Martin was gone, to return in a few weeks. Lily, on the contrary, was in constant attendance, showing up at the apartment without warning, sometimes arriving when Margaret was out and then staying, chatting with Edward while she waited. Margaret would walk in, her head full of lascivious thoughts about Martin or Dr. Lipi or Lily herself. Disoriented, almost dizzy at this tableau depicting her own moral failing, Margaret would stare morosely and wonder how Edward, her all-powerful Edward, could have let this happen to her. Edward, she thought, has failed as a husband. All those years together, all those mornings lounging in bed as the light cut through the gaps in the curtains and lay in strips across the floor, as Margaret watched Edward come out of the bathroom, freshly showered, his hair flat, irresistible, not to be resisted, not resisting, either. After all those mornings, Margaret still had contemplated other men, other women!, as if Edward had never existed, as if she hadn't been happy and smoothly languorous in the big, comfortable bed. How, she thought, could he do this to me? How could he fail to protect me from this? If he cared for me at all, this would never have happened.
All those years just assuming I was happy. How naive. One must assume nothing. One must know. Years spent in libraries so that I could know something, just one thing, well, no, lots of things, well, actually so that I could know everything without forgetting it. Then, poof, it's gone and one must begin again, there's more to know, always more, and whatever one knows it's somehow not enough. And after all those years seeking knowledge, I actually thought one could settle down and Be Married. As if the search, that search at least, could just stop, as if Edward were truth, the goal of all desire. She daydreamed then about Edward and those days when the search had stopped.
Well, she thought, pulling herself together. Now I am free of illusions, the scales have fallen from my eyes, I must see life for what it is, starting with Dr. Lipi. He is a pure love object. There exists no emotion to cloud my vision. There is only objective analysis, a logical and scientific pursuit of a muscular piece of ass.
One day, during a long, aimless conversation with Lily on the phone, Margaret heard herself say, "I'm leaving Edward."
You're what, Margaret? Margaret thought. But, then again, Margaret, Margaret reasoned, I must leave Edward. I know I must. It's sordid to live with Edward and plot the seduction of others. I am engaged in an activity of clarification. How can I clarify with my husband always around? Edward clouds the issue. I must leave. Of course I must leave.
Nervously (leave Edward? really leave him?), she continued, "We're not getting along, and I think it would be best if we..." She paused. "If we separated for a while."
There. Maybe she should say it again, just to confirm her commitment to this plan. Perhaps it was indiscreet, relaying this information to Lily. But perhaps she wanted to be indiscreet. Now, there was no going back.
She knew it was the correct move—to leave Edward. Objectivity was impossible while Edward loped through the halls looking depressed, a force of nature sputtering, sputtering. That's all he did these days. It got worse and worse with each passing week. Guilt, perhaps. Fooling around with all those girls. Or just fatigue, enervated from enslaving his classes with the sheer force of his glorious self. He was glorious, wasn't he? Once, anyway. Now he was miserably depleted, silent, looking at her, then looking away, saying nothing for days at a time. Edward, saying nothing! The earth was square, the sun refused to rise, words no longer danced for Mr. E., dancing-word ballet master, retired.
Margaret felt sad and weary with guilt instead of relieved, instead of free at last, free at last. Why really was she telling Lily this? Did she want Lily to feel sorry for her? To comfort her? To jump in and take up the slack? I wonder what I am doing, she thought.
"Yes," she said. "That's what we must do. Separate."
"Margaret, come off it."
I wonder what I am doing, Margaret thought again. "Well, one of these days, anyway," she said.
And she put off the separation for a while. Where would she go, for one thing? And then, she was used to Edward and his ways. She ignored him and he ignored her and she worked on her book and on her new project, an essay entitled "Culture and Teeth."
EDWARD ADHERED to his schedule and Margaret did not. She had no schedule of her own to take its place, so she got up later and later each morning. She ate lunch at four or five o'clock, if at all. She skipped dinner. She spent a fair amount of time interviewing Dr. Lipi.