Oh What a Paradise It Seems by John Cheever

Author:John Cheever [Cheever, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-75998-6
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2010-08-03T16:00:00+00:00

8

THE telephone was ringing when Sears returned to his apartment. It was Renée asking him over for a drink. He was delighted. Considering their last quarrel he expected her to be wearing the old blue wrapper when she opened the door, or perhaps nothing at all. He was smiling at this possibility when he entered the lobby and saw Eduardo, who laughed at the breadth of his smile. Here seemed to be a union from which jealousy had been leached. She opened the door as soon as he rang. He was disappointed to see she was not wearing the old blue wrapper. She was wearing a dress and some shoes and some perfume, but when she kissed him her kisses were of such an inestimable softness and variety that he didn’t worry about her clothing. She gave him a drink and sat on his lap and unfastened both his shirt and his trousers. While she fingered his trunk he remembered that the gymnastics instructor at his school had lectured them on the fact that the male torso, disfigured as it was by vestigial nipples, was totally unresponsive sensually. He had, until very recently, never doubted this statement. This was really what one wanted, he thought. To have a lovely woman on one’s lap as darkness fell from the wings of night was truly journey’s end. She was kissing him when the telephone rang and she left his lap to answer it. “I’ll be down in a few minutes,” she said. “The doorman will let you double-park.”

“What in hell was that?” said Sears.

“It was the man who’s going to drive me to the airport.”

She went into the hallway, where he heard her open a closet.

“Where are you going?” Sears demanded. “You haven’t told me you were going anywhere and you certainly haven’t behaved as if you were taking a plane.”

“You might have noticed that my suitcase is in the hallway. You always notice that sort of thing.”

“I’ve noticed that your hallway is always full of suitcases,” Sears shouted. “I’ve been stumbling over the damned things for months.”

“Well, would you like to help me to the elevator with my suitcase,” she asked, “or shall I ring for Eduardo?”

She stood in the doorway wearing a hat and a coat and pulling on her gloves. He felt himself approaching those bewildering spiritual mountains where he doubted the reality of his person and his world. He went into the hallway and picked up her bag. “Where in hell are you going?” he asked.

“I’m going back to Des Moines to see my daughter,” she said. “I must have told you but you’ve forgotten.” Eduardo, rather more like a custodial relative than a lover, regarded the suitcase, Sears’s face white with rage and Renée’s airs of a traveler with great composure. Sears’s only commitment was to wait for her on the sidewalk until the car had its door opened and to accept her goodbye kiss. “You don’t know the first thing about women,” she said. He did not look back in the lobby at Eduardo and went to a movie.

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