About Schmidt - Louis Begley [54]
Dinner is served. I had the beautiful Renata on my right and Charlotte on my left, which meant that the two Riker males sat next to each other. Riker the father could have been on my left, which would have put Charlotte and Jon next to each other, but that solution hadn’t occurred to me, and, anyway, with its leaves out, the table is round, so that the conversation could be general. I began to pay attention when it turned to the house. It’s even more beautiful than Jon had led Father Riker to suppose. Renata agreed. Father Riker continued: It’s the most magnificent wedding present. I can’t imagine how Schmidtie can bear to leave it for another place.
I stole a glance at the beneficiaries of my largesse. They looked uncharacteristically demure, one might say, sitting there with downcast eyes. Communication about my plan had taken place, and the financial problem had found its solution. Of course! Dr. & Dr. must have said they would help with the apartment, or some variation on that theme. It might have been nice to tell me in advance that my offer had been accepted, but never mind. No greater proof of a child’s love, Mary used to say, than when the little snake takes you for granted. Therefore, I raise my glass to their happiness under this roof and to the grandchildren who will be wrecking the place, perhaps even enjoying the colonial fort with its palisade Mary had installed for Charlotte in the shade of the red beeches that Charlotte had never much used. (Immediately I wished I had omitted that piece of family history, but it rankled in Mary’s heart and it rankles in mine.)
In all, I had had one martini, one glass of champagne, and less than a whole glass of burgundy, so it couldn’t have been the liquor. My eyes began to burn, even though I didn’t feel hot; in fact, I felt rather cold. I could tell that I had turned red, red enough for Charlotte to ask whether I was well. I told her not to worry, but that I wasn’t quite sure. Of course, from that point on, they were watching me: my eyes, my color (from red I had, according to Charlotte, turned light green), became the subject of intensive commentary. By the time Mrs. Wolff had served the cheese, I was quite weak and sweating, which is something that happens to me only rarely. Myron got up, put his hand on my forehead, and then took my pulse—I wouldn’t have thought that shrinks knew how—and said, You are running a high fever. Why don’t you go to bed? I’ll come up to listen to your lungs when we have finished dinner
He did. It was rather odd to have him in my bedroom, pressing his ear to my chest and back, as the poor man hadn’t brought a stethoscope, going knock-knock, but it was also, in equal measure, sweet to abandon myself to these ministrations. There was nothing he could hear. He told me to stay in bed and take lots of aspirin; the flu would pass, perhaps overnight.
Strange night, full of obsessive dreams, cut by hours of sleeplessness, trips to the bathroom, and indecent thoughts that may have been dreams floating just below the level of consciousness about those two couples, one across the hall (my daughter in bed with Jon), the other to the right, down the corridor (Renata in bed with Myron). Meanwhile, perhaps because I had been working so hard, my fingers and also my toes had been worn down, perhaps atrophied, until they were like little knobs. Quite impossible to take hold of any object, and I didn’t dare try to walk. I woke, definitively I thought, around eight, heard the rest of the house still asleep, dragged myself once more to the bathroom, stared