About Schmidt by Louis Begley Page A

are mad at me.
    I’m not. How could I be? What’s there to be mad about?
    Because I love you and you are worried that Madame will find out. But she won’t. Please don’t worry, you don’t have to.
    He thought he was going to laugh at her, but she raised her face to his with such clear meaning that instead he kissed her. At once, those almond arms were around his neck. Somehow she had slithered into his lap and glued her body to his. He realized that she had taken over the kiss, pressing so hard that he thought all of her tongue was swallowed in his mouth. Some time passed, and, without speaking, for that kiss was not to be interrupted, she tugged at his wrist and led him to her room.
    I am a fallen man, he whispered to her.
    A couple of weeks later, Mary decided to accompany one of her authors on the West Coast leg of his publicity tour. His book was unexpectedly climbing to the top of the best-seller list. The migraines had stopped—excitement over a big commercial success, rest, the pills, or all three working in combination. Who was to say? They didn’t spend muchtime on the question. It was the beginning of August. Mary told him he should take his vacation anyway and not change his plans in order to spend the holiday with her. The way it had worked out, she could leave without worrying whether Corinne and Charlotte, alone in Bridgehampton, would be able to cope.
    Before Mary left for the Coast, he had continued to go up to bed with her, every evening, right after their early dinner. The effect of the pills remained quick, but Mary did not want to postpone taking the sedative until they made love. She was afraid of any pause between lying down and falling asleep.
    Let’s do it while I am dozing off, she told him, I like it that way, it’s cozy. I think I sleep better. I don’t mind if you read afterward. You can turn the light on or go downstairs.
    Schmidt liked it too. He would turn her on her side, press against the cold bottom, find his way, and lose himself in pleasure. Was this not the true magic flute? Thrill bordering on pain, modulated, rising and falling, uninterrupted until the climax. Mercifully, the snoring had abated. He would wipe himself on the top sheet, to leave his mark for Mary, and, without washing, tiptoe down the stairs.
    I go to my fairy temptress as I am, he would say to himself. Time has stopped.
    That Charlotte would not hear him moving about, he was quite sure. The stair carpet was thick, and he was very careful. Terror lay in the thought that she might come to Corinne’s room because a bad dream had awakened her.
    Corinne told him not to worry. She always knocks. I will ask her to wait and take her upstairs. You must lie very still, under my spell.
    Terror lay also in Corinne’s becoming pregnant. She used no precautions and cried the one time he withdrew before the end. He supposed that ejaculating first in Mary reduced the risk for Corinne, but over twelve months—that’s how long she was to stay with them—the odds had to be against them.
    If that happens, I will go away, she told him. You will never hear from me again.
    Toward the end of Mary’s absence, they took Charlotte to Montauk, to eat lobsters in a restaurant on the pier. On the way home, she fell asleep in the car and then was too excited to go to sleep right away There was a new moon. She asked if she could wish on shooting stars. The sky was crisscrossed by them. Schmidt felt tired from the drive; he had drunk most of the bottle of a German white wine. He shrugged his shoulders and said she and Corinne could do as they wished; he was going upstairs. That was an additional treat for Charlotte. The wind had died completely. Under the open windows, the girls were giggling. He listened for their whispers and, from across the pond, the thud of the surf. The screen door slammed. That would be Corinne, about to put the child to bed. She must have read to her. It had taken a long time. Finally, the bedroom door opened. He