Read Online Memories of a Marriage by Louis Begley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Louis Begley
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and made one only slightly weaker for myself.
Here, I said, you and I both need them.
She had stopped crying and said, I’ve got to pee. Back in a minute. There is a toilet you can use off the foyer.
After she returned we drank for a few minutes in silence. Then she said, Even this part of the story is longer than I had thought. I’ll finish it in a few words. I was able to discharge myself from McLean toward the end of August, just before Dr. Reiner returned from the Cape. We started treatment, and I made my daily trek to his office in a house at the corner of Sparks and Highland in Cambridge, which was where he also lived. There is sometimes a period at the beginning of treatment, if you hit it off with the analyst, when you surprise yourself by feeling good. That happened to me. A woman I had met when I was still at Radcliffe was a powerful editor at Houghton Mifflin, who later published
The Painted Bird
. She’d been very nice to me and said I should let her know if I ever wanted a job in publishing. I found the courage to get in touch with her; she remembered me and put me to work, at first reading manuscripts and later line editing. It turned outI could do that well; there’s never been anything the matter with my English. All of us in the family speak well and can write clear prose—even Mother and my brother John. The only trouble with them is that they’ve got nothing to say.
And now I’m really tired, she said. You’d better go home.
V
A HANDWRITTEN NOTE thanking Lucy for dinner and saying I had been profoundly moved by all she had told me about Geneva seemed nicer and more friendly than an e-mail. Next morning I walked briskly in the park, a regime I was trying to impose on myself, took a bath, and wrote to Lucy. Her apartment building was near enough to the NY Society Library, where I intended to spend the afternoon doing research, for me to decide to go there on foot and deliver the letter personally, instead of putting it in the mail. However, after the doorman had examined the envelope he announced that Mrs. Snow had left for the country. He’d forward my letter with the rest of her mail. Her not having mentioned the imminent departure struck me as odd, but the reprieve was welcome. I wouldn’t need to see her again any time soon. That evening I sent her an e-mail saying that a proper letter was on its way and wishing her a good summer. She answered immediately, explaining that she hadrushed off to Little Compton to attend an emergency town meeting about a proposal to widen a road near her property and would be back after the weekend. The doorman was an idiot: he should be holding her mail instead of forwarding it. She would call in the morning to straighten him out. Would I be in New York when she returned? Could we have dinner? She wasn’t moving to the country for the summer until the Fourth of July weekend. I answered that I’d be around and would look forward to seeing her.
As it happened, I was planning to be away during the weekend as well, at my place in Sharon. The real estate agent had assured me that the tenant to whom I’d been renting the house during the academic year—Peter Drummond, a political science professor at Bard—and his partner, a composer whom I’d met several times without managing to remember his name, had left it in apple-pie order, just as in the past years. Nonetheless, it seemed best to see for myself and perhaps arrange for a fresh coat of paint in the kitchen, living room, and my bedroom. It had occurred to me as well that since I had given up my apartment in Paris and would be living in New York it might be nice to be able to use the Sharon house year-round. Before making a final decision, I wanted to find out from the agent how much it would cost to keep the house heated through the winter and to have my long and twisting driveway plowed. I was also concerned about Peter and whether he would find it difficult to relocate. If that were the case, I’d
Here, I said, you and I both need them.
She had stopped crying and said, I’ve got to pee. Back in a minute. There is a toilet you can use off the foyer.
After she returned we drank for a few minutes in silence. Then she said, Even this part of the story is longer than I had thought. I’ll finish it in a few words. I was able to discharge myself from McLean toward the end of August, just before Dr. Reiner returned from the Cape. We started treatment, and I made my daily trek to his office in a house at the corner of Sparks and Highland in Cambridge, which was where he also lived. There is sometimes a period at the beginning of treatment, if you hit it off with the analyst, when you surprise yourself by feeling good. That happened to me. A woman I had met when I was still at Radcliffe was a powerful editor at Houghton Mifflin, who later published
The Painted Bird
. She’d been very nice to me and said I should let her know if I ever wanted a job in publishing. I found the courage to get in touch with her; she remembered me and put me to work, at first reading manuscripts and later line editing. It turned outI could do that well; there’s never been anything the matter with my English. All of us in the family speak well and can write clear prose—even Mother and my brother John. The only trouble with them is that they’ve got nothing to say.
And now I’m really tired, she said. You’d better go home.
V
A HANDWRITTEN NOTE thanking Lucy for dinner and saying I had been profoundly moved by all she had told me about Geneva seemed nicer and more friendly than an e-mail. Next morning I walked briskly in the park, a regime I was trying to impose on myself, took a bath, and wrote to Lucy. Her apartment building was near enough to the NY Society Library, where I intended to spend the afternoon doing research, for me to decide to go there on foot and deliver the letter personally, instead of putting it in the mail. However, after the doorman had examined the envelope he announced that Mrs. Snow had left for the country. He’d forward my letter with the rest of her mail. Her not having mentioned the imminent departure struck me as odd, but the reprieve was welcome. I wouldn’t need to see her again any time soon. That evening I sent her an e-mail saying that a proper letter was on its way and wishing her a good summer. She answered immediately, explaining that she hadrushed off to Little Compton to attend an emergency town meeting about a proposal to widen a road near her property and would be back after the weekend. The doorman was an idiot: he should be holding her mail instead of forwarding it. She would call in the morning to straighten him out. Would I be in New York when she returned? Could we have dinner? She wasn’t moving to the country for the summer until the Fourth of July weekend. I answered that I’d be around and would look forward to seeing her.
As it happened, I was planning to be away during the weekend as well, at my place in Sharon. The real estate agent had assured me that the tenant to whom I’d been renting the house during the academic year—Peter Drummond, a political science professor at Bard—and his partner, a composer whom I’d met several times without managing to remember his name, had left it in apple-pie order, just as in the past years. Nonetheless, it seemed best to see for myself and perhaps arrange for a fresh coat of paint in the kitchen, living room, and my bedroom. It had occurred to me as well that since I had given up my apartment in Paris and would be living in New York it might be nice to be able to use the Sharon house year-round. Before making a final decision, I wanted to find out from the agent how much it would cost to keep the house heated through the winter and to have my long and twisting driveway plowed. I was also concerned about Peter and whether he would find it difficult to relocate. If that were the case, I’d
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