The Toynbee Convector

He got up suddenly, walked to the window and looked out across the city, toward a building, any building that looked like the hospital, and focused his attention there. His voice was almost inaudible. He knew this and stopped, and started over, so she could hear:

“I said: please, God, save her, save my daughter, let her live. If you do, I promise, I swear to give up the dearest thing in my existence. I promise to give up Laura, and never see her again. I promise, God. Please.”

There was a long pause until he repeated the last word, quietly:

“Please.”

Without moving, she lifted the glass to her lips and drank the brandy straight down and, eyes shut, shook her head.

“Now, you’ve really done it,” she said.

He turned from the window and started toward her, but stopped. “You believe me, don’t you?”

“I wish I didn’t, but I do. Damn!” She hurled the glass away and watched it roll unbroken along the rug. “You could have promised something else Couldn’t you, couldn’t you, couldn’t you?”

“Promise, what, what?” Not knowing where to go, he prowled the room, not able to look back at her. “What can you promise God that means anything! Money? My house? My car? Give up my Paris trip? Give up my work? God knows I love that! But I don’t think God takes things like that There’s only one value, isn’t there? For him? Not things, people, but...love. I thought and thought and I knew I had only one special last rich thing in my life that was of any priceless value that might mean something in an exchange.”

“And that thing was me? she said.

“Yes, dammit. Name me something else. I can’t think of anything. You. My love for you has been so big, so all-consuming, so vital to my whole life, I knew it had to be the right gift, the right promise. If I said I’d give you up, God would have to know what a devastation it would be, what a total loss. Then he’d just have to give my daughter back! How could he not?”

He had stopped in the middle of the living room now. She picked up the fallen glass, looked at it, and circled him, slowly.

“I’ve heard and seen everything now,” she said.

“Heard and seen what?”

“Men, one way or another, getting out of their affairs.”

“Is that what this looks like to you?”

“How else can it look? You’ve been wanting out for a long time. Now you have your excuse.”

He made a mourning sound, then a groan, then a sigh of exasperation.

“An excuse? No. A commitment. What else would you have wanted me to do?”

“Well, certainly not promise God to give me up!” she cried. “Why me?’

“Don’t you know? Haven’t you been listening? You’re all I had as collateral. I loved you, I love you, I will always love you. And now, though I know I’ll bleed for years, I have to hand you over. Who is hurt worse here, me or you? Does it hurt more for you to be left or for me, to leave? Can you really, I mean really, figure that and tell me?”

“No,” she said, and her shoulders slumped again. “I’ll be all right. Forgive me. It’ll just take time. It’s only been ten minutes since you came in that door. Christ.”

She turned and walked slowly out to the kitchen. He’ heard her rummaging in the refrigerator. He went and sat down and held on to the armchair as if it might suddenly hurl him across the room.

She came back in with a bottle of champagne and two glasses, walking across the floor as if it were land-mined. “What’s that?” he asked, as she sat down on the floor.

“What’s it look like?” She worked the cork expertly and when it popped and hit the ceiling, she added, “Wei began with this, why not end with it?”

“You’re angry at me—”

“Angry, hell, I’m mad clean through, and so sad I’d like to go to bed for a month and not get up again, but I will, tomorrow, dammit. Maybe this godawful champagne will help, lake your glass.”

She poured and they drank and were silent for a long! while. i “So this is the last time well ever see each other;” she said.

“You don’t have to put it so bluntly.”

“Why not? You already have. Let’s not kid around. This is the last five minutes of our lives. When you finish that, I want you out the door. I can’t stand having you here. I don’t want you to go. I wish I had a prayer, a promise, as strong as yours, that I believed in. I’d cry out to God with it But I don’t have that strength, and no one’s dying for me, except you, and you’re not really dead, just going. So, don’t ever call, don’t write, don’t come back, don’t drop in. I know, I know, that’s what you intend, to go, to stay. But you might be tempted. And if you called, I’d have to the all over again. Do I sound mean, do I sound hard? I’m not. I can’t handle it any other way. So—”