“O Father of mercies and God of all comfort,” prayed Mr. Endworthy, “our only help—” and Melanie closed her eyes and laid her hands together, fingers to fingers, devoting her whole being to submission and repentance, hearing not the Vicar’s words but the sound of his words, trying to drown utterly in submission to divine omnipotence, knowing the waiting and wondering, the waiting and wondering for it to happen, hearing Mr. Endworthy conclude, “—through the merits and meditation of Jesus Christ, thine only Son, our Lord and Saviour. Amen,” hearing him shuffle up from his knees, and knowing that to keep her eyes shut or to open them again was equally useless.
When Elizabeth died, she had left a piece of paper in the typewriter with only one phrase composed on it, “for a time quite possibly a mild opium smoker,” but I have no idea to whom that referred. Was it Marghanita Laski herself, one of her fictional characters, or someone in Laski’s circle of friends or acquaintances?
Some evening I’ll have to ask Elizabeth about “for a time quite possibly a mild opium smoker.”
I Forgot Where I Parked My Truck
With Dr. Nissensen, December 12, 1972:
Today’s session moved in fits and starts. Well into it, Dr. Nissensen said, “Sam, I’ve been reading — that is, I’ve returned to reading—A Grief Observed, written, as you well know, by C. S. Lewis.”
“I’m guessing that today there’s one passage in particular—”
Dr. Nissensen read: “‘All reality is iconoclastic. The earthly beloved, even in this life, incessantly triumphs over your mere idea of her. And you want her to; you want her with all her resistances, all her faults, all her unexpectedness. That is, in her foursquare and independent reality. And this, not any image or memory, is what we are to love still; after she is dead.’”
I asked him to read the passage again, which he did. “If I remember right,” I said, “Lewis goes on to compare his beloved — his dead wife — compares her to God. Well, he would, wouldn’t he, being so self-dramatizing and sanctimonious. But he goes on to say that loving his wife is like loving God, in the sense that you can’t see Him.”
“That’s a harsh judgment, Sam.”
“Too bad Lewis’s wife didn’t line books up on a beach at night; he would’ve written a different book. Elizabeth is not invisible to me. And I don’t need metaphor to try and elevate her to a deity. She is just Elizabeth. She made good soups and stews. She was writing a book. She used pencils.”
“The paragraph was meant to begin a conversation, not end one,” Nissensen said.
“You chose the wrong paragraph, then. I’ll grant C. S. Lewis one thing, however. Near the end of his book, he says, ‘The best is perhaps what we understand least.’”
“Do you find our trying to understand your seeing Elizabeth unproductive, then?”
“I’m strongly suggesting you stop using goddamn literature to try and find a way to talk about things. It’s failing us.”
He wrote something in his notebook.
“Last night I saw Elizabeth at about nine o’clock. It was freezing out. There was a nasty wind. She had a heavy sweater on. And a new thing happened. Well, new for me at least. I heard her reading a book. She was mouthing the words, mumbling them, more or less, and running her finger along the page in a way I never knew her to read. I couldn’t make out any words.”
“Had you been able to,” Nissensen said, “it might’ve led to your recognizing which book she was reading.”
“Later, I thought of that.”
“How much later?”
“Are you asking if I slept last night?”
“Did you sleep last night?”
“No.”
“I’m sure there’s not a typical night of insomnia, Sam, but would you mind describing last night?”
“How I kill time?”
“How you use the hours. Do you work, for instance? Do you listen to the radio?”
“Have you ever heard of The Sleepless Night of the Litigant?”
“Interesting phrase, or title. But no, I haven’t.”
“The movie director—”
“Mr. Istvakson. The, if I remember correctly, ‘hideous Norwegian shit.’”
“Actually, I’d like to go to Norway. I’d like to see the fjords. Birds flying around the fjords. Anyway, he sent me a gift. It’s a print of an old Dutch engraving called The Sleepless Night of the Litigant. It shows a man tormented by spirits and demons. They won’t let him sleep. Istvakson, through his assistant—”
“Miss Svetgartot, I believe.”
“—through Miss Svetgartot, tried to convince me he couldn’t sleep because I was keeping some indispensable knowledge of Elizabeth’s and my life together from him. Which he claims he needs to make his movie. Anyway, I don’t know what lawsuit the insomniac in the Dutch engraving is a party to. He may be the litigant who is bringing the lawsuit or the one being litigated against. I don’t know which. All I know is he can’t sleep.”
“Demons won’t let him.”
“Right,” I said.
“Mr. Istvakson implies that he identifies with the man in the engraving. He wants you to — what? — look at the engraving and see his own suffering. To see that you, Sam Lattimore, are the demon keeping him awake nights.”
“Have you ever had a client tell you that talking to you is like being on one of those exercise wheels in a hamster cage?”
“Spinning your wheels. Is that how you feel this conversation is going, Sam?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is that why you changed my tire?”
“What?”
“Ten minutes or so before your appointment, I was adjusting the window shades, and when I looked out, I saw that you’d opened the trunk of my car, taken out the jack, and were changing a flat tire. I noticed the flat tire this morning and was going to change it myself, but I had to review some things for our session.”
“No good deed goes unpunished, huh?”
“You consider the fact I mentioned that you changed my tire a punishment.”
“The fact that you brought it up.”
“Perhaps you feel I’m incompetent, in the sense of dealing with practical things. The practicalities of daily life, Sam. Like changing a tire. That I am unequal to the task of understanding the practical nature of things. Of solving practical problems. However, I don’t see your interactions with Elizabeth falling into the category of the practical.”
“I saw a flat tire. I fixed it.”
“What do you think we might be circling around today, Sam?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Silence for maybe five minutes. This time it felt excruciating. I closed my eyes and envisioned choking Alfonse Padgett with my own two hands — a hands-on practical measure.