December 26, 1994
On Monday Chris drives to JFK to meet Sylvère’s plane from Paris. Their plan is to go from JFK to their other (rented) house in East Hampton, deal with a basement flooding problem, pick up some books Sylvère needs for the semester and then drive back to Thurman where they’ll spend the rest of Christmas Break. The plane’s due in at 7:30 but they don’t leave the airport ’til much later because Chris arrives 10 minutes late, Sylvère wanders off to find her and they circle around the terminal looking for each other for two hours. They fight about this all the way to Riverhead. Exhausted around midnight they settle into the Greenport Waterfront Inn motel (off season rates). For the first time since leaving California Chris fails to write to Dick. She and Sylvère still seem 4,000 miles apart; the distance drains her. But finally when Sylvère takes off his clothes they’re back on common ground: he’s wearing a homemade moneybelt stuffed with hundred dollar bills that his mother, a retired furrier, sewed on the eve of his departure. By June they hoped to pay down their most expensive mortgage. They count out the money on the bed—25 fresh one hundreds—they’re thrilled! They’d only been expecting 20.
And then they made love twice, Chris told Dick the next morning when she finally wrote her letter. Sylvère wanted to collaborate on details but Chris wanted to tell Dick about other stuff, about her visits with her girlfriends Ann and Shawna.
“Dick,” she wrote after sending Sylvère out for coffee, “this house business is so absorbing I wonder when I’m ever going to get back to the tedium and humiliation of the movie. I guess I will. Would it be enough to write to you? Yes, I don’t know, maybe—”
Maybe she told Sylvère how estranged she felt or maybe he sensed it. Because the next day, December 28, against his better judgment, Sylvère found a way of inserting himself back into the story.
Bruce & Betsey’s Guest Room
Mount Tremper, New York
Wednesday, December 28, 1994: 12 a.m.
Dear Dick,
Well the house was a disaster and I was too tired to write to you after 12 hours siphoning floodwater out of the cellar, then packing-shopping-driving. We’d meant to drive straight through to Thurman but we started talking about you in the car and Sylvère had this idea that maybe we could stop and visit your friends Bruce and Betsey in Mt. Tremper. I mean, they’re sort of his friends too (though if they find out about these letters, they won’t be). It seemed so outrageous and farfetched, but when Sylvère called Bruce from a pay phone he said, “Of course! You’ll spend the night!”
Next Morning:
It’s 7:45, Sylvère’s gone to get some coffee and I’m writing here in bed under a pile of wooly blankets. In fact it’s beautifuclass="underline" a maple tree, a frozen river, woods and winter chickadees seen through warpy glass French windows. Twenty years ago the place would’ve been an ideal setting for group acid trips.
Sylvère tried so hard last night to bring you into a final gasping conversation. The visit up ’til then had been so bourgeois and impersonal… shared platitudes about country houses, academic life, the advantages and disadvantages of commuting. Just as we were heading up to bed Sylvère had the nerve to pop the question: What did Bruce and Betsey think of you? Betsey remembered something smart you’d said: I don’t believe in the evil of banality but I believe in the banality of evil. What’s Dick got to do with Hannah Arendt? I wondered, while Betsey and Sylvère speculated on the banality you’ve embraced since moving to California. Sylvère gave the usual rap about America’s mythic hold on Europeans—why doesn’t he extend himself to you? He sounds so glib. “All my life,” you said, “I’ve thought about moving to the desert”; and “The nihilism beneath things here is terrifying.” Anyway Dick I like you so much better than these people. Bruce asks questions but never listens to the answers. Betsey blathers on to fill the void. She looks a little like the model Rachel Hunter: thin and busty, flat ass and masses of great hair, she’s read everything Bruce’s read but he has the career. Do you find these people charming Dick? Bruce looks even older than Sylvère, the two of them remind me of the kind of aging rock & roller/supermodel couple you see around East Hampton—kind of dumb and self-absorbed. I don’t know why I dislike them so much, Dick. But I do. I guess I’m disappointed? After all, Sylvère and I came here on a mission, and that mission was to be close to you.
I never told you about last night at Claire and David’s. David said the most subtle and intelligent thing about Arnold Schoenberg: When the form’s in place, everything within it can be pure feeling. It’s true of them as much as of atonal music. They are the perfect hosts from a world I’ve only read about, where having dinner is a kind of temporal art. They’re so cultured and intelligent, not nasty-smart but still provocative, drawing people out so that by the time the coffee’s served you feel like something has—occurred.
But now it’s time to get up and make one last effort here with Bruce and Betsey.
Thurman, NY
Friday, December 30, 1994: 10 a.m.
Dear Dick,
Sylvère has taken Mimi to the vet & I’m alone & want to bring you up to date on what happened yesterday at Bruce and Betsey’s.
Things got better. Betsey and I made pancakes while Sylvère and Bruce talked Marcel Mauss and Durkheim. Betsey’s studying to be a curator and we talked about her work. She’s already quite professional because she was careful not to commit herself by expressing any interest in my work. And then we ate and took a walk along the river. Outside the house Betsey and Bruce seemed more relaxed. Four deer ran across the towpath. We froze. I started liking them.
Then we walked over to another, 19th-century house that Bruce and Betsey bought at auction after it’d been repossessed. They joked about the pathetic former owner, a chainsmoking 50-year-old spinster who lived alone and made a living as a “commercial writer.” Of course I identified immediately. Betsey’d more or less cleared out the mess except for a few crateloads of trashy paperback romances. How odd. Perhaps these were books the “commercial writer” wrote? At any rate, Sylvère and I were ecstatic. Didn’t their titles perfectly describe my feelings? We’d found the missing clue.
Here are the titles of some books we took from Bruce and Betsey’s:
Second Chance At Love—Halfway There
Second Chance At Love—Passion’s Song
Second Chance At Love—A Reckless Longing
Research Into Marriage
Wife In Exchange
Beyond Her Control
All Else Confusion
Bruce and Betsey seemed puzzled and bemused but I don’t think they connected it with you. On the car ride home I started reading Research Into Marriage, then underlining, footnoting and annotating all the passages that could relate to me and you. It’s an exercise both adolescent (me!) and academic (you!)…my first art object, which I’ll give you as a present.