“This just isn’t working out,” she said.
“What isn’t working out?”
“Cynthia is very upset.”
“Cynthia was upset before I got here.”
“Not the same way.”
“All right then,” I said, rising. “Then I’ll move out. We’ll break it off. This is ridiculous, Martha. What is it you want anyway?”
“I don’t want you to move out!” she said.
“Then what do you want?”
Suddenly she had flipped on the light and was squatting on the blanket. Her nightgown was hiked up to her knees upon which were planted her fists. “Stop raising your voice!” she demanded. “Everybody just hates for those kids to get some sleep! What do you mean you’ll move out? What do you think this is, a hotel? You’ll move in one week and out the next? I’ve got kids to think about. This is no flophouse, you!”
“Why didn’t you think about your kids when I moved in?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I did,” I said. “I thought about it plenty!”
“Well then, keep thinking about them, buddy. Don’t be so fast to pack your bags.” Her hair had fallen over her face, and she shook it back, showing a face puffy with rage. She stood up, violently grabbed a cigarette from the night table, and lit it. She began to tramp around the room, all her pounds and inches coming down through her bare feet onto the floor. She puffed at the cigarette, giving no thought to the flutter of ashes onto her nightgown.
I said nothing for several minutes. Then calmly: “You were the one who said it wasn’t working out, Martha. Not me. I came back here tonight prepared to forget that stupid Armagnac fuss, dedicated to barreling through this miserable night, and starting in again tomorrow. You suggested I leave.”
“The hell I did,” she said. “Can’t you remember from one minute to the next? Nobody told you to leave — you volunteered to pack your bags.”
“And what do you expect somebody to do if you tell them a hundred times that it isn’t working out? Don’t you think tonight’s been a mess and a trial for me too? Do you think you can just go around telling people it isn’t working out and that they’re going to stand there? What a night! What a day! You, that lousy Armagnac, Theresa whatever the hell her name is—
“Haug. And that’s my affair, not yours.”
“That’s fine with me. Frankly I’m sick of other people’s troubles. Libby Herz, sitting there with those brooding sullen eyes, and why? Because I didn’t steal her away from Paul back in Iowa? Well, don’t look at me as though I’m nuts — I don’t know either. I’m really finding it difficult to keep up with what certain people want of me. As a matter of fact I didn’t sleep with her, Martha, and I didn’t have an affair, though one night about three or four years ago, I don’t even remember any more, I kissed her. I admit to the crime: I kissed the girl. But I never got her down in bed — though you might want to know it crossed my mind. I don’t have a pure and rarefied soul, and I’m not without base instincts — but I’ll also tell you that I didn’t do it, and that’s a fact. But you see, now apparently she wanted me to. I was supposed to come along and rescue her!”
Martha looked immeasurably skeptical. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because she was married to her husband, Martha. To that big skinny silent prick, Paul.”
“I see.”
“You don’t see anything. For some reason that makes me a beast in your eyes, and a coward. I’ve been going around for years thinking I acted honorably, and now it’s my fault I didn’t put it to her.”
“Nobody said that.”
“Well, I’m no social worker. I’m tired of meddling in people’s lives!”
“It isn’t meddling, I shouldn’t think, when people are in trouble.”
“What is it you want me to come out for, adultery?”
“Don’t sound moralistic, please. Not you. The minute you see a stray female you take her to the hardware store to have duplicate keys made to her apartment.”
“That’s right. I have no feelings. It was heartless of me to have you cook a roast for dinner, because it made the Herzes feel shame and dismay. I shouldn’t have talked about the wine, because that made Herz unhappy too. I can assure you he’s home now hating my guts for that damn roast beef.”
“He ought to hate me too,” she said, “I paid half!”
“We should have had smelts then! Smelts and stale bread and, I don’t know — orange pop! And you shouldn’t have worn those jazzy gypsy clothes either — you should have worn something gray and washed-out, something with a rip in it.”
“I’ve got plenty of washed-out numbers with rips in them, thank you.”
“Ah, don’t start in on me with the poverty business, Martha, because I’m not in a charitable mood.”
“Poverty hell. I’m only asking you to pay your way.”
“Well, what is it — do you want me to leave a ten-dollar bill on the dresser every morning? Is that what’s going on here?”
She turned and walked away at last, her head back, dragging on her cigarette. “Watch yourself, Gabe. Please watch yourself. I’m not a stone wall.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just not a stone wall myself.”
“Nobody is — let’s assume that!”
“And maybe you ought to stop raising your voice too. Mark gets up and peeks in the door enough as it is.”
“What can I do about that?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t either. The child’s interested. He has a natural curiosity. He never had so many doors closed in his face before. We ought to at least have given him a little breaking-in period.”
“Come on, Martha, will you — you choose to close the door as much as I do. Suddenly even sex looks one-sided to you. Please don’t start switching it around so that I’m responsible for any confusions your kids might have. I haven’t been here long enough. I’m not Dick Reganhart. I didn’t do it. Just as it’s my fault Libby’s kidneys went bad on her, as though I have something to do with the fact that there are no Jewish babies. Did you see that that was addressed to me? Jewish girls don’t get knocked up as often — what are we all supposed to do about that!”
Martha blew out a mouthful of smoke before she’d even had a chance to inhale it. “And what’s that supposed to mean, Stonewall?”
“What supposed to mean?”
“You think it was easy quitting school, do you? You think it was easy marrying him? When that prissy little minister pronounced us abstract expressionist and wife I saw the whole black future, and kept my mouth shut. I got knocked up all right, but I acted like a woman about it. I’m glad I had Cynthia. She’s a fine child, a fine lovely bright child, even if it takes her a year to warm up to you. Ten years! What do you think she is, a chameleon? She’s loyal to her father — which happens to be admirable. She happens to be an admirable child, and don’t you forget it.”
“I didn’t mean anything about you and Dick, Martha, and I’m sorry if you misunderstood.”
“Well, you sure as hell go out of your way not to mean anything. I don’t have such a lousy record, you know. I had that child, I didn’t have it scraped down some drain somewhere, back in some dark alley. And then I woke up one morning and that son of a bitch was on top of me again, and I didn’t have an abortion then either. These are lives, for God’s sake. I love those kids. I’m glad I’ve got them, overwhelmingly glad. I work nights and I hate it — you don’t know how I hate it. But I’m glad I’ve got those kids. They’re something, damn it. At least they don’t go packing their bags all the time. Men are a great big pain in the ass. Somebody ought to take all their luggage away and burn it. Then where would they be! I’ll tell you something about feelings, my friend — nobody’s got any any more. All they’ve got is suitcases! And stay the hell away from me with your big tit-holding hands — I have a right to cry. Don’t soothe me, damn it!” She sat down in the chair by the window, and without covering her face, she wept.