Stone Lake: part 38

A Star Tribune serialized novel by Richard Horberg

Chapter 13 continues

The story so far: Allen and Annette discuss "Madame Bovary."

Outside the restaurant window, a car was stalled, its hood up. He gazed at it for a moment, realizing that they were no longer talking about "Madame Bovary." "I can understand why you find Flaubert's novel compelling," he said, trying to re-direct the conversation. "I congratulate you on choosing it. It's a famous novel. But I'm afraid that most people today wouldn't think of reading it."

"You put it on the list."

"Yes, I did."

She brushed her hair back quickly. "I have to admit that Emma had something, at least. She lived right in the heart of that little town and she could see people passing on the street. She saw an organ grinder once, I remember, and it made her think of big cities and all the things that go on there. All I can see from my window are the old cars in my neighbor's backyard. All I can see from the other direction is frozen farmland."

"She had adventures too," she said. "Like when they were invited to a ball and she danced all night with handsome men, even though her husband was bored to death. And she had affairs too, with two men, Leon and Rodolphe." Her eyes wandered. "Oh, that's not very nice, I know, but she was happy then. She was alive. She had some excitement. Even though both affairs turned out badly, she had some fun. She had something to remember. I don't have anything. Every day is the same. Every year is the same."

"You are a romantic, aren't you?"

She made a face at him. "For all the good it does me."

"I'll tell you what's wrong," he said. "You're a romantic living in a pedestrian town. You don't fit in. You don't want to fit in." He hesitated. Then, to comfort her, he assured her that she had ambitions. "You're better than they are."

"Better than who?"

She swallowed hard. "Do you really think so?"

"I do. And you have dreams. They don't."

"But dreams aren't enough."

He warned himself not to become too involved with her, a 40-year-old woman. He could have done it easily, he thought — it would be his first real experience — but he didn't think it was the right thing to do. Didn't he have a responsibility to maintain a high level of conduct? To be a role model for his students? Her son, who disliked him enough as it was, would hate him. And the boy would come to hate his mother, too. He thought of James Michener's words — that as an English teacher he must keep the spark of idealism alive — hope for a better world, human decency, the goodness of mankind. Still, if he turned his back on her completely, he might be destroying her hope, her chance for happiness, her dreams.

But he was being too serious, too stiff, too much the Class A Boy Scout, the Straight Arrow. He tried to lighten up.

She looked at him grimly. "We're off the map," she said.

He told her the truth about "Madame Bovary." "Consider how sordid Emma's life is, Annette. She marries a clod simply because he's disguised as a doctor. A very bad doctor. Her romantic dreams are at heart materialistic, in both senses of the word. And in the end it's money, of all things, that brings her down. She even considers selling herself to the man who holds the deed to her property."

"Vincart," she said.

"Yes." The woman had read the novel. "And consider her death. She'd like it to be romantic, like leaping from a window, like death in an opera. But it's sordid too — the arsenic she takes is painfully slow and terribly agonizing. It's not the kind of suffering that romantic people rave about. She's the heroine of the novel, it's true, but hardly one to be admired. You might feel sorry for her, we might feel sorry for her — but Flaubert is icily realistic. He doesn't feel sorry for her. He simply presents her as she is — a hopeless romantic."

"I suppose that's what I am too."

"First and only, I think." She gave him a long look. "Remember what you told me about happy endings? That you don't like them?"

"That's only in books."

"What's the difference?"

Looking at her slumped in the booth, he knew that he couldn't quite turn his back on her. He remembered how bright she had been in the drugstore, how pleasing their conversation. "Listen," he said, seeking a way out, "let me take another look at those paintings you did, will you? You know, I had only the briefest glance." Almost immediately, he regretted it.

A tear glistened in her eye. "Do you really want to?"

He said he'd be there.

***

Before his visit, he had done a little homework: he talked to Ruth Armstrong, the school's art teacher. She remembered Annette Bowman.

"That pretty little woman," she said, "the one with the terrible kid. His name's Leland. You might know him. He's a decent clarinet player — we had to give him the Thorson scholarship last year — but he has a terrible attitude. We hoped the award might bring him around. It didn't."

Allen was happy to hear someone else confirm his opinion. He said he knew the boy well — and agreed with her entirely.

"I'm afraid that Mrs. Bowman had no more talent than the other ladies in that class," she told him. "I thought I'd try doing it once for what it was worth — offer something to the community, you know — but it was really a waste of time. Why encourage them to do something they have no aptitude for?"