Fear of Flying

Isadora is unsurprised by this and recounts a list of every man with whom she’s fallen in love over the past year. She’s been searching for the man she “really wanted” since she was 16, when she and her best friend, Pia, would lament the dearth of acceptable boys in their lives. Isadora and Pia eventually turned to literature and films for romantic fulfillment, viewing themselves as heroines and wondering where the heroes were. The boys they met in college were worse than the ones in high school, and they grew more disillusioned. Isadora and Pia went to each other for intellectual stimulation and sought out men only for physical gratification. Then they’d gossip about the men. They thought they were “free women,” even though their lives had essentially become “manhunts.” They realized that all the brave women they admired—Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Flannery O’Connor—were only brave in their art, not in their actual lives. Pia is unmarried, and Isadora married twice, but she’s still searching for the perfect man, who one of her analysts told her represents her father. She wonders if the “impossible man” is created only by women’s yearning.

When Isadora gets back to her hotel room, Bennett is asleep. Later, he accuses her of sleeping with Adrian. He begins clearing his throat, a noise she associates with all their worst moments. She remembers when they traveled from Heidelberg to Paris, how Bennett’s silence made her feel guiltier than ever. At the time, she asked him why he made her feel so lonely, but he said she did that to herself. She accused him of turning on her, punishing her, ruining her Christmas. He refused to say why he was upset and remained mostly silent. The more she pleaded with him to talk to her, to tell her what was wrong, the colder he became.

The next morning was Christmas, and Isadora and Bennett made love hopefully. They spent the day together, but then the car broke down and they had to take the train back to Heidelberg. The soldiers on the train farted and burped all the way, and then Isadora got diarrhea. On New Year’s Day, they learned that Bennett’s grandfather had died, and Isadora knew that Bennett would blame her. Bennett wouldn’t share his feelings, and this drove Isadora away. She turned her attention to her own fantasies and writing. As a child, Isadora had learned that she could take refuge in books to avoid hearing her parents screaming at her. So, while Bennett mourned, she wrote. She still felt inadequate though she won awards for her writing in college and saw that others’ published work wasn’t always good.

Isadora needed encouragement, and Bennett provided. She says they were both “learning how to fish the unconscious” (160), he by analyzing all the death in his life and she by learning how to dig deep into herself. She was afraid of herself but nonetheless managed to write three books of poetry in the next three years; she scrapped the first two and published the third. Then she had to cope with her fear of success, which seemed worse than her fear of failure. She’s not sure whether to associate Adrian with life and Bennet with death, or vice versa.

Whenever Isadora is with Bennett, she swears it’s over with Adrian, but whenever she sees Adrian, her resolve weakens. She feels absorbed by her conundrum and forgets about her article. After lunch on the first day of the conference, she escapes with Adrian, and he tells her it will be her fault if their liaison ends. They have unfulfilling sex because he can’t maintain an erection, and she reassures him. He accuses her of acting like a social worker, and she says that she assumed that men’s fragile egos needed coddling. Adrian insists that his doesn’t. They go swimming, and Isadora comments on the fat, pink locals, and Adrian accuses her of satirizing everything. She can feel his semen between her legs, and she is suddenly overcome by her desire to get pregnant and, at the same time, terrified that she could be.

Later, Adrian tells her about a period he spent with a woman named Martine. He met her and two others in Paris, and she professed to have no interest at all in his life, his children, his work. He couldn’t rely on the familiar anymore. This was terrifying but ultimately liberating because he could let go of all his responsibilities. Isadora asks about his kids, and he explains that they were with their mom. She points out that his wife had to worry about real life, while Adrian played around. He resents her implication that he is hypocritical. When she gets back to her hotel, she and Bennett have sex. Bennett is a better lover than Adrian. Isadora realizes she’s more valuable to Bennett now that Adrian wants her, but her “promiscuity” appalls her.

Isadora is overwhelmed by contradictions: She often feels defiant, deserving of whatever pleasure she can wring from life; then, when that mood passes, she feels scared of losing both men, guilty and hopelessly flawed. Bennett says that Adrian represents her father, and she’s acting out an Oedipal situation; he doesn’t care, as long as it’s not love. Adrian accuses Isadora of running between the two men, like her mother and father, trying to earn their love. She considers running away and leaving both.

Bennett wants to take Isadora home so she can restart analysis. She reminds him of all the horrible things he’s said to her, how anytime she tried to get close to him, he sent her to an analyst. He says she’d have been too terrified to write without him. They make love, then, and Bennett wants her to get pregnant. The next day, she meets Adrian again, and he accuses her of avoiding fun; she admits that she feels monstrous, dependent, depressed, like a liability. She feels guilty all the time and believes this to be the plight of women. Adrian wants to take her on a tour of Europe; he’ll discover the continent, and she’ll discover herself. He says he wants her to believe in herself and have some fun, that her marriage is all work and no play. Isadora accuses Adrian of being “hooked on triangles” (183), of being a “vulture.” He says that the dead flesh on which he preys is her marriage, and he calls her and Bennett masochists.

Isadora agrees with both Adrian and Bennett. She appreciates Bennett’s dependability, but Adrian’s arguments appeal to her too. She confesses to Bennett that Adrian is usually unable to maintain an erection, and then she feels like a traitor to them both. When they argue, Bennett accuses Isadora of living out an Oedipal fantasy with Adrian, and she suggests instead that that he is doing so: that she’s his mother, and Adrian is his father, and he’s attracted to them both. Adrian diminishes her, calling her a “princess” and a “bourgeois housewife” and Bennet her “safe little husband” (193). He insults her repeatedly, but when they get lost in the car—again—they become delighted with one another. They have sex when they get back to Adrian’s lodging. At midnight, she calls Bennett and leaves a message when she learns that he’s out. The message includes Adrian’s number and address. She lies in bed, feeling disloyal, and then Bennett bursts into the room. She assumes he’s going to kill her; instead, he strips and “fuck[s her] violently right there on the cot adjoining Adrian’s” (197). Adrian awakens and begins to stroke Bennett’s back. No one speaks. The next day, Adrian drives them back to their hotel in silence. Isadora marvels that they cannot manage a real incident in their own lives, that they can dissect someone else but not themselves. She knows they see her as Pandora, the woman who brought them low.