“Yes,” said John. “Is he a good painter?”
“To tell you the truth, I’ve no idea, and I don’t really care. I’m not interested in being his mentor. Besides, didn’t you read my book? It’s my theory that there can be no more good painters, since we have experienced the death of painting.”
“I suppose that makes your job as a critic easier.”
Lyle was looking at the wall. It cast an odd, curved shadow on the ground. “Do you think I shouldn’t have brought him?”
“No,” said John. “Of course not.”
“Does Marian?”
“No,” said John. “We’re both happy you did.”
They were silent a moment.
“How is Marian?” Lyle asked.
“She’s good,” said John. “Ever since we moved here, she’s been fine. Well, except for Tony, of course.”
“Yes,” said Lyle.
“I don’t know,” said John. “How does she seem to you?”
“Good,” said Lyle. “It’s wonderful to see her.”
“Yes,” said John.
“And how about you?” asked Lyle.
“I’m fine,” said John. “I like it here, too.”
“It’s my favorite place in the world,” said Lyle.
“Then you should visit it more often.”
“I intend to,” said Lyle. “I needed a little time away from it, I think.”
“We missed you,” said John. He, too, was looking at the wall, as if that were the focus of his attention.
“I think your wall is beautiful,” said Lyle.
They pressed themselves through the fir trees and walked up the lawn. The sun had swung high enough so that it struck the back of the house. The windows shimmered, and Lyle thought it had never looked more beautiful. Marian and Robert are somewhere in that house, he thought. But he could not imagine where they were, or what they could possibly be saying to each other.
“Parts of the house date from the eighteenth century,” said Marian, as she led Robert up the stairs.
“Which parts?” asked Robert.
“Oh,” said Marian. “Well, parts of the cellar, I believe—there’s a what-do-you-call-it, a root cellar—and the fireplace in what was the parlor but’s now the library. Do you know Derek Deitz and Granger Salomon?”
“No,” said Robert.
“Well, they restore old houses. They’ve done quite a few up around here. This was one of the first they did. We used to just come up here on the weekends, but we moved here for good about two years ago.” They had reached the second floor and paused for a
moment, in a patch of sunlight on the landing. “The only thing that isn’t authentic about the house are these skylights,” Marian said, pointing above them to a paned window that was set into the sloping ceiling. “Derek and Granger almost sued me when I had them put in. But it was so gloomy up here, with the big trees so close to the house. And I can’t stand a gloomy house.”
She paused, and Robert was aware he was supposed to make some remark, but he was at a loss: no one liked a gloomy house. He smiled.
“I don’t think they look so bad,” Marian said. “At least they aren’t those awful modern ones that look like bubbles. And you can’t see them from the front. I had these especially made. I bought the windows at an auction and had a glazier reset them with tempered glass. But I think you can go too far with authenticity. I don’t want to live in a museum.”
“I’ve always thought it would be nice to live in a museum,” said Robert. “They seem much nicer than homes.”
“But they aren’t homes,” said Marian. “One should live in homes and visit museums.”
“It depends on the home,” said Robert.
Marian looked at him for a second, as if to discern if this remark was an observation or an attack. She could not tell. “I’m going to put you and Lyle in the yellow room. As a rule, I hate people who refer to rooms by their color, but it’s something we seem to do in the house, since all the rooms are different colors. You might be interested to know that the colors are replications of the ones Jefferson used at Monticello.”
“Oh,” said Robert.
“If all this house talk bores you, let me know. For some reason this house just compels me to talk about it. I can be an awful bore, I know.”
“No,” said Robert. “It’s interesting. It’s a beautiful house.”
Marian opened a door on the landing. “These are the back stairs,” she said. “They go down to the kitchen, if you’re looking for a shortcut. We keep the door closed, though, now that Roland is crawling.”
“O.K.,” said Robert.
“Your room is this way,” said Marian, walking down the hall. The walls were covered with framed photographs of many sizes, some old, some new. Robert noticed they were all of people, people from different decades in different countries, all jumbled together. Marian saw him looking at them. “There’s an awfully funny one of Lyle somewhere. Here it is.” She pointed to a photograph of Lyle dressed curiously, in what looked like knickers and a blouson.
“Is he supposed to be a pirate?” asked Robert.
“No.” Marian laughed. “He’s supposed to be Lysander, from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
We used to have a party every year on Midsummer night. People had to come as characters and we’d read the play outside. Lyle was always a very grudging participant. It’s funny how some people who are inherently theatrical clam up when they have an opportunity to really act. I don’t understand it.”
Next to the photograph of Lyle as Lysander was a photograph of Lyle and another man standing in a desert beside a camel. A few pyramids interrupted the vacant horizon. The camel had moved its head, creating a blur, but the two men were standing still, looking straight at the camera, at Robert and Marian.
“Is that Tony?” asked Robert.
“Yes,” said Marian. “They went to Egypt in—I guess it was ’87. Lyle was trying to grow his hair long then. It looks terrible.”
“Yes,” said Robert.
Marian looked at him, as if he should not have agreed. She turned away from the photographs and said, “You can use this
bathroom here.” Robert looked in the room. It was larger than a normal bathroom. A claw-footed tub stood in the middle of the floor and there was an overstuffed sofa against one wall. “It hasn’t got a shower, but it has one of those hand things,” Marian said. “I hope it won’t be a nuisance.”
“It’ll be fine,” said Robert.
“Watch your step here,” said Marian, as she walked down two steps and opened a door at the end of the hall. The yellow room was small, with various sloping roofs and two dormer windows. The walls were painted a beautiful shade of yellow: soft yet bright, the color of real butter. The curtains and the spreads on the two beds were of the same material: pink and white peonies exploding across a pale yellow background. The windows were open, but the old-fashioned brown paper shades were drawn and sucked tight against the screens. Marian raised one and opened the window wider.
“It’s hot in here now,” she said, “but it cools off in the afternoon. I promise.”
“What a nice room,” said Robert.
“Oh,” said Marian, “I’m glad you like it.”
They stood there, in the warm yellow light. It was the first moment they shared that wasn’t tinged with anxiety. Neither of them could think of how to preserve or extend it, so they said nothing. Marian clapped her hands softly together in a gesture that might have seemed odd but didn’t, and said, “Well, then. I’ll leave you to settle in. I’d better go check on Roland, and see about lunch.”
“Thank you,” said Robert.
Marian turned at the door. She nodded, then smiled. “You’re welcome,” she said.
Since they were only staying overnight there was very little settling in to do. Robert put his bag down and stood in the room for a moment, then went into the bathroom and washed his face. He knew he should go downstairs and join Marian, or Lyle and John, whom he could see out the window, standing on the lawn, aimlessly swinging croquet mallets, but he felt a little paralyzed. Who is Lyle? he wondered. It was strange to see someone you have only known alone begin interacting with other people, for that somebody known to you disappears and is replaced by a different, more complex, person. You watch him revolve in this new company, revealing new facets, and there is nothing you can do but hope you like these other sides as much as you like the side that seemed whole when it faced only you.
BY MIDDAY THE HEAT had extended itself even into the shade. The air seemed embalmed. Marian had planned to have lunch outside, but they decided it was cooler to eat indoors, at the large, slate-topped table in the kitchen, with the fan on and the blinds all drawn.
“So you’re a painter, John tells me?” Marian asked Robert, when the platters of pasta and chicken salad had been passed around.
“Well, that’s what I’m doing now,” Robert said. “Or trying to do.”
“So you don’t really think of yourself as a painter?”
“No,” said Robert. “Not really.”
“That’s interesting,” said Marian. “I always thought it was important for artists to have that strong sense of self-definition,
because the world is so unencouraging. But perhaps artists today are more practical.”
“I guess I think it’s presumptuous. I just started painting a little while ago. I suppose I see myself as more of a student of painting than a painter.”
“You were at Skowhegan?”
“Yes,” said Robert.
“Then you must be a very good student.”
“I don’t know. It was kind of a fluke, my being there.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t,” said Marian. “What do you think, Lyle? Did you think it a fluke?”
“I don’t believe in flukes,” said Lyle. Marian had the feeling he hadn’t really been paying attention to the conversation.
“Speaking of flukes,” said John. “Did you get any fish?”
“Yes,” said Marian. “I got some swordfish. And I’m going to make that salsa marinade, so I’ll need some cilantro from the garden.” She was not going to give up on Robert that easily, however. “I’d like to see your work, sometime,” she said to him. “Or don’t you like people to see it?”
“No,” said Robert. “I don’t mind.”
“That’s good,” said Marian. “I never trust those artists who won’t show you their work. It seems to contradict the purpose.”
“And what do you think the purpose is?” asked Lyle.
Trust Lyle, Marian thought, to become interested in the conversation once it had turned from the specific to the abstract.
“To communicate,” said Marian.
“Do you think that there’s a difference between visual art and literature in that respect?”
“Well, of course there’s a difference. Visual art no longer communicates as directly as literature, but its purpose hasn’t changed.
Painting shows you one scene, from which you must infer the story. Literature tells the story.”
“So you’re talking only about narrative art?”
“Yes.”
“But narrative art is dead.”
“Oh, please,” said Marian. “We’ve had this discussion before. Art forms don’t die. They grow fatigued, and are reinvented. But I do know what you mean, and in that respect I think literature is just as fatigued.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean … Well, I mean that the world has changed in a way that precludes literature as we know it. I mean novels, and stories. Poetry, I think, is timeless. But novels—there’s no reason to write novels any longer. The problems that are best solved in novels no longer exist.”
“What problems are they?”
“Well, it seems to me that all the great novels dealt with one of a few things: the failure of marriage or the sublimation of homosexuality.”
Lyle laughed.
“It’s true!” said Marian. “If you think about it. And now that people get divorced—or don’t even get married in the first place—and now that homosexuals can live openly and honestly, all the tensions that complicate great fiction cease to matter. So the domestic novel, as we know it, will—well, I think it’s already happened. Do you read contemporary fiction?”
“Not if I can help it,” said Lyle.
“You see? Neither do I.”
“Why not?” asked Robert.
Marian looked at him. She had been enjoying this conversation
with Lyle. They often talked intellectually and argumentatively when they got together, simply because they liked to, and no one else ever indulged them. So they indulged one another. What was said didn’t really matter. It was the experience of saying it that they enjoyed. And Robert’s simple question put an end to all of it. For Marian did read contemporary fiction, and if Lyle had asked the question she could have invented a perfectly good reason why she didn’t, but lying to Lyle was different from lying to Robert. Lyle would know she was lying and Robert wouldn’t, for one thing. And she wasn’t sure she wanted Robert to think she was the kind of person who didn’t read contemporary literature. So she looked at Robert for a moment.
He looked uncomfortable. “I mean, I don’t read much fiction, but I don’t think it’s ceased to have a purpose. I agree that domestic life has changed, but that in itself is—well, a reason to continue reading and writing fiction. Although I guess nonfiction could explore those changes better than fiction.”
Marian thought: If Lyle had said that, I would know what to say. I would say that fiction has always been able to express most clearly how society changes. What society is. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to say this to Robert. It would mean verifying what he had said, including it, including him. It was better, she thought, to remain silent.
Lyle came to Robert’s rescue. “Well,” he said, “I think all art serves no purpose.”
“Do you really think that?” asked Marian.
“I don’t know,” said Lyle. He tossed his napkin on the table. “In this sort of heat, I could convince myself I did.”
“You couldn’t convince me,” Marian said. “And that’s the whole problem with criticism,” she added. “It’s just smart, thwarted people like you trying to convince themselves of things.”
“Is that how you see me: smart and thwarted?” asked Lyle.
“Is there more iced coffee?” asked John.
“No,” said Marian. “Should I make some?”
“No,” said John. “I think I’m going to return to the garden.”
“But you promised me you’d keep out of the garden!” said Marian. “What about croquet?”
“It’s too hot for croquet,” said John. “We’ll play croquet later.”
“Then I would think it’s too hot for the garden. How about a swim?”
“We’ll swim later,” said John. He stood up. “After croquet. I’ll go get you that cilantro. What else do you need?”
“Tomatoes,” said Marian, with a British accent. “And peppers. And we might as well add some zucchini.”
“Robert,” John said, “why don’t you come with me? I can show you my garden, and then you can bring the stuff back to Marian.”
“Not everyone in the world wants to see your garden,” said Marian.
John looked at her. “Robert is not everyone in the world,” he said.
He thinks I’ve said or done something wrong, thought Marian. But at least I’ve said or done something. At least I haven’t sat there saying nothing and then excused myself to the garden.
“Do you want to come, Robert?” John asked.
Robert stood up. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Oh, take your time,” Lyle said. “I’ll help Marian with the cleaning up.”
“No, you won’t,” said Marian. “Why don’t you go sit in the library? It’s cooler in there.”
“Because I don’t want to go sit in the library. I want to help you,” said Lyle. He began to stack the dishes and carry them to the sink.
John and Robert went out the door and down the lawn toward the garden. For a moment Lyle and Marian busied themselves with the task of clearing the table. Each of them hoped the other might speak first.
“You didn’t answer my question before,” said Lyle. “Do you really think I’m thwarted?”
“Of course not,” Marian said. “I don’t know what I was saying. I was just trying to make conversation.”
“Why?”
“Why?” asked Marian. “I wanted to make sure it wasn’t awkward.”
“Why would it be awkward?”
“I don’t know,” said Marian. “I just thought it might be.”
“Is it?” asked Lyle.
Marian was washing her hands with cold water. “Yes,” she said. “A little.” Out the window she could see John and Robert disappear through the hedge. And then it was just the long slope of lawn, and the river, and the sun stilling all of it. She was aware of Lyle behind her, wiping down the table, but she didn’t turn around. “Of course it’s awkward,” she said. “I’m not going to pretend it’s not. But there’s nothing—I mean, it
should
be awkward. It’s perfectly O.K. for it to be awkward.”
“I don’t see what’s so awkward,” said Lyle.
“You don’t?” asked Marian. She turned around. “Really, you don’t?”
Lyle stood with a fistful of crumbs, observing them carefully and idiotically. “No,” he said.
“Do you know what this week is?” she asked.
“No,” said Lyle. “What?”
“The anniversary. Tony died a year ago this week.”
“I know that,” said Lyle. “Of course I know that. But every day is an anniversary of his death.”
“Perhaps I’m just sentimental,” said Marian.
“We’re all sentimental,” said Lyle. “I’m sentimental.”
“Well, it just seems odd, that you would do this.”
“Do what?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Marian, thinking: I’m not going to pursue this. It will only create more trouble. But then she thought not pursuing it, not speaking, would be false, and the weekend, and her life together with Lyle, would continue as a charade. “No, I do,” she said. “And so do you. What’s odd is this: for you to not come all summer, and then come this weekend, and bring someone.”
“But you know I’ve been busy this summer,” said Lyle. “And we agreed on this weekend over a month ago. And then I met Robert. And I wanted to bring him. I thought it might, just possibly, make me happy—or happier—to bring Robert with me this weekend. It seemed possible. Do you think I shouldn’t have?”
“No,” said Marian. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean that. I don’t know what I mean. I mean, I don’t know what I mean in any well-thought-out way. I’m just … I’m fumbling.” She paused for a moment, and then continued. “It’s just difficult for me. I know it’s ten million times more difficult for you, and I don’t want to make it more difficult for you, or trivialize your difficulty. But I’m not going to pretend that this isn’t difficult for me. It
is
awkward. Not to acknowledge that would be faking. It would be dishonest.”
Lyle threw the crumbs into the trash. He wiped his hands back and forth, but he didn’t say anything. He sat at the table.
Marian looked at him. “And now I feel awful,” she said. “Now I feel as if I shouldn’t have said anything. But I couldn’t have not
said anything, because I know you too well. We’ve been through too much. You’re my best friend.” She stood behind him and put her hands, tentatively, on his shoulders. “And I love you too much,” she said.
She stood like that, for a long moment, in the hot kitchen. Lyle had covered his eyes with one hand, even though she could not see him. She could see only the top of his head, his scalp through the thinning hair. He appeared, from this angle, old and frighteningly vulnerable. The eggshell of his scalp. She wanted to kiss it or lay her cheek against it but she did neither of these things. She squeezed gently at his shoulders. “I love you too much,” she repeated. He took his right hand away from his eyes and reached back and patted her hand, and then laced his fingers through hers. And they were like that—having said nothing more, not crying, just Lyle sitting and Marian standing behind him and their hands pressed together on Lyle’s shoulder—when Robert returned with the vegetables from the garden.