The Four Temperaments (27 page)

OSCAR

O
scar went
to the airport to meet Ruth's plane. He took a taxi because Gabriel had his car and Oscar couldn't bring himself to drive Penelope's white Volvo, unharmed except for a scratch on the hood that police concluded had nothing to do with the accident. When he first saw her coming into the terminal, his eyes had instantly misted over. But when he actually came face-to-face with her, he found himself imagining a science fiction scenario in which the real Ruth had been replaced with an impostor, an alien secretly gestated and hatched from a diabolical pod.

It was hard for him to shake this feeling, because there didn't seem to be a chance for them to talk. On the ride back, there was Isobel to occupy them; Oscar was unexpectedly happy to see the baby. And once Gabriel had arrived, there was even less opportunity. Although Ruth was there in body, Oscar doubted her spirit. Despite her physical proximity, he felt even more alone; he didn't like the feeling.

As a
boy, Oscar had lived with his family in a small apartment on Tiebout Avenue in the Bronx. He shared a room with his older brother, Nathan. His sister, Helen, had a room of her own; his parents slept in the living room. There was seldom a time when he was by himself: even practicing the violin was something he learned to do with other people in the background. He could still remember waiting in front of the music stand, bow in hand, while his sister walked briskly back and forth, curling her hair, getting ready for a date, and his mother clattered about in the apartment's tiny kitchen. If his father were home, he would be reading his newspaper in a chair; his brother would be striding through the room, on his way to the library, or the movies or the vacant lot up the street where he and his buddies from school gathered to play stickball.

At the High School of Music and Art, Oscar was always surrounded by friends and, soon enough, by girls. His sister got married, and instead of her moving out, her new husband moved in. The apartment grew even more crowded. Then Oscar was accepted to Juilliard, and his parents went with him to look for apartments in Manhattan. They were all so expensive that he quickly decided to room with two other students. One of Oscar's new roommates had a friend, freshly arrived in New York from Missouri, and the friend started sleeping on the sofa. Pretty soon the friend was sharing their meals and paying rent, and so it was discovered that the apartment could accommodate four as easily as three. They had a schedule for who used the bathroom at what time in the morning, and another at night. When Oscar met Ruth at Tanglewood—where naturally he had roommates; wasn't he always bribing them so he could be alone with her?—and they married soon after, he went from living with three other people to just one.

At first he found the quiet unsettling. If Ruth went out to a movie or to dinner with her sister, he had the whole apartment to himself and he didn't know quite what to do in it. When the children came, the even minimal sense of solitude vanished again, not to return for the next twenty-five years. By that time, he felt that Ruth was in him and around him, even when she was not literally there. So when she left, he felt his solitude keenly, like a sweater made of an itchy wool that he couldn't ignore. He told this to Mrs. Erikson, who nodded her head in understanding.

But Ruth's telephone call from the airport in Mexico and her subsequent return were equally, if surprisingly, unsettling to him. He felt as if she were a magician, with the awesome ability to make things appear and disappear at will. Except instead of rabbits or doves, the shifting, disappearing variable was Ruth herself.

Maybe they
would be able to talk once the funeral was over. All the Kornblatt boys were there, even Ben, who had flown in from London with Laura. Oscar thought he detected a new fullness to her body that hadn't been there before. Maybe she was pregnant. He hoped so. It would make Ruth happy. And Oscar really wanted Ruth to be happy because he didn't want her to leave again. He still wasn't entirely convinced that she wouldn't.

Driving back from Greenwich, he wished he could talk to Ruth about Laura, but there were other people in the car. Once they had arrived at their apartment, she decided to go to a supermarket on Broadway, because Isobel needed diapers. Gabriel was staying with them, and Oscar helped him put Isobel to sleep. Then Gabriel went into the guest room, the room that had been his as a boy. Though Oscar wanted to talk to him, he was reluctant to do it in that room, which suddenly felt filled with Ginny's presence.

Oscar sat on the sofa, hand on the remote, but the television screen remained black. He didn't want to watch anything, and he was afraid that listening to music might wake Isobel.

“Dad?” Oscar looked up to see Gabriel standing in the doorway. If it had been William or Ben, they would have been in search of a ball game or wrestling match to watch, but that was unlikely with Gabriel.

“Sit down,” Oscar said. If he couldn't talk to his wife, he could at least talk to his son.

“There's something I've wanted to ask you.” Gabriel sat next to his father, his long legs hemmed in by the coffee table. “How come you're so complacent? Aren't you angry at her for leaving you?”

“She had reason to leave me,” Oscar said, his voice surprisingly loud and firm. He glanced toward the room where Isobel slept, but his voice hadn't awakened her. Yet the words seemed to deflate Gabriel. His shoulders slumped and he turned away.

“Gabriel, what is it?” Oscar asked.

“I guess she thought she had a reason to leave me too. And to take Isobel.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I didn't tell you before.” Gabriel turned back to his father. “I was ashamed to.”

“Tell me what?” Oscar was having trouble understanding his son, as if Gabriel were speaking a different language, one where the words were the same but their meanings had changed.

“That morning Mom left. I know why she did it.”

“You do?”

“It was because of Ginny.”

“I don't understand,” Oscar said. “I never even saw her that day.”

“But I did.” Gabriel waited while the full meaning of his words sank in.

Oscar imagined the two of them together, Ginny's white arms wrapped around Gabriel's body, her mouth on his. It was not an image a father wanted to have of his son, though Oscar had had it before. In the past, it made him savagely jealous. Now it made him sad. He guessed there was some consolation in that.

“Mom knew,” said Gabriel quietly. “And I think she was horrified. By me, Dad. Not you.” There was a long, awkward pause. “That's why she took her. She didn't think I deserved her.”

Oscar stared at his son before putting an arm around his shoulder. He hadn't felt this close to him in years. “Who really deserves anything?”

GINNY

G
inny was
on her way to see Gabriel. He had called her when he was back in New York. But they were not meeting at her apartment; somehow neither of them suggested that. Instead, they agreed to meet in front of the Museum of Natural History. Not that she had any desire to go in there—the rooms of bones and stones didn't do a thing for her. But from there they could take a walk, maybe even through Central Park.

Gabriel looked better than he had the last time she saw him, only very thin. At first, they didn't say much. They walked along in silence, and every now and then, she looked up, but on the sly, like when she used to watch herself in the mirror in Wes's class. Gabriel didn't look at her at all.

There were lots of people in the park, as there always were on a nice Sunday afternoon. Not that Ginny really knew about Sundays, or any other days, in the park. She hardly ever went there. In fact, the last time was with Oscar, months ago. Strange to think about that now.

“How is she?” Ginny said abruptly. “Your daughter,” she added. She couldn't bring herself to say the baby's name, not when she was so acutely aware of another baby's presence, a baby she would never tell him about.

“She's fine. I'm looking for an apartment.”

“In New York?” Why did this fill her with such apprehension?

“In New York. I need to be near my family now. Even if I'm furious with them.”

“And your parents are all right? Your mother too?” Gabriel had phoned her a couple of times to let her know where he was. Ginny hadn't been able to grasp how Ruth could have taken the baby and left. But she did understand Gabriel's desire to have Isobel back. She understood that better than she would ever be able to tell him.

“She left because of me, you know.” He stopped walking and looked at her then. “She knew I was going to see you that day. After Penelope was killed.”

“You told her that?”

“Of course not,” he said wearily. “She just knew.”

Ginny was silent. They started walking again.

“It was like I had lost everything. My wife, my daughter, my parents. You.”

“You haven't lost me.” She was feeling it again, the turning-without-spotting sensation.

“Yes, I did. I lost you when Penelope died.” He took her hand, the first time he had touched her since they met. But instead of the warm, familiar shiver, she felt nothing. “Let's sit down,” he said, leading her to a bench.

There was a cart with a man selling hot dogs and Gabriel went to get her a drink while she waited on a bench. When he returned, he was carrying a can of iced tea. She knew it wouldn't taste good, because things from cans never did, but it was sweet of him to remember.

“Didn't you get anything for yourself?”

“I'm all right,” he said.

“You can share mine.” He smiled for the first time that day.

“I think we both know that it's over between us.” He put his hands on his knees, a graceful man suddenly turned awkward.

“I guess it is.” Ginny tried to keep the relief out of her voice. This was not what she expected. But she was relieved nonetheless.

“It's not as if I don't care about you. I do. I wanted you like I've never wanted anyone. Not even Penelope. But she was my wife. And now she's dead. I'll never be able to look at you”—he reached out a hand to stroke her arm—“touch you, without thinking of her.”

Ginny finished the iced tea and walked over to the trash basket, where she deposited the empty can. Gabriel stood too and they began walking again, this time out of the park. Althea told Ginny that she was Gabriel's lifeline; now it seemed he had gone and cut it. He had set her free.

“You know, you've never seen where I live.” Ginny was not sure why she was doing this.

“No,” he said. “I haven't.”

“Do you want to?”

“All right,” he said.

Gabriel was
very gentle this time. But still she could barely stand the feel of his hands on her skin.

“What's wrong?” He sat up, moving aside the hair that had fallen across her face.

“I don't know.” She closed her eyes so she didn't have to see his. “Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.”

“Maybe it wasn't.”

Since the clock near her bed wasn't working, Ginny got up and went into the kitchen to check the time. She was supposed to meet Althea soon. The fall season was about to start and Ginny would be dancing in
Concerto Barocco
when it did. It was official now. Althea had borrowed some videotapes from the dance library and they were going to play them on the VCR at her place. Seeing other dancers in the role was important: it helped her decide what she needed to bring to it. And what she didn't.

“Do you have a rehearsal?” Gabriel followed her into the kitchen.

“Not exactly,” she said. “Something like it.” There was sunlight coming in from the small kitchen window; funny that she had never noticed it before, but then she was not here very often at this time of day.

“Good-bye, Ginny.” He buckled his belt. She suddenly wanted to put her arms around him, but knew that if she did, it would all come rushing out. There was another baby, she would have said. It was yours. Instead, she walked to the door and closed it quietly behind him. It was a thick, solid hunk of metal, and even if she pressed her ear right up against it, she didn't think she would hear his footsteps going down the hall.

Later, when Althea slipped the videocassette into the VCR, Ginny waited impatiently for the first strains of the Bach score. Instead, she heard sounds that were more strident and discordant. The dancers on the television screen wore black-and-white practice clothes; their movements were angular and stylized.

“This isn't
Barocco.
” She looked at Althea, perplexed.

“I know. I just wanted to show you something else first.”

Ginny watched for a few minutes.

“It's definitely Balanchine,” she said. “But I don't know which one.”

“The Four Temperaments,”
Althea said. “I danced Choleric.”

“You did?”

“Wait and see.” Althea nodded at the screen. “It's coming.”

Ginny settled back on the sofa to watch. She knew about
The Four Ts,
but she had never seen it performed and the company hadn't danced it since she had joined. It was one of Balanchine's earliest avant-garde works; he had been inspired by the medieval idea that four humors, or fluids, made up the human body. The humors were connected to the primal elements: black bile was earth, blood was air, phlegm was water and bile was fire. Ideally, the four humors were supposed to be in balance. But, in fact, one of them usually dominated, which explained the idiosyncracies of individual temperament.

Ginny saw how the ballet's four movements articulated these quaint notions. In Melancholic, the male dancer was gloomy and downcast, his movements constantly pulled toward the earth; in Sanguinic, the woman was buoyed through the air by her partner; in Phlegmatic, the dancers seemed to swim through water. And in Choleric, the ballerina—Althea—was demonic and wild. Ginny realized that she had never seen Althea perform before; this videotape represented the first time she had watched her mentor onstage.

“You were great.” She looked at the older woman with new reverence once the video had stopped and the lights were switched back on.

“I appreciate the compliment,” Althea said. “But that's not why I showed it to you.”

Ginny was puzzled.

“Does it have something to do with
Barocco
?” she asked.

“In a way. You've got to find the connection, though.”

“It's the temperaments, isn't it? Couldn't you say that every part has its own quality? Its own temperament?”

Althea looked at her encouragingly.

“Can we watch it again?” Ginny asked. “Please?”