How strange it feels, he thought. To be up here, telling these things.
“Anyhow,” he said, “she had rages in which she deliberately destroyed objects that were of importance to me.”
While she had been packing her things she had come across a plaster cat which they had won at Playland. She had been holding it, wondering how to pack it, when he had told her that he considered it his. At that point, she had turned and thrown it at him. The cat had broken against the wall behind him.
“She had these violent rages,” he said, “where she couldn’t control herself.”
His lawyer nodded to him –impatiently, it seemed to him– and he realized suddenly that he had finished. Getting to his feet he stepped down. His lawyer called their witness, and Nathan found himself seated in the first chair of the jury box, listening to their witness tell how he had come by the Anteil house and found only Mr. Anteil at home, and how, on frequent occasions, when he had found them both together, he had been forced to listen to what he considered unfair and humiliating tirades on the part of Mrs. Anteil, directed at her husband.
The judge signed the paper; he and the lawyer exchanged a few words; and then Nathan and their witness and the lawyer walked up the aisle and out of the courtroom.
“Did he grant it?” he asked the lawyer.
“Oh sure,” the lawyer said. “Now we go down to the clerk and get a copy of the interlocutory decree for you.”
As they descended the stairs, the witness said, “You know, Gwen’s about the most mild-mannered woman I’ve ever known. I felt funny up there talking about her ‘tirades.’ I never heard her raise her voice in my life.”
The lawyer giggled at that. Nathan said nothing. But he felt a sense of release, a lifting of the burden of the court action. They entered the clerk’s office, an immense, brightly-lit place in which rows of people worked at desks and file cabinets. At a counter which ran the width of the room, persons conducted their business with the many deputy clerks.
“Well, it’s over,” the witness said, while the lawyer got the papers.
Was there any truth to what I said? Nathan wondered. Some truth. Part true, part made up. Strange to lose sight, blend it together. No longer know what had happened, merely talk, tell what seems appropriate. Aloud, he said, “Like the Moscow Trials. Confessing to whatever they want.”
Again his lawyer giggled. The witness winked at him.
But he did feel better. Dread of the ordeal … that was over, like the school play. Public speaking in assembly.
“Good to get it over,” he said to his lawyer.
“Boy, that old man is a tough one,” his lawyer said, as they left the clerk’s office. “Not letting me lead — he probably didn’t have a good bowel movement and felt like getting back at the world.”
Outdoors, in the sunlight, they parted company. Each of them said good-bye and went off to his own car.
The time was ten-forty. Only an hour and ten minutes had gone by since the court had been called into session.
Divorced, Nathan thought. Over and done. Somebody else up there, now.
Reaching his car he got into it and sat.
Strange story to tell, he thought. When was she ever away from the house? Only when we broke up.
I should feel guilty, he thought. Getting up there and letting all those lies come out of me, that mishmash. That uninspired recitation. But his sense of release overcame any guilt. God damn, he thought. I’m so god damn glad it’s over.
All at once he felt doubt. How can it be over? You mean I’m no longer married? What happened to Gwen? I don’t understand it. Where did it go? How could a thing like this happen?
It isn’t possible, he thought. What do you mean, I’m no longer married?
He stared out the car window. It doesn’t make sense, he thought. Dismay, as if he were about to break down and cry, started everywhere inside him, appeared on all sides, throughout. I’ll be god damned, he thought. It just can’t be. It isn’t possible.
This is the most awful thing that ever happened to me, he thought. It’s weird.-It’s the end of me, of my life. Now what am I going to do?
How did I ever get into this situation?
He sat watching the people go by, wondering how a thing of this sort could have come about. I must have let myself get mixed up in something horrible, he thought. It’s as if the whole sky is a web that dropped over me and snared me. Probably she’s the one who did it; Fay arranged all this, and I had nothing to do with it. I have no control of myself or anything that’s happened. So now I’m waking up. I’m awake, he thought. Discovering that everything has been taken away from me. I’ve been destroyed, and now that I’m awake all I can do is realize it; I can’t do anything. It’s too late to do anything. It’s already happened. The shock of getting up there and telling that account made me see. Mixture of lies and bits of truth. Woven together. Unable to see where each starts.
At last, putting the key in the ignition, he started up the car. Soon he was driving from San Rafael, back to Point Reyes Station.
At his house he saw her, in the front yard. She had found a bucket of gladiola and tulip bulbs that Gwen had brought up from the city to plant; wearing jeans and sandals and a cotton shirt she was busy with a trowel, digging a shallow trench for the bulbs along the front walk. The two girls were not in sight.
As he opened the gate she heard him and turned, lifting her head. As soon as she saw the expression on his face she said,
“You didn’t get it.”
“I got it,” he said.
Laying down her trowel she stood up. “What an ordeal it must have been,” she said. “My god, you look really pale.”
He said, “I don’t know what to do.” It was not what he had intended to say, but he could think of nothing else.
“What do you mean?” she said, coming up to him and putting her thin, strong arms around him.
Feeling her arms, the authority and conviction of her, he said, “Hug me.”
“I am hugging you,” she said. “You asshole.”
“Look where I am,” he said, gazing past her at the remaining bulbs. She had planted most of them already. At one time the bucket had been full. “You’ve got me in a terrible spot. There’s nothing I can do. You really have me.”
“Why?” she said.
“I have no marriage.”
“Poor baby,” she said. “You’re scared.” Her arms pressed harder against him. “But you did get it? He granted it?”
“They have to grant it,” he said. “If it’s properly presented. That’s what the lawyer’s for.”
“So you’re divorced!” Fay said.
“I have an interlocutory decree,” he said. “In a year I’ll be divorced.”
“Did he give you any trouble?”
“He wouldn’t let the lawyer lead,” he said. “I was on my own.” He started to tell her about it, how the session had gone, but her eyes got that rapt, faraway expression; she was not listening.
“I meant to tell you,” she said, when he halted. “The girls baked a cake for you. A celebration. One candle. Your first divorce. They’re indoors now, quarreling about the icing. I said they better wait until you got home and ask you what kind of icing you wanted on it, if any.”
He said, “I don’t want anything. I’m completely exhausted.”
“I’d never go into court in a million years,” she said. “I’d rather die; you couldn’t drag me into court.” Letting go of him she started toward the house. “They’ve been so worried,” she said. “Afraid something might go wrong.”
“Stop talking,” he said, “and listen to me.”
She slowed to a stop; both her speech and her motion toward the house ceased. Inquiringly, she waited. She did not seem tense. Now that he was back, having gotten the decree, she was relieved; she did not seem to have paid any real attention to what he had said.
“God damn you,” he said. “You never listen. Don’t you care what I have to say? I’ll tell you what I have to say; I’m pulling out of all this, the whole darn business.”
“What?” she said, in a faltering voice.
He said, “I’ve gone as far as I can. I can’t stand any more. When I got out of the courtroom I realized it. It finally came to me.”
“Well,” she said. “My goodness.”
They stood facing each other, neither of them saying anything. With the toe of her sandal she kicked at a lump of dirt. Never before had he seen her so downcast.