Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [101]
The Señora’s chief claim to sanity was founded upon motherhood. She had many plans for Renata. These were extravagant in the distant reaches, but near at hand they were quite practical. She had invested a lot in Renata’s upbringing. She must have spent a fortune on orthodontia. The results were of a very high order. It was a privilege to see Renata open her mouth, and when she kidded me and laughed brilliantly I was struck with admiration. All my mother could do for my teeth in the ignorant old days was to wrap a lid from the coal stove in flannel, or to put hot dry buckwheat in a Bull Durham tobacco sack to apply to my face when I had toothaches. Hence my respect for those beautiful teeth. Also, for a big girl, Renata had a light voice. When she laughed she ventilated her entire being—down to the uterus, I thought. She put up her hair with silk scarves, showing the line of a wonderfully graceful feminine neck, and she walked about—how she walked about! No wonder her mother didn’t want to waste her on me with my dewlaps and my French medal. But since Renata did have a weakness for me, why not set up housekeeping? The Señora was for this. Renata was going on thirty, divorced, with a nice little boy named Roger, of whom I was very fond. The old woman (like Cantabile, come to think of it) urged me to buy a condominium on the near-North Side. She omitted herself from these suggested arrangements. “I need privacy. I have my affaires de coeur.” “But,” said the Señora, “Roger should be in a household that has a male figure in it.”
Renata and the Señora collected news items about May-December marriages. They sent me clippings about old husbands and interviews with their brides. In one year they lost Steichen, Picasso, and Casals. But they still had Chaplin and Senator Thurmond and Justice Douglas. From the sex columns of the News the Señora even culled scientific statements about sex for the aging. And even George Swiebel said, “Maybe this would be a good deal for you. Renata wants to settle down. She’s been around and seen a lot. She’s had it. She’s ready.”
“Well, she’s certainly not one of those little noli me tangerines,” I said.
“She’s a good cook. She’s lively. She has plants and knick-knacks and the lights are on and the kitchen is steaming and goy music plays. Does she flow for you? Does she get wet when you lay a hand on her? Stay away from those dry mental broads. I have to be basic with you otherwise you’ll shilly-shally. You’ll be trapped again by a woman who says she shares your mental interests or understands your higher aims. That type already has shortened your life. One more will kill you! Anyhow, I know you want to make it with Renata.”
I most certainly did! It’s hard for me to stop praising her. In her hat and fur coat she drove the Pontiac, her outthrust leg in spangled textured panty hose bought in a theatrical-specialty house. Her personal emanations affected even the skins of the animals which composed her coat. They not only covered her body but were still in there trying. There was a certain similarity here. I too was trying. Yes, I longed to make it with Renata. She was helping me to consummate my earthly cycle. She had her irrational moments but she was also kindly. True, as a carnal artist she was disheartening as well as thrilling, because, thinking of her as wife-material, I had to ask myself where she had learned all this and whether she had taken the PhD once and for all. Furthermore our relationship made me entertain vain and undignified ideas. An ophthalmologist told me in the Downtown Club that a simple incision would remove the bags under my eyes. “It’s just a hernia of one of the tiny muscles,” Dr. Klosterman said, and described