She was curled up on the bed when he came in, her back to him, maybe sleeping, though he thought not.
He lay down on his side of the bed, aware momentarily of the pulsing in his arm; then, with a sensed sigh of regret, fell asleep.
He woke up — minutes later it seemed — to Lois’s kiss. She was leaning over him.
“I like you when you sleep,” she said.
He had been having a dream in which he was dying, but now it was gone. When he closed his eyes in search of the dream, he saw Lois, her black hair down to her waist, running through a red field, disappearing into the horizon, the memory of her flight like a shadow on the landscape. He was perpetually losing her.
She was there. “I didn’t mean it, Peter,” she was saying. “I’m sorry. Believe — ” but he kissed her, not wanting to hear any more, and she kissed him back, her face wet against his.
She surmounted him, warm, demanding. Cunning. Her tears irresistible. As in a dream, his numbness unwintered. Revived, in a field of flowers, he fell in love with her — mouth, throat, nipples, breasts — but she was running away from him, slipping away into that endless red field; he held on for his life so as not to lose her, conscious at the same time of the weakness in his arm, forgetting even that at last, forgetting, losing himself, his life quickening. His life lost. Sacrificed. His eyes closed, he saw the blood pouring from his arm again. He held on for a while, though she was gone. It was over when it was.
Afterward, lying next to him, her head on his arm, she told him that the reason for her bitchiness, for the blackness of her mood, was that she was having a child which she didn’t want — the responsibility a death to their freedom — but now that it seemed they loved each other, it didn’t seem as tragic as it had before. What did he think? she asked. He didn’t mind, he said. What does that mean? she wanted to know. She waited for an answer, but he was asleep, snoring contentedly, as if it didn’t matter one way or another. And it was a matter of life and death. It was.
The next morning she was still in bed when he left for work. He thought to wake her — only the back of her head visible from beneath the covers — but decided to leave her a note instead.
Lois,
Don’t worry, honey. It’s O.K.
Your loving husband,
Peter
He tiptoed out in the dark, the linoleum floor squeaking, his knee bumping against a chair; he felt like a thief. But what had he taken? More important: what had he left behind?
When he arrived at the Bureau of Economic Research, he found that he had not so much been fired, as he had expected, as somehow forgotten.
“What are you doing here?” the secretary at the front desk asked as he went by. She raised her penciled eyebrows.
Philip S. Cappello, his boss — a fortyish, lapsed bohemian who wrote children’s books in his private life — seemed happy to see him, though for a moment there, between the smile and the wink, he couldn’t seem to remember Peter’s name. “Well … uh … I thought you’d given us up, Pete. What have you been doing, fella?” He leaned back expansively in his elastic chair. “I envy you, getting out of this jungle, I certainly do. You getting any writing done? What can I do you for, fella?”
Apologizing, Peter explained that he had been through a domestic crisis but hoped he could keep his job, a matter of life or death. What else could he say without getting personal?
Philip nodded understandingly, his smile like an arm around the shoulder, as Peter squeezed out his explanation. “Pete, old buddy,” he said, “this is no job for a guy like you. Your future, your whole life is ahead of you. You want to write — now’s the time, old buddy. Write. I wish to Christ I had your opportunity. I envy you, Pete.” He turned to the small window behind him, looked out at the street as if there were something there he wanted to see. “The fact is,” he said, “you’d been gone so long, we advertised for someone else.” When he turned back to face Peter he looked aggrieved, almost angry.
“I’ve only missed three days,” Peter said. “Look, Phil — Mr. Cappello — I give you my word it won’t happen again. Besides, I need the job.” The more he had to give of himself to get it, humiliated at having to plead, the less he wanted the lousy job, but he hung on in deference to Cappello, who was ashamed of being a boss.
Cappello raised his hands, fending off an imaginary blow; he smiled engagingly, wanting not only to be liked but also to be pitied — his entire life an accommodation to the eases of survival. “What can I say?” he said, his eyes averted. “You always talked about … you know … quitting to devote yourself to writing — which I respect, as you know — so that I thought you had finally done what you had been threatening to do. You see? I said to myself …” Then he stopped as if something had clicked off in his head, looked at Peter, scowled. “All right. You might as well work today while you’re here. Sit down.”
Peter took his usual chair at the side of the desk. Cappello, glowering, handed him a copy of the manuscript they had been working on — “Cyclical Correspondences in German Banking 1905–1907 with Particular Reference to Munich and Hamburg.” “I’ll read first,” Cappello said, cleaning his horn-rimmed glasses, adjusting them on the swollen bridge of his nose. Then he took them off, his eyes naked, diffident.
“Peter,” he wheezed faintly. “They blame me, fella, if you’re not here to work. Everyone’s in one big helluva hurry in this place and they just as soon put my ass in a sling as anyone’s. So, old buddy”—when he struck a match to light his cigar, his hand was shaking — “if you want to take off — I know how it is — just let me know in advance so I can get someone else. Please. Fact is, the guy who was supposed to come in to take your place didn’t show up.” He laughed, a broken sound. Peter liked Cappello, who always looked as if someone close to him had just died. “If you leave me in the lurch again, I’m going to have to let you go.” He put the glasses back on, squeezed out a smile, incapable of sustaining anger. “A word to the wise. Where were we? Another thing, no gabbing this morning, I’m afraid. No coffee break. We’re going to have to go at it extra hard”—he turned in his chair, and without getting up opened the window a few inches — “we have to make up, as you know, for all the time we’ve lost.” He looked at his watch as though he had recorded the loss to the minute.
“I understand,” Peter said, studying the first sentence, yawning.
“Right,” Cappello said, rubbing his hands together, a gesture of purpose. Then he called one of the secretaries and asked if she would bring them their morning coffee in the office, as they wouldn’t have the time — overloaded with work as they were — to pick it up from the cart themselves. “To work,” he said, starting in abruptly, taking Peter by surprise.
“I’m sorry. I missed the first three words,” Peter said.
Cappello started over. They read for twenty minutes without interruption, then spent the rest of the morning gabbing, trading anecdotes. Cappello did most of the talking. It passed the time.
Cappello was reminiscing about his days at Bread Loaf — his writer days — when Herbie called. Peter was embarrassed, Cappello distraught; he stared compulsively at his watch while Peter talked, the minutes fleeing madly before his eyes, never to be recalled. The loss brought sweat to his forehead. Herbie, a big spender over the telephone, was inviting Peter to lunch to celebrate something or other — some deal he had negotiated. Peter looked at Cappello, sweated for his friend’s sweat, reluctantly accepted. Who was he to refuse a brother? What a question!