He could lie in only two positions—on his left side or on his back—and switching from one to the other meant waking up, consciously deciding to undertake the ordeal, plotting his strategy. Then he returned to a fretful, semi-consciousness.
He dreamed he was seated on an airplane next to a woman dressed all in gray, a very narrow, starched, thin-lipped woman, and he tried to hold perfectly still because he sensed she disapproved of movement. It was a rule of hers; he knew that somehow. But he grew more and more uncomfortable, and so he decided to confront her. He said, “Ma’am?” She turned her eyes on him, mild, mournful eyes under finely arched brows. “Miss MacIntosh!” he said. He woke in a spasm of pain. He felt as if a tiny, cruel hand had snatched up part of his back and wrung it out.
When the waiter brought his breakfast in the morning, the chambermaid came along. She must keep grueling hours, Macon thought. But he was glad to see her. She and the waiter fussed over him, mixing his hot milk and coffee, and the waiter helped him into the bathroom while the chambermaid changed his sheets. He thanked them over and over; “Merci,” he said clumsily. He wished he knew the French for “I don’t know why you’re being so kind.” After they left he ate all of his rolls, which the chambermaid had thoughtfully buttered and spread with strawberry jam. Then he turned on the TV for company and got back in bed.
He was sorry about the TV when he heard the knock on the door, because he thought it was Muriel and she would hear. But it seemed early for Muriel to be awake. And then a key turned in the lock, and in walked Sarah.
He said, “Sarah?”
She wore a beige suit, and she carried two pieces of matched luggage, and she brought a kind of breeze of efficiency with her. “Now, everything’s taken care of,” she told him. “I’m going to make your day trips for you.” She set down her suitcases, kissed his forehead, and picked up a glass from his breakfast table. As she went off to the bathroom she said, “We’ve rescheduled the other cities and I start on them tomorrow.”
“But how did you get here so soon?” he asked.
She came out of the bathroom; the glass was full of water. “You have Rose to thank for that,” she said, switching off the T V. “Rose is just a wizard. She’s revamped that entire office. Here’s a pill from Dr. Levitt.”
“You know I don’t take pills,” he said.
“This time you do,” she told him. She helped him rise up on one elbow. “You’re going to sleep as much as you can, so your back has a chance to heal. Swallow.”
The pill was tiny and very bitter. He could taste it even after he’d lain down again.
“Is the pain bad?” she asked him.
“Kind of.”
“How’ve you been getting your meals?”
“Well, breakfast comes anyway, of course. That’s about it.”
“I’ll ask about room service,” she told him, picking up the phone. “Since I’ll be gone so . . . What’s the matter with the telephone?”
“It’s dead.”
“I’ll go tell the desk. Can I bring you anything while I’m out?”
“No, thank you.”
When she left, he almost wondered if he’d imagined her. Except that her suitcases sat next to his bed, sleek and creamy—the same ones she kept on the closet shelf at home.
He thought about Muriel, about what would happen if she were to knock now. Then he thought about two nights ago, or was it three, when she had strolled in with all her purchases. He wondered if she’d left any traces. A belt lost under the bed, a glass disk fallen off her cocktail dress? He began to worry about it seriously. It seemed to him almost inevitable; of course she’d left something. The only question was, what. And where.
Groaning, he rolled over and pushed himself upright. He struggled off the bed and then sagged to his knees to peer beneath it. There didn’t seem to be anything there. He got to his feet and tilted over the armchair to feel around the edges of the cushion. Nothing there either. Actually she hadn’t gone anywhere near the armchair, to his recollection; nor had she gone to the bureau, but even so he slid out the drawers one by one to make sure. His own belongings— just a handful—occupied one drawer. The others were empty, but the second one down had a sprinkling of pink face powder. It wasn’t Muriel’s, of course, but it looked like hers. He decided to get rid of it. He tottered into the bathroom, dampened a towel, and came back to swab the drawer clean. Then he saw that the towel had developed a large pink smear, as if a woman wearing too much makeup had wiped her face with it. He folded the towel so the smear was concealed and laid it in the back of the drawer. No, too incriminating. He took it out again and hid it beneath the armchair cushion. That didn’t seem right either. Finally he went into the bathroom and washed the towel by hand, scrubbing it with a bar of soap till the spot was completely gone. The pain in his back was constant, and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. At some point he decided he was acting very peculiar; in fact it must be the pill; and he dropped the wet towel in a heap on the floor and crawled back into bed. He fell asleep at once. It wasn’t a normal sleep; it was a kind of burial.
He knew Sarah came in but he couldn’t wake up to greet her. And he knew she left again. He heard someone knock, he heard lunch being brought, he heard the chambermaid whisper, “Monsieur?” He remained in his stupor. The pain was muffled but still present—just covered up, he thought; the pill worked like those inferior room sprays in advertisements, the ones that only mask offending odors. Then Sarah came back for the second time and he opened his eyes. She was standing over the bed with a glass of water. “How do you feel?” she asked him.
“Okay,” he said.
“Here’s your next pill.”
“Sarah, those things are deadly.”
“They help, don’t they?”
“They knock me out,” he said. But he took the pill.
She sat down on the edge of the mattress, careful not to jar him. She still wore her suit and looked freshly groomed, although she must be bushed by now. “Macon,” she said quietly.
“Hmm.”
“I saw that woman friend of yours.”
He tensed. His back seized up.
“She saw me, too,” she said. “She seemed very surprised.”
“Sarah, this is not the way it looks,” he told her.
“What is it then, Macon? I’d like to hear.”
“She came over on her own. I didn’t even know till just before the plane took off, I swear it! She followed me. I told her I didn’t want her along. I told her it was no use.”
She kept looking at him. “You didn’t know till just before the plane took off,” she said.
“I swear it,” he said.
He wished he hadn’t taken the pill. He felt he wasn’t in full possession of his faculties.
“Do you believe me?” he asked her.
“Yes, I believe you,” she said, and then she got up and started uncovering his lunch dishes.
He spent the afternoon in another stupor, but he was aware of the chambermaid’s checking on him twice, and he was almost fully awake when Sarah came in with a bag of groceries. “I thought I’d make you supper myself,” she told him. “Fresh fruit and things; you always complain you don’t get enough fresh fruit when you travel.”
“That’s very nice of you, Sarah.”
He worked himself around till he was half sitting, propped against a pillow. Sarah was unwrapping cheeses. “The phone’s fixed,” she said. “You’ll be able to call for your meals and all while I’m out. Then I was thinking: After I’ve finished the trips, if your back is better, maybe we could do a little sightseeing on our own. Take some time for ourselves, since we’re here. Visit a few museums and such.”
“Fine,” he said.
“Have a second honeymoon, sort of.”
“Wonderful.”
He watched her set the cheeses on a flattened paper bag. “We’ll change your plane ticket for a later date,” she said. “You’re reserved to leave tomorrow morning; no chance you could ma
nage that. I left my own ticket open-ended. Julian said I should. Did I tell you where Julian is living?”
“No, where?”
“He’s moved in with Rose and your brothers.”
“He’s what?”
“I took Edward over to Rose’s to stay while I was gone, and there was Julian. He sleeps in Rose’s bedroom; he’s started playing Vaccination every night after supper.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Macon said.
“Have some cheese.”
He accepted a slice, changing position as little as possible.
“Funny, sometimes Rose reminds me of a flounder,” Sarah said. “Not in looks, of course . . . She’s lain on the ocean floor so long, one eye has moved to the other side of her head.”
He stopped chewing and stared at her. She was pouring two glasses of cloudy brown liquid. “Apple cider,” she told him. “I figured you shouldn’t drink wine with those pills.”
“Oh. Right,” he said.
She passed him a glass. “A toast to our second honeymoon,” she said.
“Our second honeymoon,” he echoed.
“Twenty-one more years together.”
“Twenty-one!” he said. It sounded like such a lot.
“Or would you say twenty.”
“No, it’s twenty-one, all right. We were married in nineteen—”
“I mean because we skipped this past year.”
“Oh,” he said. “No, it would still be twenty-one.”
“You think so?”
“I consider last year just another stage in our marriage,” he said. “Don’t worry: It’s twenty-one.”
She clinked her glass against his.
Their main dish was a potted meat that she spread on French bread, and their dessert was fruit. She washed the fruit in the bathroom, returning with handfuls of peaches and strawberries; and meanwhile she kept up a cozy patter that made him feel he was home again. “Did I mention we had a letter from the Averys? They might be passing through Baltimore later this summer. Oh, and the termite man came.”
“Ah.”
“He couldn’t find anything wrong, he said.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“And I’ve almost finished my sculpture and Mr. Armistead says it’s the best thing I’ve done.”
“Good for you,” Macon said.
“Oh,” she said, folding the last paper bag, “I know you don’t think my sculptures are important, but—”
“Who says I don’t?” he asked.
“I know you think I’m just this middle-aged lady playing artist—”
“Who says?”
“Oh, I know what you think! You don’t have to pretend with me.”
Macon started to slump against his pillow, but was brought up short by a muscle spasm.
She cut a peach into sections, and then she sat on the bed and passed him one of the sections. She said, “Macon. Just tell me this. Was the little boy the attraction?”
“Huh?”
“Was the fact that she had a child what attracted you to that woman?”
He said, “Sarah, I swear to you, I had no idea she was planning to follow me over here.”
“Yes, I realize that,” she said, “but I was wondering about the child question.”
“What child question?”
“I was remembering the time you said we should have another baby.”
“Oh, well, that was just—I don’t know what that was,” he said. He handed her back the peach; he wasn’t hungry anymore.
“I was thinking maybe you were right,” Sarah said.
“What? No, Sarah; Lord, that was a terrible idea.”
“Oh, I know it’s scary,” she told him. “I admit I’d be scared to have another.”
“Exactly,” Macon said. “We’re too old.”
“No, I’m talking about the, you know, the world we’d be bringing him into. So much evil and danger. I admit it: I’d be frantic any time we let him out on the street.”
Macon saw Singleton Street in his mind, small and distant like Julian’s little green map of Hawaii and full of gaily drawn people scrubbing their stoops, tinkering with their cars, splashing under fire hydrants.
“Oh, well, you’re right,” he said. “Though really it’s kind of . . . heartening, isn’t it? How most human beings do try. How they try to be as responsible and kind as they can manage.”
“Are you saying yes, we can have a baby?” Sarah asked.
Macon swallowed. He said, “Well, no. It seems to me we’re past the time for that, Sarah.”
“So,” she said, “her little boy wasn’t the reason.”
“Look, it’s over with. Can’t we close the lid on it? I don’t cross-examine you, do I?”
“But I don’t have someone following me to Paris!” she said.
“And what if you did? Do you think I’d hold you to blame if someone just climbed on a plane without your knowing?”
“Before it left the ground,” she said.
“Pardon? Well, I should hope so!”
“Before it left the ground, you saw her. You could have walked up to her and said, ‘No. Get off. Go this minute. I want nothing more to do with you and I never want to see you again.’ ”
“You think I own the airline, Sarah?”
“You could have stopped her if you’d really wanted,” Sarah said. “You could have taken steps.”
And then she rose and began to clear away their supper.
She gave him his next pill, but he let it stay in his fist for a while because he didn’t want to risk moving. He lay with his eyes closed, listening to Sarah undress. She ran water in the bathroom, slipped the chain on the door, turned off the lights. When she got into bed it stabbed his back, even though she settled carefully, but he gave no sign. He heard her breathing soften almost at once. She must have been exhausted.
He reflected that he had not taken steps very often in his life, come to think of it. Really never. His marriage, his two jobs, his time with Muriel, his return to Sarah—all seemed to have simply befallen him. He couldn’t think of a single major act he had managed of his own accord.
Was it too late now to begin?
Was there any way he could learn to do things differently?
He opened his hand and let the pill fall among the bedclothes. It was going to be a restless, uncomfortable night, but anything was better than floating off on that stupor again.
In the morning, he negotiated the journey out of bed and into the bathroom. He shaved and dressed, spending long minutes on each task. Creeping around laboriously, he packed his bag. The heaviest thing he packed was Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, and after thinking that over a while, he took it out again and set it on the bureau.
Sarah said, “Macon?”
“Sarah. I’m glad you’re awake,” he said.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m packing to leave.”
She sat up. Her face was creased down one side.
“But what about your back?” she asked. “And I’ve got all those appointments! And we were going to take a second honeymoon!”
“Sweetheart,” he said. He lowered himself cautiously till he was sitting on the bed. He picked up her hand. It stayed lifeless while she watched his face.
“You’re going back to that woman,” she said.
“Yes, I am,” he said.
“Why, Macon?”
“I just decided, Sarah. I thought about it most of last night. It wasn’t easy. It’s not the easy way out, believe me.”
She sat staring at him. She wore no expression.
“Well, I don’t want to miss the plane,” he said.
He inched to a standing position and hobbled into the bathroom for his shaving kit.
“You know what this is? It’s all due to that pill!” Sarah called after him. “You said yourself it knocks you out!”
“I didn’t take the pill.”
There was a silence.
She said, “Macon? Are you ju
st trying to get even with me for the time I left you?”
He returned with the shaving kit and said, “No, sweetheart.”
“I suppose you realize what your life is going to be like,” she said. She climbed out of bed. She stood next to him in her nightgown, hugging her bare arms. “You’ll be one of those mismatched couples no one invites to parties. No one will know what to make of you. People will wonder whenever they meet you, ‘My God, what does he see in her? Why choose someone so inappropriate? It’s grotesque, how does he put up with her?’ And her friends will no doubt be asking the same about you.”
“That’s probably true,” Macon said. He felt a mild stirring of interest; he saw now how such couples evolved. They were not, as he’d always supposed, the result of some ludicrous lack of perception, but had come together for reasons that the rest of the world would never guess.
He zipped his overnight bag.
“I’m sorry, Sarah. I didn’t want to decide this,” he said.
He put his arm around her painfully, and after a pause she let her head rest against his shoulder. It struck him that even this moment was just another stage in their marriage. There would probably be still other stages in their thirtieth year, fortieth year—forever, no matter what separate paths they chose to travel.
He didn’t take the elevator; he felt he couldn’t bear the willynilliness of it. He went down the stairs instead. He managed the front door by backing through it, stiffly.
Out on the street he found the usual bustle of a weekday morning—shopgirls hurrying past, men with briefcases. No taxis in sight. He set off for the next block, where his chances were better. Walking was fairly easy but carrying his bag was torture. Lightweight though it was, it twisted his back out of line. He tried it in his left hand, then his right. And after all, what was inside it? Pajamas, a change of underwear, emergency supplies he never used . . . He stepped over to a building, a bank or office building with a low stone curb running around its base. He set the bag on the curb and hurried on.
Up ahead he saw a taxi with a boy just stepping out of it, but he discovered too late that hailing it was going to be a problem. Raising either arm was impossible. So he was forced to run in an absurd, scuttling fashion while shouting bits of French he’d never said aloud before: “Attendez! Attendez, monsieur!”