His Wife Leaves Him

using it. Anyway, sixth floor, after he mentioned Yaddo and got no verbal response and he doesn’t think any visual reaction to it either, “So, I assume that, like Pati, you went or still go to Columbia for your doctorate?” and she said yes. “Went? Go?” and she said “Went, although I’m still very much there.” “So you’re not completely done with it? Or you are — orals, dissertation, defense of it, if the orals and defense aren’t the same thing,” and she said “They’re not, and I am done with them.” “Literature, also, like Pati?” and she said “Same language but literature of a different century.” “What are you doing with it? Or maybe I should say, why are you still at Columbia, if that’s not too personal a question?” “I’m doing a post-doc and also teaching a humanities course as part of their Great Books program.” “That should be interesting,” he said. “And a feather in your cap and gown, I guess, and no doubt a terrific addition to your vita for a possible job there or somewhere else, though I’m not sure what a post-doc is.” “It’s short for post-doctorate,” and he said “No, that my little pea brain figured out. But it’s not another degree, is it?” and she said no. “So what were your thesis and dissertation on? And it is a dissertation for your Ph.D. and not a thesis, right?” and she said yes and gave the title of her thesis and he said “You’re not going to believe this, though I don’t see why not, but he’s just about my favorite nineteenth-century fiction writer. Maybe favorite of any kind of writer and of all centuries and millennia, not counting whichever one Homer was in. though he only wrote, if we can call it that, two books, while your guy filled up volumes and everything I’ve read of his shines,” and she said “You of course know he extended into the twentieth century, though not by much, but is considered primarily a nineteenth-century writer.” “Right,” he said, “the late great stuff,” and gave a couple of the titles. “As the title suggests, I wrote about his long stays in France and his friendships with intellectuals there and all things French. He’s not who I wrote about for my dissertation,” and he said “Oh, and who’s that?” and she said, and he said “This is amazing. He’s one of my favorite contemporary writers, and I’m not just saying that.” She smiled, not, it seemed, at what he said but as if that was to be the end of their conversation, and turned to face the elevator. “Tell me,” he said, “and if I’m talking too much or you no longer want to talk, tell me that too, but have you been waiting long? I mean, more than the three minutes or so we’ve been standing here?” “Not that long.” “So what should we think, the elevator’s broken or stuck?” “It was working fine when I got to the party. I’d say it’s not working and that if it doesn’t come in the next minute we should think about walking downstairs. It’s only five flights.” “You walk,” she said; “I don’t mind waiting. And I’m sure it’s being held up because someone’s loading or unloading a lot of things off it and that it’ll eventually come. Besides, I don’t like those stairs.” He said “Why, what’s wrong with them?” and she said “They’re unusually long and insufficiently lit and also a bit creepy. And the one time I walked down — not because the elevator didn’t come — I couldn’t get out on either the ground or second floor.” “In that case, you’re right, and I’m glad you warned me. But it’d seem locking those doors would be against some fire regulation.” “I don’t know if they were locked or, as someone explained to me, it had something to do with humidity and air pressure. But I thought the same thing about a fire regulation being violated and told Pati and she said it’s happened to her too, more than once.” “Someone ought to complain, then, in case there is a fire or something like that,” and she said “Pati did, several times, she said, and the situation hadn’t been corrected when I walked down the stairs, so you can see why I don’t want to take the chance.” “I’ll be with you,” and she said “No, thanks.” “I was just kidding, of course,” and she said “About what?” “Nothing. I thought I might’ve sounded pushy,” and she said “I didn’t think so. You were trying to be helpful. Thank you.” The conversation went something like that. More he talked to her, more he knew he didn’t want to leave her without getting her phone number and some assurance she’d meet him sometime for coffee or a drink. He still didn’t know if she was married or engaged or had a steady boyfriend. She had gloves on now but at the party he got close enough to her to see she wore no ring on either hand. He remembers thinking at the elevator What a beautiful voice she has, clear and soft, and a lovely face and good figure. And she speaks so well, he thought, and is obviously very smart and seems gracious and he likes what she does: teaching and getting a Ph.D. in literature and at Columbia. They’d have lots to talk about if they started seeing each other. He was never a scholar but he did like to talk about books and writers and he often read literary criticism of novels and stories he’d recently finished but felt there was more to them than he got and wanted somebody else’s take on them. He could reread her writer or read some of the work he hadn’t read or she recommended and what she thought were the best translations of it, and later talk about it with her. He liked the way she smiled and laughed at the party — not loud, and the smile warm and genuine, and the intelligent look she had when she seemed to be in a serious conversation. She usually had a guy or two talking to her and one time three or four men surrounding her, each, it seemed, vying for her attention. That made him think that maybe there wasn’t one particular guy in her life, but of course, he thought, it could be that her husband or boyfriend hadn’t come to the party. She was the beauty there, that’s for sure. He remembers when she came in — alone, took her coat and hat off in the foyer, probably her gloves too, and went in back with them and, he assumes, put them with most of the other coats and where his was too, on Pati’s bed. When she came back out and waved to some people and went over to them, he said to himself something like “Jesus, what a doll.” He practically stalked her at the party, losing sight of her only when he went to the bathroom or into another room for a drink. He was waiting for a chance to go up to her and introduce himself or say anything to her, just so long as they started talking, but she was always with someone, mostly men but sometimes a woman or two. She never noticed him staring at her because she never turned his way when he was. He wanted her to and then, he thought, he’d give an expression with his raised forehead and some other thing with his face that he was interested in her or had been wanting to talk to her but didn’t want to barge in and could she free herself for a moment? How he was going to get any of that in with a look, he didn’t know. But he thought he could — maybe just smile in a way that suggested he wanted to meet her — and she might even come over to him or at least gesture in some way — hand or face or some move with her head — for him to come over to her. Then she was gone. A man tapped his shoulder from behind, and he turned around. “Aren’t you Donald Boykin?” the man said, and he said no and the man said “You look just like him; sorry.” When he turned back to the spot he’d been watching her at, she’d disappeared. He looked for her in the room he could see from the one he was in, but she wasn’t there. He went through the entire apartment looking for her. He’d made up his mind; he was going to go over to her even if she was with other people. He didn’t know what he was going to say; something, though. Maybe make up a woman’s name — Dorothy Becker — and ask her if she was this woman and then say “Sorry, haven’t seen her in a long time and I used to know her fairly well and I thought she’d think I was ignoring her if I didn’t say hello. And now that I think of it, you couldn’t be her because her resemblance to you is from more than ten years ago when she was around your age. Stupid mistake on my part. But may I ask your name? Mine’s…I was thinking of saying I almost forgot it, but that’d be such a dumb joke. Martin Samuels,” and he’d stick his hand out to shake. If she was with someone, he’d ask that person’s name and shake hands. If she was with two or more people, he’d just say hello to them. The joke part, only if she was alone. Or probably not the joke part; too silly, so he’d just give his name. He actually thought of this while he was looking for her. If she wasn’t alone, he’d first apologize to her and whoever she was with for breaking into their conversation. He didn’t know what he’d do after he asked her name and gave his. It could be embarrassing, being the stranger of the group and just staying there, but he’d take the chance. Maybe he’d say “Well, nice meeting you all,” and walk away and try to catch her later if she was alone, now knowing her name and the introduction, of sorts, out of the way. Then he thought she might be in the hallway bathroom. When he passed it to look for her in Pati’s bedroom, the door was closed and he could see through the crack at the bottom that a light was on inside. Although someone could have left it on after using the room. He didn’t want to try the doorknob to see if it was locked. He didn’t want to give the impression he was trying to get the person inside to finish sooner. He stood outside the bathroom. This almost had to be where she was, he thought. And if she was in there, this’d be a good opportunity to speak to her alone when she came out, but another woman came out. He said “Hi,” went in and locked the door. He didn’t want the woman to think he’d been waiting outside the bathroom for nothing. And as long as he was in here, he thought, he should pee. He was going to have to do it soon anyway, what with the three or four Bloody Marys and bottle of water he had, and then he really might have to go and both bathrooms might be occupied. He peed, then went through the apartment looking for her again. Nah, it’s hopeless, he thought. He went into the bedroom for his coat. He didn’t see any reason to stay, now that she was gone. He knew nobody at the party but Pati and she was always getting or taking away things or introducing people. Birdbrain, he thought. For that’s what he should have done: got her to introduce him to that woman, but too late for that. He really hadn’t met anyone on his own here because he spent most of his time trying to meet that woman. He started to look for Pati to say goodbye. Then he told himself he’d call her tomorrow or the next day — probably tomorrow — to thank her for inviting him and to ask about this woman he tried speaking to but she was always surrounded by other people, and left. They waited for the elevator for about five minutes, maybe more. No, had to be more. There were long stretches when neither of them spoke and she looked mostly at the elevator, he mostly at her, and every so often she turned to him and smiled a bit mechanically and then looked back at the door. One time he said something like “We should seriously think about using the stairs. I’m sure the door down there will open or just need a good shove.” And she said “I told you: you go. I’ll go back to the party and tell Pati the elevator’s not working — yes, I concede; you were right all along,” and he said “Maybe I wasn’t.” “Anyhow,” she said, “she can call the super. But I’m not walking downstairs to get out of the building, at least not yet.” “It’s not that you’re in any way apprehensive of me,” and she said “Do you mean afraid of you? Of course not. You’re a friend of Pati’s, so why would I think that?” The surprising thing, he now thinks, was that they weren’t joined by anyone else from the party or floor, which had about eight apartments to it and it wasn’t late. The elevator came around then. He said “Like tie-ups on highways, no explanation when traffic finally gets moving,” and she said “I know, but hurray.” They got in the elevator and the door closed. “Think it’s safe?” she said, and he said “I now bet it was just someone unloading a whole bunch of packages or furniture.” “No,” she said, “it took too long.” “A huge piece of furniture could’ve got stuck in the elevator door or the person or persons kept the door open with something heavy while they carried some stuff into the apartment, and then got caught up in a phone call there,” and she said “Please, let’s get traffic moving.” He was nearer the button panel and said “Which floor should I push for you?” She looked at him as if she found the line peculiar or she didn’t quite know what it meant or something else but she didn’t smile or laugh, and he said “Just trying to be funny. I don’t know why I feel I always have to crack you up.” She said why would he want to? and reached past him and pressed the button for the ground floor and the elevator started moving — and he said something like “Before you think I’m entirely ridiculous or nuts — I’m not, the second one, anyway — let me in as adroit a manner as I can manage under the circumstances tell you why.” He said that what he was about to say must have been obvious to her at the party. He’d wanted to introduce himself to her since she got there but, and these were his exact words, “I didn’t have the guts.” Also, “and believe me, none of this is a line,” she was always talking to someone or several people and looking as if she was having a good time and he didn’t want to butt in. He must have made her uncomfortable, though, staring at her so much, and he apologized for that. They had to have been out of the elevator by now and might have been walking to the outside door. She said his staring, as he called it, wasn’t obvious to her because she didn’t remember seeing him at the party, and he said “Oh, you had to have, at least my shirt,” and opened his coat. “You see, I didn’t know it was going to be so formal an event.” His shirt was a long-sleeved rugby type, blue and yellow stripes with a white opened-neck collar. “I thought it was going to be a small informal get-together of friends Pati made at Yaddo this summer. I thought that because the day we left there, that’s what she said she was going to do this fall. I didn’t see anybody from Yaddo there. But I didn’t know she knew so many well-known painters and writers and high-powered critics and book editors and the like. I didn’t get to meet any of them but overheard people saying they were there and a couple of them I recognized. In fact, I was talking briefly with some writer a few years younger than I, who cut me off and said ‘Excuse me, so-and-so publishing bigshot just came in and I was told I should meet him.’ What a schmuck.” “He was only trying to push himself a little; that’s not too bad. But what I find curious is that I still have no recollection of you at the party.” He remembers she took a while buttoning her coat and wrapping her muffler or scarf around her neck and maybe even adjusting her gloves and cap before they went outside. “Oh, I was there, all right,” he said. “I know, but what I’m saying,” she said, or at least something like this, “is that I think I would have remembered you, as you said, from your shirt. I don’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable, either. I certainly hope I’m not. Your shirt is just fine, and that it has long sleeves, even better for a late-fall party. But it does stand out in its own way and would have contrasted with all the jackets and ties and dress shirts. Were we ever in the same room together?” and he said “Oh, yeah. And by the way, you were very diplomatic just now and I don’t at all feel uncomfortable in what you said. At first I felt a bit odd at the party in this shirt, but I quickly got over it. But I even got so close to you in a couple of rooms — I’m afraid to even admit this bit of snooping, but here goes; I’ve just about told you everything else except, maybe, how surprised and disappointed I was when I saw you were suddenly gone from the party — that I… where was I? That I was able to see