Mr. Bridge_ A Novel - Evan S. Connell [128]
He looked at his watch.
“Don’t remind me,” she said. She opened the door of the Chrysler. Still she did not get out. “You never forget a thing, so ask yourself this. How many years ago today did I walk into the office for the very first time? Good night, Mr. Bridge. I think I will stay home tomorrow, with your permission.”
He drove home greatly shocked. It had never occurred to him that she regarded her association with him as anything more than a job. He did not want to lose her; he hoped that after a day away from the office she would have recovered her sense of values so they would be able to continue as before. If not, the only solution would be to let her go.
137 In the Vault
It seemed to him that a good many people he knew were disintegrating as unmistakably as Julia. He himself was having difficulty with a stiff neck in the mornings, and the time had come for stronger reading glasses, and he was worried about the irregularity of his heart. However, it was a comfort to observe how rapidly his friends were aging. Virgil had gotten so fat that his lower lip protruded. Lutweiler was completely gray, though he played tennis and went swimming so often that he had retained a youthful air. Alex smelled like a tobacco warehouse and appeared to be turning yellow from the nicotine. Mrs. Bridge, he thought, did not look as old as most of her friends. She had not changed very much. She was thoroughly girdled now, her lips were faintly puckered, and her hair was set by the beauty parlor with an eye to practicality; but in contrast to her friends she was in good shape. Lois Montgomery was wrinkling around the neck like a stalk of cauliflower. Madge Arlen, evidently suffering from some kind of disorder, walked stiffly, rather like a turkey. Grace Barron was withering and shriveling like a plant in dry soil. Ultimately they were all going to go. They were going to vanish like the elm in the yard: grass now grew over the place where it stood for fifty years, and the people who would someday live in the house, whether they were Douglas’ children or an unknown family, would not even be aware that a stately tree was gone.
In the privacy of his cubicle in the basement of the bank Mr. Bridge waved his hands at nothing, as if he might brush away these unhappy meditations forever. He began to think about Harriet. She was drinking too much, it was no longer possible to pretend that she was not. She kept a bottle hidden in an empty carton of soap flakes in the cupboard beneath the sink, and sometimes she tried to hold her breath while serving dinner. Something had to be done.
He thought about Ruth. He could not understand why she permitted a homosexual to spend the night in her apartment, or why she wished to associate with Greenwich Village bohemians and Negroes. What she was doing did not make sense.
Nor was she alone in the pursuit of folly. The grandiose projects of mindless pundits rolled out of Washington as regularly as doughnuts, and at the apex of this insane pyramid sat Roosevelt, dispensing fireside affability and panaceas as foolish as his hat, meanwhile packing the Supreme Court with socialists and anarchistic “liberals.” Father Coughlin called him a great betrayer and liar. The priest was not far wrong.
Progressive educators, so-called, were at work in the schools. Subjects taught for generations were being demeaned and abandoned. Psychologists, social workers, and various other apologists of lawlessness were excusing the criminal for his crime, blaming each daily outrage on those who committed no outrage. Soon enough nobody would be considered responsible for anything. What would happen next? It was violently unjust that such things could come to pass while a man spent his life and all of his energy working to achieve some degree of security for himself and his family. There was so much change, so much absurdity, so little respect for the traditions and the ideals upon which civilization was founded.
Wearily he resumed examining his stock