mind. You will then be liberated from all the hindrances to mindfulness: restlessness,
anger, doubt, sensual desire, and drowsiness. You shall awaken into an alert, tranquil, and
joyous state.»
Mind–quieting was indeed Pam`s grail—the reason for her pilgrimage to Igatpuri.
For the past several weeks her mind had been a battlefield from which she fiercely tried
to repel noisy, obsessive, intrusive memories and fantasies about her husband, Earl, and
her lover, John. Earl had been her gynecologist seven years ago when she had become
pregnant and decided upon an abortion, electing not to inform the father, a casual sexual
playmate with whom she wished no deeper involvement. Earl was an uncommonly
gentle, caring man. He skillfully performed the abortion and then provided unusual
postoperative follow–up by phoning her twice at home to inquire about her condition.
Surely, she thought, all the accounts of the demise of humane, dedicated medical care
were hyperbolic rhetoric. Then, a few days later, came a third call which conveyed an
invitation to lunch, during which Earl skillfully negotiated the segue from doctor to
suitor. It was during their fourth call that she agreed, not without enthusiasm, to
accompany him to a New Orleans medical convention.
Their courtship proceeded with astonishing quickness. No man ever knew her so
well, comforted her so much, was so exquisitely familiar with her every nook and cranny,
nor afforded her more sexual pleasure. Though he had many wonderful qualities—he was
competent, handsome, and carried himself well—she conferred upon him (she now
realized) heroic, larger–than–life stature. Dazzled at being the chosen one, at being
promoted to the head of the line of women packing his office clamoring for his healing
touch, she fell wholly in love and agreed to marriage a few weeks later.
At first married life was idyllic. But midway into the second year, the reality of
being married to a man twenty–five years older set in: he needed more rest; his body
showed his sixty–five years; white hair appeared in defiance of Grecian formula hair dye.
Earl`s rotator cuff injury ended their tennis Sundays together, and when a torn knee
cartilage put an end to his skiing, Earl put his Tahoe house on the market without
consulting her. Sheila, her close friend and college roommate, who had advised her not to
marry an older man, now urged her to maintain her own identity and not be in a rush to
grow old. Pam felt fast–forwarded. Earl`s aging fed on her youth. Each night he came
home with barely enough energy to sip his three martinis and watch TV.
And the worst of it was that he never read. How fluently, how confidently he had
once conversed about literature. How much his love ofMiddlemarch andDaniel Deronda
had endeared him to her. And what a shock to realize only a short time later that she had
mistaken form for substance: not only were Earl`s literary observations memorized, but
his repertory of books was limited and static. That was the toughest hit: howcould she
have ever loved a man who did not read? She, whose dearest and closest friends dwelled
in the pages of George Eliot, Woolf, Murdoch, Gaskell, and Byatt?
And that was where John, a red–haired associate professor in her department at
Berkeley with an armful of books, a long graceful neck, and a stand–up Adam`s apple,
came in. Though English professors were expected to be well–read, she had known too
many who rarely ventured out of their century of expertise and were complete strangers
to new fiction. But John read everything. Three years before she had supported his tenure
appointment on the basis of his two dazzling books,Chess: The Aesthetics of Brutality in
Contemporary Fiction andNo Sir!: The Androgynous Heroine in Late Nineteenth–Century
British Literature.
Their friendship germinated in all the familiar romantic academic haunts: faculty
and departmental committee meetings, faculty club luncheons, monthly readings in the
Norris Auditorium by the poet or novelist in residence. It took root and blossomed in
shared academic adventures, such as team teaching the nineteenth–century greats in the
Western civilization curriculum or guest lectures in each other`s courses. And then
permanent bonding took place in the trench warfare of faculty senate squabbles, space
and salary sorties, and brutal promotion committee melees. Before long they so trusted
each other`s taste that they rarely looked elsewhere for recommendations for novels and
poetry, and the e–mail ether between them crackled with meaty philosophical literary
passages. Both eschewed quotations that were merely decorative or clumsily clever; they
settled for nothing less than the sublime—beauty plus wisdom for the ages. They both
loathed Fitzgerald and Hemingway, both loved Dickinson and Emerson. As their shared
stack of books grew taller, their relationship evolved into ever greater harmony. They
were moved by the same profound thoughts of the same writers. They reached epiphanies
together. In short, these two English professors were in love.
«You leave your marriage, and I`ll leave mine.»Who said it first? Neither could
remember, but at some point in their second year of team teaching they arrived at this
high–risk amorous commitment. Pam was ready, but John, who had two preteen
daughters, naturally required more time. Pam was patient. Her man, John, was, thank
God, a good man and required time to wrestle with such moral issues as the meaning of
the marriage vow. And he struggled, too, with the problem of guilt at abandoning his
children and how one goes about leaving a wife, whose only offense had been dullness, a
wife transformed by duty from sparkling lover into drab motherhood. Over and over
again John assured Pam that he was en route, in process, that he had successfully
identified and reconnoitered the problem, and all he needed now was more time to
generate the resolve and select the propitious moment to act.
But the months passed, and the propitious moment never arrived. Pam suspected
that John, like so many dissatisfied spouses attempting to avoid the guilt and the burden
of irreversible immoral acts, was trying to maneuver his wife into making the decision.
He withdrew, lost all sexual interest in his wife, and criticized her silently and,
occasionally, aloud. It was the old «I can`t leave but I pray that she leaves» maneuver.
But it wasn`t working—this wife wouldn`t bite.
Finally, Pam acted unilaterally. Her course of action was prompted by two phone
calls beginning with «Dearie, I think you`d like to know...” Two of Earl`s patients under
the pretense of doing her a favor warned her of his sexual predatory behavior. When a
subpoena arrived with the news that Earl was being sued for unprofessional behavior by
yet another patient, Pam thanked her lucky stars she had not had a child, and reached for
the phone to contact a divorce lawyer.
Might her act force John into decisive action? Even though she would have left her
marriage if there had been no John in her life, Pam, in an astounding feat of denial,
persuaded herself that she had left Earl for the sake of her lover and continued to confront
John with that version of reality. But John dallied; he was still not ready. Then, one day,
he took decisive action. It happened in June on the last day of classes just after an ecstatic
love fest in their usual bower, an unrolled blue foam mattress situated partially under the
tent of his desk on the hardwood floor of his office. (No sofas were to be found in
English professors` offices; the department had been so racked by charges of professors
preying on their female students that sofas had been banned.) After zipping up his
trousers, John gazed at her mournfully. «Pam, I love you. And because I love you, I`ve
decided to be resolute. This is unfair to you, and I`ve got to take some of the pressure
off—off of you, especially, but off me as well. I`ve decided to declare a moratorium on
our seeing one another.»
Pam was stunned. She hardly heard his words. For days afterward his message felt
