About Schmidt - Louis Begley [38]
I wonder. I mean, do I know them in this avatar at all? I certainly don’t know how to behave with them. Perhaps I should ask to be introduced. For instance by you.
It’s so very sad Charlotte’s mother isn’t here. I do think women instinctively know their way around situations like this. She would have helped. I’m sorry you have had to cope with so much grief and this important change in Charlotte’s life all at once.
You were kind to write. I remember your letter. It was very good. I suppose in your profession you have learned how to say things that most people can’t say at all. I realize I haven’t answered; I haven’t answered any letters. I am afraid I never will.
It’s quite unnecessary. Have some more of Myron’s wine before they serve the champagne. I think he intends to make lots of toasts. And please stay after lunch to talk to me. Everybody else has plans; they are all going somewhere. We will be alone.
The turkey had been carved in the kitchen. One of the black ladies carried it around the table, and the other followed with a platter on which mashed potatoes speckled with what looked like fried onions predominated. Lucky Dr. Myron. Schmidt had never liked standing up at the head of the table, searching for the joint at which to sever the drumstick, waiting, filling individual orders, only dark, no only white, yes dark and skin, or probing with the long spoon for the last bits of stuffing, like an unsanitary curettage, or having to recommence before he had eaten what was on his own plate. A lifelong plot to rob him of the chance to taste the bird before it turned into cold leftovers, that’s what it was. He noted the absence of the dreaded yams. Mary had considered them indispensable but never touched them herself. Wouldn’t this amuse Renata? Schmidt told her about it in detail.
His enthusiasm for the lunch grew, even as the crystal wall was changing his voice so that it too seemed distant, heard from a place where he actually wasn’t. He looked at Charlotte helping herself and called out, The pope’s nose, sweetie, don’t let the pope’s nose get away.
It had always been necessary to save it for her; he rebuffed anyone else who dared to ask for it, and repressed the ogre inside who wanted it for himself. It was his favorite part of the turkey too. He had taught Charlotte to like it. For years, it was all she ate at the Thanksgiving meal until it was time for the sweets.
That’s all right, Dad, you have it. Tastes change. All that fat is disgusting.
She turned to Jon for approval. Schmidt imagined that in reply he squeezed her thigh under the table. That was all right; he would take the despised pope’s nose if it was still there when the platter reached him, and a double portion of the potatoes. In the meantime, he tasted the wine again, emptying his glass. It was better than what he was used to.
Afterward, he waited for Renata in the library, wondering whether that was where she received patients, the desk was so neat and somehow official looking, with only one photograph on it, probably taken at camp, of her sons in white shorts carrying a red canoe. Mary and he had never sent Charlotte to a real camp; they had felt it would spoil their own vacation. Besides, the best tennis, riding, and swimming were available right at home. Mary would have liked Charlotte to sail, and for several summers in a row he had duly offered to buy a day sailer they might keep in Sag Harbor. But nothing came of it in the end. Possibly, Mary sensed he was dragging his feet about adding yet another activity to Charlotte’s already busy days of picnics and watersports. When is the child supposed to have her inner life, when will she get to read a book? he would ask when they discussed Charlotte’s program. In the end he had his way; the child read quite enough all through those sunny vacations, school, and college.
Now she was making up for lost time: Jon and she had been the first to rise from the table, before coffee was served, in order to go for a run. That had to be the