The Accidental Tourist (33 page)

“No, I’m talking about the, you know, the world we’d be bringing him into. So much evil and danger. I admit it: I’d be frantic any time we let him out on the street.”

Macon saw Singleton Street in his mind, small and distant like Julian’s little green map of Hawaii and full of gaily drawn people scrubbing their stoops, tinkering with their cars, splashing under fire hydrants.

“Oh, well, you’re right,” he said. “Though really it’s kind of . . . heartening, isn’t it? How most human beings do try. How they try to be as responsible and kind as they can manage.”

“Are you saying yes, we can have a baby?” Sarah asked.

Macon swallowed. He said, “Well, no. It seems to me we’re past the time for that, Sarah.”

“So,” she said, “her little boy wasn’t the reason.”

“Look, it’s over with. Can’t we close the lid on it? I don’t cross-examine
you
, do I?”

“But I don’t have someone following me to Paris!” she said.

“And what if you did? Do you think I’d hold you to blame if someone just climbed on a plane without your knowing?”

“Before it left the ground,” she said.

“Pardon? Well, I should hope so!”

“Before it left the ground, you saw her. You could have walked up to her and said, ‘No. Get off. Go this minute. I want nothing more to do with you and I never want to see you again.’ ”

“You think I own the airline, Sarah?”

“You could have stopped her if you’d really wanted,” Sarah said. “You could have taken steps.”

And then she rose and began to clear away their supper.

She gave him his next pill, but he let it stay in his fist for a while because he didn’t want to risk moving. He lay with his eyes closed, listening to Sarah undress. She ran water in the bathroom, slipped the chain on the door, turned off the lights. When she got into bed it stabbed his back, even though she settled carefully, but he gave no sign. He heard her breathing soften almost at once. She must have been exhausted.

He reflected that he had not taken steps very often in his life, come to think of it. Really never. His marriage, his two jobs, his time with Muriel, his return to Sarah—all seemed to have simply befallen him. He couldn’t think of a single major act he had managed of his own accord.

Was it too late now to begin?

Was there any way he could learn to do things differently?

He opened his hand and let the pill fall among the bedclothes. It was going to be a restless, uncomfortable night, but anything was better than floating off on that stupor again.

In the morning, he negotiated the journey out of bed and into the bathroom. He shaved and dressed, spending long minutes on each task. Creeping around laboriously, he packed his bag. The heaviest thing he packed was
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling,
and after thinking that over a while, he took it out again and set it on the bureau.

Sarah said, “Macon?”

“Sarah. I’m glad you’re awake,” he said.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m packing to leave.”

She sat up. Her face was creased down one side.

“But what about your back?” she asked. “And I’ve got all those appointments! And we were going to take a second honeymoon!”

“Sweetheart,” he said. He lowered himself cautiously till he was sitting on the bed. He picked up her hand. It stayed lifeless while she watched his face.

“You’re going back to that woman,” she said.

“Yes, I am,” he said.

“Why, Macon?”

“I just decided, Sarah. I thought about it most of last night. It wasn’t easy. It’s not the easy way out, believe me.”

She sat staring at him. She wore no expression.

“Well, I don’t want to miss the plane,” he said.

He inched to a standing position and hobbled into the bathroom for his shaving kit.

“You know what this is? It’s all due to that pill!” Sarah called after him. “You said yourself it knocks you out!”

“I didn’t take the pill.”

There was a silence.

She said, “Macon? Are you just trying to get even with me for the time I left you?”

He returned with the shaving kit and said, “No, sweetheart.”

“I suppose you realize what your life is going to be like,” she said. She climbed out of bed. She stood next to him in her nightgown, hugging her bare arms. “You’ll be one of those mismatched couples no one invites to parties. No one will know what to make of you. People will wonder whenever they meet you, ‘My God, what does he see in her? Why choose someone so inappropriate? It’s grotesque, how does he put up with her?’ And her friends will no doubt be asking the same about you.”

“That’s probably true,” Macon said. He felt a mild stirring of interest; he saw now how such couples evolved. They were not, as he’d always supposed, the result of some ludicrous lack of perception, but had come together for reasons that the rest of the world would never guess.

He zipped his overnight bag.

“I’m sorry, Sarah. I didn’t want to decide this,” he said.

He put his arm around her painfully, and after a pause she let her head rest against his shoulder. It struck him that even this moment was just another stage in their marriage. There would probably be still other stages in their thirtieth year, fortieth year—forever, no matter what separate paths they chose to travel.

He didn’t take the elevator; he felt he couldn’t bear the willynilliness of it. He went down the stairs instead. He managed the front door by backing through it, stiffly.

Out on the street he found the usual bustle of a weekday morning—shopgirls hurrying past, men with briefcases. No taxis in sight. He set off for the next block, where his chances were better. Walking was fairly easy but carrying his bag was torture. Lightweight though it was, it twisted his back out of line. He tried it in his left hand, then his right. And after all, what was inside it? Pajamas, a change of underwear, emergency supplies he never used . . . He stepped over to a building, a bank or office building with a low stone curb running around its base. He set the bag on the curb and hurried on.

Up ahead he saw a taxi with a boy just stepping out of it, but he discovered too late that hailing it was going to be a problem. Raising either arm was impossible. So he was forced to run in an absurd, scuttling fashion while shouting bits of French he’d never said aloud before:
“Attendez! Attendez, monsieur!”

The taxi was already moving off and the boy was just slipping his wallet back into his jeans, but then he looked up and saw Macon. He acted fast; he spun and called out something and the taxi braked.
“Merci beaucoup,”
Macon panted and the boy, who had a sweet, pure face and shaggy yellow hair, opened the taxi door for him and gently assisted him in. “Oof!” Macon said, seized by a spasm. The boy shut the door and then, to Macon’s surprise, lifted a hand in a formal good-bye. The taxi moved off. Macon told the driver where he was going and sank back into his seat. He patted his inside pocket, checking passport, plane ticket. He unfolded his handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

Evidently his sense of direction had failed him, as usual. The driver was making a U-turn, heading back where Macon had just come from. They passed the boy once again. He had a jaunty, stiff-legged way of walking that seemed familiar.

If Ethan hadn’t died, Macon thought, wouldn’t he have grown into such a person?

He would have turned to give the boy another look, except that he couldn’t manage the movement.

The taxi bounced over the cobblestones. The driver whistled a tune between his teeth. Macon found that bracing himself on one arm protected his back somewhat from the jolts. Every now and then, though, a pothole caught him off guard.

And if dead people aged, wouldn’t it be a comfort? To think of Ethan growing up in heaven—fourteen years old now instead of twelve—eased the grief a little. Oh, it was their immunity to time that made the dead so heartbreaking. (Look at the husband who dies young, the wife aging on without him; how sad to imagine the husband coming back to find her so changed.) Macon gazed out the cab window, considering the notion in his mind. He felt a kind of inner rush, a racing forward. The real adventure, he thought, is the flow of time; it’s as much adventure as anyone could wish. And if he pictured Ethan still part of that flow—in some other place, however unreachable—he believed he might be able to bear it after all.

The taxi passed Macon’s hotel—brown and tidy, strangely home-like. A man was just emerging with a small anxious dog on his arm. And there on the curb stood Muriel, surrounded by suitcases and string-handled shopping bags and cardboard cartons overflowing with red velvet. She was frantically waving down taxis—first one ahead, then Macon’s own.
“Arrêtez!”
Macon cried to the driver. The taxi lurched to a halt. A sudden flash of sunlight hit the windshield, and spangles flew across the glass. The spangles were old water spots, or maybe the markings of leaves, but for a moment Macon thought they were something else. They were so bright and festive, for a moment he thought they were confetti.

The Accidental Tourist

ANNE TYLER

A Reader’s Guide

A Conversation with Anne Tyler

Q: Can Macon be described as an accidental tourist in his own life?
Can we all?

AT: Certainly Macon can, but I wouldn’t say that accidental tourism is a universal condition. Some people seem to have very meticulous itineraries for their lives.

Q: Ethan’s tragic death looms over all of the characters in this novel.
Why are so many characters angry at, or at least disapproving of,
Macon for his manner of grieving?

AT: Because to someone not very perceptive, Macon’s manner of grieving doesn’t really look like grief.

Q: Is it simply inertia that prevents Macon from dealing with Edward’s
misbehavior for so long? Why does he find the process of training
Edward to be so difficult and painful?

AT: While I was writing this book, I wondered the same thing. I asked myself,
Why do I seem to be going on and on about this ridiculous
dog, who has nothing to do with the main plot?
Then when Muriel asked Macon, “Do you
want
a dog who’s angry all the time?” (or words to that effect), I thought,
Oh! Of course! That’s exactly what he
wants! This dog is angry
for
him!

Q: Would you agree that Edward’s reactions to Muriel mirror Macon’s
to some degree?

AT: Oh, I think Edward is way ahead of Macon in his reactions.

Q: What does Singleton Street represent for Macon?

AT: Otherness. The opposite of his own narrow self.

Q: Macon, like many characters in this novel, feels trapped by other
people’s perceptions of him. Does Muriel see Macon as he truly is, or
as someone he wants to be?

A Reader’s Guide

AT: Neither, really. She sees the person she herself wants him to be; but since she’s an accepting and non-judgmental type, who he really is turns out to be all right with her.

Q: Macon’s friends and family are mostly disapproving of “that
Muriel person.” Is it simply a matter of class prejudice?

AT: Class for the most part; but also personality style. To a family so undemonstrative, Muriel would be a bit daunting.

Q: If not for Muriel’s persistence, would Macon have made a different
choice?

AT: Yes, certainly. Muriel is a pretty powerful force.

Q: In
The
Accidental
Tourist
, you write of Macon: “He began to think
that who you are when you’re with somebody may matter more than
whether you love her.” Ultimately, does Macon love Muriel?

AT: I think he really does.

Q: Macon remembers finding a magazine quiz in which Sarah
answered that she loved her spouse more than he loved her. How accuratewas her answer? Was Sarah correct in writing that she loved
Macon more than he loved her?

AT: Her answer reflected her limited understanding of Macon, I believe, more than the true situation.

Q: Is Macon being honest when he tells Sarah that Muriel’s young son
did not draw him to Muriel?

AT: I did mean that to be his honest answer. If anything, her son was a negative quality—at least in the beginning.

Q: This novel explores the vexed nature of romantic relationships. Do
the couples that have formed over the course of this novel stand a
chance?

AT: Yes, of course they do. These are flawed relationships—as all are—and they require compromise—as all do. But at least one member of each couple has found a way to make those compromises.

Q: The Learys are at once remarkable comic figures and deeply human
characters. How difficult is it to achieve this delicate balance and neitherveer into parody nor a humorless character study?

AT: In early drafts, when I didn’t know the Learys all that well, I did veer over one or the other edge from time to time. But the most rewarding experience in writing a novel is the gradually deepening understanding of its characters; and once I knew the Learys better, the balance came naturally.

Q: Is the Leary siblings’ geographic dyslexia treatable?

AT: Speaking from personal experience, I would say absolutely not. It’s biological.

Q: Will Rose and Julian’s relationship survive the transplant to the
Leary homestead?

AT: Yes, Julian will become a funny sort of quasi-Leary, purely out of love for Rose, and a helpful liaison to the outside world.

Q: Is there any hope for Porter or Charles?

AT: Well, not much hope they’ll truly change, of course. But they seem contented as they are.

Q: Do you have the narrative fairly well mapped out before you begin
writing a novel, or do you find yourself taking detours? For instance,
did you know all along how this novel would end?

AT: I map my books out in a very cursory way—say, about a page for each novel—and I always think I know how they’ll end, but I’m almost always wrong. In the case of
The Accidental Tourist
, I actually began a chapter in which Macon stayed with Sarah. But it didn’t work; something in the characters themselves persuaded me the ending would have to be different.

Q: Do your characters ever surprise you?

AT: All the time.

Q: What do you most enjoy about your life as writer? And least?

AT: The best part about being a writer is the experience of learning, gradually, what it is like to be a person completely different from me. The hard part is that for years on end, I am working in a vacuum. Is this a story anyone will believe? Anyone will care about? I won’t know that until I’m finished.

Q: If you could invite any writer, living or dead, to attend a reading
group meeting to discuss their work, who would it be? What would
you most like to learn from her or him?

A: I would rather
read
the writer, not hear him or her talk. I know that from being a writer myself: what I have to say, I have already said through my stories.

Q: What are you reading right now?

AT: Lately, I have fallen in love with Ann Patchett’s
Bel Canto
. It’s a mesmerizing novel, moving, amusing, and enlightening. And I am telling everyone to watch for Mary Lawson’s
Crow Lake
, a soon-to-be-published novel about a family of orphans in the northernmost reaches of Canada.