The Anatomy Lesson (27 page)

“
I
’
m
serious
,
”
said Zuckerman aloud, in the bedroom now dressing for the big day ahead,
“
—why is it so hard for people to take that at face value? I had to apply to four private schools to get Nathan accepted. A kid with an IQ of 167 and the first three schools turned him down. Because of me. I went with him for interviews. Why shouldn
’
t I? I asked them questions about the curriculum. I
’
m a dignified man.
I
feel myself to be a very dignified man. I have deep respect for education. I want him to have the best. I remember reading Henry Miller when I was fifteen. Pages and pages of eating pussy. I would read his description of pussies and think how limited I was. I couldn
’
t describe a pussy in longer than six words. That
’
s the first time in my life that it occurred to me to be ashamed of my vocabulary. If the teachers at school had told me that by building up my vocabulary I could write descriptions of pussy like Henry Miller, I would never have been left back. I would have had the motivation. That
’
s what I want to give my son. I would do anything in the world for h
i
m.
I
took a bath with him just last week. It was wonderful. You can
’
t imagine it. Then i go to Dr. Horowitz and he tells me don
’
t do that, the male cock is threatening to a young child. The child feels inadequate. I feel terrible. Horowitz tells me
I
got thai wrong too. But I want to share a
closeness
with Nathan. And I did. Man to man. My father was never behind me, never. I was going to change all that. My father gave me nothing. I
’
m a success so now he
’
s impressed. He sees the Rolls, he sees that people work for mc, that
I
live in a multimillion-dollar house, he sees the way my wife dresses, the school the kid goes to, and that keeps his fucking mouth shut.

But the kid has got an IQ of 167. and when he starts asking me what I do, what am I supposed to tell him? You
’
re the writer, you
’
re the genius who has the great ideas—you tell me what it is to be a father without having the answers.
I
have to get through the day
without having the answers.
And you don
’
t know them any more than
I
do. You don
’
t have kids so you don
’
t know
anything.
You would abolish, for all future Zuckermans, the maximum security of that crazy love. You would abolish all future Zuckermans! Zuckerman the Great Emancipator brings all that begetting to a stop… But you don
’
t know suffering until you have children. You don
’
t know joy. You don
’
t know boredom, you don
’
t know—
period.
When he
’
s twelve, when he starts to jerk off, then J can get through to him what the business is about. But at seven? How do you explain to a child of seven the irrepressible urge to spurt?
”

Well, however much pleasure was to be had from that mischief, it was time now to go. As a character he is still far from complete, but who isn
’
t? So Zuckerman thought until down in the lobby he was told by the doorman that the car and driver were waiting. The pornographer with the protesting mouth had apparently hired her for the length of his stay.

Big white snowflakes swept lightly across the hood of the limousine as they headed back onto the Drive. The distant sky looked just about ready to bring on in from the northern plains the season
’
s first big snow. Mr. Freytag
’
s ordeal was now to begin: a Midwestern winter—blizzards to bury her anew every night. Zuckerman
’
s mother was stored in the sunny South, where they buried you only once. After her funeral, a muscular man in a soiled T-shirt, his bicep tattooed
“
USMC,
”
had taken Zuckerman aside to say that he was Mike, the cemetery caretaker, and to ask how deep the family wanted her letters chiseled. Mike understood that both sons would be returning to New Jersey and wanted to be sure he had his instructions right. Zuckerman told him,
“
The same as my father
’
s letters.
”
“
That
’
s a half inch deep,
”
Mike warned;
“
not everybody knows how to do it that deep.
”
Zuckerman, stunned by the murderous speed of the tumor and then the swiftness of the interment, still couldn
’
t follow. The burial had taken no time at all. He was thinking that they
ought
to do these things twice: the first time you could just stand there not knowing what
’
s happening, while the second time you could look around, see who was in te
ars, hear the words being said,
understand at least a little of what was going on; sentiments uttered over a grave can sometimes alter a life, and he
’
d heard nothing. He didn
’
t feel like a son who
’
d just witnessed his mother
’
s burial, but like an actor
’
s understudy, the one they use in rehearsals to see how the costumes look under the lights.
“
Look,
”
said Mike,
“
just leave it to me. I
’
ll get somebody who won
’
t damage the stone. I
’
ll see you don
’
t get rooked. I know you want your mother looked after right.
”
Zuckerman got the message. He handed Mike all the loose bills in his pocket, and assured him he would see him the following year. But once the apartment had been emptied and sold, he never visited Florida again. Cousin Essie saw to the stone, and wrote the two boys to assure them that the cemetery sprinkled the grass daily to keep the grave site green. But that was like sprinkling Antarctica for the good it did the astonishingly intractable grief. Mother
’
s gone. Mother is matter, too. Almost three years, yet that idea had lost no force. It could still pop up out of nowhere to shut down all other thinking. A life previously subdivided by the dates of his marriages, his divorces, and his publications had fallen into two clean-cut historical epochs: before those words and after. Mother
’
s gone. The theme of his tortured night-long dreaming, the words that had moved his little double to cry,
“
Come back, I didn
’
t mean it.
”

This longing for a mother he
’
d left behind at sixteen—would he be suffering it so if he were working and well? Would he be feeling
any
of this so keenly? All a consequence of being mysteriously ill! But if not for the longing would he have fallen ill? Of course a large, unexpected loss can undermine anyone
’
s health—so will controversy and angry opposition. But undermining it still, three and four years on? How deep can a shock go? And how delicate can I be?

Oh, too delicate, too delicate by far for even your own contradictions. The experience of contradiction
is
the human experience; everybody
’
s balancing that baggage—how can you knuckle under to that? A novelist without his irreconcilable halves, quarters, eighths, and sixteenths? Someone who hasn
’
t the means to make novels. Nor the right. He wasn
’
t leaving voluntarily, he was being drummed out of the corps. Physically unfit for being torn apart. Hasn
’
t the muscle for it. Hasn
’
t the soul.

Equally pointless, he thought: trying to defend your work and trying to explain your pain. Once I
’
ve recovered, won
’
t indulge in either ever again.
Once I
’
ve recovered.
Terrific tribute to the
indomitable will to have so bracing a thought only the morning after—and about as likely as a dead woman returning to life because of a child in a dream crying out that he
’
s sorry.

Zuckerman finally realized that his mother had been his only love. And returning to school? The dream of at least being loved again by his teachers, now that she was gone. Gone and yet more present than she
’
d been in thirty years. Back to school and the days of effortlessly satisfying the powers that be—and of the most passionate bond of a lifetime.

He popped a second Percodan and pushed the button lowering the partition window between the front and back seats.

“
Why am I unacceptable to you. Ricky?
”

“
You
’
re not. You
’
re interesting to me.
”

Since their negotiating session in the bar she
’
d dropped the
“
sir.
”

“
What interests you about me?
”

“
The way you see things. That would interest anyone.
”

“
But you wouldn
’
t work for me in New York.
”

“
No.
”

“
You think I exploit women, don
’
t you? You think I debase them. A girl works at the Merchandise Mart making a hundred a week and she
’
s not being exploited, but a girl works in a Superca
rn
al flick, makes five hundred in a day—in a
day,
Rick
—
and she
’
s being exploited, is that what you think?
”

“
I don
’
t get paid to think.
”

“
Oh, you know how to think, all right. Who do you fuck out here, a good-looking independent young woman like you? In your position you must get a lot of cock.
”

“
Look, I don
’
t understand what you mean.
”

“
You got a boyfriend?
”

“
I
’
m just divorced.
”

“
You a parent?
”

“
No.
”

“
Why not? You don
’
t want to bring children into the world? Why, because you feminists find motherhood a nuisance or is it because of The
Bomb
? I
’
m asking why you don
’
t have kids, Ricky. What are you afraid of?
”

“
Is a childless home a sign of fear to the owner of
Lickety Split
?”

“
Very sharp. Bu
t
what are you sparring with me for? I
’
m asking you a serious question about life. I
’
m a serious person. Why won
’
t you buy that? I
’
m not saying I
’
m sinless—but I am
a man of values, t am a crusading person, and so I talk about what I
’
m crusading for. Why is it hard for people to take that at face value? I have been crucified on the sexual cross—I am a martyr on the sexual cross, and don
’
t give me that look, it
’
s true. Religion interests me. Not their fucking prohibitions, but
religion.
Jesus interests me. Why shouldn
’
t he? His suffering is something that I can sympathize with. I tell that to people and they look at me just like you. Egomania. Ignorance. Blasphemy. I say that on a talk show and the death threats start rolling in. But he never referred to himself, you know, as the Son of God. He insisted that he was just the Son of Man, a member of the human race, with all that goes with it. But the Christians made him into the Son of God anyway, and became everything he preached against, a new Israel in just the wrong way. But the new Israel is me. Ricky—Milton Appel.
”