My Secret History (56 page)

She had not seen a word of it; no one had. That secrecy made me strong.

“I don’t know,” I said. I liked it for being a new thing, but I could not say it was good. And yet I was not worried.

It did not matter to me whether the book was good or not, though I was sure it was funny, and I knew there was merit in that. I believed that comedy was the highest expression of truth. This traveling would not say everything to everyone but it had something for some people, I was sure. They were people like me. In the course of writing I had stopped seeing myself as special or different and began to think: There are many people like me. I had written the book in order to lose myself, and they
would read it for the same reason, to get through their own Siberian winter.

There was one thing more that satisfied me. This was precisely the book I had in mind, the one I had set out to write. I wasn’t looking for praise, only a way of ending the trip; and had done what I intended. When the book was finished the trip was over. Now I was really and truly home.

I liked looking at the stack of paper. A book was a physical thing, and writing seemed to me like one of the plastic arts. I enjoyed holding the whole ream of it and bumping it on my desk and clapping it square with my hands. It was quite a bundle. I loved weighing it and then opening it at random, and squaring it up again.

It was unlike any other book I had written. And I had made it less out of my trip than out of my misery and disillusionment. I had been dying; and this was a way of living. For every reason I could think of, this was a strange and happy book. And now that it was done I could hand it over and go on living. In the course of writing it I had other ideas—for stories, for a novel. And never once did I think of a story that went: Once there was a man who returned from a long trip to discover that his wife had taken a lover. That was my secret, and not revealing it was the source of my strength. I saw that I had lived my whole life that way, drawing energy from secrecy, and feeding my imagination on what I kept hidden.

Jenny and I entered that emotional region that is past disappointment and fury, and beyond argument. We had arrived at a kind of peaceful aridity that is probably despair. Fury is life, but this was nothing like that. We had long since stopped arguing. She had given up on me, and I had retreated to my room and my book. Because she had despaired of me she hadn’t disturbed me. I had said hurtful things to her and she had replied with that utterly stupid formula, “I’ll never forgive you—”

It was the end of June, and warm. London had a sweet smell of new leaves and fresh flowers. I had the time now to take long walks and in these hours I felt lucky to be an alien: I could possess the city but the city could never possess me. Once I had been gloomy about not belonging, but these days I saw that it made me free.

Completing the book—that happiness—made me feel generous
and calm. And bold, too. Nothing bad could happen to me, because I had proven that I could overcome the worst.

I did not really know how things stood between Jenny and me, but I felt strong enough to endure anything she might say: that she wanted to leave me or that she disliked me. I did not blame her any longer for what had happened. It had driven me crazy but I was sane again. I was prepared to forgive, even if I could never forget—forgetting seemed to me stupid and sloppy.

It was clear to me that in the course of writing the book I had lost touch with her. I decided to be deliberate.

“Let’s have lunch,” I said. “I mean, up in town.”

She was surprised, but tried not to show it. She said evasively, “The places near the bank are so crowded and noisy.”

I suspected that she was afraid of me. I might start screaming at her in a restaurant: You traitor! You whore! I’m taking Jack away and you’ll never see him again! The fury might come back. Wasn’t it better to continue just as we had been doing, in a mood of desperate resignation?

I said, “We could have a picnic in Regent’s Park. I’d bring sandwiches.”

“It’s so much trouble,” she said, which was one of her ways of saying no.

“I have nothing else to do,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the bank.”

She said, “I don’t know.”

She was uncertain of me. She knew I was capable of making a scene. I was the man who had conned his way into Wilkie’s house and, at gunpoint—well, at least it looked like one—had made the assistant manager eat a piece of paper. I had dripped on the floor. I had been crazy. I could be crazy again.

“Are you all right?” she said.

She was asking whether I was crazy, and would I make a mess of it, and perhaps what was the point?

I said, “It’ll be fun. Jack can have his lunch at school.”

She looked frightened, but said yes, probably because she suspected I might become violent if she said no.

There were stares at the bank, and slightly worse than stares, people looking nervously away, pretending they were not interested: the absurd and wooden motions of people trying to act normal.

“I have an appointment to see Mrs. Parent.”

“May I have your name?”

Surely they knew me? But they wanted to hear me say it. This was drama for them.

“I’m her husband.”

That produced a sudden silence that was instantly filled with a buzz. I was admitted to the inner office. Slee was at his desk, concentrating intensely on a piece of paper. He was frozen in that posture, just like a squirrel on a branch when humans appear below, hoping to be invisible and sticking out a mile.

Jenny hurried down the stairs as soon as she got the message. She was nervous and wanted to be away from these people and this place. The bank had become a theater, and Jenny and I the actors. Everything we did mattered, and even her fear that I might revert and go haywire was obvious in her movements and part of the plot.

Some of the people when I glanced at them suddenly seemed to be smiling at me. When I smiled back they looked alarmed.

In the taxi, Jenny sat back and said, “It’s a lovely day for a picnic.”

There was mingled exhaustion and relief in her voice. It had been an ordeal, my meeting her at the bank. But I had played my part well, and she was grateful.

She smiled and said, “When it’s hot in June that usually means we have a rotten summer.”

“Summer’s always beautiful in the States.”

She glanced at me, a question on her face.

“I was hoping we could go there in July.”

“Where will we get the money?”

“This book. As soon as I deliver the manuscript I’ll get two and a half thousand—the last payment. It’s more than enough.”

She said what I felt: “It’s something to look forward to.”

The taxi set us down at the Inner Circle. We walked into the park and found a patch of grass near the rose garden.

“There’s some significance about the rose garden in the Four Quartets, but I forget what it is. Anyway,” I said, as I took the sandwiches out of my bag, “this is not the time for T. S. Eliot. Have a sandwich.”

They were cheese sandwiches—dry and droopy in the heat. There were also hard-boiled eggs, and some tangerines and chocolate cookies. When I set out everything on the grass it looked mismatched, rather frugal and childish.

“What a pathetic picnic,” I said.

“It looks delicious,” Jenny said, and began to cry.

I started to explain that it hadn’t been any trouble, and that I had more time now that I had finished my work; but she was sobbing—the odd gratitude of tears that is impossible to interrupt.

There was a formality and dignity in her tears, too, and she said, “Thank you for coming back to us.”

I was too moved to speak, and afraid that if I did I might cry.

We ate in silence. The sun on the grass warmed us with its buttery light. The air stirred slightly and brought us the fragrance from the rose garden.

“I was very unfair to you,” Jenny said, at last. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”

I had already made up my mind that I would, and though the wound still remained it was better to live with it than to pretend that it didn’t exist. And anyway the wound she inflicted on me proved that we were both human.

“I’m afraid you’re going to leave me,” she said.

I was strong enough to be on my own now; but I was saner, as well, and I was rational enough to know how much I loved her and needed her love. When I had left Siberia I’d had no choice but to press on and finish the thing by finishing the book. I had done it in cold winds and black night, and alone. Now that I was done I had a choice. But I was back again, and crudely stated, getting back again seemed to me the object of all writing. It had been a long journey from Siberia.

“I want to be happy, the way we were before.”

“I haven’t made you happy,” she said. “But if you give me a chance I think I could.”

She kissed me and brushed my eyes with her tears.

“I missed you,” she said. There were tears smearing her lips. “Oh, God, I missed you.”

I cried too and felt happy as I sobbed, and even happier afterwards. Then we simply lay side by side on the grass, listening to people in the rose garden saying “Isn’t it lovely and warm,” and “It’s absolutely smashing,” and “I want an ice-lolly.”

I was happy because I had her as a friend once again, and I was happy because my work was done. I saw that the only thing that mattered was that the book had been written in my way. The long trip had been described comically while I had remained
trapped in a mood of great grief. And fear had been one of the components of that comedy. A person who is doomed writes best about life—appreciates it, anyway. The whole object had been to write the book. That was satisfactory, and it did not matter at all what came after—publication, reviews, sales, and promotion could only be an anticlimax. Writing the book had been a way of living with dignity.

I could not tell her any of this. There were things I could write, but I was incapable of saying them. My being inarticulate was probably the reason I had become a writer, and why I had developed such habits of secrecy.

“We’d better go,” I said. “You’ll be late.”

“I’d like to spend the rest of the day here.”

“There’ll be plenty of other days.”

She looked at me, smiling with her tearstained face, and she said, “Why are you being nice to me?”

I hadn’t realized that I was being especially nice to her, but being happy was part of not noticing. I told her that I was happy, and she smiled. It was a gift to be happy and to know it at the time. Life could be so simple, and was happiest at its simplest. Secrecy had made me miserable, my own and hers.

When I leaned over to kiss her, I glanced beyond her and saw in the distance one of those low green hills in the park where in my dreams I took off and flew, my arms out like gull wings—not flapping but soaring over people’s heads, just above the ground. I had felt the wind buffet my chest and create a kind of pressure that held me up, and then weakened and dropped me.

During the next month I was excited at the thought that we were going to the States. That for me meant going the rest of the way home. And I had an idea for more work: the novel which began with a man at the window, watching the father being humiliated in the road blow, and the son looking on—the novel would be the consequences of that little scene. It was all I wanted, time and ideas; that was all I needed to be happy. Everything was possible with her love. Through an effort of will I had written my book without being conscious of her love, which was why the book was strange and necessary. I was almost certain it would be incomprehensible to everyone except those people who somewhat resembled me. How many of them could there be?

I delivered my book and collected my money and bought tickets to the States for the three of us. Just before we left London the telephone rang. It was one of those late-evening calls when it was sure to be very important or very irritating. It was America, the sound draining out of the wire, and then
peep
, and then my editor’s voice.

“I hope you’re sitting down,” she said.

I laughed, and said I had just had two pints of beer.

“It should be champagne,” she said, “because I have some wonderful news for you.”

I could not imagine what it could be, which was why I was so attentive. I wanted to tell her that I already had everything.

Then I discovered that the best happiness was unimaginable and couldn’t be forced. It was like a different altitude bringing on a physical change: breathing was easier, time was altered. And years passed—mostly sunshine. Good news, good news.

The plane cut lumberingly through the winter-bright afternoon, and down below I could see the geography of my childhood—the neck of Nahant, the stripe of Revere Beach, the lumpy islands of Boston Harbor, and beneath our approach the rest of it, Wright’s Pond, St. Ray’s, Elm Street, the Sandpits where I had kissed Tina Spector. Our altitude miniaturized it and made it look like a map of the past, the way it was in my memory.

We banked, Massachusetts was tipped on its side, we came in low over East Boston and Orient Heights, and it seemed—as it always does to people landing at Logan—that we were landing in the harbor chop. There was only blue water beneath us. Just before we touched down in the sea the runway appeared like a breakwater, and I was happy—my heart lifted. Every landing I made in America was a homecoming, something to celebrate.