Steven Millhauser - The King in the Tree

This is the hall. It isnt much of a one, but it does the job. Boots here, umbrellas there. I hate those awful houses, dont you, where the door opens right into the living room. Dont you? Its like being introduced to some man at a party who right away throws his arm around your shoulders. No, give me a little distance, thank you, a little formality. Im all for the slow buildup, the gradual introduction. Of course you have to imagine it without the bookcase. There isnt a room in the house without a bookcase.

May I take your coat? Oh, I like it. Its perfect. And light as a feather. Wherever did you find it? Its so hard to know what to wear this time of year, warm one day cold the next. I worry about my jonquils. They came out last week and then wouldnt you know it: snow. Luckily it didnt stick. Its a miracle they didnt die. Ill just hang it right here, next to mine. It must look very empty to you, all those hangers side by side. Those are my late husbands hats. Funny. One day I cleared out all the coats, all the shoes and galoshes it just seemed pointless. But I left the hats. I couldnt touch the hats.

This used to be my favorite room. Listen to me! Used to be. But thats the way it is, you know. I dont have a favorite room anymore. Still, I spend most of my time here. Where else would I go? Im so glad you like it. One thing we always agreed on, my husband and I, was furniture: it had to be comfortable. As Robert put it, no matter how new it was, it had to look sat in. And of course the piano whats a living room without a piano, Id like to know. Not that I ever touched it. No, I gave up piano at twelve. Dont know why, really. Its the sort of thing you later think you regret, without really regretting it. But Robert, now. He quit lessons at fifteen but kept on practicing. He never did like to give anything up.

Its a warm room too. When we bought the place it was a little drafty in winter, but first we insulated and then we replaced those drafty old windows that Robert had to put up every fall. Triple-track: it made a difference, let me tell you. When you close the curtains, in cold weather, its just as if youre sealing yourself in. Id sit on the couch with my feet tucked under, reading, while Robert sat in the chair there, by the bookcase, reading and marking passages. Or wed talk you know, thoughts drifting up, turning into words, like, I dont know, like a way of breathing. Sometimes he made a fire in the fireplace excellent draft. I meant to tell you I had the chimney cleaned only last month. Was that ever a job. You wouldnt believe what was in there. I almost fell over when I saw the bill. But hey, can you blame the poor guy? Anyway. When the fire was going, Id move to that end of the couch, to be near it. I could feel the heat all along my right side. Sometimes Robert would go over to the piano, if the mood struck him. He never played for anyone except me. This wasnt exactly as romantic as it sounds. He called himself an amateurharsh word for Robert said he refused to destroy beautiful things in public. Robert never liked to make mistakes. It upset him. He played for me because he knew I wouldnt mind an occasional wrong note. Or you could say he played for himself and allowed me to overhear him. But I loved to hear him play, especially his Chopin nocturnes. He was crazy about Chopin, said he was the greatest composer not ever, but of piano music. Second was Mozart. Hed play those Mozart sonatas over and over every single one of them. Do you know what hed do? Hed begin with any sonata and play right through the book, in order, till all of a sudden right in the middle of a movement the middle of a phrase he stopped. Thats enough of that! hed say, as though he were angry at himself, or. . or disappointed. Robert was hard on himself. You had to know when to soothe him and when to leave him alone. Men are harder on themselves that way than women, dont you think? Or am I wrong? But when he played, he was able to lose himself for a while, in the music. So imagine a fire going wood snapping the way it does when its a little green the wind rattling the windows behind the curtains and one of those Chopin melodies that feel like sorrow and ecstasy all mixed together pouring from the keys and you have my idea of happiness. Or just reading, reading and lamplight, the sound of pages turning. And so you dare to be happy. You do that thing. You dare.

I hope you dont mind these little. . anecdotes of mine. We can just breeze on through the house if youd rather. Then its all right to continue?

Well. I dont want you to think of me sitting on that couch for twenty-two years with a look of blissful idiocy on my face. You know, the adoring wife and the happy hubby. Twenty-two years! That was how long Robert and I were married: twenty-two years. Things are bound to be a little imperfect, in twenty-two years. I met him when I was twenty-four, working in a bookstore in Vermont. Robert was thirty. Even back then he had that gloomy kind of handsomeness that just. . slayed me. A handsome moody man. Doomed, as he was fond of saying. Difficult, was what it boiled down to. Robert was difficult. But you work your way through. Besides, I was a handful myself, back then. Demanding. Temperamental. Robert was very patient. Impatient with himself and others, patient with me. We. . fell in love, as they say. And stayed there. That was the thing. And I knew him: God, did I know him. I was a student of his expressions, a scholar of his moods. I dont know when it was, exactly, that I felt something was wrong. It was last year spring was further along, half my forsythias dead. You remember that late frost. I was sitting on the couch with a book, after dinner, and Robert was sitting in his chair, with a book facedown on his leg, thinking. Brooding, you could say. For no particular reason I asked myself: Am I happy? And I felt a little pause, a little oh, breath of hesitation, before I answered: Well, yes, of course Im happy. Of course I am. Happy.

What stayed with me was that blink of hesitation. Robert had been acting a little strange lately. Id noticed it without noticing it, the way you do. His work wasnt going well again, he was I mean, all this was nothing new. But there was a new element, something I was suddenly aware of. Robert was very good at giving you his full attention. Ive never known anyone who was so good at giving you their full attention that way. He would listen with a kind of. . a kind of alertness, and whatever he said would be at the center of what you were talking about. I realized that Id missed this for a while that his deepest attention was elsewhere. Now, listen. There was no question of unfaithfulness between Robert and me. I knew Robert. It wasnt the sort of thing he did. Not that he didnt notice a pretty woman. He liked pretty women. He liked me, didnt he? Was always talking about how pretty I was and all that; I didnt deny it. And of course women were always noticing him. But noticings one thing, and Robert. . it wasnt his way. It just wasnt in the bounds of possibility. Besides, we were happy. Werent we? But I found myself thinking, on the couch or not really thinking, it was more like the shadow of a thought: could it be that Robert. .? I immediately felt embarrassed, almost. . ashamed, as if Id been caught in some unpleasant act. But there it was. The little thought-shadow.

This mantelpiece came with the house. I can show it to you in the original plan. Solid marble. Nice, if you like that sort of thing.

Listen. Ill tell you a story.

Once upon a time there was a woman just like me. She grew up in a small New England town, just like me. She was well loved and cheerful and fond of reading, just like me. She was good at school but not brilliant and went to a small college in Vermont, and at the age of twenty-four she fell in love just like me. She married the next year, and she and her husband moved into a comfortable old house. The years passed. She was happy. Then one day, do you know what happened? Listen: Ill tell you what happened. Nothing happened. She was happy, life was worth living, she liked the summer, and the fall, and the winter, and the spring, and she liked all the days of the week. And this woman was not like me, not like me at all.