A Week as Andrea Benstock
- Автор: Блок Лоуренс
- Год: 1975
- Язык: английский
- Год: Arbor House
- ISBN: 978-0-87795-100-1
- Жанр: Романы для взрослых
Электронная книга - «A Week as Andrea Benstock». Краткое содержание книги:
“No, not yet. It almost has. We talk about it without talking about it. I called him this morning to ask him if he would be coming home to dinner. It was childish, it was a way of telling him without telling him. I don’t really know why I did it.”
“Because you were hurt.”
“I suppose that must be why.”
“Of course.”
“It’ll be better when it all comes out in the open, when we can talk about it instead of talking around it.”
But her mother was shaking her head. “I don’t agree.”
“You don’t?”
“It would be better if he didn’t even know you knew, but I suppose it’s too late for that. But you can stop mentioning it, stop referring to it. You can act as though you’re forgetting about it, as though you’ve decided that it has all blown over. And that will make it easier for all concerned, and before you know it it will blow over, and that will be the end of it.”
“Just like that.”
“That’s the way it usually works, Andrea.”
“Unless it’s someone he’s serious about. And I think it probably is.”
“And you’re afraid.”
“Of course I’m afraid. Who wouldn’t be?”
“You’re afraid he’ll leave you and Robin.”
“Yes, I’m afraid of that. Or I may leave him — that’s a possibility too, you know.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Why would I do that?” Her voice cracked, and she reined herself in, made herself calm down. Quietly she said, “Because I just might find out that I don’t love him any more, Mother. For a starter.”
Her mother got to her feet, crossed the room and stood for a moment at the window. It was very much a theatrical gesture, and Andrea wondered if it had been done with a theatrical purpose in mind. Whether it had or not, Sylvia Kleinman had certainly taken command of the scene. She stood at the window, her back to Andrea, and let the silence build.
Then she said, “A couple of years ago you were talking about one of your friends, I don’t remember which girl it was. You said she was acting as if she was the first woman ever to have a baby.”
“Oh, Barbara Singer.”
“That’s right.”
“The expression wasn’t original on my part, I’m afraid.”
“That doesn’t matter. It was a nice turn of phrase because a person instantly knew just what you meant. You’re acting as if you were the first woman whose husband ever saw another woman.”
“In other words, it happens all the time.”
“That’s right, Andrea.”
“In other words, men are just little boys, and they can have sex without being involved, and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything, and if we all stick our heads in the sand like a flock of ostriches everything will be all right. In other words.”
“Not that, exactly.”
“Oh? Because that’s what it sounds like. Exactly.”
“No.” Crossing the room toward her, sitting on the couch beside her. “With some men that’s true. They have other women to prove their manhood. Or because it’s a pleasure that they aren’t willing to deny themselves, and it means no more to them than eating a meal or swallowing a drink. Maybe more men are like that than not, I couldn’t say.”
“I don’t think Mark’s like that.”
“No, neither do I. Although any man might be like that from time to time, but something you told me makes me think it isn’t that way in this case.”
“That he picked me up again after... after daddy’s death.”
“That’s right. If it was just physical, and the two of you became very close right after your father’s death. Not that you haven’t always been close but I think you saw how much you needed him. Now that would have been a very good excuse for him to break it off with this woman and leave it broken off. You don’t have any idea who she is?”
“No idea at all. I try not to think about her. Of course I want to know who she is, but at the same time I don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I can understand that. Well, it was a time when he could have left it broken off if it was just a sex thing, just a seven-year itch — you have been married seven years next month, isn’t it?”
“Seven years next month, yes.”
“But the seven-year itch isn’t necessarily just sex. Or it can be just sex, but the man involved might have to convince himself it was more than pure sex or else he would feel it was cheapened. What’s the matter, what did I say?”
“That was perfect, what you said. That’s Mark, all right. That’s exactly what he would do.”
“You’d know better than I would, Andrea, but I think he might do that.”
“Oh, he would.” There was a delight in this insight into his character, a pleasure in recognition. “He’s such a romantic. I think he could do almost anything if he managed to convince himself that he was doing it for love.” She closed her eyes for a moment. Without opening them she said, “He could leave me, if he thought he loved someone else.”
“He won’t leave you.”
“He might.”
“Not if you make it easy for him to stay. Right now you’re going through two things at once. You’re afraid, concerned about the future of your marriage, and at the same time your pride is hurt. Your pride wants to confront him, to force the issue, but underneath you want your marriage to last and so that’s the last thing you should do.”
They went on talking, and they drank coffee and smoked cigarettes, and Andrea kept raising objections which her mother kept handling, calmly, patiently. But there was something that kept her mother’s words from soothing her and she did not know what it was. Then she was struck by the visual image of her mother at the graveside, and then she knew.
She said, “But don’t you see? No, you wouldn’t see, because you had something perfect yourself. But whether the marriage lasts or it doesn’t, it almost doesn’t matter. Because it will never be the same between us again.”
“That’s not true.”
“We’ve been married seven years. How will I feel about Mark in thirty-two years? Not the way you feel about daddy.”
“You may. I hope you will.”
“Because I’ll forgive and forget? I don’t think a person does that.”
“Really?”
“No, I really don’t. Forgive? Oh, of course I would be able to forgive him, but it would always be there, wouldn’t it? I don’t think I would ever get over it.”
“But you would. You will.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone would completely get over something like that, really.”
“People do, Andrea.”
“I don’t think—”
“I did, Andrea.”
She looked at her mother. Their eyes met. She felt as if she’d been struck in the chest, directly over her heart, and involuntarily she put her hand to the spot and fancied she could feel her heart pounding beneath it.
She was back in her own house in plenty of time to take Lucinda to the bus stop. Then she set about preparing dinner, with Robin keeping her company. Robin kept up a nonstop account of all the fascinating things Lucinda had told her. On this particular day Lucinda had been preoccupied by the various ways in which any number of relatives and acquaintances had died. This one had cancer, this one had the pleurisy, that one had fallen in the path of a New York subway train. She didn’t know whether or not to interrupt Robin’s grim recital, but decided it would probably be more traumatic if Robin were prevented from repeating what she had heard.
And at least Lucinda talked to the child. She commonly said more in an hour to Robin than Andrea heard from her in a year.
She kept busy in the kitchen, kept up her half of the conversation with Robin. Mark came home at the normal time, and the two of them met him at the door. Robin wrapped her arms around his legs and hugged him. He picked her up and held her in the air. “Spring is here,” he announced, “’cause I see a Robin.” He put the child down and took the drink that Andrea was holding, and she got up on her toes and kissed him.