The Four Temperaments Read online

  She told Oscar how when she first had started dancing to live music, she kept anticipating her cues and charging out onstage ahead of time because she was so exhilarated. “Erik wasn't even angry about it,” she said, laughing a little at the memory. “He said that he liked how eager I was.”

  “Have you ever had stage fright?” Oscar asked.

  “Never,” she said, and Oscar believed it.

  He even had the audacity to bring her home to dinner. Ruth was her lovely, welcoming self, making sure Ginny's plate was filled with pot roast, buttered noodles and challah bread; for dessert, she had baked a glazed apple tart. Ginny ate and Ruth beamed. It was a successful evening, or so Oscar had thought. But lying in bed that night with his wife, Oscar was aware of Ruth's wakeful, fixed concentration on some unseen point on the ceiling.

  “What's wrong?” he asked.

  “Ben,” she said.

  “What's the matter with Ben? Did he call?” Their youngest son was a wanderer, a pilgrim whose feet had touched the streets of Paris, Bangkok, Moscow, Glasgow, Buenos Aires, Nairobi. He had barely finished college and ever since had taken whatever work was available—taxi driver, waiter, bartender—until he earned enough to set off again.

  “No, he didn't,” she said. “But I was thinking: we should introduce him to Ginny.”

  “Ben and Ginny?” said Oscar, trying to keep the incredulity—and anger—out of his voice. When he thought of the girls his peripatetic son had brought home, like the daughter of an impoverished Italian nobleman whose thick sheaf of pale hair, black sunglasses and wetly painted red mouth vied with the cool, chiseled beauties on the silver screens that illuminated Oscar's own youth, he knew that Ben would find nothing appealing in Ginny. Besides, he wanted this one for himself.

  Not that she thought of him in that way. No, it was clear that she relied on Oscar the way she might have a father, or an indulgent, older uncle. He was always ready with a willing ear, a solid shoulder, a nugget of sound advice. When she had roommate troubles, he extricated her from her lease and found her an affordable studio apartment on West Seventy-first Street, only blocks from the theater. He helped her get a checking account and credit card (when they had met, she kept her crumpled bills in her pockets, where they were frequently lost or stolen); showed her the best wine shop, supermarket, drugstore in the neighborhood. Except for her dancing, where she was as focused and bright as the steady beam of a Tensor lamp, the ordinary business of living left her mostly baffled. “I don't know what I'd do without you, Oscar,” she said more than once, touching her head to his chest, “I'd be lost.”

  Oscar was grateful for being needed by her, in any way at all, and encouraged her to confide in him, which she did easily and lavishly. But the confidences never seemed to be of the romantic sort, which is what Oscar sought. He couldn't help but want to know what sort of men attracted her.

  “Who's got time for any of that?” she said one Sunday afternoon in September as they strolled through Central Park together. She was responding to his question about Boyd Michaels, a handsome young corps de ballet member. Oscar had observed how Michaels, who was short but had a compactly built body, smooth, hairless chest—maybe he shaved it?—and strong, well-defined features, seemed to hang around Ginny a lot. Was he a suitor? Ginny laughed. “You sound like my mama,” she said, dismissing the notion. No, she was more interested in a small, solo role in an upcoming performance; company gossip said she was being considered for it.

  The afternoon was hot. He held Ginny delicately by the elbow and steered her through the steady stream of cyclists, roller bladers, joggers, mothers with strollers and couples with their arms locked around each other's waists. Silver razor scooters, bright and quick as minnows, darted their way through the throng. Ruth was in California with their son Gabriel, his wife, Penelope, and their baby daughter, so Oscar did not have to feel overly guilty about spending time with Ginny. Not that his guilt was much of an impediment.

  When Oscar and Ginny reached the boat pond, he bought her an ice cream that the vendor dipped in hot, liquid chocolate. It dried to a brittle shell that she cracked with her big, lovely front teeth. They sat down on a bench and watched the tiny sailboats slip by.

  “Do you really think he'll give it to me?” she asked. Oscar knew by now that the “he” in question was Erik Holtz, the ballet master.

  “You certainly deserve it,” said Oscar.

  “I heard that he was thinking about Mia McQuaid too. I can't believe he'd even consider giving her that part,” Ginny fumed. “Have you seen her feet? No arch at all; they're as flat as Kansas.” Mia had been Ginny's roommate, and there had been plenty of friction between the two young women when they lived together.

  “Who told you that he was considering her?” asked Oscar.

  “Boyd,” she said. Oscar studied her carefully, but she seemed entirely focused on the part. “He says she's awful to partner. That it's like lifting a side of beef.”

  “Well, surely Erik won't give the part to a side of beef, will he?”

  Ginny smiled.

  But as it turned out, that was just what Erik did. Ginny was livid. She brooded and seemed to be dragging herself to rehearsals and classes. Above her garishly colored practice clothes—red, royal blue, plum, emerald—her face looked gray. On the third day after their conversation by the boat pond, she didn't show up for rehearsal at all. This had never happened as far as Oscar knew and it worried him. He went to her apartment, where he found her sitting listlessly amid the huge piles of soiled clothing that she was sorting.

  “Washday,” she said when she saw his gaze. “Want to help?”

  “Where have you been?” Oscar asked, knowing he had no right to sound so demanding, but unable to help himself.

  “You don't want to know,” she said, depositing a purple garment, crunched beyond recognition, into one of the piles.

  “Yes, I do,” he said, looking straight into her eyes.

  “All right, then, I'll tell you,” she said, kicking her way past the clothes. “But not here.”

  She refused to go to any of the restaurants near Lincoln Center where the dancers from the company usually congregated. Oscar hailed a taxi that took them to the East Side, and he ushered her into a dark, noisy place on Third Avenue where neither of them had ever been before.

  “I'm not eating,” Ginny announced to the waiter when he came to take their order. “I'll have a banana daiquiri.”

  “Ginny, you should eat something,” Oscar said in his best avuncular voice.

  “Why?”

  “What about a nice piece of broiled chicken?” He sounded like Ruth, personifying the food she tried to coax one of the boys to eat. Oscar could just imagine what the waiter was thinking.

  “No, actually I'll have a steak,” she said, snapping the menu shut suddenly. “Very rare. Bloody, in fact.” She turned her gaze to the waiter. He looked down, pen poised over his pad. “And a baked potato, no, make that potato skins, and a salad. Oh, and what's the soup today?” He told her and she said, “I'll have that too.”

  When the waiter finally, mercifully, left, Ginny busied herself shredding her napkin and opening several packets of sugar, the contents of which she emptied onto the table. By the time the waiter reappeared with their drinks—Oscar's only a ginger ale, he thought someone had better stay sober tonight—she had created around herself a small white island of debris.

  “I went to Mia's,” she said abruptly. “I still have the key, you know.”

  “But you didn't stay,” prompted Oscar, knowing that this was not what he was going to hear.

  “I didn't mean for anything to happen, Oscar, I swear I didn't. I've just been feeling so upset. I mean, how could he give her that part over me? So I went there to see what it was.”

  “What it was?” he repeated, confused.

  “Her secret,” said Ginny, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. “What it was she had that I didn't. Because I know I can dance circles around her.”


  “Then what?” asked Oscar.

  “I saw this dress of hers. I remembered it because I was still living there when she bought it and she made such a big deal of it. Some designer or other. I can't remember the name.”

  “You did something to the dress?” Oscar asked, getting worried. But she shook her head.

  “I wanted to, though,” she said. “I even had my scissors with me,” she added. “See?” She held up a small, bright pair of scissors, no bigger than her hand. They glinted in the light. “I keep them in my bag. For sewing ribbons on my pointe shoes,” she explained, as if this were somehow important.

  “That's very practical,” Oscar soothed. “But you left after you looked at the dress, right?”

  “Not exactly.” Her head went down.

  “Ginny,” Oscar said firmly, “what did you do in that apartment? I want you to tell me.” There, now, that was better. The authoritative, parental approach usually worked. It did this time too.

  “Not much, not really. I found a squeeze bottle of mustard in the fridge.” She stopped.

  “And?” Oscar prompted.

  “I squirted some in her shoes. Not on the dress, though.” As if that mattered. Still, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Oscar almost wanted to smile; her gesture of revenge seemed so childish. The sort of thing the boys would have done to each other when they were young. But of course she really was a child.

  “And then you left.”

  “Not exactly. I went into the bathroom and found her toothbrush. Dipped it in the toilet. Then I left.”

  “Thank God,” said Oscar, exhaling now. It could have been much worse. He'd have to help her control herself, this wayward girl sitting there amidst the remains of the napkin. Because clearly those impulses could get her into real trouble someday. Even now, if Mia McQuaid were to figure out that Ginny had been in the apartment, and if she were to complain to someone in the company . . . Oscar's mind raced ahead. Ginny would be suspended from dancing or fired, and he would never get to see her or be near her again.

  “You are never to go there again, do you understand?” he said, feeling as if he had slipped back a decade and was lecturing one of his sons.

  “All right,” she said quietly. “I won't. I promise. But right now, I'm so thirsty. Could I have another drink? Please?” He saw then that her glass was empty.

  By the time they left the restaurant an hour and a half later, Ginny was drunk. Oscar felt responsible; she had ordered a third drink before the meal came and another while she was eating it. But when he tried to suggest that she slow down, she argued, saying that she was old enough to do what she wanted. In the end, he didn't insist.

  As he propelled her out into the street, she waved cheerfully at their waiter, at the hostess and several people who were just coming in. Then she began humming; Oscar thought he recognized the score from Stravinsky's Firebird. He was trying to hail a cab when she broke loose from his grasp and darted out into the middle of the street. A large dark car screeched to a halt and an angry face appeared at the window. “What the hell do you think you're doing, lady?” the driver hollered.

  “Grands jetés?” Ginny replied in a small voice, her high spirits instantly evaporating. She looked frightened and near tears. Oscar put his arm firmly around her shoulders and led her back to the curb, where he was successful in his quest for a taxi. He gave the driver his address. He wasn't going to leave her alone. Not in her condition.

  The apartment was dark when they arrived. Oscar was sorry that Ruth was still away. She would have been better at handling a drunk and weepy girl; Ginny had cried most of the way uptown in the cab. As it was, he took Ginny to the guest room, where he took off her shoes, wiped her face with a washcloth and watched solicitously as she downed a big glass of water and the two Tylenol he insisted she take. Then he gently helped her to lie down on one of the narrow beds where the boys had slept—a scruffy teddy bear still snuggled against the pillows. He went on into his own room, the room he and Ruth had shared for so many years. He left the door open, so he would hear her if she called out or needed anything. She must have passed out immediately, for by the time he had undressed, he could hear the raucous sounds of her snoring.

  Later—he had been sleeping soundly under a cool, pale sheet—he was aware of something on his forehead. Was it Ruth returning early?

  “Oscar,” said a voice it took him a few seconds to identify. “Oscar, get up,” Ginny whispered urgently.

  He opened his eyes. Though the room was dark, he could see that she was naked; her white skin seemed to glow. Without hesitation, he reached for her, and at long last, she was in his arms. He kissed her frantically, as if she were a dangerously ill child whose raging fever had just broken. The scar, the tiny scar on her neck. He could feel it in the dark, and he kissed it over and over again. Oscar was surprised—but also deeply and humbly grateful—for the ardent way in which she responded to his fumbling. Under his hands, she seemed as delicate and easy to wield as his violin.

  Oscar woke again at dawn and lay for a long while without moving as he watched the silver light brighten into the flat white glare of day. Ginny was sprawled out next to him, extended limbs as wide and flagrant as those of a starfish. Even in sleep, she was immoderate, expansive and enticing. Very carefully, Oscar raised himself from his prone position. But she opened her eyes, instantly alert.

  “Good morning,” she said, holding out her arms. Afterward, he drifted off to sleep, and when he woke again, she was gone. There was a note on the pillow: “See you at the theater. Love & XXX G.”

  Oscar reached for his robe and, when he had put it on, took the note into the kitchen, where he read it one last time before setting it on fire in the sink. He longed to save it—love, she had written love—but he knew his own carelessness all too well. One day, Ruth would find it and then what? Better to let it remain in memory's private, sanctified eye. The note burned quickly and the ashes washed easily down the drain. Then he went into the bathroom for a long, hot shower. As he lathered himself, he marveled at how her impossibly young touch had made his old bones feel quite new.

  But euphoria evaporated quickly, to be replaced by a crushing sense of guilt and anxiety. How could he have betrayed Ruth? What would she do if she found out? Oscar gloomily predicted that she would find out, that the stink of guilt and deceit would rise up from his person and Ruth would wonder, wonder and recoil, at its rank smell. She would denounce him to his sons, leave him, and he would deserve it all. And, yet, he was sick with longing for the girl, scheming already about how he could meet her, touch her again.

  He called his lawyer and asked some discreet questions, for he still had some lingering worry about what Ginny had done in Mia McQuaid's apartment the night before. Warren Greenberg, his attorney of some twenty years, was not terribly helpful and Oscar felt no better as he put down the receiver.

  He was even more unsettled when he went back into the bedroom and saw his violin sitting precariously on top of the bureau, with the neck end jutting way over the edge. Although still in its case, Oscar knew how easily it could have been knocked over and damaged, perhaps even beyond repair. He quickly put it on the top shelf of the closet, in the spot where he always kept it when not in use. He had never forgotten to put it away before. But he must have been so addled last night, when he brought Ginny home, that he had, for the first time in memory, imperiled his instrument.

  This was no small matter. Oscar had owned this violin for longer than he had been married. It had been crafted by a Milanese maker in the middle of the nineteenth century, and its graceful, symmetrical curves, stained with an amber brown varnish, had become—when he played—a part of his own body. It had cost several thousand dollars at the time, the kind of money Oscar didn't have but had paid out slowly, as if it had been a mortgage. Musicians talked of “dating” an instrument when they were considering its purchase; Oscar could still remember others—a French twentieth-century instrument made by Delanoy; another by the German ma
ker Ernst Heinrich Roth—that he dated before settling on the Milanese. Now that he was more established and financially well off, he sometimes fantasized about an instrument crafted by a legendary maker. How he would love the light, bright and open tones of a Stradivarius or the darker, more somber sounds of a Guarneri. But, no, he was wed as surely to this instrument as he was to Ruth.

  Ruth. She returned home from San Francisco later that day, filled with stories about Gabriel, Penelope and the baby. The trip had done her good, he could see that. Was it simply the pleasure of seeing her son and his family, or was it being away from Oscar? He had never had such a thought before; he had always relied on Ruth's unswerving devotion. But then he had never been unfaithful to her before and that astounding act seemed to throw all of his former assumptions into an unfamiliar and frightening configuration. He realized that he had cherished his dreams of Ginny far more than the complicated reality she presented. What had he done? he thought over and over.

  “Oscar,” Ruth said gently when she saw that he was barely listening to her, “Oscar, dear, are you all right?”

  “I'm fine,” he lied, wishing suddenly that he could just close his eyes and bury his face in her lap. “I'm perfectly fine.”