About Schmidt - Louis Begley [75]
I don’t know. Probably, I won’t be able to help it.
A huge north wind that carried grains of sand as sharp on the face as needles was forcing the surf back on itself, transforming the ocean into a luminous, blue-green, wrinkled, and silent plain. During the winter storms the beach had shrunk some more. The only flat place to walk was at the very edge of the water. There the sand was very hard, almost frozen. Patches of wet, where the tide had pushed farther, were covered by frozen brown foam. They were following Schmidt’s routine, heading east. She put her left hand in his pocket. He took his glove off, and held her hand, his thumb inserted into her glove so he could feel her palm.
Do you come here often? he asked.
Yeah, last summer, if I had time before the dinner service. Or on my day off, when there was a party I don’t have a sticker for this beach, so I’d go over there. She gestured over her shoulder toward Peter’s Pond.
He thought he knew the half trucks, the coolers of beer, the charcoal fire, the rough voices, and handymen in tank shirts with wispy beards and tattoos on their biceps. A truck stereo would be turned on full blast, or they would have set up black boxes containing an elaborate sound system. Furtive, disapproving stares cast by all the proper Schmidts finishing their evening walk, ready for the first white wine and soda of the evening, noses wrinkled at the thought of the townies’ debris. After the last of the hot dogs and corn had been eaten—maybe they no longer bothered, just brought pizza—did they screw by the side of the trucks or in the dune? Did they swap? Was that a part of the deal? Had he passed by during that summer of Mary’s agony, Charlotte’s arm resting on his, when Carrie was on a party?
Now that I’m retired, I walk here every day, he told her. In the summer, I like the swimming.
Are you kidding? In these waves? You wouldn’t get me near them. Anyway, I never learned to swim in college. I took dancing instead.
Pity painted over the ugly pictures before Schmidt’s eyes.
I’ll teach you, he said squeezing the hand in his pocket. It’s not hard at all.
You think you’ll get me to go into these waves?
You can’t teach people to swim in the ocean. We’ll do it in my pool, on your days off, or any day if you have a little time.
I heard you say you were giving your house to your daughter and moving out.
That plan had gone out of Schmidt’s head. It seemed possible that he was forgetting everything except the warmth of that hand, which responded to every pressure and invented games of its own.
Let’s turn back, he said, you’ll start getting cold. You’re right about my giving up the house, but I think I’ll move to another house with a pool. It will just be a much smaller place. There should be lots of them on the market. I’ll have to start looking pretty soon. Perhaps you’ll help me.
How will your daughter feel about that, I mean having me visit houses with you? You haven’t told me her name. What’s she like?
Charlotte. It was the name of my wife’s mother. She died when my wife was a child, and my wife was brought up by the aunt who I told you left her this house. Charlotte: she is tall, a bit taller than you, very blond, and I think quite beautiful. She looks like—Joan of Arc! Have you seen Joan of Arc in a picture? She was the virgin warrior who saved France from the English in the fifteenth century. Then the English burned her on the stake, and she became a saint. Of course, Charlotte isn’t a virgin; she’s been living for years with the guy she is going to marry, and she’s not very warlike, although I believe she plays a mean game of squash.
You love her a lot, Carrie said glumly. Is she older than me? Her fingers disentangled themselves from Schmidt’s.
He reclaimed the territory gently, the way he used to take Charlotte’s hand when she was a child.
Of course, I do. She’s my only daughter, my only child, my entire family. She must be older than you. She’ll be twenty-seven this August.
I’m twenty. Then she laughed: I bet she has a good job. Did you get it for her?
No, she