Love Etc. Read online

  Praise for Bel Kaufman

  “It is not accidental that everyone uses the adjective warm in referring to Bel Kaufman’s work. Rarely have I read a novel brimming with such intelligence, humanity, and good humor.”

  —Erica Jong

  “Kaufman is an excellent writer, witty and perceptive. Her puns and not-quite-nonsense verse are a delight. Her ‘typographical errors’ are insightful. . . . Kaufman has captured the middle-aged adolescent in this novel as she did the teenager in her first.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “I read it with great pleasure and excitement. A penetrating and ironic book, which says a great deal about the position of women in today’s society—and which says it entertainingly and with a fine sense of humor.” —Howard Fast

  “A virtuoso performance . . . an occasion for congratulation.”

  —John Barkham Reviews

  “Honest and searching . . . a raging torrent!”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “I read it with admiration and pleasure. Many thanks for letting me have it, and for writing with so much honesty and emotion.”

  —Alfred Kazin

  “I greatly admire Bel Kaufman . . . witty and clever and full of sly asides . . . the description of how a marriage disintegrates is very touching . . . a good bit of gold.” —Harriet Van Horne

  “Wonderful . . . it’s my favorite novel of the past decade . . . it will shine like a beacon for many, many women.” —Barbara Seaman

  “A book that grabs and holds” —New York Post

  “A cornucopia, pouring out an extraordinary abundance of wit, warmth, suspense, insight, compassion, and other valuables.”

  —Sheldon Harnick

  “These pages are full of laughter, poetry, anguish, and human human beings” —Marian Seldes

  “A perceptive encore to STAIRCASE, indeed a praiseworthy encore. . . . Kaufman’s superb literary background shines through brilliantly in her work . . . may well become a treasured volume among the scores of women who have ‘been there.’ Ms. Kaufman has captured the unspoken fears, frustrations and pain caused by divorce. It is a story not only of separation but of what comes after—the fear of re-entering the world alone. It is a book that should be meaningful to anyone who has ever been married, divorced, separated or simply scared of losing someone.”

  —Dallas Morning News

  “I found the new book a deeper and more sensitive personal docu-ment—more human, more universal . . . a peak experience.”

  —Eda Leshan

  “Kaufman’s characters are fully etched and totally credible. . . . Kaufman is a gifted writer and LOVE, ETC. is a haunting book. Every nuance of human emotion is detailed like the brushstrokes in a fine landscape.” —Cincinnati Enquirer

  A novel by

  Bel Kaufman

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint from previously published material:

  Pages 25 and 218: From “Ash Wednesday,” Collected Poems 1901–1962 by T. S. Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., and Faber & Faver, Ltd.

  Page 93: From “As We Are So Wonderfully Done With Each Other,” The Collected Poems of Kenneth Patchen. Copyright 1942, © 1968 by Kenneth Patchen. Reprinted by permission of New Directions and Jonathan Cape Ltd.

  Pages 161, 210, 252, and 473: From The Poems of Dylan Thomas. Copyright 1938, 1946, © 1971 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of New Directions, and for the United Kingdom, by permission of J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., publishers and trustees for the copyrights of Dylan Thomas.

  Pages 218–219: From “Trance,” Selected Poems by Stephen Spender. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.

  Page 100: From “Her Triumph,” Collected Poems, by William Butler Yeats. Reprinted with permission of Macmillan. Copyright 1933 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., renewed 1961 by Bertha Georgie Yeats.

  Page 177: From “The Pity of Love,” Collected Poems, by William Butler Yeats. Reprinted with permission of Macmillan. Copyright 1906 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., renewed 1934 by William Butler Yeats.

  From the following selections by Robert Graves, reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd.:

  Page 51: “The Portrait,” Doubleday & Company; © 1955 by Robert Graves. Page 125: “Not to Sleep,” Cassell & Co. Ltd.; © 1964 by Robert Graves. Page 203: “Despite and Still,” Cassell & Co. Ltd.; © 1945 by Robert Graves. Page 210: “Whole Love,” Cassell & Co., Ltd.; © 1965 by Robert Graves. Page 244: “In Time,” Cassell & Co., Ltd.; © 1964 by Robert Graves. Page 361: “The Sharp Ridge,” Cassell & Co., Ltd.; © 1961 by Robert Graves. Page 415: “The Winged Heart,” Cassell & Co., Ltd.; © 1962 by Robert Graves. Page 427: “Reader Over My Shoulder,” Jonathan Cape Ltd.; © 1943 by Robert Graves.

  copyright © 1979, 2012 by Bel Kaufman

  cover design by Connie Gabbert

  ISBN: 978-1-4532-5605-3

  This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media

  180 Varick Street

  New York, NY 10014

  www.openroadmedia.com

  For Sidney Joshua

  Acknowledgments

  In a busy multimedia organization like Open Road, many people are involved in producing ebooks. I’m a novice in this new world of publishing, and I would be hopelessly lost in it were it not for one remarkable man—my literary agent, John Campbell­, who has been constantly at my side, working tirelessly on my behalf for long hours without any compensation, fighting my battles and solving my problems with unfailing devotion, above and beyond the call of any duty. These ebooks and new print editions would never have seen the light of day without him. Because of his clarity of vision, multifaceted education, and literary experience, he has been invaluable to me and has become my good and faithful friend. I am happy to have this chance to express my deep gratitude to John Campbell of the John Campbell­ Agency.

  ______________

  A number of people at Open Road, whose names I do not know, were involved in creating my books, but one whose name I know very well, Tina Pohlman, publisher-cum-editor, was in charge and I want to thank her for her interest, her time, and her encouragement. Thank you, Tina.

  Introduction

  This book is written in three different voices:

  Jessica’s diary—her naked self, her true feelings no one else sees.

  Her letters—embellishing the material in her diary into polished, humorous writing and light verses.

  Her novel—translating the experiences described in her diary and letters into fiction, with notes to herself as lessons on the art of writing.

  Her correspondent, Nina, is Jessica’s former student and a successful contemporary author with a sense of humor and a predilection for puns.

  Varya, Jessica’s ebullient Russian friend, runs all over this book, upsetting its balance. I had to give her a story of her own, called “Varya.”

  Max, Jessica’s mysterious lover, is . . . but you will learn about him as yo
u read this book.

  All the characters reveal themselves without my explanation. They have their counterparts in Jessica’s novel. I have provided a cast of characters to show who is who. By the way, I am pleased that at the age of 101, I have stepped into the future by having my work appear electronically as an Open Road ebook.

  —Bel Kaufman

  New York, June 12, 2012

  So It Has Come to This!

  When Did the End Begin?

  Vague Symptom

  An Evening to Herself

  Happy the Bride

  The Hollow Women

  The Sad Brown Wrens

  If I Were You

  You’re the Injured Party

  The Miracle

  Sleep-Over Date

  Music and Laughter

  The Other Woman

  Exhibit A

  The Two Gladiators

  Uncertain Sound

  Specialist in Incurable Diseases

  Fables Long After Freud

  Fable After Freud

  Lucky

  Fable After Freud

  Fable After Freud

  The Lists

  It’s Only Money

  Children of Said Marriage

  Alphabetical Grounds

  Subject Departed Premises

  Domestic Case

  Vivamus, Mea Lesbia

  Counterattack

  The Credit Department

  The Portent

  Welcome Home!

  Madonna and the Child

  To Whom It May Concern

  Strictly Confidential

  Inadmissible Evidence

  It Begins

  Webb vs. Webb

  Day in Court

  The Trial

  The Two Valises

  Plaintiff Prevailed

  You Don’t Know How Happy You Are!

  Division of the Spoils

  The Meeting

  The Walking Crazies

  The Beep

  Lifeline

  No One On at 5 A.M.

  Self-Actualization

  Mature, Cultured Sagittarius

  Hello, Old Lovers

  The Watch-Winding

  Alive in the World

  Dry Run

  I Fuck, Therefore I Am

  The Scene

  The Diploma

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  In Jessica’s Life

  In Jessica’s Book

  JESSICA PROOT

  ISABEL (BARSHAK) WEBB

  NINA MOORE—Jessica’s best friend

  MAXWELL MAHLER—

  Jessica’s lover

  DR. CHARLES GALEN—Jessica’s ex-husband

  DR. EDGAR WEBB—Isabel’s husband

  VICTOR PROOT—Jessica’s brother

  Q. VINCENT BARSHAK—Isabel’s brother

  MARNI—his wife

  MOLLY—his wife

  JEREMY—Jessica’s son

  GREGORY—Isabel’s son

  JILL—Jessica’s daughter

  WENDY—Isabel’s daughter

  VARYA ROGOV—Jessica’s friend

  MR. ROGOV—Varya’s husband

  NANCY-ANASTASIA—Varya’s daughter

  WALTER—Nancy-

  Anastasia’s husband

  ROSIE—Jessica’s housekeeper

  KATIE—Isabel’s housekeeper

  JESSICA’S FRIENDS:

  ISABEL’S FRIENDS:

  Carrie

  Martha

  Gilda

  Gertrude

  Lance and Teresca

  Grace and Henry

  Jim

  Marge

  Midge

  Rose

  LAURA—Charles Galen’s lover

  DORIAN—Edgar Webb’s lover

  DR. SCHRANK—Jessica’s psychiatrist

  DR. KELLERMAN—Isabel’s psychiatrist

  ISABEL’S MOTHER

  LAWYERS:

  Marcus

  Engle

  Miller

  Samuels

  Adams & Gross

  DETECTIVES

  JUDGES

  EDGAR’S WOMEN

  ISABEL’S LOVERS

  And they lived happily ever after. Well, not exactly. Actually, not at all. As a matter of fact, miserably. To tell the truth, their life together was sheer hell, and their struggles to free themselves from each other were disastrous.

  And they lived happily ever after. At least, that is what they were supposed to do. It was promised—by the fairy tales and the ads, and by her mother. All they had to do was get married, and the rest would flow like butter, as Varya would say.

  Varya does not go digging in her pocket for a Russian proverb. “If you cut off your head,” she says, “don’t cry for your hair.” It was no comfort to Jessica, once she had cut off her head—for that’s what the divorce had turned out to be: a decapitation. No use crying over spilled hair. She had become a statistic: 50 look 40, considered attractive, seeking mature, sincere Sagittarius interested in culture and permanence. The right Mr. Right.

  For twenty-five years Jessica had been married to the wrong Mr. Right, from the timid wedding to that last day in court, when—but who would believe it? Only fiction could make it credible. Jessica would pretend she invented it. It’s only a story.

  Their fictional names were Isabel and Edgar, and they lived unhappily ever after. They had wandered off the safe, the beaten path. They were lost in the dark forest, at the mercy of evil creatures whom they had hired for large retainer fees.

  “Oo strakha glaza veliki,” says Varya. “Fear has big eyes.” What was Isabel afraid of? Of making demands, hurting her children, disappointing her mother, and angering her husband, the good gray doctor, the mighty lover of many women. For women patients were his trade: One tried to commit suicide on the phone. Another threatened to tell Isabel all, and did.

  But that is only a story Jessica is writing, a story about Isabel balancing on the tightrope of her marriage.

  Jessica’s problems are many. How to make the silent, suffering wife sympathetic, the grim, erotomaniacal husband credible? And who is to say who was right, who was wrong; who was sane, who was mad; whose truth to believe? “On a thief the hat burns,” says Varya. He will give himself away, and justice, long delayed, will triumph.

  Maybe not.

  Isabel will have to overcome huge obstacles, perform impossible tasks, dare unknown terrors because she cannot ever go back to the beginning, when everything was still possible, to that first, innocent opening: Once upon a time.

  Jan. 31, 1978

  Dear Nina—

  You are my solace and my joy, and your letters never fail to delight me. I know how busy you are, being feted and applauded as the celebrated young author of The Sad Merry-Go-Round, autographing your book (do you autograph paperbacks too? Or only initial them, in pencil?), and technically advising (whatever that means) your film. So I doubly appreciate your letters and your encouragement of my opus, my onus, my novel of divorce. That short story I wrote about divorce, which got me this contract, was easy enough to do, but the book has become an act of exorcism. It still is difficult, even after all these years, to convert the crazy horror of those days into credible fiction. A novel must be truer than life, and more orderly. But this one is so full of unruly truths and angers bumping into each other, it’s hard to mold them into the truth for me. And I’m too close to the pain. I can’t find the affection with which I wrote my Children and People. What a far cry from that little book of children’s verses to the bitter hatred in the scenes I am writing for this book!

  Your book, dear Nina, is full of compassion for the lost and desperate youngsters you describe. That’s one reason it’s a best seller. I’m so proud you started it here, in my Fiction Workshop! And even though you have abandoned New York for San Francisco, I’m happy our letters still fly like shuttlecocks across the continent, carrying our news, our friendship, your compulsive puns, and my compulsive verses. With whom else can we share them?

  I can understand you
r inability to climb back into your own skin and start writing again. You’re too busy being famous, and that’s a pleasant thing to be. I know how much you enjoy your lecture tours and your audiences of teenagers who adore you, and how difficult it is to sit alone at the typewriter: the keys never jump up to applaud. And after the success of your first book—

  It isn’t easy to surpass or equal

  A classic’s final chapter with a sequel.

  Like Ibsen’s Nora, walking through that door—

  What can you ever do for an encore?

  But you still have time. For me, it has been ten long years since Children and People, and twelve since my divorce. It’s getting later sooner. I can hear the digital clock on my desk dropping its heavy minutes one by one. Plop . . . they go—Plop—plop . . .

  You don’t have to write anything else, ever, if you don’t want to. Your book will live on. As for me, I’m racing the clock towards my December deadline because I can’t afford to return the advance. That may be the strongest motivation of all.

  And stop talking about a shrink; you don’t need one. My ex-Charles was a shrink—the healer turned destroyer—and look what he did to his wife and children! I’m making of Edgar, his prototype in my book, a specialist in the opposite area of the body: a gynecologist.

  Shrinks are last straws, but me, I clutch at straws. I see one occasionally about resolving my problems with my book. The other day I called him, only to get an electronic: “I am presently not in office, but . . . ” Seems he was taping a David Susskind show on “The Writer in the Nuclear Age.” That’s me. I guess I’m in good hands.

  Do you remember how clear it seemed, in my Fiction Workshop, when I talked about character revealed under stress? Conflicts and alternative choices. Illumination of the human condition. Fictional truth: the fallacy of “But that’s how it really happened.” All my fine words. Easier said than done—and yet, you’ve done it! The pupil outstripping the teacher. My pride in you is greater than my envy. I loved The Sad Merry-Go-Round, as who didn’t? And I love you—as who doesn’t?