Saul and Patsy

Saul and Patsy by Charles Baxter Page B

Book: Saul and Patsy by Charles Baxter Read Free Book Online
Authors: Charles Baxter
Tags: Fiction
understand that.”
    “I know.”
    “Come to bed, Saul. Get in under the sheet.”
    He climbed in and put his leg over hers.
    “I can’t quite get used to you,” she said. “You’re quite a mess of metaphors, Saul, you know that.”
    “Yes.”
    “A man being pregnant.” She put her hand familiarly on his thigh. “I wonder what that portends.”
    “It’s a feeling, Patsy. It’s a secret. Men have secrets, too.”
    “I never said they didn’t. They love secrets. They have lodges and secret societies and stuff. They have the CIA.”
    “Can we make love now, right this minute? Because I love you. I love you like crazy.”
    “I love you, too, Saul. What if you make
me
pregnant? It could happen. What if I get knocked up? Is it all right now?”
    “Yeah. What’s the problem?”
    “What will we say, for example?”
    “We’ll say, ‘Saul and Patsy are pregnant.’”
    “Oh, sure we will.”
    “Okay, we won’t say it.” He had thrown the sheet back and was kissing her on the side of her knees.
    “Are you crying? Your face is wet.”
    “Yes.”
    “But you’re being so jokey.”
    “That’s how I handle it.”
    “Why are you crying?”
    “Because . . .” He wanted to get this right. “Because there are signs and wonders. What can I tell you? It’s all a feeling. In the morning I’ll deny I said this.”
    “So like a man.” She was kissing him now, but she stopped, as if thinking about his recent sentences. “You
want
to make me pregnant, too, don’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re not afraid? Of diapers, exhaustion, sullenness? Fatigue, indifference, hostility, silence, boredom, quarrels, rage, infidelity?”
    “No.”
    “You’re a brave man. I’ll give you credit for that. One more little ambassador from the present to the future. That’s what you want.”
    “Sort of.” He moved up and took her fingers one by one into his mouth and bit them tenderly. Patsy had started to hum. She was humming “Unchain My Heart.” Then she opened her mouth and sang quietly, “Unchain my heart, and set me free.”
    “I’ll try, Patsy.”
    “Yes.” A moment later, she said, “This won’t solve anything.”
    “I know.” He felt as though he heard someone wailing softly in the next room. Still he continued. “Patsy,” he said, “the window. We should stand by the window.”
    “Why?”
    “To try it.” He disentangled himself from her, stood, and brought her over to the window. He opened it so that the droplets of rain blew in over them. “Now,” he said. There was a bit of lightning, and he lifted her. She held on, arms clasped behind his neck. He felt as though a thousand eyes, but not human eyes, were looking in on them with tender indifference. They were and were not interested. They would and would not care. Finally they would turn away, as they tended to turn away from all human things, in time. Saul felt Patsy tremble, a slight shivering along her back, a rising in tension before release. More rain came in, spattering lightly on his arm. He felt Patsy’s mouth passing by his hair, recently cut by Harold. She was panting in time with his own breathing, and for a split second he understood it all. He understood everything, the secret to the universe. Then, after an instant, he lost it. Having lost the secret, forgotten it, he felt the usual onset of the ordinary, of everything else, with Patsy around him, the two of them in their own familiar rhythms. He would not admit to anyone that he had known the secret of the universe for a split second. That part of his life was hidden away and would always be, the part that makes a person draw in the breath quickly in surprise and stare at the curtains in the morning upon awakening.

Four
    Saul, Patsy thought, was like one of those pastries you couldn’t get enough of at first—you’d gorge on them. And then, it seemed, once you’d had enough of them, you wanted to get rid of that addiction, but you couldn’t, there was no way to stop. You

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