Authors: Joyce Carol Oates
A Widow's Story (28 page)
Chapter 64
“Never, Ever That Again”
Dear Joyce,
Oh please don’t think of giving up. Many people who value and need your friendship would miss you terribly. This may seem a little abrupt but I’ve begun to think that we might be friends, and I surely don’t want to lose a friend that I may have just found! And we don’t need to lose any more people with your sensibilities . . . I can’t imagine that you would want your life’s work to be colored by this great sadness. I tried to kill myself once—no one close to me knew or knows about it—many, many years ago when I was an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota. I was under a lot of pressure in school taking advanced classes, working to pay for school, living with my girlfriend. I thought I could do everything—and very well—but I was overwhelmed. I didn’t follow the surefire, masculine Hemingway route . . . I took pills, which allow for a period of reflection before it’s too late. I did finally make my way to the emergency room where I was treated with shocking cruelty (to teach me a lesson?). And in the end, I wandered out of the hospital unnoticed, in the midst of severe hallucinations! (Which I find equally shocking.) Obviously I survived the attempt, and I will never, ever do that again. Even just seeing the sunlight is worth it . . .
Please take care of yourself.
G.
Outside the bell jar of the widow’s slow-suffocating life is the “real world” at a distance remote and antic in its ever-shifting contortions—glimpsed in newspaper headlines, fragments of television news—avoided by the widow as one might avoid staring at the blinding sun during an eclipse.
Exactly why this is, that the “news” so upsets me, I’m not sure. I don’t think it can be just that Ray was so avidly interested in the news, especially in politics. I don’t think that this is it, entirely.
Where once I’d scrolled through the cable stations out of curiosity, and spent several months watching Fox News in the late evening, researching a novel set in “tabloid hell”—now I can’t bear to hear these monologue rants and “panel discussions” involving shouting and interruptions.
In Princeton, New Jersey—where no one watches Fox News and my interest in such righteous enemies of “secular progressivism”/liberalism/Democrats is considered a quirk of the fiction writer’s skewed mentality—the
sole topic of conversation
for months has been the Democratic primary for the presidential candidate in the upcoming election.
For it seems that half of Princeton is rallying for “Hillary”—the other half for “Obama”: at social gatherings there are endless discussions of the merits/demerits of “Hillary”/“Obama”—endless discussions of the merits/demerits of the candidates’ campaigns—endless discussions of the political/moral/economic/intellectual/spiritual bankruptcy of the Bush administration and how an incoming Democratic president might deal with this terrible legacy.
Often there are sharp, highly vocal disagreements: a number of Princeton people are actively involved in each of the campaigns, fund-raising, speech writing, “consulting.” (One single, singular Princeton individual is “pro-Iraqi War”—a locally notorious Middle East advisor to Bush/Cheney.)
It is astonishing how virtually the same words are uttered again, again and again—“Hillary”—“Obama”—with subtle, shifting variants. One would think that there is nothing in life, nothing of significance in life, except the Democratic primaries. Nothing except politics!
Because they are not wounded people. Because they are free to care about such things—the life of the more-than-personal
,
the greater-than-personal—as you are not.
In these gatherings I am thinking of Ray. I am seeing Ray.
The vision of my husband in his hospital bed—in that last, deathly hospital bed—superimposed upon this living room, upon the bright-peopled gathering. I am thinking of how Ray has lost this world, he has lost his place in this world, he has been expelled from this world, even as, oblivious to his absence, the world careens on.
If I should take my own life . . .
In this setting, how forlorn, silly, sad, trite these words! In this instant, suicide is not a possibility.
I am thinking of my friend in Minnesota—whom I have not yet met—who’d written to me so frankly and so kindly about trying to kill himself as an undergraduate—
I will never, ever do that again.
His calm caring letter is a rebuke to my desperation.
I must think of grief as an illness. An illness to be overcome.
And yet: how lonely I feel, amid my friends. I could be a paraplegic observing dancers—it isn’t even envy I feel for them, almost a kind of disbelief, they are so utterly different from me, and so oblivious. These are the people on the brightly lit ship putting out to sea, I am left behind on shore. Now wanting to think
But your happiness too is fleeting. It will last a while
,
and then it will cease.
As at dinner in New York City, in an Upper East Side restaurant, my friend Sean Wilentz and our mutual friend Philip Roth become quickly so engaged in a discussion—a heated discussion—in fact, an “argument”—that I am in the position of a hapless spectator at a Ping-Pong match, glancing back and forth between the men. Sean, who happens to be working for Hillary Clinton, is very critical of Obama; Philip, an ardent supporter of Obama, is very critical of Hillary Clinton. You have to be impressed, listening to these two, by the refusal of either to concede to the other’s point of view, as by the absence of any gesture of quasi-compromise—
Maybe I’m mistaken
,
but—.
I am thinking of how, the last time I saw Philip Roth, Ray was with me—of course. We’d come into the city and had dinner together at another of Philip’s favorite restaurants, the Russian Samovar. Philip told us then that he’d begun to feel lonely in his country house in Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut—one by one his old friends were dying—the winters were particularly difficult. How remote to us at that moment, any thought that Ray—an “old friend” of Philip’s also though not a close/intimate friend—might be the next to die . . .
It’s so, one always thinks that death is elsewhere.
Though death may be imminent, it is imminent
elsewhere.
How I wish now that I could recall what we’d talked about, with Philip! As the men continue to argue—now the subject has shifted to the ever-iterated conundrum
If Hillary is elected
,
where will Bill be? In the White House? Telling her what to do?
—I am thinking of how we’d mostly laughed; Philip is very funny, when he isn’t passionately engaged in arguing politics; though Ray had strong opinions about politics he wasn’t argumentative, and he and Philip shared the same opinions at that time.
Ray and I had never visited Philip in Cornwall Bridge though we’d visited friends/neighbors of Philip’s, years ago—Francine du Plessix Gray and her husband the artist Cleve Gray. Cornwall Bridge is a rural, very beautiful and very hilly northwestern corner of the state, not far from the Massachusetts border, an ideal place for a writer who is something of a recluse, or who values his privacy.
I am thinking that I couldn’t bear to live alone, as Philip has done since the dissolution of his marriage to Claire Bloom years ago. A life so focused upon writing, and reading; a life of isolation in the interstices of which there are evenings with friends, and (seemingly short-lived) liaisons with younger women; a brave life, a stoic life commensurate with the claim
the unlived
,
the surmise
,
fully drawn in print on paper
,
is the life whose meaning comes to matter most.
A line of Franz Kafka’s comes to my mind. The conclusion of “A Hunger Artist”—
I never found the food I wanted to eat. If I had
,
I’d have stuffed myself like everyone else.
For Philip, as for me—Kafka is a predecessor-cousin. Older, remote, iconic, “mythic.” Long before I’d known that my father’s mother was Jewish, thus I am “Jewish” to a degree, I’d felt this strange kinship with Franz Kafka: every aphorism uttered by Kafka is likely to be one lodged deep in my soul.
No one but you could gain admittance through this door
,
since this door is intended only for you. Now I am going to shut it.
The horror of the widow’s posthumous life washes over me. The door before me, the only door through which I can enter—will be shut to me, soon.
Philip was very kind to have written to me soon after Ray’s death. Not once but twice.
For I’d failed to reply, the first time. Philip’s letter of sympathy—succinct, very touching—I’d placed on a corner of my desk, where I saw it every time I approached. A plain sheet of white paper, a few typed lines—
The few times we were together I was always impressed by his calm and his kindness . . . Your fortitude is such that you’ll go on but it must right now be a stunning loss. I am thinking of you.
Scattered about my study in the way one might place precious stones in an ordinary setting are such sympathy letters and cards from a number of our friends. But the majority remain in the green tote bag, unopened.
Very few of these letters have I answered. A strange lethargy overcomes me, a dread of the words a widow must write.
Thank you for your condolences. Thank you for thinking of Ray and for thinking of me. . . .
Words of such banality, futility! Like the “suicide note” scrolling in my head much of the day and night, which I assume I will have enough good sense/pride never to share with another person.
If Hillary wins the nomination—
If Obama wins the nomination—
If the Democrats have a majority in Congress
,
finally—
What a terrible legacy the Bush wars in Iraq
,
Afghanistan!
When we part on East Eightieth Street, Philip and I hug each other. It’s a wordless gesture, as between two battered individuals. If I’d told Philip that Ray read
Exit Ghost
soon before entering the hospital from which he never returned, I did not tell Philip that, for me, the most riveting passages in the novel had little to do with the protagonist but with a Connecticut friend named Larry who, diagnosed with cancer, manages to smuggle one hundred sleeping pills into his hospital room in order to kill himself in a place where professionals are at hand to care for a corpse. In this way the considerate husband and father spares his family “all that he could of the grotesqueries attendant upon suicide.”
I’m sure that “Larry” was a Connecticut neighbor of Philip’s—but I can’t bring myself to ask.
The first time we’d met Philip Roth was in the summer of 1974. I’d interviewed Philip for the first issue of
Ontario Review
in a sequence of questions to which Philip wrote thoughtful answers. We walked in Central Park—dropped by Philip’s apartment in the East Eighties not far from the Metropolitan Museum of Art—spent several hours together. I remember the three of us laughing a good deal. I remember Philip’s customary wariness, watchfulness. But I’m not sure that I remember what I’d written at the end of the interview, about the interior of Philip’s apartment—his study filled with books including the classic Baugh’s
A Literary History of England
and, on a wall, a “somber, appealing photograph of Franz Kafka”—the identical photograph which, as an idealistic and literary-minded undergraduate at Syracuse University in the fall of 1956, I’d taped to the blank beige wall above my desk.
At a book signing in New York City, a tall figure in jeans, denim vest, blue cotton shirt with sleeves neatly folded back to the elbows presents me with seven books to sign
for Lisette.
It isn’t clear if the person is male or female, relatively young or not-so-young, a baseball cap has been pulled down to obscure part of his/her face.
“ ‘Lisette’! That’s an unusual name.”
“Yes. I think so.” The voice is low, throaty—a woman’s voice?
“Are you Lisette?”
“No. Lisette is my girlfriend.”
I glance up seeing it’s a woman—late thirties, or early forties—lanky-limbed, with short-trimmed sand-colored hair, a strong-boned face and pale eyes. Reticent by nature, perhaps—but something has triggered a sudden urge in her to speak to me, as if in confidence.
“Lisette loves your books, and I love Lisette. So I’m giving her these.”
“That’s very nice of you.”
At these public occasions my voice radiates a kind of warmth that surprises me. Is my widowhood a mirage, is this cheery smiling public-self my true self?
The widow’s vow—
If I am not happy
,
yet I can try to make others happy.
“And what is your name?”
“My name? M’r’n.”
“Marian?”
“Mar’n.”
Grudgingly she speaks, in a lowered voice. As if, whatever her name is, it’s of little significance to her.
“And what do you do?”
“What do I
do
?
—
I’m retired.”
“You look too young to be retired.”
This is so. Now that I think of it, the pale-eyed woman in denim is much too young to be retired. There is something in the way she holds herself, cautiously, tentatively, that suggests the anticipation of pain, and the wish to forestall it; the stronger wish to disguise it. Her lean face is suffused with heat. “I used to drive a truck. Now I don’t. Lisette lives in Denver. I’m going to Denver to live with her.”
“Denver! That’s far away.”
Signing the title pages of my books, in the large clear Palmer script of my long-ago schoolgirl self, invariably I feel just slightly giddy, as if, at such moments, the grim facade of life is stripped away and what is revealed is a kind of costume party. I am the Author, the smiling individuals waiting patiently in line to have their books signed are Readers. Our roles provide a kind of childlike contentment like those food trays in which areas are divided from one another, so that foods will not run together. Signing books for readers may be the only times that certain writers smile.
“Not so far. I can drive. I don’t fly, but I can drive. I’ll fill my truck. It’s a one-way trip.”
I am signing the next-to-the-last book, a paperback copy of
Blonde.
It seems to me that the mysterious Lisette must be blond. I ask how she and Lisette met and the woman says, “We ran into each other. In a bookstore. I mean, we ran into each other—really! I stepped right into Lisette. Didn’t mean to hurt her, but—that was how we met.” The woman is speaking in quick terse syllables like one who hasn’t spoken in some time. Her voice is eager now, almost giddy. In the aftermath of a crowded reading the atmosphere is often festive; strangers find themselves talking to strangers, waiting for the line to move.
“And what does Lisette do?”
“Lisette don’t
do
, Lisette just
is.
”
This is so wittily put, we laugh together. The woman in denim is delighted to be queried about the mysterious Lisette.
“Well! Good luck in Denver.”
The woman takes up her books, in a crook of her arm. One of the books clatters to the floor and she bends to retrieve it, stiffly. She turns away and murmurs, over her shoulder, “Yeah thanks. I’ll be OK. Soon as I get to Denver I’ll be OK and when I get over this leukemia, I’ll be OK.”
Within a few seconds the woman is out of sight. I feel a powerful urge to run after her.
But what would I say? What words? I have not a clue.
I hope you will be happy. You and Lisette
,
in Denver. I am thinking of you. I will not forget you.