The War Between the Tates: A Novel (38 page)

“You think you’re doing harm here, in the bookshop?”

“Hard to say.” Zed has been unknotting his old black knit tie; now he pulls on one end, dragging it out from under the frayed collar. “It was all right at first. But now there’s too many people coming in all the time wanting me to solve their life problems—answer their spiritual doubts, tell them what to do, what to think. They write down whatever I say, including all the stupid things, and repeat them back to me. I don’t know how much longer I can take it. I’m not like your husband; I don’t like to be worshiped. It gives me claustrophobia.”

Erica laughs, starts to speak, and stops. She has always despised people who mock and disparage their ex-spouses, and has a horror of becoming one of them. Months ago she resolved never to speak against or even discuss Brian’s character with anyone but Danielle; she has cut off many conversations beginning “You know, I always thought Brian was—” with a cool “I’d rather not talk about him, if you don’t mind.” She is too fond of Zed to say this to him; instead she looks at her watch, sighs a little, consciously, and stands up.

“You’re leaving?”

“I think I’d better; it’s nearly eleven. I should go back to Danielle’s party—I sort of promised I’d help her clean up when it’s over.” Erica sighs again less consciously. For the first time in almost an hour she has remembered the woman she saw in the mirrors: worn, creased, no longer really pretty. It is this creased un-pretty person who must return to the party, and stay there perhaps for hours.

She lifts her fur coat from a stack of book cartons and begins to put it on; Zed scrambles off the ladder and attempts to help. “Here. Let me.”

“That’s all right.” Erica fastens her coat; she picks up a long rose-colored mohair shawl which has fallen to the ground, shakes out the dust, and wraps it around her head and shoulders. Zed, apologizing for the condition of his floor; follows her to the front of the darkened shop.

“It’s still going on,” she exclaims. Beyond the black silhouettes of books, the shopwindow is gray and clotted with wet flakes and clumps of snow.

Drawing back the bolts, Zed opens the front door on a solid block of heavy, exploding snow. Erica’s car, a few steps away under the street lamp, is a blurred white mound.

“Oh, heavens! Look at that.” She takes two steps out into it; is at once surrounded, blinded; retreats. “The street hasn’t even been plowed. What am I going to do?”

“You could wait here awhile, and see if it stops,” Zed suggests, shielding his face with one arm.

“Maybe I’d better.” Erica steps back into the shop, stamping her boots. “I wonder how long it’s going to last Did you hear any weather reports on the radio?”

“I don’t have a radio.” He shuts the door—the first time unsuccessfully, for snow has blown into the frame; then with a slam.

“I could call Danielle, I suppose.” Erica remembers that Sandy also has no telephone. “Is there a phone anywhere near here?”

“There’s one in the Chinese restaurant. But it’s probably shut by now.”

“You ought to have a phone.” Zed makes no comment. “Well, I expect if Danielle looks out of her window she’ll realize what’s happened, and ask someone else to help her. Her friend Dr. Kotelchuk, for instance.” Erica pulls off her shawl, which is filmy with moisture. “I mean her suitor,” she adds, loosening her coat and following Zed to the back of the shop.

“I can’t get over that you know,” she continues. “Did I tell you he proposed to her in the liquor store at the Co-op? I mean, really.” She laughs.

“He should have chosen a more romantic scene?”

“Yes, why not? At least a more private one. Wouldn’t you?”

“I’ve never proposed to anyone,” Zed says, taking Erica’s coat and laying it carefully over the cartons for the second time. “But yes; I suppose I’d probably wait for more auspicious circumstances. Of course that way you might miss your chance. Would you like more tea?”

“Yes, thank you.” Erica pulls her shawl around her shoulders. It is growing chilly, for Zed’s landlord, economically, only provides heat during business hours. “The whole idea is impossible, really,” she continues. “How could anyone want to marry a man named Bernie Kotelchuk?”

“Or Sanford Finkelstein.” Zed is stooped over the sink, rinsing out their cups; his voice is flat. “Maybe that’s why I—”

“It’s not the same thing at all,” Erica lies gaily, inwardly reproaching herself. “Not at all.”

He shakes his head. “It’s a ludicrous name.” His voice mixes with the wet uneven sound of water running. “I’ve always disliked it.”

“So you changed it.”

“Yes.” He turns off the tap.

“Why did you choose the name Zed? What does it mean?”

“Nothing. It’s the last letter of the alphabet.” He opens a tin and spoons tea into the pot.

“I understand why you might not like Finkelstein,” she says. “But what is wrong with Sanford, by itself?”

“I don’t know.” Zed looks round, shrugging his bony shoulders. “Perhaps it had become too familiar—too closely associated with a famous character in literature.”

“I don’t remember any Sanford in literature,” Erica says, puzzled. “Whose books is he in—Henry James’s?”

“Yours.”

“Mine? Oh. But that wasn’t—I didn’t mean—” She hears her voice rise falsely, falter. “It was just a name.”

“You turned me into an ostrich.”

“I’m sorry,” Erica says, alternately meeting and dodging his half-smile. “It just seemed the right sort of name—He was a nice ostrich, you know.” She looks guiltily at Zed, who is taking a box of wheat-germ crackers from the top of a bookcase. In her mind she sees superimposed the colored drawing in which she had depicted Sanford with one long, knobby leg up, helpfully reaching down some chocolate cake which the mother of Mark and Spencer had concealed on a high shelf.

“I didn’t think you’d ever see those silly books,” she says. “Nobody does usually, unless they have children; and I didn’t think you’d ever have children.”

“No,” he agrees in a strained chirp.

A short silence. Erica reproaches herself again, more severely. Zed, his back turned, does something with a plate. “I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I didn’t mean—Do you mind that very much, not having children?”

“I used to.” He turns around. “That’s not true; even now sometimes, when I see little kids—But I realize it doesn’t matter ...God’s will.” He shrugs again. “Creating beings who resemble you physically—that’s the lowest form of immortality. It’s a joke—a pretty bad joke, sometimes.”

“Yes.” Erica thinks of Jeffrey and Matilda, both of whom have been said to resemble her.

“It’s better to have “spiritual children. Like Sanford.”

“Maybe so ...You didn’t mind really, did you? About the books, I mean.”

“No. I was glad to know you still thought of me sometimes.”

“But I did, you know,” she protests. “Not just because of the books.”

“Really.” Zed raises his eyebrows. “I thought of you too, sometimes,” he adds mockingly, leaning back against the bookshelves.

Erica smiles with relief, and the beginnings of a flirtatious manner. “That reminds me, Sandy. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask: Did you know Brian and I were living here when you moved to Corinth?”

“No, I—” He hesitates. “Yes, I knew. That’s why I chose it.” From his expression it is impossible to tell if this is a joke.

“I thought you came back because you’d been to college here.”

“It was a sort of double feature.” He grins.

“But then you were in town for months, and you never called us or anything,” she complains coquettishly. “And Brian said he came down here once, last fall, and you didn’t want to tell him who you were.” Erica smiles; she is enjoying herself. “Anybody would think you were trying to hide from me.”

“Not at all, I—” Again he falters. “That’s not true either. I don’t know what’s the matter with me; I haven’t told any lies for quite a while, but I seem to be lying to you. What happened was, I knew Brian when he came into the store, but he didn’t recognize me—he only saw me a couple of times years ago, when I had more hair. I didn’t want to give him my name because I thought he’d remember it and tell you, and I didn’t want that. I wanted it to happen the right way. Like you said about Dr. Kotelchuk proposing in the liquor store.” Zed smiles.

“I don’t think you wanted it to happen at all,” Erica protests. She hugs her rose-colored stole around her shoulders, delighted to have rediscovered this old, charming, light-hearted self. “When you’d been here absolutely for months without calling. I don’t think you have any idea what you want.”

The kettle is boiling; he turns to fill the pot. “No,” he says over his shoulder. “I know what I want.”

“And what’s that?” She is almost laughing.

“You.” Zed turns his head, giving her, for the first time, the pale intense stare with which Brian and the habitués of the Krishna Bookshop are already familiar.

“I—” Erica’s laugh is extinguished, leaving her mouth empty. “Sandy, that’s absurd,” she says in the tone of one gently rebuking a child. At the same time, almost unconsciously, she gets up off the day bed and puts a chair between herself and Zed. “I mean, heavens, you’ve known me for twenty years.”

“I’ve wanted you for twenty years,” he says stubbornly.

An involuntary satisfaction rises in Erica. She stamps it down, hard, realizing that she has brought this declaration on herself. Because there is nobody now she can safely flirt with, she has been flirting with poor old Sandy; provoking him to console her for having had an awful time at a party and for feeling creased and plain.

“You can’t mean that literally,” she insists, smiling, holding on to the back of the chair. “You must have had affairs.”

“Yes,” Zed admits after a slight pause. “But not very many lately. And not very successfully.”

“I thought you gave all that up along with meat and telephones,” she says, attempting a light manner.

“No ...But none of them were ever quite real to me, you know. You’re the only woman in the world, as far as I’m concerned. The others always seem to me like imitations—bad copies.”

There is no doubt now that he is serious. But Erica forbids herself to be pleased or flattered. “Oh, Sandy. That’s just silly,” she announces sharply to both of them.

Zed says nothing to this, and makes no move. He leans back against the bookshelves in his old white shirt, with his bony shoulders raised. Most of the light has gone out of his eyes. He is not going to make any move, she thinks with some surprise; she is quite safe. She sighs with something like relief.

But this relief is followed by shame. Sandy is one of her oldest friends; he has provided her with countless cups of coffee and tea, listened to her worries about final examinations and faulty plumbing, lent her books, carried her groceries, loved her for twenty years. And how has she repaid him? She has used his name as a joke in some silly children’s stories, made him go to a large bad party, and first provoked and then insulted him. No wonder he looks at her now with mute pain and reproach, like a large scrawny wounded bird, shot out of season.

Somehow she must make amends. She comes out from behind the chair, toward him.

“I’m sorry, Sandy,” she says, putting her hand on his arm. To her distress, it is actually trembling under the shirt. “I didn’t mean—”

“That’s all right.” He smiles painfully, indicating that it is not all right. Erica feels terrible. What can she do? Like Brian in a similar situation, it occurs to her that if she were to kiss Sandy affectionately, he might feel better. She approaches the gesture awkwardly, for she is unused to taking the initiative and has not kissed anyone in months. Another difficulty, one which has not occurred in twenty years, is Zed’s height; she has to stand on tiptoe to reach his cheek.

His reaction to the kiss is odd: as she comes near he almost flinches, then he looks surprised; finally he smiles, but stiffly.

“You’re not angry?” she asks.

Zed shakes his head unconvincingly. Obviously he does not believe either in her apology or her affection. He believes that she finds him and his feelings “absurd” and “silly.”

How could she have said those words, been so thoughtless, so unkind? How can she take them back and heal the injury she has given?

But even as she asks this, the only possible answer occurs to Erica. That it will require greater self-sacrifice than anything she has done yet first frightens and then-begins to convince her. If you know of someone who wants your old clothes, your day-old bread, it is wrong to keep them selfishly in the cupboard; she has always believed this. For years she used to save all their stale bread, and once a week she and Jeffo and Muffy would go down to Reed Park and scatter it in the bird sanctuary.

Zed has still not moved. He stands there against the shelves of books with his wings hunched, not even looking at her, simply waiting for her to go away. Instead she takes a step in the other direction, toward him.

“Sandy, my dear. What’s the matter?”

He turns his head, looks down, hesitates. Perhaps, now he sees her so close, so creased, even he doesn’t want—Then slowly he straightens up and moves nearer; she sees in close-up his ill-shaven, freckled, tired scarecrow features; his pale eyes with their reddish rims and orange lashes. Nearer still—She closes her eyes, improving the view.

At first it is hardly like being kissed at all; then Zed, with a clumsy, half-blind gesture, pulls her closer and shifts his mouth so that it meets hers more accurately. Erica remembers the look in his eyes a few moments ago; she remembers the birds in the park, how impatient and greedy they always were, how they would press close to her and her bag of bread, flapping and squawking; she remembers Brian, and waits for Sandy too to crowd, to grab.

But he only holds her, stroking her face and hair, kissing her gently and intermittently. Gradually she relaxes, rests against him. She sighs—not in protest, but Zed releases her, blinking and putting out one hand to feel for the shelf behind him.

“Sandy? Are you all right?”

“Yes. No. I feel dizzy.” He laughs. “I feel—As if I’d got a birthday present I’d given up expecting.”

“Did you have a birthday recently?”