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By Root 4212 0

for Cheever's marital woes.* Divorced from a successful businessman, the well-heeled Hochman invited Mary to spend a week in St. Croix sans men—a vacation that made Ossining seem, for Mary, bleaker than ever. Greeted by Cheever on her return, Mary sighed: “I'll make myself a rum drink in memory of my happiness.” For weeks she spoke of little else, or so it seemed to her husband, who couldn't help picturing “two undressed women giggling in a bathroom” when Mary mentioned tie-dyeing her friend's underwear. Indeed, this detail struck Cheever as almost definitive, though he couldn't quite bring himself to accuse his wife openly of lesbianism (“I know her reply would be: Are you a fairy?”), nor could he entirely overlook the chance that “this is the fantasy of a tortured neurotic who is drunk most of the time.” Also, he had to admit that Hochman—despite her feminism—hardly behaved like a lesbian. At the time she was seeing an Armenian named Harout, who introduced himself as an architect and played a lot of backgammon with Cheever while the women talked poetry and the like. Hochman always thought the two men were great pals. “I open the door and find Harut [sic]—the unemployed waiter, stud, bore and companion of the flighty poetess,” Cheever wrote. “They often drop in on Sunday night just as the meat is coming out of the oven.” He also described the boyfriend as a “gymnast.”

Whether because of lesbianism, feminism, other men, or some fiendish combination of the three, the fact remained that Mary was being very unloving, and Cheever was fed up. Since they seemed unable to discuss anything without nastiness, he insisted she see a psychiatrist again—a sympathetic one, that is, who was likely to comprehend his side of things. “He talks about David Hays seeing his wife and telling him she was normal and that he had ruined her life,” Dr. Silver-berg noted during one of his sessions with Cheever. “He resented this, finds me supportive.” Silverberg it was, then—who if anything was even more well disposed to Mary than Hays had been, though frankly he found the whole family a little bizarre:

Problem [he wrote on Mary's file card]: Patient comes at the urging of her husband, who wants her to be less hostile to him. It is clear that in actuality it is he who is hostile and demeaning to her and has been through the whole marriage. Patient is a sensitive intelligent woman, much spunk, but also strong feelings of inadequacy and … little girlish speech and behavior. … She hasn't been in love with her husband for a long time but has a great sense of loyalty and devotion. Sort of that she's taking care of an important creative person. This is her first line of rationalization for putting up with his anger, narcissism, drinking, etc. The second line is the children, who are very devoted to him and also have her protective attitude towards him. Patient has a fair understanding of her complex husband, [but] is unaware of degree of his homosexual side.

Mary would go on seeing Silverberg for almost a year—it was nice to talk about herself for a change, without fear of derision or rebuke—though, as she later remarked, “it didn't solve anybody's problems.” As for Cheever, he met with the psychiatrist only once more (roughly a month after his wife's first session), and was nettled to find the man groping, à la Hays, for some tactful way of saying that “he [Cheever] distorts rather than Mary.” Cheever pressed one of his journals on Silverberg, evidently hoping it would prove exculpatory in some way. The doctor warily opened it: “It seems”—he noted—”to be largely an intimate sexual journal and [Cheever is] quite obviously uncomfortable about it.” Perhaps Silverberg hadn't read the right page; in any event, Cheever snatched it back and never returned (though in parting he invited the man, again, to come “see [his] house and meet the maid,” and later he sent Ben to meet with Silverberg, too).

THAT SUMMER (1970), Cheever was a delegate to the International PEN Congress in Seoul. He'd invited Mary to accompany him, but she worried that her acceptance