“Libby? This is Gabe Wallach.”
“My goodness, how are you?”
“I’m fine. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m okay.”
“I heard you were in the hospital. Are you all right now?”
“I’m convalescing.” Her tone informed me just how boring that could be. “How — how did you know?”
“Oh, a friend of Paul’s. Is Paul around?”
“He’s in the bathroom. He’s taking a bath. I’m not even supposed to be out of bed,” she whispered.
“Never mind then. You go back to bed.”
“No, no, it’s all right. The phone ringing is the most exciting thing that’s happened here in a month. I’m all right.”
“It’s not important,” I said.
“Paul will be out soon. Should I give him a message?”
“Would you — Look, I’ll see him tomorrow. It’s not important.”
“Why don’t you come over?” she asked. “Are you busy? Come over and tell us about New York.”
“I’m not busy. But if you’re resting …”
“That’s just it. All I do is rest. Paul will be out of his bath in a few minutes. Uh-uh, he’s getting out. I’d better hang up — I’m not supposed to be out of bed even for the toilet. It’s awful. Hey, do come over!”
Driving through the storm, I realized how groundless were my fears about Marge. She had probably taken a room in the graduate dormitory. Perhaps she was skiing in Colorado, or had moved in with a friend. I realized as I crossed the bridge over the river that it is the futureless who are found buried under two feet of snow or twenty feet of icy water, not girls who put their underwear on the radiator at night so that it will be warm for them in the morning. By the time I had reached the Herzes’ my motive for visiting had nearly disappeared. Nevertheless, while I waited for the front door to open, the wind blew a handful of snow down my coat collar: I closed my eyes and prayed that wherever Margie had decided to take her broken heart, it was warm and safe.
Paul Herz opened the front door wearing his beggar’s overcoat and holding his briefcase.
“Libby’s in the bedroom,” he said.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“You’re letting in the cold,” he said, giving me an agreeable look that only mystified me more. “Come in.”
I stepped in, asking, “Are you going out?”
He held up his briefcase. “I’m afraid I’ve got some work.” He stepped around me and was out the door. “Good night,” he said, “nice to see you.” His head went into his collar, and the overcoat was swinging down the path like a bell.
“Can I drive you anywhere?” I called after him.
Herz turned, but continued walking backwards; the snow had caked instantly on his shoulders. “You better close the door,” he said.
“Gabe?” Libby’s voice called out to me from the other end of the little apartment.
“Yes?”
“Could you close the door? There’s a draft.”
I was still looking out after her husband, however. I wanted to shout for him to come back: I wanted to demand a reason for his leaving.
“I’m in the bedroom,” Libby said, directing me.
Herz walked further into the white mist, until at last I couldn’t see him any more.
Libby was sitting in bed, propped up by two pillows, her knees bent girlishly under the blankets. The bed was made of iron and painted silver and had an institutional air. There was not much more furniture in the room. A floor lamp threw a saucer of light up on the water-damaged ceiling; poor for reading, it was at first generous to the sick. From the doorway Libby looked, in that dim light, no more ravaged than she had in the supermarket early in December; the man’s woolen muffler thrown over her greenish shetland sweater even gave her somewhat of a rakish air. Only after I pulled up to the bed a cracking wicker chair, the room’s only chair, could I see where the fever had turned against her. The fine polished edge of her complexion had been altered; the hollows, the curves, the distinctive shape of her face had been consumed by fatigue. And when she spoke, it was with her voice as with her features: no vigor. There were spurts of pep, as there had been on the phone, but nothing sustaining, nothing to signal a strong will and solid feelings. She was without energy, and that almost made her seem without sweetness. But perhaps she was simply nervous — I know I was. What kind of joke, after all, was Herz’s departure? I remembered the day he had turned down my car, and after all these weeks I was disliking him again. I saw myself being made a pawn in another domestic argument.
“I wish Paul could have stayed a few minutes,” I said.
“I told him you wanted to ask him something. He said he’ll be back. Your coming gave him a chance to get out. I went into the hospital Christmas Eve. He’s been up twenty-four hours a day since.”
“Where did he have to go? It’s storming out.”
“To do some work. To his office.”
“Can’t he work in the living room?”
“We’d be talking. He’d be distracted. He hasn’t written in weeks, you see. He — well, I’ve been sick, and time — oh his time is just all fouled up. He’ll be back soon.” She blushed at this point and looked away.
By no means did I find this a satisfactory explanation of Herz’s behavior — or my reaction to it — but I nodded my head.
Libby said, “It hasn’t been easy for him.”
“It’s probably not been easy for you,” I replied.
“I don’t know. I think maybe it’s easier sometimes being sick.”
“Easier than what?”
Clearly, she was sorry now for having made the distinction in the first place. Most of what Libby was sorry for or about, one saw just that way — clearly. “Oh — being well.” She took a deep breath and pushed her back into the pillows. “I complain too much. I must have had my development arrested somewhere. I’m twenty-two; I should know enough not to go around having expectations all the time. I should be able to get used to things.” She appeared to be making her resolves right in front of me. “Paul’s the one who should be complaining,” she said.
“Oh, doesn’t he?”
She looked at me with real surprise. Immediately I regretted having been so openly skeptical about her husband’s character; it only increased her uneasiness.
Vaguely she said, “His attitude toward life is better, I think. In the situation.”
“Well,” I said, smiling, “I suppose you have some right to complain,” and tried to end it with that.
She shook her head, defending her husband by annihilating herself.
I said, “Well,” again, and looked over her head, where there hung a rather pedestrian Utrillo print. I examined it while she organized her thoughts. The picture encouraged me to reorganize my own, for it managed to make me overwhelmingly aware that Libby Herz and Paul Herz were married. In all that institutional and cast-off furniture (the wicker chair must surely have been bought off some Iowan’s back porch) it alone looked to have been really chosen. Together they had hung it over the bed they shared.
“What’s Paul working on?” I asked, trying to appear more kindly disposed toward the pursuits of the man who was her husband.
“A novel. He does one for a degree. Instead of a dissertation.”
“How’s it going?”
“Fine, wonderful,” she said. “It’s just, well, as I said — time. I mean that’s why I went to work, to give him a little time. Now I haven’t been in that damn office for almost three weeks.”
“You’ll be better soon. The flu has been going around.”