Schmidt Steps Back (18 page)

Hey Schmidtie, she cried after embracing him, big news! Jay and I are lawfully wedded! We went to Riverhead last Friday morning and did it! Isn’t that something? Bryan and one of the girls from O’Henry’s were the witnesses.

It is big and wonderful news; I’m so happy for you. He embraced Carrie again and once again vigorously shook Jason’s hand. I only wish I could have given a wedding lunch for you!

We didn’t want you to, Carrie said, it’s a hassle. That’s why we were sneaky and got it done while you were away.

Carrie’s extraordinary tact: in truth Schmidt had been turning over in his mind what he would do when those two finally got married. A reception on the lawn following a morning ceremony? Something in the house or under a tent if it was in the evening? Should he have a band or a DJ or no music at
all? And above all, who would be the guests? Carrie’s parents, Mr. Gorchuck, the Board of Education employee, and Mrs. Gorchuck, the Puerto Rican cook with swollen limbs, Mr. and Mrs. McMullen, Jason’s Nova Scotia father and mother, Mike Mansour and Gil and Elaine Blackman, Mike’s staff, at least those whose services at Mike’s house could be temporarily dispensed with, the boys and girls from O’Henry’s, and who else? Perhaps Jason’s pals from the New York police force, if he had kept up with them. A strange group and a strange social occasion! Now he would be spared this trial. That left little Albert’s christening. He was to be the godfather! Would he be expected to give a reception, presumably for the same group?

Dear Carrie and Jason, he replied, I would have so much liked to do it here, on the lawn.

That half lie took him right back to Charlotte’s wedding, to her cruel—in his opinion—and stupid choice of a restaurant in Tribeca as the setting, rather than the house in which she had been brought up. He took a moment to collect himself.

It’s too early in the morning to talk about such things, but I want to give you a handsome wedding present. Jason, you listen to me. You’re the practical one in the family. You figure out what would be best and tell me. The sky is the limit.

In that at least he was 100 percent sincere.

Gee, thanks, Schmidtie, was Jason’s response.

He might have said more, but Carrie took over. Say it with cash, Schmidtie, she told him, the new house, little Albert, the marina, it’s like a drain. Money goes out, and very little comes in.

Consider it done, Schmidt said.

Hey, we have more news. Little Albert! The doctor wants him to come out on June fifteenth. He’s so huge and well
developed he thinks I may have made a mistake figuring out his due date. She laughed and nudged Schmidt with her elbow.

Another overwhelming wave of feeling. Because the baby was almost there, because the earlier it had been conceived the less certain was the paternity of the blond Viking nodding and wiping tears on his sleeve. In which case—no, he wasn’t going to think about it yet. Let the baby come, let his features tell the tale. But for the record he told them: I’m so glad I’m back and that I’m not going anywhere until sometime in June. Hooray for Albert, Mama and Papa, and the doctor!

Schmidtie, that’s not all! Carrie replied. We’ve signed the contract on the house in East Hampton. The closing is in eight weeks to give the people living there time to move out, and the guys are going to get to work on it right away. We’ll be out of your hair before Labor Day!

Out of my hair! Never, never. The door will be always open; when you’re here, you’re at home.

They said it was about time they headed for the marina, and he accompanied them to the front door. Holding it open, he watched them get into Jason’s pickup. His elected family: Carrie, his young mistress; the blond giant who virtuously and rightly had taken her away from him; and the mysterious child about to be brought into the world.

Nine o’clock. In a half hour he could safely call Charlotte. He poured himself another mug of coffee and began to go through the stack of mail. Ninety percent was junk. The rest was bills that he set aside along with his bank statement and communications from his two investment advisers, who seemed to be sending more and more bulletins on the state of the economy and its future. Out of a sense of duty, he skimmed them. What a waste of paper! Every reader of the
Times
knew
that George H. W. Bush had bequeathed to Clinton a mess that the Republicans seemed bent on making worse, but the investment advisers found it in themselves to see the good in their shenanigans. Of course, their clientele wasn’t all mavericks like Schmidtie, disloyal to their social and economic class. The poor guys had to play to their public. The country really had deserved better than that silly man with his silly preppy personality and habits. It must be easier to fool the country than your high school classmates. Schmidt knew people older than himself who had been to Andover with Bush and were ready to certify that even then he was a creep. All the same, Schmidt was taken aback by his own rush to judge and condemn. Silly Bush. Appalling Popov. Why exactly had Popov been so appalling at college and ever after?

Clearly, Popov’s being a Bulgarian didn’t help. Knowing nothing about Bulgarians, Schmidt didn’t like them. They were a backward nation, he believed, steeped in Eastern Orthodox religion, using the Cyrillic alphabet, and teeming with bearded and unwashed married priests. Could anything be more unattractive? Popov fit right in. There was something unwashed about him as well, then and now. That black suit, for instance, that he had worn at a time when practically no one at Harvard College wore a suit unless going to a funeral or a wedding, and, even then, nothing like that black double-breasted number plus a shirt of dubious whiteness, a frayed necktie narrow like a ribbon, and an outrageous red pocket square. Did any of that really matter? No, it didn’t, but it managed to make Schmidt uncomfortable. The two or three men who wore suits whom Schmidt liked and respected were golden-haired boys born with gold or silver spoons in their mouths. Was it then Popov’s seeming poverty that made him
repellent? No, it really was more the pasty white face and evident want of personal hygiene. All right, Popov was a slob, and a slob whose roommate Bill, also Gil’s friend, was an even bigger one. Yes, but who was Schmidt? A dress-code enforcer or a housemother inspecting her little charges’ fingernails? No, there was more to it. Popov had made him uncomfortable, talking over his head, pulling rank as a sophisticated European—a European born into a powerful family, a fact that was not then unknown to Schmidt—taking advantage of an American who wouldn’t get to Europe until the summer after his sophomore year, for whom the ballet and the opera were terra incognita, and, worse yet, so far as Popov and his actor roommate were concerned, who believed that Truman had been right to go to war over Korea and didn’t consider Eisenhower a moron. Gil, the wonder-boy Jew from Brooklyn, already held the full set of requisite liberal ideas—including an unshakable conviction of Alger Hiss’s innocence—played the piano, had brought a record player and a stack of opera LPs with him to Cambridge, and had been to Europe twice. Gil’s father was a surgeon and his mother a dress designer, and so Brooklyn wasn’t somewhere in East New York but a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. It was obvious to Schmidt why he wasn’t meanly envious of Gil, why he didn’t resent him: he had had a late-blooming schoolboy’s crush on him that in some form still endured. One thing was certain: Schmidt’s dislike for Popov would not have taken on so sharp and invidious an edge without its lining of resentment and guilty curiosity.

Half past nine. He called Charlotte. After three rings, a sort of milestone of promptness in his telephone communications with her, she answered.

Dad, where were you?

You mean yesterday?

Yes, I called three times and finally left a message.

Actually I was on a plane returning from Paris. I made another short trip. But I sent you a letter before leaving, with my itinerary and all that.

Jon or I must have tossed it. We had such a stack of junk mail when we got back.

Of course, thought Schmidt, who would bother noticing his return address on the envelope?

I’m sorry, he told her. I didn’t change the message on my telephone because people now say that if your message announces that you are away you’re inviting burglars. There have been a couple of burglaries around here. Did you have a good time?

Are you near a chair? Yes, then sit down. Dad, I am pregnant. The baby is due in September! And we know it’s a boy! I haven’t told anyone except Jon’s parents until now. I wanted to be sure he’d stick around. We’re calling him Myron. Jews can’t name a child for a living parent, but Renata has an uncle whose name is also Myron, so that’s all right. We’re in the clear.

He wished she hadn’t told him about that name just yet, but really it didn’t matter, not at all. With great effort he managed to speak: Sweetie, sweetie how absolutely marvelous, I’m so happy. How I wish your mother were alive! She would have been over the moon. Is Jon there? I would like to congratulate him.

That would have been the first time he had spoken to his son-in-law in a long while, longer than he cared to remember, and he was relieved to learn that it was not to be. Jon was at the gym and afterward would be heading straight to
the office. She would transmit Schmidt’s congratulations. He decided he would put the question—perhaps, given the truce they had declared, it was not out of order and wouldn’t bring her wrath on his head. Was there any chance of luring her and Jon to Bridgehampton—for instance, over the Memorial Day weekend?

Guessed wrong.

Dad, she replied, the syllable stretched into Daaaad, we just can’t, I’m taking a maternity leave from my office—it will have to be unpaid, of course, they only pay for one month—and moving up to Claverack.

Claverack was where she and Jon had bought a house in order to be closer to the senior Rikers’ property, refusing the gift he had offered to make her of his interest in the house in Bridgehampton, the house where she had been brought up.

And what if I scooted up to the city? he asked.

Really, Dad, can you just stop and imagine what’s involved in the move? I haven’t got one moment free.

He noted that she wasn’t inviting him to Claverack.

Yes, she continued, Renata thinks it would be best for me and the baby if I got out of the heat and hassle in the city, and I think she’s right. Jon will come up every weekend, and then he’ll take what’s left of his vacation.

Oh, said Schmidt, and then you’ll come back to have the baby in New York?

I don’t think so. There is a very nice modern hospital in Hudson, just about seven miles away. Low stress, no hassle. They encourage midwives and breast-feeding, which is what I want. You can come to see the baby when we bring him home.

I see, said Schmidt. Very well, thank you for telling me. Good luck. Stay in touch.

Then he did sit down and wished it were later in the day, that the sun were over the yardarm. He needed a drink. Reflecting on his need and the time of day, and the absence of anyone on the premises who might reprove him, he got out the bottle of bourbon from the liquor closet and the quart of milk from the refrigerator and made himself a very tall drink, one-half milk and one-half booze. He allowed it to soothe him. It was too early to call Gil Blackman. He let another half hour pass before trying Gil’s New York office and was told by the secretary that Mr. Blackman was at his country house in Wainscott. She would connect Mr. Schmidt.

The familiar voice cried, Schmidtie, how terrific! Are you in Bridgehampton or are you speaking from Kharkov? If you’re here, would you like to have lunch? The usual? At one?

That’s what I had hoped, Schmidt replied. I’ll see you at one.

The Polish cleaning women were making a racket in the house, running the vacuum cleaner, shouting to one another. Schmidt took a sweater, just in case, and headed for the beach. As often happens in May, when the moon is in the last quarter, the ocean was like a lake, lapping the shore lackadaisically. There was no one else in sight, no footprints on the brilliantly white sand. Schmidt walked fast as far as Gibson Lane, checked his watch, and turned back. He was home by twelve.

The blinking light told him there was a message on the answering machine. Jon Riker’s voice, asking Schmidt to call him at the office. He repeated the telephone number. Quite possibly, Jon was on a peacemaking mission, not a bad idea from any point of view, and, as a practical matter, necessary now that there was going to be a grandchild. Riker came to the telephone at once and said nothing. At a loss for words himself, Schmidt offered his congratulations. Since Riker
remained silent, Schmidt told him it was too bad that he had to spend a beautiful May Saturday at the office rather than with his pregnant wife.

That elicited an answer: Can’t be helped, times are bad for the legal profession right now, so we all have to hustle. You should be grateful this doesn’t apply to you; it wouldn’t fit with your established habits.

A stupid and malicious thing to say, Schmidt thought, but he wasn’t about to allow himself to be riled. He said nothing. The silence sank in, and Riker spoke again.

There was a reason for my call, Al. It’s your grandson. What are you going to do for him?

Riker knew very well that Schmidt loathed being called Al. Why was he doing it, and what was it that he wanted? He replied calmly: Can you explain what you mean?

Al, you must know what I mean. Are you going to set up a trust so the kid can sail on his own bottom?

So that’s what it was. The man was a swine.

I see, said Schmidt, and what do you mean by little Myron’s being able to “sail on his own bottom”? Being able to pay his bills? You’re going to charge him room and board and make him pay for his visits to the pediatrician? I hadn’t realized you were broke.

Jesus, Al, don’t play dumb. I’m not talking about room and board or visits to the pediatrician. Have you heard how much nannies cost or preschool or kindergarten or elementary school and high school? I’m not even talking about college and law school or medical school!

I will make myself clearer. Do you earn so little, are you so broke, that you can’t take care of your own family?