Saul and Patsy Read online

  “Emory,” Saul said. The boy was stocky—he had played varsity football starting in his sophomore year—and he looked at Saul now with sleepy inquisitiveness. “Emory, my wife and I have had an accident, over there, on the other side of your field.”

  “What kind of accident, Mr. Bernstein? Are you okay?”

  “We drove off the road.” Saul waited, his hands in his pockets. Then he said the rest of it. “The car turned over on us. But I think we’re all right.”

  “Wow,” Emory said. “You’re lucky you weren’t hurt. That’s amazing. Good thing it wasn’t worse.”

  “Well, yes, but the car was going slow.” Saul always sounded stupid to himself late at night. The boy’s bland, blue-eyed gaze stayed on him now, not moving, genial but inquisitorial, and Saul thought of all the people who had hated school, never liked even a minute of it except maybe the sports, and maintained a low-level suspicion of teachers for the rest of their lives. They voted down school-bond issues. They didn’t even like to buy pencils.

  “How’d you go off the road?”

  “I fell asleep, Emory. We’d been to a party at Mr. Bettermine’s and I fell asleep at the wheel. Never happened to me before.”

  “Wow,” Emory said again, but slowly this time, with no real surprise or inflection in his voice. He shrugged his shoulders, then bent down as if he were doing calisthenics. Saul knew that his own breath smelled of beer, so there was no point in going into that. “Do you want a cup of coffee? I’d offer you a beer, but we don’t have it.” Besides, you’ve already had one too many.

  Saul tried to smile, an effort. “I don’t think so, Emory. Not tonight.” He looked down at the floor, at his socks—he had taken off his muddy shoes—and saw an ashtray filled with cigarette butts. “But I would like a cigarette, if you could spare one.”

  “Sure.” The boy reached down and offered the pack in Saul’s direction. “Didn’t know you smoked. Didn’t know you had any vices at all.” He smiled. “Until now.”

  They exchanged a look. “I’m like everybody else,” Saul said. “Sometimes the right thing just gets loose from me and I don’t do it.” He picked up a book of matches. He would have to watch his sentences: that one hadn’t made any sense. On the outside of the matchbook was an advertisement.

  SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE

  ***see inside***

  Saul put the matchbook into his pocket after lighting up.

  “Were you drunk?” the boy asked suddenly.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Teachers shouldn’t drink,” Emory said. “That’s my belief.”

  “Well, maybe not.”

  Saul inhaled from the cigarette, and Emory came closer toward him and sat down on the floor. He gave off the smell of turpentine, and he had two or three tiny flecks of white paint in his hair close to his ear. He rubbed at his boy’s beard again. “Do you remember me from school?”

  Saul leaned back. He tried to think. “Sure, of course I do. You sat in the back and you played with a ballpoint pen. You used to sketch the other kids in the class. Once when we were doing the First World War, you said it didn’t make any sense no matter how much you read about it. I remember your report on the League of Nations. You stared out the window a lot. You sat near Annie in my class, and you passed notes to her.”

  “I didn’t think you’d notice that much about me. Or remember.” Emory whistled toward the dog, who thumped her tail and waddled over toward Emory’s lap. “I wasn’t very good. I thought it was a waste of time, no offense. I wanted to get married, that’s all. I wanted to get married to Anne, and I wanted to be outside, not stuck inside, doing something, making a living, earning money. The thing is, I’m different now.” He stood up, as if he were about to demonstrate how different he had become or had thought of something important to say.

  “How are you different?”

  “I’m real happy,” Emory said, looking toward the kitchen. “I bet you don’t believe that. I bet you think: Here’s this kid and his wife and baby, out here, ignorant as a couple of plain pigs, and how could they be happy? But it’s weird. You can’t tell about anything.” He was looking away from Saul. “Schools tell you that people like me aren’t supposed to be happy or . . . what’s that word you used in class all the time? ‘Fulfilled’? Yeah, that’s it.” He sneered at Saul so quickly that it was like a flashbulb popping. “We’re not supposed to be that. But we’re doing okay. But then I’m not trying to tell you anything.”

  “I know, Emory. I know that.” Saul raised his hand to his scalp and touched his bald spot.

  “Hell,” Emory said, apparently building up steam, “you could work all your life to be as happy as Anne and me, and you might not do it. People . . . they try to be happy. They work at it. But it doesn’t always take.” He laughed. “I shouldn’t be talking to you this way, Mr. Bernstein, and I wouldn’t be, except it’s the middle of the night, and I’m saying stuff. You know, I respected you. But now here you are, in my living room, and I remember the grades you gave me, all those D’s, like you thought I’d never do anything in life except fail. But you can’t hurt me now because I’m not in school anymore. So I apologize. See, I apologize for messing up in school and I forgive you for flunking me out.”

  Emory held out his hand, and Saul stood up and took it, thinking that he might be making a mistake.

  “You shouldn’t flunk people out of school,” Emory said, “if you’re going to get drunk and roll cars.”

  Saul held on to Emory’s hand and tried to grip hard and diligently in return. “I didn’t get drunk, Emory. I fell asleep. And you didn’t flunk out. You dropped out.”

  Emory released his hand. “Well, I don’t care,” he said. “I was sleeping when you came to our door. I don’t go to parties anymore because I have to get up and work. I sleep because I’m married and working. I can’t see anything outside of that.”

  Saul suddenly wanted Patsy back in this room, so that they could go. Who the hell did this boy think he was, anyway?

  “Well, none of this is nothing,” Emory said at last. “I don’t blame you for anything at all. Maybe you did me a favor. I had to do something in my life, so I rented this farm. I’m reading up on horticulture.” He pronounced the word carefully and proudly. “You want to sleep on the floor, you can, or on the sofa there. And there’s a spare bed upstairs, you want it.”

  “Sorry about the bother,” Saul said.

  “No trouble.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Forget it.” Emory patted the dog.

  “But thanks.”

  “Sure.”

  The two men looked at each other for a moment, and Saul had one of his momentary envy-shocks: he looked at this man, this boy—he couldn’t decide which he was—his hair standing up, and he thought: Whatever else he is, this kid is real. Emory was living in the real. Saul felt himself floating up out of the unreal and rapidly sinking back into it, the lagoon of self-consciousness and irony.

  In a kind of desperation, Saul looked at the wall, where someone had hung a picture of a horse with a woman beside it, drawn in pencil, and framed in a cheap dime-store frame. The woman was probably Anne. She looked approximately like her. “Nice picture.”

  “I drew it.”

  “You have real talent, Emory,” Saul said, insincerely examining the details. “You could be an artist.”

  “I am an artist,” Emory said, staring at his old teacher. He picked at a scab on his calf. He turned his back to Saul. “I could draw from when I was a kid.” A baby’s cry came from upstairs. Emory looked at the ceiling, then exhaled.

  “What kind of horse is that?” Saul asked, in what he vowed silently would be his final effort at politeness this evening. “Is that any kind of horse in particular?”

  Emory was going back up the stairs. Then he faced Saul. “Every horse is some horse in particular, Mr. Bernstein. There aren’t any horses in general. You can sleep there on the sofa if you want to. Good night.”

  �
��Good night.”

  Whatever had happened to the God of the Old Testament, Saul wondered, looking at Emory’s crucifix, the God that had chosen Israel above the other nations? Why had He allowed this scene to take place and why had He allowed Emory McPhee, this dropout, to make him feel like a putz? The Red Sea had not parted for Saul in a long time, in any sense; he felt he had about as much clout with God as, perhaps, a sparrow did. The whole evening had been a joke at Saul’s expense. He heard God laughing, a sound like surf on rocks.

  When Patsy and Anne came out of the kitchen, announcing that an all-night towing service was on its way and would probably have the car turned over and running in about half an hour, Saul smiled as if everything would be exactly as fine as they claimed. Anne and Patsy were laughing. The flowers on Anne’s bathrobe were laughing. God was, even now, laughing and enjoying the joke. Feeling like a zombie, and not laughing himself, but wearing the smile of the classically undead, Saul hooked his hand into Patsy’s and went back outside. Some nights, he knew, had a way of not ending. This would be one.

  “How was Emory?” Patsy asked.

  “Emory? Oh, Emory was fine,” Saul told her.

  On the days following, Saul began to be obsessed with happiness, an unhealthy obsession, he knew, but he couldn’t get rid of it. On some days he could not get out of bed to go to work without groaning and reaching for his hair, as if to drag himself up bodily for the working day.

  Prior to his accident and his meeting with Emory McPhee, Saul had managed to forget about happiness, a state that had once bothered him for its general inaccessibility. Now he believed that, compared to others, he was, except for his marriage, actually and truly unhappy, especially since his mind insisted on thinking about the problem, poring over it, ragging him on and on. It was like the discontent of adolescence, the discontent with situations, but this was larger, the discontent with being itself, a psychic itch with nowhere to scratch. This was like Schopenhauer arriving at the door with a big suitcase, settling down for a long stay in the brain.

  Patsy wasn’t ordinary for many reasons, but also because she loved Saul. Nevertheless, she was happy, like a character in Chekhov who can’t help but proclaim a satisfaction with life every few minutes. She did want a better job, and, in some sense, a different life. Early in the summer he stole glances at her as she turned the pansies over in their pots, tamping them out and planting them in the flower beds near the front walk. Blue sky, aggressive sun. She was squatting down in her shorts, wearing one of Saul’s old flannel shirts flecked with dirt and the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Her hair fell backward down her shoulders. From the front window he watched her and studied her hands, those slender fingers doing their work. Helplessly, his eyes took in the clothed outlines of his wife. He was hers. That was that. She liked being a woman. She liked it in a way that, Saul now knew, he himself did not like being a man. There was the guilt, for one thing, for the manly hobbies of war and the thoroughgoing destruction of the earth. Patriarchy, carnage, rape, pleasurable bloodletting, fanatic greed, and bloodsport: Saul would admit a gender responsibility for all these if anyone asked him to acknowledge it, though no one ever did.

  Patsy wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, saw Saul, and waved at him, turning her head slightly, tilting it, as she did whenever she caught sight of him. She smiled, a smile he had gladly given his life away for, a look of radiant intelligence. She was into the real, too; she didn’t ponder it, she just planted flowers, if that was what she wanted to do. Beyond her was the driveway and their Chevrolet with its bashed-in roof. Her smile faded. It always did when she noticed him studying her.

  Saul turned from the window—it was Saturday morning—and tried to think for a moment of what to do next. Taking a Detroit Tigers cap off the front-hall hat rack, he went outside and with great care put it, from behind and unannounced, on Patsy’s head. “Save you from sunburn,” he said when she turned around and looked at him. “Save you from heat-stroke.”

  “I want a motorcycle,” Patsy said. “I’ve been thinking about it. We don’t need another car, but I do want a motorcycle. I always have. Women can ride motorcycles, Saul, don’t deny it. Oh, and another thing.” She dropped one hand into the dirt and balanced herself on it. “This morning I was trying to think of where the Cayuse Indians lived, and I couldn’t remember, and we don’t have an encyclopedia to check. We need that.” She put her hand over her eyes, to shade them. “Saul, why are you looking like that? Are you in a state?”

  “No, I’m not in a state.”

  “Yes, you are. Damn it, I have to break out sometimes. I’ve just got to. I’ll die here otherwise. A motorcycle would do wonders for both of us, Saul. A small one, not one of those hogs. Do you like my petunias? Should I have some purple over there? Maybe this is too much red and white. What would you think of some dianthus right there?” She pointed with her trowel. “Or maybe some sweet william?”

  “Sure, sure.” He didn’t know what either variety looked like. Flowers seemed so irrelevant to everything.

  “Where did the Cayuse Indians live, Saul?”

  “Oregon, I think.”

  “What do you think about a motorcycle? For little trips into town. For those small occasions when I have to get away from you.”

  “Sounds okay to me. But they aren’t exactly safe, you know. People get killed on motorcycles.”

  “Those people aren’t careful. I’ll be careful. I’ll wear a helmet. I just want to do it. Imagine a girl—me—on one of those machines. Makes you feel good, doesn’t it? A motorcycle girl in Michigan. The car’s silly for small trips. Besides, I want to visit my friends in town.”

  It was true: Patsy already had many friends around Five Oaks, friends that Saul didn’t have. She could be vain about it, her ability to adapt to anything—after all, she was married to him. Now she stood up, dropped her trowel, and put her weight on Saul’s shoes and leaned herself into him. The visor of her cap bumped into his forehead. But she embraced him for only a moment. There wouldn’t be any big, long love thing, not just now. “Want to help, Saul? Give me a hand putting the rest of these flowers in?”

  “Not right now, Patsy, I don’t think so.”

  “What’s the matter? You’re looking peckish.”

  “Peckish? I don’t know.”

  “You are in a state.”

  “I guess I might be.”

  “What is it this time? Our recent brush with death? The McPhees? My incredible impatience about getting another job?”

  “What about the McPhees?” he asked. She had probably guessed.

  “Well, they were so cute, the two of them. So sweet. And so young, too. Plus their baby. And I know you, Saul, and I know what you thought. You thought: What have these two got that I don’t have?”

  She had guessed. She usually did. It was unfair. He stepped backward. “Yes,” he said, “you’re right. What do they have? And why don’t I have it? I’m happy with you, but I—”

  “Jesus. You can’t be like them because you can’t, Saul. You fret. That’s your hobby. It’s how you stay occupied. You’ve heard about spots? About how a person can’t change them? Well, I like your spots. I like how you’re a professional worrier. And you always know about things like the Cayuse Indians. I’m not like that. And I don’t want to be married to somebody like me. I’d put myself to sleep. But you’re perfect. You’re an early-warning system. You bark and growl at life. You’re my dog. You do see that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” He nodded.

  After he had kissed her and returned to the house, he took the matchbook he had pocketed at the McPhees’ up to his study. At his desk, with a pair of scissors, he cut off the flap of the matches, filled in his name and address, and wrote a check for six dollars to the Wisdom Foundation, located at a post office box number in Cincinnati, Ohio. Just to make sure, he enclosed a letter.

  Dear Sirs,

  Enclosed please find a check for six dollars for your SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE. Also included is
my name and address, written on the back of this book of matches. You will also find them typed at the bottom of this letter. Thank you. I look forward, very much, to reading the secrets.

  Sincerely,

  Saul Bernstein

  He examined the letter, wondering if the last sentence might sound too skeptical, too . . . something. But he decided to leave it there. He took the letter, carefully stamped—he put commemorative stamps on all his important mail—out to the mailbox and lifted the little red flag.

  He thought: I am no longer a serious person. My great-grandfather read the Torah, my grandfather read Spinoza and Heine and books on immunology, and here I am, writing off for this.

  On his trips into town, Saul began to take the long route past the McPhees’ house, slowing down when he was close to their yard. Each time that he found himself within a mile of their farm, he felt his stomach knotting up in anxiety and sick curiosity. He recognized himself twisting in the coils of something like envy, yet not envy exactly, but a more biblical emotion, harder to define, like covetousness. Driving past in the evenings, he occasionally saw them outside, Emory mowing or clipping, their baby strapped on his back, Anne up on a ladder doing something to the windows, or out in the garden like Patsy, planting. They could have been anybody, except that, for Saul, they gave off a disturbing aura of unreflective happiness, which meant that they could have been anybody except Saul.

  The road was sufficiently far away from their house and from the shed flaking with paint so that they wouldn’t see him. His car was just another car unless you looked closely and saw the dented roof and Saul inside it. But on a particular Friday, in early June, several hours after work, he drove past their property and spied Emory in the front yard, in the gold twilight, pushing his wife, sitting in the swing. Emory, the ex–football player, had on his face a solemnly contented expression. The baby blithered in a stroller close by. His wife was in a white T-shirt and jeans, and Emory himself wore jeans but no shirt. She was probably proud of her breasts and he was probably proud of his shoulders. Anne held on to the ropes of the swing. Her hair flew up as she rose, and Saul, who took this all in in a few seconds, could hear her cries of delight from his car. Taking his surreptitious glances, he almost drove off the road again. Of course they were children, he knew that, but their youth wasn’t the problem as such. No: they gave off a terrible steady-state glow. They had the blank moronic shimmer of angels. They were glistering. It was intolerable.