“I don’t think so,” he said. “They’ve never said anything, and they’re boys who say what they’re thinking. So far.”
When the game finished, she stood up. “I won’t come to any more games. I’ll leave your family alone.”
“I’m sorry for your unhappiness,” Mr. Phipps said.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for talking to me. Thank you for not calling the police.”
—
Edward Phipps had a life full of regrets, beginning with his parents. His parents didn’t care for him and, isolated by their remoteness and indifference, he grew not to care for them. By the time he was seven, he gave up the wish that they would change, that they would talk with him, eat dinner with him, tuck him in at night. The one good deed his parents did him, inadvertently, was to send him to Bovee. It was cheaper than St. Bernard’s. Bovee was for its day a progressive school. It admitted Jews and forbade hazing, a linkage Edward would make for the rest of his life. It was also traditional. Operating under Gradgrindian principles, it believed in drills and recitation. Edward’s lessons in mathematics, Latin, and geography stayed with him all his life. On his deathbed, he recited the rivers of northern Europe, including the Volga. “Moscow is Europe, barely, but still,” he said to Sam, who, with his archival tendencies, appreciated more than his brothers his grandfather’s recall. “What did you like best about Bovee?” Sam asked. “The Bergdahls,” his grandfather said, his mind drifting with the Volga. As early as first grade, Edward saw that some boys had much better parents than his, attentive, kind, even affectionate; he decided to shop for a new set. He found them in the third grade, the parents of his friend John Bergdahl. Starting that year and until he went to prep school, he spent more time at the Bergdahls’ than at home. They were warm, funny, generous, intellectual. Rumor had it Mrs. Bergdahl was “Jewish, or part Jewish, or Russian, or maybe Czech,” but she was so charming and rich, no one who knew her cared. Years later, Edward saw Eleanor’s relationship with Clarissa Van Vliet’s family as a replay of his relationship with the Bergdahls. He knew it was not to his credit.
After Bovee, Edward went to Andover and then to Yale. He met Virginia Porter Deering at a Christmas ball. He was twenty-one, a senior; she was nineteen, home for the holidays from Smith. She was breathtakingly lovely, with black hair, pale skin, and dark blue eyes. Later, in his own defense, he would say, “Vivien Leigh hadn’t a patch on Virginia.” Still, he knew he had been Lydgated into marriage. After six months of seeing her only in groups, he recklessly pursued her one evening, down a dark hall in her house, and clasped her tightly to him, kissing her neck, her lips, her shoulders, her bosom. She submitted rag-doll-like until he finished, then said in a bright, clear voice, “Are we engaged?” He stammered, “Yes,” and threw away all possibility of marital happiness. For the next twenty-five years, he submitted to her will, rising up only when Eleanor brought Rupert home. He would think of that hour as “the changing of the guard.” He saw that Rupert would protect Eleanor from Virginia, where he had failed.
Edward didn’t think to object when Eleanor at twenty had fallen in love with a Jewish boy from Yale. He had had Jewish friends at Bovee and Yale and he worked with Jews at his bank. He knew Jim couldn’t join his clubs but he didn’t think that mattered to Eleanor. His wife disabused him of his complacency, clubbing him with the marriage’s impracticalities. “We may not mind, but our friends and relations will, and Eleanor will find herself moving in entirely different circles from us. We couldn’t have them for holidays, no more Christmas or Easter. Her children will be thought of as Jewish by our side, and gentiles by Jim’s. According to Hebraic law,” Virginia said, “the mother must be Jewish for the children to be Jewish.” She then struck with her deadliest blow. “His parents are also dead set against it. His family will never accept her. They’ve threatened to disown him. They will be outcasts. Bohemians. They’ll be poor too. We couldn’t support them under the circumstances.” Edward persuaded Eleanor to give Jim up. In later years, he would come to think of that conversation as his most cowardly act, made more shameful, more exploitative, by the benefits subsequently accruing to him from Eleanor’s marriage. He loved Rupert and his grandsons more than he could ever have imagined. In her marriage to Rupert, his daughter gave him the family he had longed for.
Edward first met Marina Cantwell on his forty-first birthday, at a dull party in his own home. She was then the very young wife of a colleague at the bank. She asked his opinion and laughed at his jokes. In her easy laugh and enthusiasms, she reminded him of Mrs. Bergdahl. He fell in love. They had an affair for a year, the happiest of his marriage. When he couldn’t bring himself to leave his wife, Marina gave him up. After Virginia’s death, Edward could only marvel at the hollowness of his life: he had forsaken himself, his daughter, and his lover, but kept faith with Virginia. The Bergdahlian fantasy resolved itself into dew. He had not escaped his blighted childhood; he had perpetuated it. Struck by this insight, he had to face a second, more complicating, one: perhaps his parents hadn’t so much disliked him as each other. A feeling of sympathy for fellow sufferers stirred in him. He wished he could steel himself against this insidious thought, knowing it would allow him to forgive himself, but he could not. He was a self-forgiving man and if a quieted conscience required forgiving his parents, he knew he would do it, regretfully perhaps, but inescapably.
As he watched Anne Cardozo leave the playing field, he thought of Jim and, for the first time, the unhappiness he had inflicted on him as well as Eleanor. He had liked Jim, and Eleanor had been madly in love. He had thought they were having sex. After they broke up, he hoped he was right; he wished them that happiness. He didn’t like to think of the reasons propelling Anne to stalk his grandsons. He knew he was implicated. He turned his attention back to the game. Harry hit a scorching backhand neither of his opponents could get a racquet on. Edward stood up and cheered. Harry gave his grandfather a quick nod. Edward wished he had a cigar, to make the moment perfect.
—
Anne stopped spying on Harry and Will. She went back to work. She threw herself into her exercise regimen. Ted said he’d teach her squash. “You were built for squash,” he said, laying emphasis on the verb, making her feel she was built for danger. She began seeing him seven hours a week, five mornings for weights and machines, two evenings of squash. Cheaper than therapy, Anne told herself, and more acceptable. Often after squash, they’d grab a sandwich at the Madison Deli. He made her eat whole wheat bread. “Your body is a temple,” he told her.
“What’s going on?” Jim asked. “You’ve become this demon exerciser.”
“I’m getting ready,” she said.
“Ready for what?” he said.