Jack (Gilead #4)(87)
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What would be the point? All this misery was meant to send her back to her good life. Weighing one thing against another, say, for instance, that she was sad, embarrassed, disillusioned, she was also young, full of life, charming. It wasn’t in the nature of things that she would be alone any longer than she chose to be. He might show up sometime, just to say he regretted the way things had ended, and she would say, “I thought I was the one who ended it,” and laugh. She might say, “You’re looking very well,” to make the point that their separation had been good for him, which would imply that he had his own reasons for putting an end to the endless awkwardness they called their marriage. He might sense anger in a remark like that, knowing she would never admit to anger. He would be making a kind of demand on her pride that was never welcome, making her eyes tear or her voice fail or break, when this was the last thing she would want to have happen. Then he would know he had hurt her once by leaving, then hurt her again by disrupting the calm she had induced in herself to hide her shock, her sadness. He thought sometimes that he should give up the constant bathing and shaving, the suppers if not the breakfasts, because he had noticed he did look better. Flourishing seemed wrong in a man so disheartened as he was. He thought of sleeping on the floor. Then again, if Della saw him looking trim and fit, she might not wonder how she had ever felt an attraction to him. If he took reasonable care of himself, her first thought might not be that he was old. Years could have passed before he saw her again.
He would buy a suit. In St. Louis he used to wonder how many of the best suits went into the ground with their owners, as if their clothes could recommend them to that Dread Tribunal which, as Jack read the Text, would have found merit in a second-best suit, the better one left behind as a courtesy to the neces sitous shopper. So many of earth’s grievances could be soothed by a little consideration. These were the thoughts of a man settling into a life of comfort, more or less. He found sheet music for Chopin’s Etudes in the piano bench, and he studied them, softly exploring them on the parlor upright to the inexpressible delight of the landlady. His manners were not too refined for any occasion, as far as she was concerned, at least. Nor was his grammar too precise. He gave the place a certain tone, clearly, frayed cuffs notwithstanding. Still, he needed a new suit like a snake needs a new skin. There was a kind of itching involved.
At work he mastered the cash register. He was very much an adept at dealing with change. That old courtesy that had stood him in good stead as a shoe salesman and dance instructor had to be tempered a little, made slightly conversational, but he did well enough. He forgot customers’ names but remembered their interests, which flattered them. He got a raise. On quiet days he stepped out to lunch with the boss’s daughter. He had not yet found the moment to tell her that he was married, though he was always imagining that he would show Della this pleasant life he had wandered into. He imagined her sitting in that overstuffed chair in the evening lamplight, reading while he read, listening while he told her how long the days would be if he did not almost believe she was with him there. “This is our marriage,” she would say. “This is what we promised each other.”
On Sundays he would walk to black neighborhoods. He had looked in the phone book for the streets where their churches clustered, A.M.E., Baptist, Pentecostal. There were people in the streets on Sundays, dressed up, convivial. The idea was to find, to hear, even a word that reminded him of her voice, a timbre that he now and then did hear, that confirmed his memory. He could not summon it in his mind the way he could almost hear notes of a song, but he heard the unlikeness of other voices, the likeness of a rare few voices, there and gone in a phrase. She had to have sent him a letter. Her gentleness would have compelled her to.
Until further notice he was a married man. He found the idea bracing, stabilizing. The savings that had accumulated in a dresser drawer would go first toward a suit, but this was part of a larger intention. He had learned the practical value of a reputable life, not only its health benefits, but also the presumptively good opinion that came with expecting to be well thought of. A rope of sand. The trick was simply to think about the rope and forget the sand.
Having erased the last marks of pathos and distress from his appearance and manner, he would go to Memphis, to that A.M.E. church, and speak to Della’s father. He would bring a letter, carefully thought out, addressed to him. He hadn’t thought it out yet, but it would take a little time to make himself as presentable as he ought to be, so there was no urgency. If that went well, if her father accepted the letter, he would ask if he, Jack, might be put in touch with her, understanding, of course, that she might not want any contact with him. He would basically repeat the contents of the letter, but this was not to be avoided, since her father might refuse to speak with him and the letter would be one last chance, hope, really, to get all this said. Once, he had imagined telling her father that his relationship with Della had been entirely honorable. Now, while this was still absolutely true, it was no longer true in the sense he had meant it then or that her father would understand it now. We are married. No, you are not married. Both true, both false. I have been honorable. He could imagine himself sweating, wincing, under her father’s contempt. He was a liar, but not at that moment.
Just the same, he adhered strictly to his plan. No drinking, no cigarettes. So he had a little something to add to his savings every week. He did not steal anything, no matter how negligible it was, no matter how thoughtlessly it had been abandoned to the whims of the light-fingered. He did buy a sketch pad and some pencils, thinking he would try to draw her face from memory and expecting to fail at it. Memory would be less engrossing if it were more sufficient. He spent an evening making drawings that looked nothing like her, no matter the care he took over the curve of her cheek, her brow, the set of her eyes. The landlady came in with an arm full of fresh bedding and saw the pages he had left on the dresser. “An artist, too!” she said, and stopped to admire them. “She looks like a Negro woman.”