting. Lincoln indulged her. He allowed her to fret. She had cried more in front of him than she had ever cried in her life. How could she live without him?

“I am just a mess,” said Polly out loud. This startled her; she had never spoken out loud to herself on the street before.

Polly had sailed through adolescence. She had been at the top of her class and president of her school: a popular girl who never went through an awkward stage. Kind to younger children. Sweet to boys. A good dancer. She deferred to Paul, protected Henry, and was generally obedient to her parents. They gave her nothing to rebel against, since their values were wholeheartedly hers. She had not fallen in love in high school or college. Love, she knew, and all its trappings were for adult life. When you fell in love you did so to get married and have children and create a family. Instead, Polly had crushes that never lasted very long, and in fact she had never been in love until she met Henry Demarest, who was in all ways the right person for her to marry.

If you followed the straight path, why did you get into trouble? The street, as she looked around, was full of nice-looking matrons with young children, or baby carriages, or their teen-agers in tow. These women looked confident and settled. Not one of them could possibly be in love or trouble. Of course, Polly was confident-looking and
she
was in trouble. Perhaps, Polly thought, I ought to tap one of these women on the shoulder and ask for advice. But instead, one of these women bumped into Polly. It was Mary Rensberg.

The sight of her threw Polly. She did not want to be seen when she was so upset. It had been her plan to go home and compose herself before meeting Mary for lunch.

“Oh,” said Mary, “what good luck to bump into you. I'm starving and I just brought us our little picnic to have at the shop. I can't stand going out to lunch in this neighborhood. I can brew us up a pot of coffee on my hot plate. I'm so glad we made this lunch date. It's nice to see you after so long.”

Mary was beautiful. She had a small head, elegant bones, and real green eyes. Her silvery-gold hair was cut into an Eton crop and the clothes she favored were a stylish edition of what a girl who went to a French convent school might wear: a black cape, a gray jumper, and a starched white blouse. There were diamond earrings in her ears, and on her feet she wore a pair of suede brogues.

“Just follow me,” said Mary, taking her arm. They walked down the street to Mary's shop, arm in arm like a pair of old-fashioned schoolgirls. Mary opened the door and ushered Polly to the back of the shop.

The front was lined with tables, Welsh cupboards, and marble-topped washstands. The tables were all beautifully set—Mary sold Late Victorian china. At the back of the shop was Mary's worktable, and in the very back, a sink and a hot plate concealed from view by a Chinese screen. Mary took Polly's coat and hung it up, sat Polly down, and went off to make the coffee.

Suddenly Polly was overcome by shyness. She could not think of a single thing to say, and her distress lay upon her like a fever. She did not see how she could sit here for an hour and make actual conversation. This was not like lunch with Martha—this was social life.

In her shop, Mary looked so accomplished, so unapproachable. Everything she did she did stylishly. She had brought a picnic lunch to the shop in a small wicker hamper. She looked so unique, so good at things. Furthermore, she had triumped over a bad time in her own life. Polly had thought it very brave of Mary to divorce Charlie Rensberg. She thought how hard it must be to share your children with a man you didn't like anymore, and yet Mary thrived. The Rensbergs were a big family, active in everything, with connections everywhere. That was quite a clan to leave, but Mary had left it. She had opened her shop and made a success of it, and could be seen on Sunday morning walking her daughters to the Episcopal church around the corner from the shop.

Mary reappeared from behind the screen carrying a pottery dish and a little espresso pot.

“Now,” she said, taking four beautifully wrapped sandwiches out of the hamper. “Tell all about Paul and Beate. I introduced them, you know.”

“I didn't know,” Polly said.

“You didn't? How weird. I thought you all were very close.”

“Paul never tells us anything,” said Polly. “How did they meet?”

“My goodness,” said Mary, “isn't it odd? I always thought Paul told you people everything and never had to tell anything to anyone else. Lean over and grab those two green-and-pink plates, and the cups, too. They're all clean. I just washed them. Beate is a customer of mine—a very good one. She likes fruitwood, very plain. I sold her the table she uses in her office for a desk, and a side table and a washstand—a really old one. I thought to myself: Paul would just adore her. And I was right.”