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Authors: John Cheever
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to come every one of their twelve guests,poisoned by the risotto, would spend an hour or more on the toilet, racked by excruciating diarrhea. While Estelle, with her eyes half-closed, sketched the future, Sears wondered why her prescience should overlook that violence in the immediate future that he was able to predict.
Her ending was rather like this. She had been to a matinee in Philadelphia and had returned by train to the suburb where they then lived. She could reach the lot where her car was parked by an underpass beneath the tracks or by an unsafe wooden walk that predated the underpass. It was a winter dusk. She had started across the walk when a young man shouted: “Hey, lady, that ain’t safe. A train is coming.” “Who
do
you think you are speaking to?” she exclaimed, believing in introductions and other courtesies. “I happen to
know
the future.” She stepped straight into the path of the Trenton Express and nothing was found of her but a scrap of veiling and a high-heeled shoe.
“Your male lover is a traditional invention of the neurotic,” said Dr. Palmer. “You have invented some ghostly surrogate of a lost school friend or a male relation from your early youth.”
“I’m not sure what you mean by ghost,” said Sears. “It may be that for a man of my age love is rather elusive. I seem these days to know love only briefly, but I honestly can’t agree with you when you say that Eduardo is a surrogate. He seems to offer me an understanding of modes of loneliness that are quite new to me and new I expect to other men, since they mostly involve new places like airports.”
“Of course you’re afraid of flying,” said the alienist.
“I am not afraid of flying,” said Sears, “but I am afraid of airports.”
“Do you really think you understand Renée?”
“Oh, no,” exclaimed Sears, “but I never really cared about those parts of her life that she meant to keep private. I mean, I kept picking her up in these church basements where she was trying to stop smoking or drinking or eating too much. Sometimes I thought it was all three. Sometimes when we go out to a restaurant she eats most of my dinner, but she never gets fat. I think she wants to improve her ways, and I believe there are more people who feel like this than you might guess from looking at the faces in the street.”
“Do you have any friends?” asked Dr. Palmer.
“I have loads of friends,” said Sears.
“That is,” said the doctor, “the classical reply of the neurotic, who constructs a carapace of friendliness and popularity to conceal his clinical aloneness. If you have so many friends you might send a few my way as patients. The politics in this profession are absolutely indescribable. Otherwise I wouldn’t ask your help. I’d like to see you tomorrow at the same time.”
8
T HE telephone was ringing when Sears returned to his apartment. It was Renée asking him over for a drink. He was delighted. Considering their last quarrel he expected her to be wearing the old blue wrapper when she opened the door, or perhaps nothing at all. He was smiling at this possibility when he entered the lobby and saw Eduardo, who laughed at the breadth of his smile. Here seemed to be a union from which jealousy had been leached. She opened the door as soon as he rang. He was disappointed to see she was not wearing the old blue wrapper. She was wearing a dress and some shoes and some perfume, but when she kissed him her kisses were of such an inestimable softness and variety that he didn’t worry about her clothing. She gave him a drink and sat on his lap and unfastened both his shirt and his trousers. While she fingered his trunk he remembered that the gymnastics instructor at his school had lectured them on the fact that the male torso, disfigured as it was by vestigial nipples, was totally unresponsive sensually. He had, until very recently, never doubted this statement. This was really what one wanted, he thought. To have a
Her ending was rather like this. She had been to a matinee in Philadelphia and had returned by train to the suburb where they then lived. She could reach the lot where her car was parked by an underpass beneath the tracks or by an unsafe wooden walk that predated the underpass. It was a winter dusk. She had started across the walk when a young man shouted: “Hey, lady, that ain’t safe. A train is coming.” “Who
do
you think you are speaking to?” she exclaimed, believing in introductions and other courtesies. “I happen to
know
the future.” She stepped straight into the path of the Trenton Express and nothing was found of her but a scrap of veiling and a high-heeled shoe.
“Your male lover is a traditional invention of the neurotic,” said Dr. Palmer. “You have invented some ghostly surrogate of a lost school friend or a male relation from your early youth.”
“I’m not sure what you mean by ghost,” said Sears. “It may be that for a man of my age love is rather elusive. I seem these days to know love only briefly, but I honestly can’t agree with you when you say that Eduardo is a surrogate. He seems to offer me an understanding of modes of loneliness that are quite new to me and new I expect to other men, since they mostly involve new places like airports.”
“Of course you’re afraid of flying,” said the alienist.
“I am not afraid of flying,” said Sears, “but I am afraid of airports.”
“Do you really think you understand Renée?”
“Oh, no,” exclaimed Sears, “but I never really cared about those parts of her life that she meant to keep private. I mean, I kept picking her up in these church basements where she was trying to stop smoking or drinking or eating too much. Sometimes I thought it was all three. Sometimes when we go out to a restaurant she eats most of my dinner, but she never gets fat. I think she wants to improve her ways, and I believe there are more people who feel like this than you might guess from looking at the faces in the street.”
“Do you have any friends?” asked Dr. Palmer.
“I have loads of friends,” said Sears.
“That is,” said the doctor, “the classical reply of the neurotic, who constructs a carapace of friendliness and popularity to conceal his clinical aloneness. If you have so many friends you might send a few my way as patients. The politics in this profession are absolutely indescribable. Otherwise I wouldn’t ask your help. I’d like to see you tomorrow at the same time.”
8
T HE telephone was ringing when Sears returned to his apartment. It was Renée asking him over for a drink. He was delighted. Considering their last quarrel he expected her to be wearing the old blue wrapper when she opened the door, or perhaps nothing at all. He was smiling at this possibility when he entered the lobby and saw Eduardo, who laughed at the breadth of his smile. Here seemed to be a union from which jealousy had been leached. She opened the door as soon as he rang. He was disappointed to see she was not wearing the old blue wrapper. She was wearing a dress and some shoes and some perfume, but when she kissed him her kisses were of such an inestimable softness and variety that he didn’t worry about her clothing. She gave him a drink and sat on his lap and unfastened both his shirt and his trousers. While she fingered his trunk he remembered that the gymnastics instructor at his school had lectured them on the fact that the male torso, disfigured as it was by vestigial nipples, was totally unresponsive sensually. He had, until very recently, never doubted this statement. This was really what one wanted, he thought. To have a
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