His Wife Leaves Him

Fanny and Alexander on it. If he can afford one, we can too. I want to be able, when I don’t feel like reading while I’m breastfeeding or just listening to the radio, to have something to watch other than mindless morning and afternoon TV. And it’s Bergman, and that one we missed and some people say it’s his best.” “I don’t mean to sound stupid, but what exactly is a VCR and what do the initials stand for?” and then asked what she thought one would cost. She said “The Sun’s running ads with VCRs being much cheaper than they were last year, which means they’re probably half of what they go for in France. And the video cassettes — I’ve looked into it at the record store in the Rotunda Mall, which has a whole wall of them — are only three dollars to rent for the new releases and two dollars for the oldies, and the new ones you can keep for two days and the old ones for a week.” “Sounds good to me. It should be fun.” They bought a VCR player that week and rented Fanny and Alexander at the Rotunda record store. She read the instruction manual how to hook up the VCR player to the television set and how to play the cassette, and they watched the movie. “That was terrific,” he said. “Not the film as much as I thought it’d be but to be able to see it in your own home, and you put everything together so easily. Next time teach me how to use it.” “It’s all in the manual. Read it,” and he said “Me? Learn from an instruction manual? Just imagine what would have happened if I were the one who had to set up the VCR player. It would have ended with me kicking it across the room. Better, you show me how to put the cassette in and play it next time we rent one, because I don’t want to have to keep relying on you so much.” Getting things done in the house like new drapes and their bedroom carpet cleaned. She said “I want to explain why we need new drapes in all the rooms we have them in so you don’t think I’m putting us through an unnecessary large expense. They’re old, soiled beyond cleaning, torn in places, and came with the house when it had different colored walls.” He said “Our bedroom drapes, maybe, since we use them almost every night. But we’ve never drawn the drapes closed in the dining and living rooms, so can’t we just take them down and not replace them?” “No. If we did that, the sides of those windows would look bare.” “I don’t want to get into an argument about it,” he said, “but it never would have crossed my mind to change any of them, bedroom drapes included. They all look fine to me. I also don’t like the idea of more workmen in the house, measuring, fitting, choosing the right colors, and then installing them.” “Don’t worry; you won’t have to deal with any of it. I don’t mind taking care of it. I like doing it. I like making the house look nice.” And he said “So do I, but okay. You want? Do. I can see you’re determined and that you don’t think I know much of what I’m talking about.” After the drapes were hung, he said “I have to hand it to you. The rooms look much nicer with the new drapes,” and she said “I thought you’d appreciate the difference once they were up. And these are washable, while the old ones would have run.” She said their bedroom carpet was stained in a dozen places because the cat had vomited on it so many times and from the coffee he’s spilled carrying it to his desk. He went in to look and she followed him. “I don’t think it’s so bad,” and she said “Of course not. And look at the carpet in the hallway outside here,” and he looked and said “That too. I’ll get some carpet cleaner and do it myself.” “Like for how many years you promised to scrape and paint the register grill in our bathroom because it was so rusty, till I finally had to do it for you. No, the carpet is in such sad shape, it has to be done professionally. If it’s all right with you — well, really; even if it isn’t; give me this, please? — I’ve made an appointment for a carpet-cleaning company to come. They’re offering a special price for an introductory one-room cleaning, and they’ll throw in the hallway. Unfortunately, the carpet will be wet for an entire day, so you’ll have to bring your typewriter to the dining-room table and work there.” “How much is this introductory offer?” and she told him and he said “For one fifteen-by-twenty-foot room, or even twenty-by-twenty-four? Okay, I won’t object. If I do, you’ll say I always object to these things,” and she said “I probably would, because you do.” After the carpet was cleaned and he’d removed the little square pieces of paper from underneath all the furniture legs in the bedroom, he said “Want to know what?” and she said “You’re about to say the carpet looks pretty good.” “They really did a job. It looks as new as when it was first put down. But one question. Why’d we ever get such a light color that shows all the stains?” and she said “We both agreed to it, don’t you remember?” “I think you gave me three to four swatches of almost the same gray color, each one slightly lighter than the next, but let’s not go into it. Your decision to get the carpet cleaned turned out to be a great success.” Taxes. Before he knew her, he always did the short form. “Why?” he told her. “Because it’s quick, easy, I’m used to it, and I never made much money.” She urged him to do the 1040. “The section C form was made for you. You’re a writer so you have a little profit from your writing but lots of losses. Once you know how to do it — and what would it take you? A few hours? And your earnings are bound to increase over the years — it’ll begin to pay off.” “You know me by now. I hate change. All that time learning something new interferes with what I really like doing. If, by some accident, I make a bundle from one of my writings, I’ll be able to pay for a tax accountant.” She offered to do his taxes that year. “Then, the next tax year, just copy out what I’ve done.” “No, you’ve got your own things to do — taxes, teaching, writing, reading,” and she said “But I love you. So I like doing things for you. And this is something, because of my father, I’ve learned how to do well. If you happen to get back much more from the IRS than you usually do, or you have to pay it much less, you can treat me to an expensive dinner at a place of my choosing, or at least a relatively modest dinner with an expensive wine.” This was for the ’78 returns, so around March ’79, a few months after they’d met. She did his taxes the next two or three years — let’s see: ’79’s, ’80’s and ’81’s, so three. Then they got married and they filed a joint return. She’d call her father for advice every night she was doing the taxes. “You don’t have more gifts to charity than that in Schedule A?” “Martin’s taking too large a loss for his writing, when you compare it to what he earned from it, and five years straight? You’ll be flagged.” “By now,” she said he told her, “you do it so well I could hire you as my assistant and pay you good wages, but stick to your teaching. Less stress and longer vacations and more time with your husband and darling little angels.” Then she’d fax him the completed 1040 form, he’d go over it for errors and what she might have missed and mail it back with his new corrections, and she’d fill out the entire form again but in ink this time. She never once finished the returns before the last day. “Done yet?” he’d say around eight that night. “We don’t want to be penalized for filing late or draw suspicion from the IRS,” and she’d say “I need another half an hour” or “hour.” Two hours later or so — one time it was 11:30—she’d say “Hurray. I’m done. All I need now is your signature,” and he’d sign the second page of the federal and state forms above her signature, stick them into their envelopes, which he’d already put stamps on, and drive to the main post office in downtown Baltimore — trip took about twenty minutes at that hour — and drop them in their respective baskets postal workers held up to his car window or the one on the passenger side. He said one time after he got back “I wish we didn’t always have to wait till the last minute to get our income taxes in,” and she said “I’m sorry, but that seems to be what it takes.” “Couldn’t you start doing them a week or two earlier?” and she said “Because you think I’d get them done sooner? It doesn’t work like that. Listen, though. Have we ever been audited? Ever wonder why? But if it’s too much for you, we can get a tax specialist to do them from now on. That’d also mean less work for my father. He works too hard as it is during tax season, and I’d love for him to cut back,” and he said “Nah, it’s okay. We’ve never been late, and I can handle the pressure. And it’s kind of fun down there the last night, with all the tax protesters and their banners and chants. You should come with me next time. A kind of excitement you never see in Baltimore except, I guess, at Ravens games.” Bookcases in their house. She said “I can’t stand our books all over the place and in different bookcases, but not enough of them and each in worse condition than the others and half of them about to collapse from the weight. Let’s get floor-to-ceiling bookcases built into three of the living room walls.” “Hold off a second,” he said. “You’re talking about a job only a master carpenter can do, which’ll cost us your arm and my leg,” and she said “Probably, because I’d want them to look good. But I’d think they’d increase the value of the house by as much as we spent to build them, so in the long run it’d be as if we got them for practically nothing.” He said “Where are we going? I like our house and want to live in it for many more years. And most people don’t give a damn about bookcases or even want them for the ten or so books they own. Especially built-in ones that’d cost plenty to have removed and then to repair the damage to the walls they made.” “Would you object to my getting an estimate?” and he said “Go ahead. Doesn’t cost anything. Get two.” After they were built—“I know you’ll eventually come around to think ‘How did we ever do without them?’”—he said “There was a lot of noise around here for a while and the house was a mess longer than I thought I could take, but the bookcases are beautiful. Matthew was expensive but he did a great job.” “Now we just have one small additional expense,” she said. “I want to hire a graduate student from my department to help me shelve all our books by category and in alphabetical order.” “I can do it with you,” and she said “You have your own work to do, and I don’t know of any grad student who couldn’t use the money.” “How much you thinking of paying them?” and she said “fifteen an hour.” “That’s a lot. Why not get an undergrad?” and she said “Graduate students seem to appreciate books more and don’t handle them as roughly. So, my dear, no more looking all day for a book. You want a particular Bernhard novel, and you haven’t left it in the car, you go to ‘B-E’ on the fiction shelves. You want his memoir, then ‘B-E’ in the bio section. Poetry, its own section. Philosophy, art and travel books, literary criticism, etcetera — maybe even the classics — each separate. My French books, literature and criticism, in both languages, will take up one entire wall and probably continue into my study. For your published books, a row of their own on the top shelf there, with room for more.” He said “I’d rather not show them off like that in such a prominent place. Better, I keep my work in the old bookcase in our bedroom.” A video camera. She wanted them to buy one about twenty years ago and he didn’t want to and now regrets not having any videos of her other than a short part of one a friend gave them that’s around someplace, and of the kids when they were growing up. “You’re being unreasonable again,” she said, and he said “When was the last time? All right. But I just don’t see the point to them. We’ll never watch them after the first couple of times, and to me they’re so self…self…self-something. ‘Look at the mundane things I’m doing.’ ‘Watch me leaving the house holding Maureen by the hand.’ ‘See Martin and Gwen smile for the birdie and kiss for the camera?’ That kind of stuff.” “Even if my parents want to buy us one?” and he said “Like the microwave oven they also offered to buy us. It was generous of them, but I don’t want either gift or think we need them. We have enough things as it is.” “I won’t fight it,” she said. “It isn’t important enough to. Besides, I don’t like to be on camera myself.” “Same here, so what are we arguing about?” “The kids, perhaps. Years from now they might want to know why we don’t have any videos of them and us.” “We have photographs,” he said. “Envelopes and envelopes of them, we also don’t look at. But they take the place of videos, I’d think.” “I still feel you’re making a mistake. We’d use the camera sparingly. Birthdays. Once a summer the two kids in front of The Bubbles at Jordon Pond House. Like that. You don’t ever have to pose for it. Maybe you’ll change your mind on getting one.” Their first minivan. She thought they needed a bigger car for the family and all the things they take to Maine that they don’t send UPS. He said “Doesn’t seem like a bad idea. But I don’t want to own two cars. After we buy the van, we’ll sell the Cita