The Anatomy Lesson by Philip Roth Read Free Book Online Page A

that ineffable beauty alone and just kept watching television, no matter what was on.
    There was no one out sailing yet. It wasn ’ t even seven. But two stories below, in the parking lot between the two buildings, a very old man in bright green slacks and a bright green cap and a canary-yellow sweater was taking his constitutional, walking uncertainly back and forth between the rows of shining cars. Stopping to lean on the hood of a new two-toned Cadillac, his own perhaps, he looked up to where Zuckerman was standing in his pajamas at the picture window. He waved, Zuckerman waved back and for some reason showed him the watering can. The man called out but too weakly to be heard above the radio. On her FM station they were playing an uninterrupted medley of the tunes from Finian ’ s Rainbow. “ How are things in Glocca Morra, this fine day…? ” A spasm of emotion went through him: this fine day in Glocca Morra, where was she? Next they ’ d play “ All the Things You Are ” and break him down completely. That was the record to which she ’ d taught him the box step so that he could dance at his bar mitzvah reception. After he ’ d finished all his homework they would practice on the rugless floor between the dining- and living-room Orientals, while Henry, with an imaginary clarinet between his fingers, pretended to be Artie Shaw. Henry would mouth the words as Helen Forrest sang—anything to get into the act, even half asleep in his pajamas and slippers. At the evening reception, catered in a Bergen Street hal l several rungs down from the Schary Manor, everybody in the family applauded (and all his young friends mockingly cheered) as Nathan and Mrs. Zuckerman stepped out under the rainbow lighting and began to fox-trot. When the boy bandleader lowered his sax and started to croon the lyrics— “ You are / The promised kiss of springtime ” —she looked proudly into the eyes of her thirteen-year-old partner—his hand placed inches away from where he imagined that even inadvertently he might touch the strap of her brassiere—and softly confided into his ear, “ You are , darling. ”
    The apartment, purchased ten years earlier by his father, had been decorated with the help of daughter-in-law Carol. On the longest wall hung two large reproductions framed in faded wormwood. a white Paris street by Utrillo and the hills of a lilac-colored island by Gauguin. The bright linen chosen by the women for the cushions of the bamboo living-room set showed branches of trees bearing lemons and limes. Tropical Eden, that was the idea, even as the strokes hammered her husband down into his grave. She ’ d done her best, but the organic opposition did better, and she ’ d lost.
    There was nothing to do for her sadness. If ever there had been, the chance was gone.
    While he was still watching the old man down in the parking lot totter from one row of cars back to the other, a key turned in the door: Despite the unequivocal g leam off the bay—that dancing of light in which the living exult, proclaiming, “ Sunny existence knows nothing of death! ” —the likelihood of her reappearance seemed suddenly as strong as it had while he lay on the bed dazed from the hours of dreaming on her pillow. Maybe he was still dazed up on his feet.
    There was nothing to fear from her ghost. She ’ d return only to get a look at him, to see that he hadn ’ t lost weight in the three months since his last visit, she ’ d return only to sit with him at the table and listen to him talk. He remembered when he ’ d first come home from college, the Wednesday evening of his first Thanksgiving vacation—how, with a great unforeseen gush of feeling, he ’ d told her about the books he was absorbed in at school. This was after they ’ d cleaned up the dinner dishes; his brother had left even before dessert for the AZA basketball game down ai the Y. and his father was back in the office, dealing with the last of the day ’ s paperwork.