Free Van Gogh's Room at Arles by Stanley Elkin Page B

be drunk. She looked like a drinker, had, he meant, a drinker’s dramatic, slightly hysterical expression, and her makeup, fixed in place like cosmetic surgery, might have been a drinker’s makeup, something planted on her face for emergency, like a name sewn into her clothing.
    Still, he didn’t know which bothered him more, the dignity he’d leaked through his mean outburst about her use of language, or the dignity he lost through her (and he could only assume everyone’s) general knowledge of his business, how it was between him and Claire, how it was between him and his condition.
    “I know,” she was saying, and Schiff, who’d tuned out for a couple of moments, once for his indignation and once again for the regret he felt for permitting himself to give in to it, knew he’d missed something, perhaps even something important (maybe she’d gone on to say what the thinking was in political geography regarding Claire’s whereabouts), “things are pretty much up in the air just now, but, you’ll see, they’ll come down, they’ll settle. It isn’t the end of the world. Oh, I grant you, when these things happen, one always thinks it’s the end of one’s world, and, occasionally, even frequently, one’s often right about that. After all, there’s no arguing with a judgment call, but I wouldn’t count myself out just yet. The consensus now is that three things may still happen, Your wife could come back. Two, time heals all wounds. And, three, you could make an adjustment, discover not only that you don’t really need her but that, if you make the adjustment, become more independent, you might even be better off without her.”
    The consensus? The consensus?
    “You’re right that she could come back,” he told her, “but it’s a long shot. Even about three—though it’s iffy, improbable, the odds are against it—that I might adjust. But that, two, time heals all wounds, is out of the question.”
    “Time doesn’t heal all wounds?”
    “Only if there’s time,” he said.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t underst——”
    “Well,” Schiff said, stinging her, hoping to anyhow, hoping she’d take it back and pass it on to the consensus, “aren’t you forgetting my condition?”
    “Oh,” she said.
    “Yes,” he said, “you bet.” Then, while he had her on the ropes, following through. “But my real objection to a party this year is that I couldn’t possibly clean up afterward. My ‘condition’ militates against it.” Forgetting about the PGPC and realizing his mistake at once. And—perhaps something to do with his hand eye coordination, his cripple’s slowed reaction times, just the merest piece of a beat off but a miss as good as a mile and except in horseshoes close didn’t count for diddly—Ms. Kohm, losing no time, all over him.
    “Did you forget what I told you? That you won’t have to lift a finger? That we wouldn’t permit it even if you could? Listen,” she said, “this isn’t even a committee thing. I mean no one’s been assigned to wash, no one’s been assigned to dry. No one’s been named to empty the ashtrays or run the vacuum over the rug in the living room. This is an area where everyone pitches in. Should someone see anything out of place, he or she straightens it up. This party will be a strictly straighten-up-as-you-go party. Will that be all right? Is that good enough for you?”
    “Well,” Schiff said.
    “Will it?” she asked. “Is it?” she teased.
    “Well,” said Schiff. “Do I have your word? That no one leaves the house until it’s neat and clean as when they came in?”
    “Neater and cleaner,” Ms. Kohm said.
    “All right,” Schiff said. “Look, I’m sorry I’m such a tightass, but really,” he said, “unless everything’s just the way you found it … I’m going to let you in on something. I try to live by the cripple’s code.”
    “Yes?”
    “One must never do anything twice.”
    “Oh, what a good rule! That’s a