Too much happiness_ stories - Alice Munro [88]
The book that she referred to was one that had grown out of a thesis I had been discouraged from writing. I went ahead and wrote another thesis but went back to the earlier one as a sort of hobby project when I had time. I have collaborated on a couple of books since then, as was duly expected of me, but that book I did on my own is the only one that got me a small flurry of attention in the outside world (and needless to say some disapproval from colleagues). It is out of print now. It was called Idiots and Idols—a title I would never get away with today and which even then made my publishers nervous, though it was admitted to be catchy.
What I was trying to explore was the attitude of people in various cultures—one does not dare say the word “primitive” to describe such cultures—the attitude towards people who are mentally or physically unique. The words “deficient,” “handicapped,” “retarded” being of course also consigned to the dustbin and probably for good reason—not simply because such words may indicate a superior attitude and habitual unkindness but because they are not truly descriptive. Those words push aside a good deal that is remarkable, even awesome—or at any rate peculiarly powerful—in such people. And what was interesting was to discover a certain amount of veneration as well as persecution, and the ascribing—not entirely inaccurately—of quite a range of abilities, seen as sacred, magical, dangerous, or valuable. I did the best I could with historical as well as contemporary research and took into account poetry and fiction and of course religious custom. Naturally I was criticized in my profession for being too literary and for getting all my information out of books, but I could not run around the world then; I had not been able to get a grant.
Of course I could see a connection, a connection that I thought it just possible Charlene might get to see too. It’s strange how distant and unimportant that seemed, only a starting point. As anything in childhood appeared to me then. Because of the journey I had made since, the achievement of adulthood. Safety.
“Maiden name,” Charlene had written. That was an expression I had not heard for quite a while. It is next door to “maiden lady,” which sounds so chaste and sad. And remarkably inappropriate in my case. Even when I looked at Charlene’s wedding picture I was not a virgin—though I don’t suppose she was either. Not that I have had a swarm of lovers—or would even want to call most of them lovers. Like most women in my age group who have not lived in monogamous marriage, I know the number. Sixteen. I’m sure that for many younger women that total would have been reached before they were out of their twenties or possibly out of their teens. (When I got Charlene’s letter, of course, the total would have been less. I cannot—this is true—I cannot be bothered getting that straight now.) Three of them were important and all three of those in the chronological first half-dozen of the count. What I mean by “important” is that with those three—no, only two, the third meaning a great deal more to me than I to him—with those two, then, the time would come when you want to split open, surrender far more than your body, dump your whole life safely into one basket with his.
I kept myself from doing so, but just barely.
So it seems I was not entirely convinced of that safety.
Not long ago I got another letter. This was forwarded from the college where I taught before I retired. I found it waiting when I returned from a trip to Patagonia. (I have become a hardy traveller.) It was over a month old.
A typed letter—a fact for which the writer immediately apologized.
“My handwriting is lamentable,” he wrote, and went on to introduce himself as the husband of “your old childhood buddy, Charlene.” He said