(1961) The Chapman Report (20 page)

Sarah thought him unattractive and condescending, although his speech was oddly quiet and charming. On the stage, he summoned the aspirants eight at a time, and they sat on folding chairs and nervously read, while he paced up and down before the footlights. Sarah had ascended the stage with the second group, regretting having left the tomb of her home and the predictability of the evening, and when it was her turn, she had read for Constance Neville, who was Tony Lumpkin’s cousin and Hastings’ heart. Fred Tauber had not cast her a single glance, pacing all the while, as she began to read. Suddenly, he had halted, glared at her, and snapped, “I can’t hear you.” She swallowed, and read louder-and he continued to stare at her. Within five minutes, she had the role. That was the beginning.

Fred Tauber decided that rehearsals would take place several times a week for six weeks. Rehearsals began in the auditorium but soon moved to the large living room of Fred’s apartment two blocks south of Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. After one such session, Fred invited Sarah to return alone the next evening for some intensive personal coaching. His manner was so impersonal, although he never ceased staring at her with his burning eyes, that she promised to appear.

She had put the children to bed and left Sam comfortable before the television set, and had arrived at Fred’s apartment at nine o’clock. Script in hand, he had met her at the door, more friendly than she had ever seen him. When he suggested drinks, she readily accepted. She rarely ever drank after dinner, but she was nervous and afraid, and perceived she was on the brink of some unknown

place. One drink became two and four and six, and rehearsal had long before been abandoned, and she was sitting beside Fred, and she was not afraid.

It was all hazy and the first relaxed fun in weeks-no, months, years. He was telling her of his life, and of the woman from whom he was separated, the dreadful creature who would not give him a divorce, and she was telling him about Sam and wasted years and loneliness. He took her hand then, and she never remembered after if she kissed him or he kissed her, only that they had been in each other’s arms a long time, and that she held his hand tightly when they walked into the bedroom. He had undressed her, as she stood dizzily beside the bed, and then he had kissed her until she had wanted to scream. He had settled her on the bed, and she had lain there stiffly, eyes shut tightly so that she could not see and by not seeing avoid being an active participant to guilt and shame. And she had felt him beside her, caressing her, and she had clutched him at last, which had surprised her, and had wanted it done, the terrible thing, done, irrevocable and behind her. And when he had joined his body to hers, she had wanted it done swiftly as it was always with Sam, so that it was no more part of her and she part of this strange and shocking thing, and she waited for it to be done, and waited, and waited, and it wasn’t done, and then suddenly, involuntarily, she was a part of it, acting as she had never acted, and feeling as she had never felt, and wanting it never done, never ended.

In the morning, in her kitchen, she avoided looking at the table where Sam and the children ate. She suffered remorse and a hangover, and had never been as excited or alive in her life. She planned to withdraw from the play, and hide the shameful episode from herself, reassuring herself constantly that it had been an accident of intoxication. By nightfall, she knew that she did not want to withdraw from the play. She began counting the hours to the next rehearsal, only dimly aware of the strange house in which she lived and the foreign persons who shared it with her.

Three nights later, in company with the group, she attended another rehearsal in Fred’s apartment. She was amazed that she could perform so normally, and that Fred could behave as naturally as he had always behaved. She spoke her lines automatically and wondered what he was thinking. At eleven o’clock, the rehearsal broke, and as she was getting her coat, he asked politely if she would remain behind for ten minutes to go over one speech in the first act

that troubled him. She nodded dumbly, and remained behind. This time they did not drink, and hardly spoke, and this time it was not an accident. Driving home, at two in the morning, she felt as irresponsible and carefree as a dipsomaniac.

The rehearsals ended. The play went on. Lines were forgotten and props mislaid and, somehow, the final curtain fell. The applause was thunderous, and the charity was served. There could be no more nights, or few, and so the affair became a ritual of the mornings, four or five mornings a week. Her insatiability surprised, shocked, and finally delighted her. What had begun casually, with an end foreseeable-for it was impractical, purposeless, even dangerous-became a necessary habit and the absolute meaning of each day lived and each day to be lived. And yet, still, Sarah would not allow herself to believe that the affair was her entire life, her life’s new direction, but rather she regarded it as a finite episode that was temporarily the only living part of her life.

His hand had ceased massaging her, and she opened her eyes. “You’re a darling,” she said, “my darling own.” “I hope so,” he said. “What time is it, Fred?” “Almost noon.”

“I’d better get back. One cigarette, and then I’ll go. They’re in my jacket. Do you mind?”

He threw aside his half of the blanket, slipped off the bed, and stretched. She stared at his solid, athletic body, and felt the glowing pride of possession. Not since the first time had she felt a single pang of guilt. It was all too satisfying and inspirited to be wrong. In all the weeks since, she had suffered only one fleeting moment of doubt colored with shame, and that was the first time she had seen him fully naked in the light-on their fourth occasion together, when he had disrobed and crossed the room toward her, and she had realized that he was not circumcised. She had never seen this before-her husband, her son, her father, were all Jewish -and now what she saw seemed shockingly alien, and in that brief moment she had suffered the sensations of mortification and depravity. But soon she was enveloped by the pain of physical pleasure, and the shame was gone, and she knew that nothing like this could ever be alien.

Fred had reached her jacket on the chair. “Which pocket?” he called.

“The bottom one.”

At once, she saw that this was the pocket into which she had stuffed her mail. Fred’s hand was behind the letters. He pulled out the pack of cigarettes, and as he did so, the post card fell to the floor. Sarah sat up, heart pounding, and she watched him retrieve it.

He glanced at it. “Never could resist post cards,” he said. He read the back, and looked up. “Who’s interviewing you Thursday morning?”

“I forgot to tell you. I won’t be able to see you that morning.” She was thinking fast and desperately. “A woman psychiatrist is coming in from the university-child psychiatrist-she’s giving free consultations all day.”

“I thought your two were normal-like their mother.”

“Oh, they are,” she said quickly. “It’s just that Debbie has been cranky lately. I guess I haven’t given her the time I used to-I mean, my mind isn’t on them these days.”

“And won’t be, if I can help it. So you have your nice long talk with that child psychiatrist.”

He stuffed the card back into her jacket pocket and returned to the bed with cigarettes and matches. She lifted the blanket over her breasts, held out her hand for a cigarette, and thanked God that Fred read only the theatrical section of the daily newspapers.

Mary McManus came into the dining room from the kitchen, carefully balancing the tray crowded with small glasses of orange juice and a large plate heaped with scrambled eggs and tiny crisp sausages. Since she and Norman had agreed to live with her parents, the dinette in the kitchen was found to be too small for the four of them in the morning. Now breakfast, on gay reed mats, was always served in the large dining room.

Mary lowered the tray to the table, serving first her father at the head of the table, and then Norman, and then the place where her mother sat, and finally herself. The live-in Spanish maid, Rosa, was upstairs doing the bedrooms at this hour, but even if she weren’t, Mary would have insisted on serving breakfast herself. It was one of the many efforts that she made to delude Norman into believing they were really in housekeeping for themselves.

Mary glanced from her father, who had taken his juice in a single gulp, to her husband, who was turning the small glass around in his fingers, staring past it absently, not yet drinking.

“Is everything all right, Norman?” she asked anxiously.

“Oh, yes-yes, fine.” He drank his orange juice without interest. “Where’s your mother?” Harry Ewing wanted to know. “Her eggs will be cold.”

“She went out for the mail,” said Mary, finding her fork. Eating, she shifted her eyes from Norman to her father and back again. Usually, the breakfast scene pleased her, the orderliness of it, the warmth of so many loved ones. She liked to see Norman this way, in his brown lightweight business suit, hair combed, face smooth, hands so clean. He had such a wonderful lawyer look. It made her feel proud. And then her father, in his navy-blue silk suit with the natty handkerchief, so neat and successful and every inch the executive. But Norman-for now she was looking at him again -he seemed so strange and quiet lately, especially at mealtimes. Some instinct restrained her from probing it when they were alone at night. But sooner or later, she knew, she must ask Norman-that is, if it continued.

She looked off. Her mother, wearing the pink quilted housecoat that had been a Christmas gift, appeared from the living room, busily going through the mail. Bessie Ewing was a tall, flat woman with a long mare’s face and a preoccupation with the weather and her health.

“It’s going to be miserably hot today,” she said. “I can feel it in my bones. I wish the summer were over.” When the summer was over, she’d wish for an end to winter. “Anything in the mail?” asked Harry Ewing. She sat down. “Nothing special.” She handed her husband the mail, withholding only a post card. She turned to her daughter. “This is for you, Mary.” Mary accepted it, looked at it blankly a moment. “Is that the appointment for the interview?” Bessie Ewing asked.

“Of course!” exclaimed Mary with a shrill squeal of delight. “I almost forgot-from Dr. Chapman-I was waiting for it.” She held the card up before her husband. “Look, Norman-tomorrow, two-thirty to three-forty-five, D-Day; by tomorrow night, I’ll be part of a history book.”

“Great,” said Norman.

Harry Ewing had stopped sorting the mail and was staring across the table at his daughter. “What’s that?” he asked. “Did you say Dr. Chapman?” “Yes, you know-“

“I don’t know,” said Harry Ewing with soft patience.

“But I-no, I guess I just told Mother-I thought I’d told you. Dr. Chapman’s in town, Dad-“

“I read the newspapers.”

“Well, he’s interviewing all the married members of the Association for his scientific work. He lectured to us, and now we’re going to be interviewed. Isn’t it exciting?”

Harry Ewing moved his gaze to Norman. “Does Norman know about this?”

“He’s been briefing me all week,” said Mary, touching her husband’s arm.

Harry Ewing released the mail and sat back. His eyes rested on Norman, who felt them and looked up.

“Surely you don’t approve, Norman,” Harry Ewing said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean just what I’m saying—surely, you aren’t going to permit Mary to expose herself to this … this so-called investigation.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with it. I think it’s a good thing. We’re not in the Dark Ages.”

“Are you implying that I am?” said Harry Ewing without raising his voice, though the effort was apparent.

“Really, Harry,” said Bessie Ewing. “I think it’s their own affair.”

“Perhaps they’re too immature to distinguish between right and wrong.”

Mary had listened in dumb bewilderment. Her father’s objection surprised her and, from long habit, impressed and unnerved her. “What can be wrong with it, Dad? It’s perfectly scientific.”

“That is highly questionable, I assure you,” said Harry Ewing. “Dr. Chapman’s methods, the value of the whole report, are suspect in the best circles. Mind you, I have no objection to older married women going. With age, you learn values, know what to accept and reject, how to handle yourself. But you were twenty-two in March, Mary.”

Norman set his fork down on his plate with a clatter. “When my mother was twenty-two she had three children.”

Mary could almost touch the electric antagonism in the air. She rubbed the goose pimples on her arm. In two years, the only serious fight with Norman had been over children. He wanted them, at once, and many. Her father had never been more firm than in advising against them. He had told Mary, confidentially, father to daughter and only child, that she was too young, that she must learn to live in marriage first, that early years were years to be enjoyed unencumbered, that there was always time. She had never sorted out her own feelings about children. She wanted what Norman wanted. Rather, she wanted Norman to be happy with her. But she had never known her father to be unwise or to misinform her. Still, his attitude toward Dr. Chapman seemed irrational.

“Mary isn’t a baby any longer,” she heard Norman say in anger. “She’s a grown married woman. You can’t keep trying to shield her. I think this Chapman study is healthy and normal.”

“I’m sorry I must disagree with you, Norman. I think it might do more harm than good.”

“Well, I want her to go,” said Norman doggedly.

Harry Ewing shrugged, and forced a smile. “She’s your wife,” he said. He consulted his watch, and pushed back his chair. ‘Time for work.”

He rose and went into the hall for his hat. Norman glared after him, then got stiffly to his feet. He was about to start away.

“Norman,” Mary called, “haven’t you forgotten something?”

He returned to her, his face constricted. “Sorry,” he said. He bent and kissed her briefly.

“Don’t be angry,” she whispered. “I want to go.”

“Good,” he said curtly, then pivoted and walked out.