About Schmidt - Louis Begley [90]
Schmidt was surprised to find that the inevitability of hearing more about Gil’s sorrows wasn’t all that irritating.
What is really the matter? He tried to look concerned.
It has finally happened: my youth is dead. Gone. Finished. The me I used to know is dead.
Gil, what are you talking about?
My girl. Katerina. The one I told you about. She has left me. While I was in Venice, she went to Jamaica. You know Periklis Papachristou?
I don’t think so.
Yes, you do. You’ve seen him at our apartment. P.P., for power play. He’s an agent. Anyway, he rented a house on Round Hill grounds and invited some people. He invited Katerina too, as a fellow Greek. She met this other guy there, also a Greek. He’s some sort of thirty-year-old stockbroker, divorced, no kids, who had been going around with Bianca Jagger. He laid Katerina the first evening and left her black and blue. Of course, she loved it. Moved in with this jerk as soon as they came back. She wouldn’t have gone to Jamaica if I had been in New York!
Isn’t she the one who asked you if you wanted her to be faithful? You should have said yes.
Fuck you, Schmidt! How could I? I told you I couldn’t let her think I was going to leave Elaine.
I remember. Well, this solves the problem of lying to Elaine. Seriously, what could you expect? To keep laying her, in perpetuity, on your office couch? Things like that don’t last.
Yes, they do. No, you’re right, they don’t. Not with a wife like Elaine. I would have had to take Katerina with me on trips and so forth. Like Tom Roberts! He lives with his wife in New York, the one who looks like an old Gypsy, and goes out with her to dinner and parties, but travels everywhere with his secretary. Out of town, she is Mrs. Roberts! But Elaine would never accept that.
You see.
I don’t see anything, except that you have zero sympathy for me.
They had finished the bottle of number-two wine, and Gil asked Carrie to bring one more. This time he inquired about her name.
When she told me about the jerk—in detail, that’s why I know about their first night together—she said, You know, I really loved you. If you weren’t so old, we could have worked it out. It’s better for me to be with someone my age. That was so unanswerable. I had never thought I was “old.” After all, I’m in good condition, I’ve never done better work, women like me. I thought I was older, not old. But after she said that, I had to remember what we thought at her age of people who were the age we are now, and that really flattened me out. If you can believe it, she actually thought I was sixty-five. Of course, it made no difference to her at all when I pointed out that I was only sixty-one. What’s four years more or less from her point of view? That’s why I tell you, it’s like death, my youth is dead! Do you know something else? I miss the sex with her. Now I do think about it when I’m in bed with Elaine.
I faced the fact that I had become an old man without the assistance of a Katerina, said Schmidt. I found out about it from the mirror, and from the way I feel about myself and other people. It’s not pleasant.
They sat in silence, Schmidt wondering how much time he had before Gil made his next move. The time to tell him was right now. Anyway, he wanted to. Without mentioning Bryan or the man. What difference did that make?
Well, well, how very nice. She’s got real looks. I don’t know that she could model. I wouldn’t mind, though, setting up a screen test for her—since she wants to act.
Thank you. You will keep this just between us? She asked me to be careful.
Who would I tell?
For instance, Elaine. If you can help it, don’t.
Do you know how you are going to play this out?
I have no idea. Perhaps I won’t have any plan at all. I’ve already done an awful lot of planning in my life. Most of it hasn’t turned out very well. The only advantage of my present situation is that I don’t need to have plans.
And how about Charlotte? Are you going to let her find out about Carrie?
Ah, the question of Charlotte. Perhaps that’s also a