The Believers (24 page)

She looked down at herself. The long hairs on her ghostly white calves were swaying in the bathwater like sea plants. Her toenails badly needed clipping. What was it Carol had said? She was uncomfortable with her femaleness? The smug little fool! She had as good as accused Rosa of being frigid. And why? Because Rosa did not conform to her twee, antique notions of femininity? Because Rosa had not jumped at the chance to have Mrs. Levine forage through her pubic hair once a month? She leaned over the side of the bath to stub out her cigarette. No, Carol was crazy. And all that stuff about the chomer and tsuvah was a crock: a shabby attempt to justify treating women like crap. She sat up with a sudden, angry whoosh. It was actually a blessing that she had seen the mikvah today, before she had wasted any more time straining to defend the indefensible. Fuck Carol. Fuck them all. Let them spend their lives bowing and scraping before the cosmic class monitor they had invented for themselves. She, Rosa, would have to do without Him.

CHAPTER
15

"Tanya's all for sending him to some retreat in Arizona," Audrey said, flicking a speck of something from Joel's hospital blanket. "For a thousand bucks a week, apparently, you get to meditate in the desert and have your shakti cleansed." She arched her brows at Jean and Karla, who were sitting on the other side of Joel's bed. "Can you imagine? I said to her, I said, 'That sounds lovely, Tanya, but will you really be able to afford it?'" She grinned at the memory of her own subtlety. "She shut up after that, didn't she?"

"What
are
you going to do, do you think?" Jean asked.

Audrey's smile faded. "Oh, I don't know, there's not much I can do, really."

"Actually, Jean," Karla said, "there's a good outpatient program in Queens that we might be able to get him into. I was telling Mom about it yesterday."

Audrey smiled and cocked her head in Karla's direction. "She thinks she's going to get Lenny to schlep to Queens three times a week, bless her."

"Have you considered an intervention?" Jean asked.

"Do me a favor, Jean! He's had a hundred interventions. If I have to read out another letter telling him how much I bloody care about him, I'll throw myself in a lake."

"Well, what does Rosa say?" Jean asked.

"
Pfft
, you know Rosa. She wants me to throw him out of the house and not have him back until he's cleaned up."

Jean considered this. "There might be something in that, mightn't there?"

Audrey's jaw stiffened. She was about to retort when a nurse entered the room. "Hiya! How you ladies doing?"

"We're doing fantastic, love," Audrey said. "What is it?"

"I have to drain Mr. Litvinoff's trachea. You may want to step outside for a few minutes."

To pass the time while they were waiting, the women strolled up and down the hallway, glancing through open doorways at the tableaux of other people's miseries: an old man flashing a vast, elephant-hide scrotum as he clambered out of bed; a teenage boy in big, old-fashioned headphones like earmuffs, grimly watching cartoons; a hospital volunteer swaying with emotion as he serenaded a young woman on an electric organ.

"I've been thinking," Jean said after a while, "I'm going down to Bucks County next week, and I'll be there for the whole of August. Maybe Lenny should come and stay."

"I don't think so," Audrey said.

"Obviously, it isn't the long-term answer," Jean added. "But it'd be good for him to be away from the city. And at least he'd be out of your hair for a bit."

Audrey shook her head. She didn't
want
Lenny away from the city. She
liked
having him in her hair. "Nah, it wouldn't work. Lenny doesn't do well when he's not at home. Do you remember that time he went to Turkey?"

"I think it's a good idea, Mom," Karla said. "Especially if we could get him back to the NA meetings."

Audrey pretended not to hear. "It'd play havoc with his allergies being in the country," she went on. "He'd be miserable."

"Oh, Audrey," Jean said, "
Come on.
Allergies--"

"He won't want to go, I'm telling you. And I can't make him."

"Yes, you can. Just tell him you're going to stop giving him money if he doesn't."

Audrey laughed. "Bloody hell, Jean, he had one little relapse..."

Jean looked at her gravely. "You've stopped taking these episodes of his seriously. But they are serious. One of these days, if you don't do something, he's going to kill himself."

"You've been reading too many
Reader's Digest
articles--"

"The truth is, Audrey, he may end up killing himself whatever you do. But if you do nothing, he
definitely
will."

"Oh, for God's sake." Audrey began to fuss unhappily with the clasp on her handbag.

"Jean's right," Karla said, after a moment. "I know how hard it would be for you to do this, Mom, but it would be a real act of love--"

"All right, all right," Audrey interrupted. "Spare me the fucking greetings card." They had stopped walking now. Next to where they stood in the hallway, an abandoned meal cart, piled high with used lunch trays, was giving off a sad mass-catering smell of sour milk and instant gravy.

"I know you'd never forgive yourself," Jean said, "if you couldn't say you'd done everything in your power to--"

"All
right
!" Audrey exclaimed. "I'll talk to him about it."

Until the moment that she actually broached the subject with Lenny, it seemed just possible to Audrey that he would surprise her and decide, of his own capricious accord, that he
wanted
to go to Bucks County. But his first, long gale of laughter closed the lid on that fantasy.

"Oh,
Mom
, you know I hate it there," he said. "I'd go nuts living with Jean for a month."

"She'll keep out of your way."

"Yeah? Well, I guess if she moved out of the place, I'd consider it."

"It's ever so pretty down there in the summer."

"No, it's not, it's depressing. And you know how I am with my allergies."

When Audrey saw that she was making no inroads with the soft sell, she tried suggesting, gingerly, that he might go in order to please
her
. This only elicited a wounded look and a petulant, "Thanks, Mom. I didn't know you were so desperate to get rid of me." At last, she got up the courage to present the ultimatum that Jean had suggested. If he didn't go, she would cut off his money. Lenny responded by denouncing her as a tightfisted bitch, and slamming out of the house, promising never to return.

When he reappeared, three hours later, he was weepy and repentant. He had not meant to lose his temper. He had only reacted like that because he was hurt and he couldn't bear the thought of being sent away. She wouldn't send him away, would she?

"Len, I have to," she told him. "I'm doing this for
you
."

"Fuck!"

She stepped back with a wince as he kicked over a kitchen chair.

"Why are you doing this to me?" he screamed.

"Lenny, love--"

"Don't come near me! You heartless fucking
cunt
."

It went on like this for four days leading up to his departure. Every morning, he would start out wheedling and cajoling, then he would move on to pleading and crying. Finally he would explode in violent abuse, before starting over and going back to wheedling. In his presence, Audrey maintained a mask of immutable resolve. Away from him, she wept tears of despair. Jean phoned every day, trying to keep her morale up. And Karla dealt with all the practical arrangements that needed to be made--finding addresses for the Narcotics Anonymous chapters nearest to Jean's house, changing Lenny's cell phone number so that his dealers would be unable to reach him, and so on. But no one, Audrey felt, could
really
help her. Her life was slowly and systematically being burgled of everything she held dear: Joel was gone--or as good as gone--trapped in the underworld of his coma. The integrity of her marriage--the nearest thing to an achievement she had ever been able to claim--had been snatched away by that harpy, Berenice. And now Lenny, her baby, was leaving her.

On the afternoon that Jean collected him, Karla left work early to go down to Perry Street and make sure that everything went off all right. Audrey was sitting on the stoop when she arrived, taking a respite from the louring atmosphere of filial reproach within.

"Everything all right, Mom?" Karla asked anxiously as she came up the stairs. "Where's Len?"

"On a plane to Rio," Audrey said dully. She jerked her head toward the house. "Inside, where d'you think?"

Lenny was curled up on the sofa with his back to them when they entered the living room. "How're you doing, Len?" Karla asked.

There was a muzzy grunt from the sofa.

"He's not feeling well," Audrey said. "He's got a cold."

"Oh, dear. Have you taken something for it, Len?"

There was no reply.

"I gave him some DayQuil earlier," Audrey said. "I'm really not sure he's fit to travel in this state."

Karla smiled. "He'll be fine, Mom. Jean'll look after him."

"I wouldn't think so. She'll probably have him mowing her lawn before the day's out."

"Shall I make you a cup of tea?"

Audrey shrugged miserably. "There's some coffee already made."

When Karla had gone into the kitchen, Audrey went over and knelt down next to the sofa. On the side of Lenny's head that was pressed against the sofa, his left ear had become folded over on itself, like a piece of origami. Audrey reached out cautiously to rearrange the ear, and then thought better of it. "You ready to go, then, love?" she said. "Jean says the weather is ever so nice down there at the moment."

There was a brief silence.

"Fuck off," Lenny muttered.

Audrey stood up and left the room.

In the kitchen, Karla handed her a cup of coffee. "It's going to be okay. He'll cheer up when he gets there."

Audrey shook her head. "I don't think he will. He's in a terrible state. This is bringing up all his abandonment issues, I can tell." She sat down at the table and looked wanly around the kitchen. "Do you want to stay for dinner, then?"

Karla bared her teeth in an expression of pained regret. "I would, Mom, but Mike's expecting me back. We've got some stuff to do on our adoption application--"

"Oh. All right."

"I could phone him if you like and tell him I'm going to be late."

"Don't be silly. I was only thinking of you. I've got plenty to be getting on with, believe me."

"Are you sure?"

"Do shut up, Karla,
yes.
"

Karla sat down at the table.

"So," Audrey said, after a moment, "how's this adoption business going, then?"

"Good, yeah." Karla nodded vigorously. "I mean, it's early days..."

"What are you getting, then, a boy or a girl?"

"We don't know, Mom," Karla said. "I mean, we're only at the beginning of this process. You're not allowed to specify the sex anyway--"

"I'd try and hold out for a boy if I were you. I bet that's what Mike wants. Men always say they don't mind what they get, but underneath, they all want boys."

Karla wiped something from her eyes.

"What's the matter?" Audrey asked.

"Nothing."

"You're not
blubbing
, are you?"

"No."

"Why are you blubbing?"

"Nothing.... I'm just a bit emotional at the moment."

Audrey studied her.

"You can't be crying about nothing. You're not
that
soppy."

"Honestly, I'm fine."

"What is it--do you not want to do this adoption?"

"
No
, of course I want to."

"You don't seem too thrilled about it."

"I am thrilled."

"And Mike?"

"Mike's dying to be a father."

"Is everything all right between the two of you?"

Karla gave a little sob. "Yes. Of course."

Audrey's eyes narrowed in speculation. There was a problem in the marriage, that was clear. If she had to bet, she'd say Mike was having an affair. "I'm surprised you're doing this adoption now," she said. "It doesn't seem like you've been trying to get pregnant long enough."

"Oh, we've given it a good shot, Mom."

"It's only been eighteen months."

"No, longer."

"Really? How much longer?"

"Two years and a bit."

"Blimey. Time flies."

A tear ran down Karla's cheek. "Anyway," she said briskly, "Mike wants us to get started sooner rather than later. He thinks it's important to have kids when you're still young enough to run around with them."

Audrey's surmise now had all the conviction of scientific knowledge:

Mike was having an affair. No doubt, Karla was going through with this adoption in the hope that a baby would keep the marriage together. Audrey was not much moved by other women's marital difficulties as a rule. Wives of straying husbands tended only to irritate her with their self-dramatizing unhappiness and their confident expectations of sympathy.
Big deal
, she always wanted to say to them:
Join the club
. Or, as her mother had told her, when she got her first period at the age of thirteen: "Well, now you know. Being a woman isn't fun." Yet something in Karla's misery stirred her now--filled her with an outraged sympathy that she had not known she possessed.

"Who cares what Mike says?" she burst out. "A man has nothing to say in matters of reproduction."

Karla looked at her in surprise. "But, Mom--"

"It's a woman's business." Audrey stood up, suddenly embarrassed, and took her mug to the sink. What was she trying to do? She couldn't save her daughter from Mike's infidelity. Married life was hard. Karla would have to deal with it like everyone else.

"Forget it, I don't know what I'm saying," she said. "I'm going to see how Len's doing. Pour another coffee and bring it in for him, would you?"

On the long ride back to the Bronx, Karla thought about what her mother had said to her. It had been odd to hear her refer so dismissively to Mike's wishes. Audrey had never had a very high opinion of Mike, it was true, but she rarely failed to take his side. Most of her marital advice to Karla over the years had seemed to be based on the assumption that Mike was performing a remarkable act of charity in agreeing to be her husband and ought to be rewarded with complete obeisance.

At home, Karla found Mike lying on the floor in their bedroom, doing crunches.

"Well, he's gone," she said, sitting down on the bed.

Mike was counting under his breath and did not reply.

"Jean's such a nice lady," Karla mused. "I really hope he's not going to screw this up."

"One hundred..." Mike lay back on the floor and exhaled noisily. "Of
course
he's going to screw it up, Karla"

"Don't say that. We have to give him a chance."

Mike sat up. "Your essay is ready, right?"