Only months after my arrival, it became clear to me-depressingly so-that New York City was probably the worst possible place, outside of the Vatican, for a man in my predicament to try to put an end to his old life and begin a new one. As I was discovering at these parties, I was in no shape to get much pleasure out of my status as a “single” man; and, as I discovered in my lawyer’s office, the state of New York was hardly about to grant that status de jure recognition. Indeed, now that the Peter Tarnopols were New York residents, it looked as though they would be husband and wife forever. Too late I learned that had we gotten separated back in Wisconsin, we could, according to the law there, have been divorced after having voluntarily lived separate and apart for five years. (Of course, had I returned to Wisconsin in June of ‘62, rather than staying on at Morris’s apartment and from there launching into my career as Spielvogel’s patient, it is doubtful that I ever could have managed to set myself up in Madison separate and apart from Maureen.) But, as things turned out, in the sanctuary that I had taken New York to be, the only grounds for divorce was adultery, and since Maureen did not want to divorce me on any grounds, and I had no way of knowing whether she was an adulteress, or proving it even if I knew, it looked in all likelihood as though I would be celebrating my golden wedding anniversary on the steps of the State House in Albany. Moreover, because my lawyer had been unable to get Maureen and her attorney to agree to a legal separation or to any kind of financial settlement (let alone to a Mexican or Nevada divorce that would have required mutual consent to be incontestable), my official marital status in New York very shortly came to be that of the guilty party in a separation action brought by a wife against a husband who had “abandoned” her. Though we had lived together as husband and wife for only three years, I was ordered by the New York court to provide maintenance for my abandoned wife to the tune of one hundred dollars a week, and to provide it until death did us part. And in New York State what else could part us?
I could, of course, have moved and taken up residence in some state with a less restrictive divorce law, and for a while, with the aid of The Complete Guide to Divorce by Samuel G. Kling-the book that became my bedside Bible in that first bewildering phase of my life as a New York resident-I seriously investigated the possibilities. Reading Kling I found out that in some eleven states “separation without cohabitation and without reasonable expectation of reconciliation” was grounds for divorce, after anywhere from eighteen months to three years. One night I got out of bed at four A.M. and sat down and wrote letters to the state universities in each of the eleven states and asked if there might be a job open for me in their department of English; within the month I had received offers from the universities of Florida, Delaware, and Wyoming. According to Kling, in the first two states “voluntary three-year separation” provided grounds for divorce; in Wyoming, only two years’ separation was necessary. My lawyer was quick to advise me of the various means by which Maureen might attempt to contest such a divorce; he also let me know that upon granting me a divorce the out-of-state judge would in all probability order me to continue to pay the alimony set by the New York court in the separation judgment; furthermore (to answer my next question), if I refused after the divorce to make the alimony payments, I could be (and with Maureen as my antagonist, no doubt would be) hauled into court under state reciprocity agreements and held in contempt by the Florida or Delaware or Wyoming judge for failing to support my former spouse in New York. A divorce, my lawyer said, I might be able to pull off-but escape the alimony? never. Nonetheless, I went ahead and accepted a job teaching American literature and creative writing the following September in Laramie, Wyoming. I went immediately to the library and took out books on the West. I went up to the Museum of Natural History and walked among the Indian artifacts and the tableau of the American bison. I decided I would try to learn to ride a horse, at least a little, before I got out there. And I thought of the money I would not be paying to Dr. Spielvogel.
Some ten weeks later I wrote to tell the chairman of the English department in Laramie that because of unforeseen circumstances I would be unable to take the job. The unforeseen circumstance was the hopelessness I had begun to feel at the prospect of a two-year exile in Wyoming. After which I might be able to ride a horse, but I would still have to pay through the nose. If the divorce even went uncontested! And would Florida be any better? Less remote, but a year longer to qualify for the divorce, and the end result just as uncertain. It was about this time that I decided that the only way out was to leave America and its marital laws and reciprocal state agreements and begin my life anew as a stranger in a foreign country. Since I understood that Maureen could always attach future royalties if they were to come through a New York publishing house, I would have to sell world rights to my next book to my English publisher and receive all payment through him. Or why not start from scratch-grow a beard and change my name?…And who was to say there would ever be a next book?
I spent the following few months deciding whether to return to Italy, where I still had a few friends, or to try Norway, where chances were slim that anybody would ever find me (unless of course they went looking). How about Finland? I read all about Finland in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. High rate of literacy, long winters, and many trees. I imagined myself in Helsinki, and, while I was at it, Istanbul, Marrakesh, Lisbon, Aberdeen, and the Shetland Islands. Very good place to disappear, the Shetland Islands. Pop. 19,343,and not that far, really, from the North Pole. Principal industries, sheep farming and fishing. Also raise famous ponies. No mention in Britannica of treat agreement with New York State for extradition of marital criminals…
But, oh, if I was outraged in New York over all I had lost in that marriage, imagine how I would feel when I woke up bearded in my cottage on the moors in Scalloway to discover I had lost my country as well. What “freedom” would I have won then, speaking American to the ponies? What “justice” would I have made, an ironical Jewish novelist with a crook and a pack of sheep? And what’s worse, suppose she found me out and followed me there, for all that my name is now Long Tom Dumphy? Not at all unlikely, given that I couldn’t shake her in this, a country of two hundred million. Oh, imagine what that would be like, me with me stick and Maureen with her rage in the middle of the roarin’ North Sea, and only 19,343 others to hold us apart?