Tony and Susan

THREE

Susan and Arnold, later so respectable, committed adultery in the gaps between her teaching schedule and his emergency duties. First in Edward’s bed, the dark back room with alley beyond, full of books and magazines, with laundry hamper, orange crate, small TV set. Later in Selena’s, the tall window with blowing curtain looking over rooftops, the closet open with airy dresses and lingering perfume.

When that young Susan on Edward’s bed saw Arnold Morrow’s alarming penis suddenly come into view with swollen purpose, she heard a gong in her head. She heard another soon after, when she decided to let it in. Gong, her head said, goodbye Edward. There he goes. Shocked by what kind of person she was. It had never occurred to her her marriage was in jeopardy.

She did not mean it to end. It was over and not over. Edward would come back and never know, and Arnold would return to Selena, and Susan was henceforth an unfaithful wife. Against the electric joy of the new, she went bang against the wrong she was doing. Edward aggrieved, their hopes betrayed—if he knew. She was a jaded woman now, with a secret. She asked Arnold, who had it all figured out.

Who’s going to tell, he said, you? He had a philosophy according to which sex, vastly overemphasized by people attaching their egos to it, had nothing to do with his responsibilities to Selena (whom he would never abandon) nor hers to Edward. Arnold was especially down on jealousy, the stupidest of all emotions, nothing but property and power thinking they’re love. That’s my philosophy, he said while they lay open on the sheets, chatting in the sweaty afterglow.

She remembered having used the same argument (sex is natural) to rouse Edward. That was different. It led to marriage, for one thing. Yet already in this little taste of crime or nature (whichever), she had glimpsed a better life. Even before Arnold showed her his alarming thing, she thought: if I were married to him. For two weeks, during that casual ego-free affair, she compared Arnold’s superiority to poor old Edward.

Thick muscled, plump in face, dusty haired, a mesomorph unlike ectomorphic Edward, he was easier and more natural. His manner was calm, his temper serene (so far). He was unpretentious, intelligent without being intellectual, would doubtless be brilliant in his field and attractively stupid in everything else. She welcomed his non-intellectuality, his deference to her mind. (Later, when the question of marriage appeared, it was easy to talk him out of his philosophy, which he abandoned without argument, a cheerful concession to her brain. So she thought, anyway.)

She felt gypped. Envious of Selena, who didn’t appreciate what she had, which was available to Susan only on a rental basis. As she went about her work—teaching, paper grading, grocery shopping—she was so charged by electricity transferred from Selena that she dreaded Edward’s dull return like Cinderella turned back into a prairie dog. The glamor of Arnold’s magic sex, not that he was such a great lover, just the auspices or the situation or whatever—well, it’s hard for contemporary Susan to remember why Arnold seemed so glamorous.

Feeling bad for Edward, she tried to remember why she loved him. This is even harder for contemporary Susan because once she married Arnold it was important to make Edward’s memory as disagreeable as possible. She remembers trying to rebuild him like a knocked down castle, stacking together chunks of time and place memorialized by love or something—a castle soon to be knocked down a second and final time. She remembers remorse, as if she were rebuilding not just Edward, but Edgar’s Lane or her childhood or her mother, or something like that.

What went wrong? Susan could not divorce Edward and marry Arnold simply to validate a sexual adventure. She had her grievances. She hadn’t counted on his becoming a writer, giving up everything so that she could support him with her teaching. She hadn’t counted on his going off for a month to find himself. She had lots to be pissed off about, Susan, if you need reasons.

On the other hand, contemporary Susan remembers how, to preserve the status quo, she found and cuddled a frail feeling like a live or maybe stuffed small animal: Edward’s dearness. Like what she has cuddled when needed in more recent times: Arnold’s dearness. Since Arnold’s dearness looks very much like Edward’s, the two animals are perhaps the same and ought to be called Susan’s dearness.

Arnold and Susan planned an orgy before Edward’s return, but it fell through because of a change in Arnold’s schedule. She spent the evening cleaning the apartment. She had to get back into an Edward state of mind, and it was better to be busy. She was also near panic, because they had no plan to meet again, and she didn’t know what their future was supposed to be. They had forgotten to discuss it.

Then Edward came home. He called from a road stop out of town and arrived at dinner time. Glad to be back, poor Edward, lovely Susan. They had a drink and ate together, while she wondered if he had enough ESP to detect the deep change in their marriage. The unfaithful wife. He didn’t. He was depressed, he had been depressed before he went, he was still depressed. The woods had failed him. Her heart sank. He talked so much it was hard to sympathize, though she tried harder than ever before. He had accomplished nothing. He had thrown out all the work he had done in the cabin. What? Not literally, he had the pages in his suitcase, but he had thrown them out of his mind.

All evening as she listened to his complaint, she wondered what would happen if he knew. He was too preoccupied to notice. They went to bed. She was alarmed by her new preference for Arnold’s way, gentler and slower than Edward’s effortful puffing, while she kept trying to prefer Edward and revive love, because what else could she do?

She never saw Arnold now, not even on the stairs. No messages either. A week later she realized Selena had come home. Concealing her nervousness, she told Edward about Selena’s carving knife. She had to, lest it become a public event. He was mildly interested.

She decided the lack of word from Arnold meant the affair was over. She was confusedly angry about that, but utilized her anger on Edward’s behalf. She devoted herself to his problem. He appreciated that. It wasn’t that he wasn’t a writer, he explained, it was only that he was going too fast. He needed to go through a juvenile period. She tried to give advice without hurting his feelings. His feelings were easily hurt. He got very emotional and dependent. He dug up his old things and asked what was wrong with his style. His subject matter. Be frank, he said, and she tried to be, to explain what irritated her. That was a mistake. You don’t have to be that frank, he said.

In her heart (contemporary Susan sees this) she wished Edward would give up and settle down to something real. Not that writing wasn’t real, but she thought Edward was caught in a romantic dream for which he was not fitted. At heart he was as bourgeois as anybody else. He had a logical and organized mind, she could imagine him having excellent success running something, whereas writing seemed to be an infection of his ego, picked up somewhere, stunting his growth. She tried not to think such thoughts, which made her feel hypocritical as she gave him the encouragement he craved. Once when he had asked her to be brutally frank, she tried to tell him. She raised the question whether he had enough talent for what he wanted. Do you have to be a writer? she asked. That was a mistake. He reacted as if she had suggested suicide. You might as well ask me to blind myself, he said. Writing was like seeing, he said, not to write was blindness. She never made that mistake again.

A note from Arnold to her office: “Just to tell you, Selena knows. No problem, everything under control.”

Selena knows. This raises questions. Did Arnold tell, or did she guess? Was there a fight? Would Selena have new notions for her carving knife? What should we make of the fact that this was Arnold’s only word to her since Edward’s return?

The news increased the likelihood Edward would find out. She and Arnold might keep a secret, but Selena had no reason to. While Edward sat at the table as if in disgrace, obsessed with failure, Susan wondered what Selena would do when the mood came. She wouldn’t even have to tell Edward for the news to spread like a disease in the ivy trails reaching even to recluses in a state of depression.

To forestall the shock of a sudden discovery by Edward with its grief and loss of faith and her own embarrassed humiliation, she ought to confess in advance, so as to put the confession in her own terms. A volunteered confession would assure him it was over. Brief lapse in your absence, the stress of loneliness, telling you voluntarily so you’ll know you can trust and believe me. It won’t happen again.

Time passed. It’s easier to plan such words than to say them. With no sign from Arnold, she wondered if it might blow over. They met Selena on the stairs. Susan and Edward coming in, Selena out. Selena looked fiercely at her, differently at Edward, thoughtful. It left Susan gasping. What’s the matter? Edward said. The heavy grocery bags they were carrying.

How to tell him, break the news? What was she afraid of? Of hurting his feelings? Aggravating his depression? Driving him to suicide? Come on, Susan, don’t be so merely virtuous. Of losing him? Of losing face, more likely. Her status in the house. The new light he would see her in. Not to speak of the plain uproar, the anarchy the raw emotion would release.

At least you should know your position in advance. She meant to cleave by Edward. Love him, reassure him, be humble. The direct approach, picking his most vulnerable time: on the bed beside him without clothes, curling her hair around her nose, he relieved by the distraction from his obsession. Edward love, I have a confession to make. Not that direct. Ease up to it: Edward dear, suppose you had a wife who. Nor that.

Indirect, to smother him with so much love he would know before the words came out that she couldn’t possibly be saying anything bad. To come up behind him at lunch, put her cheek next to his, saying, Edward my sweet, how much I love.

The best way would be by accident when you are in the midst of something else. Day after day, she watches Edward, realizes as he talks, chews, holds his head, groans, belches, that he still doesn’t know. The big change is yet to come, the consequences yet to be revealed.

The best way to confess is to be already angry about something, so you’ll have the momentum of your grievance to carry forward against his hurt. And that’s how it finally did happen: in the midst of a discussion about writing—which was the only thing they talked about nowadays. She said, God, I wish you’d stayed in law school. His reply: When you talk like that, it’s like you were unfaithful.

She snapped: You haven’t the slightest idea what that would be like.

Edward full of emphasis: It couldn’t be worse.

It couldn’t? And so she told. Not rancorously, for as soon as she saw her opportunity, her mood changed to humble and sad. All the same, she told and ended by saying, It’s all over though, it has no future, I was not in love.

Edward the child. His staring eyes, which she had never seen so large. His meek questions: Who? Where? Do you want a divorce? Was it worth it?

He groaned, stretched, walked around the room, experimenting with reactions. What am I supposed to do? he said. How am I supposed to behave?

That’s what she remembers. He did not get angry. He kept asking her to confirm she didn’t want a divorce. He didn’t dare ask if she loved him, so she said it without being asked.

Contemporary Susan thinks her confession perked him up. A respite from his depression. The next time in bed he seemed to enjoy thinking about the unnamed lover in the air. He was tactful enough not to ask for comparisons. She figured she had broken down a wall whose presence she had not noticed until it was gone. Now we know each other better, she thought. Not so romantic, weaker than we thought, which is maybe good to know. Her marriage would be stronger, she thought, believing she was glad of it.