The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [199]
He was being hyperarticulate, but his brain was dying. Madeleine tried to take in what Leonard was saying. She felt warm from the bourbon and hot from the city. Now that they were downstairs, back on Broadway, she was disappointed to be heading home. For over a year she’d been taking care of Leonard, hoping for him to get better, and now he was worse than ever. Having just come from a party where everyone else seemed happy and healthy, she found the situation grossly unfair.
“Can’t you just go to a party for an hour without acting like you’re being tortured?”
“No, I can’t, Madeleine. That’s the problem.”
A stream of people came up the subway stairs. Madeleine and Leonard had to move aside to let them pass.
“I understand you’re depressed, Leonard. But you’re taking medication for that. Other people take medication and they’re fine.”
“So you’re saying I’m dysfunctional even for a manic-depressive.”
“I’m saying that it almost seems like you like being depressed sometimes. Like if you weren’t depressed you might not get all the attention. I’m saying that just because you’re depressed doesn’t mean you can yell at me for asking if you had a good time!”
Suddenly Leonard’s face took on a strange expression, as if he was darkly amused. “If you and I were yeast cells, you know what we’d do?”
“I don’t want to hear about yeast!” Madeleine said. “I’m sick of yeast.”
“Given the choice, a yeast cell’s ideal state is to be diploid. But if it’s in an environment with a lack of nutrients, you know what happens?”
“I don’t care!”
“The diploids break into haploids again. Solitary little haploids. Because, in a crisis, it’s easier to survive as a single cell.”
Madeleine felt tears welling in her eyes. The heat from the bourbon was no longer warm but a burning in her chest. She tried to blink away the tears, but a drop fell down one cheek. She flicked it away with her finger. “Why are you doing this?” she cried. “Do you want to break us up? Is that what you want?”
“I don’t want to ruin your life,” Leonard said in a gentler tone.
“You’re not ruining it.”
“The drugs just slow the process down. But the end’s inevitable. The question is, how to turn this thing off?” He jabbed at his head with his index finger. “It’s cutting me up, and I can’t turn it off. Madeleine, listen to me. Listen. I’m not going to get better.”
Oddly, saying this seemed to satisfy him, as though he was pleased to make the situation clear.
But Madeleine insisted, “Yes you will! You just think that now because you are depressed. But that’s not what the doctor says.”
She reached out and put her hands around his neck. She’d been so happy only a little while ago, feeling that their life was finally turning around. But now it all seemed like a cruel joke, the apartment, Columbia, everything. They stood at the subway entrance, one of those hugging, crying couples in New York, ignored by everyone passing by, granted perfect privacy in the middle of a teeming city on a hot summer night. Madeleine said nothing because she didn’t know what to say. Even “I love you” seemed inadequate. She’d said this to Leonard so many times in situations like this that she was worried it was losing its power.
But she should have said it, anyway. She should have kept her arms around Leonard’s neck and refused to let go, because, as soon as she stopped hugging him, with swift decisiveness, Leonard turned and fled down the steps of the subway. At first Madeleine was too surprised to react. But then she ran after him. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she didn’t see him. She ran past the token booth toward the other exit. She thought Leonard had climbed back up to the street, until she caught sight of him on the other side of the turnstiles, walking toward the tracks. As