Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [173]
A white December sky overlay the Atlantic gloom. The message of Nature seemed to be that conditions were severe, that things were tough, very tough, and that people should console one another. In this Renata thought I was not doing my part, for when the operator at the Plaza had called her Mrs. Citrine, Renata had put down the phone and turned to me, her face lighted, saying, “She called me Mrs. Citrine!” I failed to answer. People are really far more naïve and simple-hearted than we commonly suppose. It doesn’t take much to make them glow. I’m that way myself. Why withhold your kindliness from them when you see the glow appearing? To increase Renata’s happiness, I might have said, “Why of course, kid. You’d make a wonderful Mrs. Citrine. And why not?” What would that have cost me ... ? Nothing but my freedom. And I wasn’t, after all, doing much with this precious freedom. I was assuming that I had world enough and time to do something with it later. And which was more important, this pool of unused freedom or the happiness of lying beside Renata at night which made even unconsciousness special, like a delectable way to be stricken? When that cursed operator called her “Mrs.” my silence seemed to accuse her of being just a whore, no Mrs. at all. This burned her up. The pursuit of her ideal made Renata intensely touchy. But I too pursued ideals—freedom, love. I wanted to be loved for myself alone. Noncapitalistically, as it were. This was one of those American demands or expectations which, as a native of Appleton and a kid from the Chicago streets, I had all too many of. What caused me a certain amount of anguish was that I suspected that the time had passed when I might still have been loved for myself alone. Oh with what speed conditions had worsened!
I had told Renata that marriage would have to wait until my case with Denise was settled.
“Ah, come on, she’ll quit suing when you’re out in Waldheim beside your Pa and your Ma. She’s good for the rest of the century,” said Renata. “Are you?”
“Of course solitary old age would be horrible,” I said. Then I ventured to add, “But you can see yourself pushing my wheelchair?”
“You don’t understand real women,” said Renata. “Denise wanted to knock you out of action. Because of me she hasn’t succeeded. It wasn’t that pale little fox Doris, in the Mary Pick-ford getup. It’s all me—I’ve kept your sex powers alive. I know how. Marry me and you’ll still be balling me at eighty. By ninety, when you can’t, I’ll love you still.”
Thus we were walking on the Coney Island boardwalk. And as I, when a boy, had rattled my stick on fence palings, so Renata, when she passed the popcorn men, the caramel-corn and hot-dog men, got a rise out of each one. I followed her, elderly but fit, wrinkled with anxieties yet smiling. In fact I was feeling unusually high. I’m not altogether sure why I was in this glorious condition. It couldn’t have been only the result of physical well-being, of sleeping with Renata, of good chemistry. Or of the temporary remission of difficulties which, according to certain grim experts, is all that people need to make them happy and is, in fact, the only source of happiness. No, I was inclined to think as I vigorously walked behind Renata that I owed it to a change in my attitude toward death. I had begun to entertain other alternatives. This in itself was enough to make me soar. But even more joyful was the possibility that there might be something to soar into, a space unused, neglected. All this while the vastest part of the whole had been missing. No wonder human beings went mad. For suppose that we—as we are in this material world—are the highest of all beings. Suppose that the being-series ends with us and there is nothing more beyond us. On such assumptions who can blame us for going into convulsions! Assume a cosmos, however, and it’s metaphysically a more spacious situation.
Then Renata turned and said, “Are you sure the old dodo knows you’re coming?”
“Sure. We’re expected. I phoned him,” I said.
We entered one of the alley-like