The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [29]
“I’d be happy to,” Leonard said.
Madeleine frowned into the receiver. She had a feeling that Leonard had set up this exchange, like a chess player thinking eight moves ahead. She was going to complain when Leonard said, “Sorry. Not funny.” He comically cleared his throat. “Listen, would you like to go to the movies with me?”
She didn’t answer right away. He deserved a little punishment. And so she put the screws to him—for another three seconds.
“I’d love to.”
And there it was already, that word. She wondered if Leonard had noticed. She wondered what it meant that she had noticed. It was just a word, after all. A way of speaking.
The next night, Saturday, the fickle weather turned cold again. Madeleine was chilled in her brown suede jacket as she walked to the restaurant where they’d agreed to meet. Afterward, they made their way to the Cable Car and found a sagging couch among the other mismatched sofas and armchairs that furnished the art-house cinema.
She had a hard time following the movie. The narrative cues weren’t as crisp as those of Hollywood, and the film had a dream-like quality, lush but discontinuous. The audience, being a college audience, laughed knowingly during the risqué European moments: when the huge-titted woman stuffed her huge tit into the young hero’s mouth; or when the old man up in the tree cried out, “I want a woman!” Fellini’s theme appeared to be the same as Roland Barthes’—love—but here it was Italian and all about the body instead of French and all about the mind. She wondered if Leonard had known what Amarcord was going to be about. She wondered if it was his way of getting her in the mood. As it so happened, she was in the mood, but no thanks to the movie. The movie was pretty to look at but confused her and made her feel naïve and suburban. It seemed both overly indulgent and overly male.
After it was over, they made their way out onto South Main. They had no stated destination. Madeleine was pleased to realize that Leonard, though tall, wasn’t too tall. If she wore heels, the top of her head came up higher than his shoulders, almost to his chin.
“What did you think?” he said.
“Well, at least now I know what Felliniesque is.”
The downtown skyline was on their left, across the river, the spire of the Superman building visible against the unnaturally pink city sky. The streets were empty except for other people leaving the cinema.
“My goal in life is to become an adjective,” Leonard said. “People would go around saying, ‘That was so Bankheadian.’ Or, ‘A little too Bankheadian for my taste.’”
“Bankheadian has a ring,” Madeleine said.
“It’s better than Bankheadesque.”
“Or Bankheadish.”
“Ish is terrible all around. There’s Joycean, Shakespearean, Faulknerian. But ish? Who is there who’s an ish?”
“Thomas Mannish?”
“Kafkaesque,” Leonard said. “Pynchonesque! See, Pynchon’s already an adjective. Gaddis. What would Gaddis be? Gaddisesque? Gaddisy?”
“You can’t really do it with Gaddis,” Madeleine said.
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “Tough luck for Gaddis. Do you like him?”
“I read a little of The Recognitions,” Madeleine said.
They turned up Planet Street, climbing the slope.
“Bellovian,” Leonard said. “It’s extra nice when they change the spelling slightly. Nabokovian already has the v. So does Chekhovian. The Russians have it made. Tolstoyan! That guy was an adjective waiting to happen.”
“Don’t forget Tolstoyanism,” Madeleine said.
“My God!” Leonard said. “A noun! I’ve never even dreamed of being a noun.”
“What would Bankheadian mean?”
Leonard thought for a second. “‘Of or related to Leonard Bankhead (American, born 1959), characterized by excessive introspection or worry. Gloomy, depressive. See basket case.’”
Madeleine was laughing. Leonard stopped walking and took hold of her arm, looking at her seriously.
“I’m taking you to my place,” he said.
“What?”
“All this time we’ve been walking? I’ve been leading you back to my place. This is how I do it, apparently. It’s shameful. Shameful. I don’t want it to be like that. Not with you. So I’m telling you.