A note from Arnold to her office: “Just to tell you, Selena knows. No problem, everything under control.”
Selena knows. This raises questions. Did Arnold tell, or did she guess? Was there a fight? Would Selena have new notions for her carving knife? What should we make of the fact that this was Arnold’s only word to her since Edward’s return?
The news increased the likelihood Edward would find out. She and Arnold might keep a secret, but Selena had no reason to. While Edward sat at the table as if in disgrace, obsessed with failure, Susan wondered what Selena would do when the mood came. She wouldn’t even have to tell Edward for the news to spread like a disease in the ivy trails reaching even to recluses in a state of depression.
To forestall the shock of a sudden discovery by Edward with its grief and loss of faith and her own embarrassed humiliation, she ought to confess in advance, so as to put the confession in her own terms. A volunteered confession would assure him it was over. Brief lapse in your absence, the stress of loneliness, telling you voluntarily so you’ll know you can trust and believe me. It won’t happen again.
Time passed. It’s easier to plan such words than to say them. With no sign from Arnold, she wondered if it might blow over. They met Selena on the stairs. Susan and Edward coming in, Selena out. Selena looked fiercely at her, differently at Edward, thoughtful. It left Susan gasping. What’s the matter? Edward said. The heavy grocery bags they were carrying.
How to tell him, break the news? What was she afraid of? Of hurting his feelings? Aggravating his depression? Driving him to suicide? Come on, Susan, don’t be so merely virtuous. Of losing him? Of losing face, more likely. Her status in the house. The new light he would see her in. Not to speak of the plain uproar, the anarchy the raw emotion would release.
At least you should know your position in advance. She meant to cleave by Edward. Love him, reassure him, be humble. The direct approach, picking his most vulnerable time: on the bed beside him without clothes, curling her hair around her nose, he relieved by the distraction from his obsession. Edward love, I have a confession to make. Not that direct. Ease up to it: Edward dear, suppose you had a wife who. Nor that.
Indirect, to smother him with so much love he would know before the words came out that she couldn’t possibly be saying anything bad. To come up behind him at lunch, put her cheek next to his, saying, Edward my sweet, how much I love.
The best way would be by accident when you are in the midst of something else. Day after day, she watches Edward, realizes as he talks, chews, holds his head, groans, belches, that he still doesn’t know. The big change is yet to come, the consequences yet to be revealed.
The best way to confess is to be already angry about something, so you’ll have the momentum of your grievance to carry forward against his hurt. And that’s how it finally did happen: in the midst of a discussion about writing—which was the only thing they talked about nowadays. She said, God, I wish you’d stayed in law school. His reply: When you talk like that, it’s like you were unfaithful.
She snapped: You haven’t the slightest idea what that would be like.
Edward full of emphasis: It couldn’t be worse.
It couldn’t? And so she told. Not rancorously, for as soon as she saw her opportunity, her mood changed to humble and sad. All the same, she told and ended by saying, It’s all over though, it has no future, I was not in love.
Edward the child. His staring eyes, which she had never seen so large. His meek questions: Who? Where? Do you want a divorce? Was it worth it?
He groaned, stretched, walked around the room, experimenting with reactions. What am I supposed to do? he said. How am I supposed to behave?
That’s what she remembers. He did not get angry. He kept asking her to confirm she didn’t want a divorce. He didn’t dare ask if she loved him, so she said it without being asked.
Contemporary Susan thinks her confession perked him up. A respite from his depression. The next time in bed he seemed to enjoy thinking about the unnamed lover in the air. He was tactful enough not to ask for comparisons. She figured she had broken down a wall whose presence she had not noticed until it was gone. Now we know each other better, she thought. Not so romantic, weaker than we thought, which is maybe good to know. Her marriage would be stronger, she thought, believing she was glad of it.
FOUR
There’s a gap in the saga of Susan’s official memory, almost a year between Edward’s return from the woods and her marriage to Arnold. When she looks back, she finds the time blank. It could not have been totally without event. There must have been daily drives to the college with snow scenes and slushy streets. Also grocery shopping, cleaning, and cooking for Edward. And moods and arguments, movies, a friend or two. She remembers the apartment: dark walls, tiny kitchen, the bedroom with books on the floor and view of the alley.
The reason for the blockage is that the period was about to end in revolutionary change. Arnold would replace Edward with new laws, values, icons, everything. The new regime rewrites history to protect itself, burying Edward’s time like the Dark Ages. It takes Edward’s return to remind contemporary Susan of what is hidden and challenge her to rewrite the old saga through imaginative archaeology.
Rereading the saga, Susan would like to know if it’s the light of later times that makes that interval look so dreary, or if it really was that way. How dark were the Dark Ages? She did her work and wondered. The saga notes change in Edward. Nervous and caustic, edgy with an increase in the irony level. Odd ugly jokes. Reading the paper sneering at the politicians, letter writers, editorialists, advice givers. Criticizing and ridiculing her colleagues, without quite identifying her with them.
According to the saga, he stopped talking about writing. Surprising, though Susan doesn’t remember being surprised. No more complaints or requests for opinions. Secretive, not even admitting that what he was doing in his study was writing.
What the saga ignores, but Susan now remembers, is Edward’s silence about her affair. He never blamed her, not overtly. Never asked her to explain, after his first tentative questions. Avoided asking for love. Cautious, as if afraid of her.
She has no problem remembering Arnold’s talk, one of the scriptural centers of the saga, though it’s hard to remember where or when they could talk, since after Edward returned the affair supposedly stopped. She thought it was over. But Arnold did insist on talking and she found ways, listening to his urgent low whispering voice in the office she shared with the other composition teachers: Dear Susan, how good, intelligent, wise, who alone could make him feel like a human being again. Hair-raising anecdotes about Selena, rage and jealousy, the carving knife, pills, pliers. Clothes out the window, her broad brimmed hat sailing like a frisbee across the street. Who went out naked at night, brought back by the police.
In the narrative Arnold asked Susan for comfort and help. He was fed up. He wanted to know the right thing, what his duties were. What did Susan say? Only what she ought to, of course. Throw the question back to him. With two sides to it. His side is the release from obligation when love is dead with no children, and the woman he married no longer exists. The absurdity of sacrificing his chances for personal happiness to a crazy woman unable to appreciate it. Selena’s side is the cruelty of abandonment when she is ill, confined, helpless, and alone. Selena banks heavily on the vow about sickness and health. But Jesus, Arnold would say, if she’s going to be in a loony bin the rest of her life. If not, hard times and fight fight fight.