Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [69]
“Oh, my honey,” she said, eyelashes fluttering, a hand held to her heart, “you noticed?”
“Yeah.”
“I suppose you preferred it shit-coloured?”
Other days she would quit the apartment early in the afternoon and not return until midnight or later.
“Did you manage to get laid while you were out?”
“Even a clochard wouldn’t want me like I am now.”
“If you’re still bleeding badly, I should take you to see a doctor.”
She blew me a kiss. “I’m ready to talk now. What about you, Prince Charmingbaum?”
“Sure. If not now, when?”
“Happy Hannukah. Merry Passover. You can have a divorce, if you want it.”
“I do.”
“But I should tell you that I’ve been to see a lawyer and she says if you divorce me I’m entitled to something like half of your income for the rest of your life. Thank God you’re so healthy.”
“Clara, you amaze me. I never suspected you had such a practical streak.”
“One thing you can say about Jewish husbands. They’re excellent providers. I learnt that at my mother’s knee.”
“I’m going home. Back to Canada,” I said, surprised at myself, because I made that decision right there and then.
“I thought I was the crazy one here. What will you do in Canada?”
“Snow-shoe. Hunt beaver. Boil maple syrup in the spring.”
“I’m not a pig, in spite of what you think. I’ll settle for a year’s rent on this dump and an allowance of fifty dollars a week. Oh, look at you, the colour’s back in your cheeks.”
“I’ll move out tomorrow morning.”
“You do that. And then I’m going to have the locks changed. I don’t want you barging in when I could be enjoying a proper fuck. Now you get the hell out of here, please,” she shrieked, tears flying. “Leave me alone, you righteous bastard.” Her hollering pursued me down the stairs. “Why couldn’t we start over again? Answer me that.”
On Monday I found a room in a hotel on the rue de Nesle, and the next afternoon, while she was out, I filled a suitcase with essentials, and packed my books and records into cardboard cartons to be claimed later. But when I returned for them on Thursday, the apartment-door locks not yet changed, I found the kitchen table set for a candelight dinner for two. Maybe she’s cooking up some soul food for Cedric, I thought. Certainly the apartment smelled vile, which I first attributed to the smoking gas stove and the charred chicken in the oven. Mouldy deposits had formed in the bowl of grated potatoes on the counter. Who in the hell was she intending to make latkes for? Something she would never do for me, pronouncing it greasy jewfood. By candlelight yet. I switched off the gas and whacked the kitchen window open. But the stench emanated from the bedroom, where I discovered Clara stone-cold dead, an empty bottle of sleeping-pills on the bedside table.
Obviously some hanky-panky had been anticipated, because my bride died wearing her most alluring, all-but-diaphanous, black chiffon nightgown, a gift from me. There was no note. I poured myself a huge vodka, gulped it down straight, and then called the police and the American embassy. Clara’s body was removed to be stored in the morgue until Mr. and Mrs. Chambers of Gramercy Park and Newport could fly over to take possession.
On my return to the Hôtel de Nesle, the concierge rapped on the window of her tiny cubicle and slid open the slot. “Ah, Monsieur Panofsky.”
“Oui.”
A thousand apologies. A pneumatique had come for me on Wednesday, but she had forgotten to tell me. It was from Clara, insisting that I come to dinner. It was important that we “talk.” I sat down on the stairs and wept.
Finally practical considerations intruded. Could a suicide, even an unintended one, be buried in a Protestant cemetery? I had no idea.
Damn damn damn.
Then I remembered the story, possibly apocryphal, that Boogie had told me about Heine. Even as he lay on his deathbed, wasted, in a morphine-induced trance, a friend urged him to make his peace with God. Heine is supposed to have replied, “Dieu me pardonnera. C’est son métier.”
But I didn’t count on it in my case. Still don’t.