I liked looking at the stack of paper. A book was a physical thing, and writing seemed to me like one of the plastic arts. I enjoyed holding the whole ream of it and bumping it on my desk and clapping it square with my hands. It was quite a bundle. I loved weighing it and then opening it at random, and squaring it up again.
It was unlike any other book I had written. And I had made it less out of my trip than out of my misery and disillusionment. I had been dying; and this was a way of living. For every reason I could think of, this was a strange and happy book. And now that it was done I could hand it over and go on living. In the course of writing it I had other ideas — for stories, for a novel. And never once did I think of a story that went: Once there was a man who returned from a long trip to discover that his wife had taken a lover. That was my secret, and not revealing it was the source of my strength. I saw that I had lived my whole life that way, drawing energy from secrecy, and feeding my imagination on what I kept hidden.
Jenny and I entered that emotional region that is past disappointment and fury, and beyond argument. We had arrived at a kind of peaceful aridity that is probably despair. Fury is life, but this was nothing like that. We had long since stopped arguing. She had given up on me, and I had retreated to my room and my book. Because she had despaired of me she hadn’t disturbed me. I had said hurtful things to her and she had replied with that utterly stupid formula, “I’ll never forgive you—”
It was the end of June, and warm. London had a sweet smell of new leaves and fresh flowers. I had the time now to take long walks and in these hours I felt lucky to be an alien: I could possess the city but the city could never possess me. Once I had been gloomy about not belonging, but these days I saw that it made me free.
Completing the book — that happiness — made me feel generous and calm. And bold, too. Nothing bad could happen to me, because I had proven that I could overcome the worst.
I did not really know how things stood between Jenny and me, but I felt strong enough to endure anything she might say: that she wanted to leave me or that she disliked me. I did not blame her any longer for what had happened. It had driven me crazy but I was sane again. I was prepared to forgive, even if I could never forget — forgetting seemed to me stupid and sloppy.
It was clear to me that in the course of writing the book I had lost touch with her. I decided to be deliberate.
“Let’s have lunch,” I said. “I mean, up in town.”
She was surprised, but tried not to show it. She said evasively, “The places near the bank are so crowded and noisy.”
I suspected that she was afraid of me. I might start screaming at her in a restaurant: You traitor! You whore! I’m taking Jack away and you’ll never see him again! The fury might come back. Wasn’t it better to continue just as we had been doing, in a mood of desperate resignation?
I said, “We could have a picnic in Regent’s Park. I’d bring sandwiches.”
“It’s so much trouble,” she said, which was one of her ways of saying no.
“I have nothing else to do,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the bank.”
She said, “I don’t know.”
She was uncertain of me. She knew I was capable of making a scene. I was the man who had conned his way into Wilkie’s house and, at gunpoint — well, at least it looked like one — had made the assistant manager eat a piece of paper. I had dripped on the floor. I had been crazy. I could be crazy again.
“Are you all right?” she said.
She was asking whether I was crazy, and would I make a mess of it, and perhaps what was the point?
I said, “It’ll be fun. Jack can have his lunch at school.”
She looked frightened, but said yes, probably because she suspected I might become violent if she said no.
There were stares at the bank, and slightly worse than stares, people looking nervously away, pretending they were not interested: the absurd and wooden motions of people trying to act normal.
“I have an appointment to see Mrs. Parent.”
“May I have your name?”
Surely they knew me? But they wanted to hear me say it. This was drama for them.
“I’m her husband.”
That produced a sudden silence that was instantly filled with a buzz. I was admitted to the inner office. Slee was at his desk, concentrating intensely on a piece of paper. He was frozen in that posture, just like a squirrel on a branch when humans appear below, hoping to be invisible and sticking out a mile.
Jenny hurried down the stairs as soon as she got the message. She was nervous and wanted to be away from these people and this place. The bank had become a theater, and Jenny and I the actors. Everything we did mattered, and even her fear that I might revert and go haywire was obvious in her movements and part of the plot.
Some of the people when I glanced at them suddenly seemed to be smiling at me. When I smiled back they looked alarmed.
In the taxi, Jenny sat back and said, “It’s a lovely day for a picnic.”
There was mingled exhaustion and relief in her voice. It had been an ordeal, my meeting her at the bank. But I had played my part well, and she was grateful.
She smiled and said, “When it’s hot in June that usually means we have a rotten summer.”
“Summer’s always beautiful in the States.”
She glanced at me, a question on her face.
“I was hoping we could go there in July.”
“Where will we get the money?”
“This book. As soon as I deliver the manuscript I’ll get two and a half thousand — the last payment. It’s more than enough.”
She said what I felt: “It’s something to look forward to.”
The taxi set us down at the Inner Circle. We walked into the park and found a patch of grass near the rose garden.
“There’s some significance about the rose garden in the Four Quartets, but I forget what it is. Anyway,” I said, as I took the sandwiches out of my bag, “this is not the time for T. S. Eliot. Have a sandwich.”
They were cheese sandwiches — dry and droopy in the heat. There were also hard-boiled eggs, and some tangerines and chocolate cookies. When I set out everything on the grass it looked mismatched, rather frugal and childish.
“What a pathetic picnic,” I said.
“It looks delicious,” Jenny said, and began to cry.
I started to explain that it hadn’t been any trouble, and that I had more time now that I had finished my work; but she was sobbing — the odd gratitude of tears that is impossible to interrupt.
There was a formality and dignity in her tears, too, and she said, “Thank you for coming back to us.”
I was too moved to speak, and afraid that if I did I might cry.
We ate in silence. The sun on the grass warmed us with its buttery light. The air stirred slightly and brought us the fragrance from the rose garden.
“I was very unfair to you,” Jenny said, at last. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”
I had already made up my mind that I would, and though the wound still remained it was better to live with it than to pretend that it didn’t exist. And anyway the wound she inflicted on me proved that we were both human.
“I’m afraid you’re going to leave me,” she said.
I was strong enough to be on my own now; but I was saner, as well, and I was rational enough to know how much I loved her and needed her love. When I had left Siberia I’d had no choice but to press on and finish the thing by finishing the book. I had done it in cold winds and black night, and alone. Now that I was done I had a choice. But I was back again, and crudely stated, getting back again seemed to me the object of all writing. It had been a long journey from Siberia.