Freedom [155]
The previous morning, before he’d left for the airport, Patty had appeared in the doorway of their bedroom. “Let me put it as plainly as possible,” she said. “You have my permission.”
“Permission for what?”
“You know what for. And I’m saying you have it.”
He might almost have believed she meant this if the expression on her face hadn’t been so ragged, and if she hadn’t been wringing her hands so piteously as she spoke.
“Whatever you’re talking about,” he said, “I don’t want your permission.”
She’d looked at him beseechingly, and then despairingly, and left him alone. Half an hour later, on his way out, he’d tapped on the door of the little room where she did her writing and her e-mailing and, more and more frequently of late, her sleeping. “Sweetie,” he said through the door. “I’ll see you on Thursday night.” When she gave no answer, he knocked again and went in. She was sitting on the foldout sofa, squeezing the fingers of one hand in the fist of the other. Her face was red, wrecked, tear-tracked. He crouched at her feet and held her hands, which were aging faster than the rest of her; were bony and thin-skinned. “I love you,” he said. “Do you understand that?”
She nodded quickly, biting her lips, appreciative but unconvinced. “OK,” she said in a whispery squeak. “You’d better go.”
How many thousand more times, he wondered as he descended the stairs to the Trust offices, am I going to let this woman stab me in the heart?
Poor Patty, poor competitive lost Patty, who wasn’t doing anything remotely brave or admirable in Washington, could not help noticing his admiration of Lalitha. The reason he couldn’t let himself even think of loving Lalitha, let alone do anything about it, was Patty. It wasn’t just that he respected the letter of marital law, it was also that he couldn’t bear the idea of her knowing there was someone he thought more highly of than her. Lalitha was better than Patty. This was simply a fact. But Walter felt that he would sooner die than acknowledge this obvious fact to Patty, because, however much he might turn out to love Lalitha, and however unworkable his life with Patty had become, he loved Patty in some wholly other way, some larger and more abstract but nevertheless essential way that was about a lifetime of responsibility; about being a good person. If he were to fire Lalitha, literally and/or figuratively, she would cry for some months and then move on with her life and do good things with someone else. Lalitha was young and blessed with clarity. Whereas Patty, although she was often cruel to him and lately, more and more, had been shrinking from his caresses, still needed him to think the world of her. He knew this, because why else hadn’t she left him? He knew it very, very well. There was an emptiness at Patty’s center that it was his lot in life to do his best to fill with love. A slim flicker of hope in her which he alone could safeguard. And so, although his situation was already impossible and seemed to be getting more impossible every day, he had no choice but to persist in it.
Emerging from the motel shower, taking care not to glance at the egregious white middle-aged body in the mirror, he checked his BlackBerry and found a message from Richard Katz.
Hey pardner, job’s done up here. Do we meet in Washington now or what? Do I stay in a hotel or sleep on your sofa? I want such perks as I am due.
All best to your beuatiful women. RK
Walter studied the message with an uneasiness of uncertain origin. Possibly it was just the typo’s reminder of Richard